CHAP. XI^* Of bashfulness.—A character.—His opinion on that subject.

THERE is some rust about every man at the beginning.—It is so every where; though in some nations (among the French, for instance) the ideas of the inhabitants, from climate, or what other cause you will, are so vivacious, so eternally on the wing, that they must, even in small societies, have a frequent col­lision; the rust therefore will wear off sooner▪ but in Britain, it often goes with a man to his grave; nay, he dares not even pen a hic jace [...] to speak out for him after his death.

"Let them rub it off by travel," said the baronet's brother, who was a striking instance of excellent metal, shamefully rusted. I had drawn my chair near his. Let me paint the honest old man: [...]is but [...]ne passing sentence to preserve his memory in my mind.

[...] in his usual attitude, with his elbow rested on his knee, and his fingers pressed on his cheek. His face was shaded by his hand; yet, 'twas a face that might once have been well account­ed handsome; its features were manly and striking, and a certain dignity resided on his eye-brows, which were the largest I remem­ber to have seen. His person was tall and well made; but the in­dolence of his nature had now made it incline to corpulency.

His remarks were few, and made only to his familiar friends; but they were such as the world might have heard with veneration: and his honest heart, uncorrupted by its ways, was ever warm in the cause of virtue and his friends. He is now forgotten and gone! The last time I was at Silton Hall, I saw his chair stand in its corner by the fire-side; there was an additional cushion on it, [Page 2] and it was occupied by my young lady's favourite lap dog. I drew near unperceived, and pinched its ear in the bitterness of my soul; the [...]eature howled, and ran to its mistress. She did not suspect the author of its misfortune, but she bewailed it in the most pathe [...]ic terms; and kissing its lips, laid it gently on her lap, and covered it with a cambric handkerchief. I sat in my old friend's seat; I heard the roar of mirth and gaiety around me: poor Ben Silton [...] I gave thee a tear then: accept of one cordial drop that falls to thy memory now.

"They should wear it off by travel."—Why, it is true, said I that will go far; but then it will often happen, that in the velocity of a modern tour, and amidst the materials through which it is commonly made, the friction is so violent, that not only the rust, but the metal too is lost in the progress.

Give me leave to correct the expression of your metaphor, said Mr. Silton: It is not always rust which is acquired by the inactivity of the body on which it preys; such, perhaps, is the case with me, though in deed I was never cleared from my youth; but (taking [...] in its first stage) it is rather an encrustation, which nature has given for purposes of the greatest wisdom.

You are right, I returned; and sometimes, like some precious fossils, there may be hid under it gems of the purest brilliancy.

Nay, further, continued Mr. Silton, there are two distinct sorts of what we call bashfulness; this, the aukwardness of a booby, which a few steps into the world will convert into the pertness of a coxcomb; that a consciousness, which the most delicate feelings produce, and the most extensive knowledge cannot always re­move.

From the incidents I have already related, I imagi [...]e it will [...]e concluded, that Harley was of this last species of bashful animals; at least, if Mr. Silton's principle is just, it may be argu [...] this side: for the second gradation of the first mentioned sort▪ [...] cer­tain, he never attained. Some part of his external appearance was modelled from the company of those gentlemen, whom the [...]ti­quity of a family, now possessed of bare 250l. a year, entitled its representative to approach; these indeed were not many; great part of the property in his neighbourhood being in the hands of merchants, who had made rich by their lawful calling abroad, and the sons of stewards, who had made rich by their lawfull cal­ling at home: persons so perfectly versant in the etiquette of thou­sands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands (whose degrees of precedency are plainly demonstrable from the first page of the com­pleat Accomptant, or Young Man's best Pocket Companion) that a bow at church from them to such a man as Harley,—would have made the parson look back into his sermon for some precept of Christian humility.

CHAP. XII. Of worldly interests.

THERE are certain interests which the world supposes every man to have, and which therefore are properly enough term­ed worldly; but the world is apt to make an erroneous estimate: ig­norant of the dispositions which constitute our happiness or misery, they bring to an undistinguished scale the means of the one, as connected with power, wealth, or grandeur, and of the other with their contraries. Philosophers and poets have often protested against this decision: but their arguments have been despised as declama­tory, or ridiculed as romantic.

There are never wanting to a young man some grave and pru­dent friends to set him right in this particular, if he need it: to wa [...]ch hi [...] ideas as they rise, and point them to those objects which a wise man should never forget.

Harley did not want for some monitors of this fort. He was frequently told of men, whose fortunes enabled them to command all the luxuries of life, whose fortunes were of their own acquire­ment; his envy was endeavoured to be excited by a description of their happiness, and his emulation by a recital of the means which had procured it.

Harley was too apt to hear these lectures with indifference; nay sometimes they got the better of his temper; and as the instances were not always amiable, provoked, on his part, some reflections, which I am persuaded his good nature would else have avoided.

Indeed I have observed one ingredient, somewhat necessary in a man's composition towards happiness, which people of feeling woul [...] [...] well to learn; a certain respect for the follies of man­kind [...] [...]or there are so many fools whom the opinion of the world en [...]itles to regard, whom accident has placed in heights of which they are unworthy, that he who cannot restrain his contempt or in­dignation at the sigh [...], will be too often quarrelling with the dis­posal of things, to relish that share which is allotted to himself. I do not mean, however, to insinuate this to have been the case with Harley; on the contrary, if we might rely on his own testi­mony, the conceptions he had of pomp and grandeur, served to endear the state which Providence had assigned him.

He lost his father, the last surviving of his parents, as I have al­ready related, when he was a boy. The good man, from a fear of offending, as well as a regard to his son, named him a variety of tutors; one consequence of which was, that they seldom met to consider of their pupil's affairs at all; and that when they did meet, their opinions were so opposite, that the only method of con­ciliation possible, was the mediatory power of a dinner and a bot­tle, which commonly interrupted, not ended, the dispute; and after that interruption ceased, left the consulting parties in a con­dition [Page 4] not very proper for adjusting it. His education therefore had been but indifferently attended to; and after being taken from a country school, at which he had been boarded, the young gen­tleman was suffered to be his own master in the subsequent branch­es of literature, with some assistance from the parson of the parish in languages and philosophy, and from the exciseman in arithme­tic and book-keeping. One of his tutors indeed, who, in his youth, had been an inhabitant of the Temple, set him to read Coke upon Littleton; a book which is very properly put into the hands of beginners in that science, as its simplicity is accomodated to their understandings, and its size to their inclination. He pro­fited but little by the perusal; but it was not without its use in the family: for his maiden aunt applied it commonly to the laudable purpose of pressing her rebellious linens to the folds she had allotted them.

There were particularly two means of increasing his fortune, which might have occurred to people of less foresight than those counsellors we have mentioned. One of these was the expectation of succeeding to an old lady, a distant relation of Harley's, who was known to be possessed of a very large sum in the stocks: but in this their hopes were disappointed; for the young man was so untoward in his disposition, that, notwithstanding the instructions he daily received, his visits rather tended to al [...]nate than gain the good will of his kinswoman. He sometimes looked grave when the old lady told the jokes of her youth; he often refused to eat when she pressed him, and was seldom or never provided with can­dy or liquorice when she was seized with a fit of coughing: nay, he had once the rudeness to fall asleep, while she was describing the composition and virtues of her favourite cholic water. In short, he accommodated himself so ill to her humour, that she died, and did not leave him a farthing.

The other method pointed out to him was, an endeavou [...] get a lease of some crown lands, which lay contiguous to his little pa­ternal estate. This, it was imagined, might be easily enough procured, as the crown did not draw so much [...]ent as Harley could afford to give, with very considerable profit to himself; and the then lessee had rendered himself so obnoxious to the ministry, by the disposal of his vote at an election, that he could not expect a renewal. This, however, needed some interest with the great, which Harley or his father never possessed.

His neighbour, Mr. Walton, having heard of his affair, gener­ously offered him his assistance to accomplish it. He told him that though he had long been a stranger to courtiers, yet [...]e be­lieved, there were some of them who might pay regard to his re­commendation; and that, if he thought it worth the while to take a London journey upon the business, he would furnish him with a letter of introduction to a baronet of his acquaintance, who had a great deal to say with the first lord of the treasury.

[Page 5] When his friends heard of this offer, they pressed him with the utmost earnestness to accept of it. They did not fail to enumerate the many advantages which a certain degree of spirit and assurance gi [...]es a man who would make a figure in the world: they repeated their instances of good fortune in others, ascribed them all to a happy forwardness of disposition; and made so copious a recital of the disadvantages which attend the opposite weakness, that a stranger, who had heard them, would have been led to imagine, that in the British code there was some disqualifying statute against any citizen who should be convicted of—modesty.

Harley, though he had no great relish for the attempt, yet could not resist the torrent of motives that assaulted him; and as he needed but little preparation for his journey, a day, not very dis­tant, was fixed for his departure.

CHAP. XIII. The Man of Feeling in love.

THE day before that on which he set out, he went to take leave of Mr. Walton,—We would conceal nothing;—there was another person of the family to whom also the visit was intended, on whose account, perhaps, there were some tenderer feelings in the bosom of Harley, than his gratitude for the friendly notice [...] that gentleman (though he was seldom deficient in that virtue [...] inspire. Mr. Walton had a daughter; and such a daughter! we will attempt some description of her by and by.

Harley's notions of the sublime or beautiful, were not always to be defined, nor indeed such as the world would always [...] though we could define them. A blush, a phrase of af­fa [...] to a [...] inferior, a tear at a moving tale, were to him like the Cestus of Cytherea, unequalled in conferring beauty. For all these Miss Walton was remarkable; but as these, like the above­mentioned Cestus, are perhaps still more powerful, when the fe­male, wearing them, is possessed of some degree of beauty, com­monly so called; so it happened, that, from this cause, they had more than usual power in the person of that young lady.

She was now arrived at that period of life which takes, or is sup­posed to take, from the slippancy of girlhood those sprightlinesses which some good natured old maids oblige the world with at three­score. She had been ushered into life (as that word is used in the dialect of St. James's) at seventeen, her father being then in parlia­ment, and living in [...]: at seventeen, therefore, she had been an universal toast; her health, now she was four and twenty, was only drank by those who knew her face at least▪ Her com­plexion was mellowed into a paleness, which certainly took from her beauty▪ but agreed, at least Harley used to say so, with the pensive [...]oftness of her mind. Her eyes were of that gentle hazel­colour [Page 6] colour which is rather mild than piercing; and, except when they were lighted up by good humour, which was frequently the case, were supposed by the fine gentlemen to want fire. Her air and manner were elegant in the highest degree, and were as sure of commanding respect, as their mistress was far from demanding it. Her voice was inexpressibly soft; it was, according to that incom­parable simile of Otway's,

The effect it had upon Harley he himself used to talk of ridiculous­ly enough, and ascribed powers to it, which few believed, and no­body cared for.

Her conversation was always chearful, but rarely witty; and without the smallest affectation of learning, had as much senti­ment [...] it as would have puzzled a Turk, upon his principles of female materialism, to have [...] Her beneficence was unbounded; indeed the natural tenderness of her heart might have been [...] by the frigidity of a casuist, as detracting from her virtue in [...]his respect; for her humanity was a feeling, not a prin­ciple: but minds like Harley's are not very apt to make this dis­tinction, and generally give our virtue credit for all that benevo­lence which is instinctive in our nature.

As her father had for some years retired to the country, Harley had frequent opportunities of seeing her. He looked on her for some time merely with that respect and admiration which her ap­pearance seemed to demand, and the opinion of others conferred upon her; from his cause perhaps, and from that extrem [...] sensi­bility which we have taken frequent notice of, Harley was remark­ably silent in her presence. He heard her sentiments with peculiar attention, sometimes with looks very expressive of approbation; but seldom declared his opinion on the subject, much [...] compliments to the lady on the justness of her remarks.

From this very reason it was, that Miss Walton frequently took more particular notice of him than of other visitors, who, by the laws of precedency, were better entitled to it: it was a mode of [...] she had peculiarly studied, to bring to the line of that Equality, which is ever necessary for the ease of our guests, those whose sensibility had placed them below it.

Harley saw this; for though he was a child in the drama of the world, yet was it not altogether owing to a want of knowledge in his part; on the contrary, the most delicate consciousness of pro­priety often raised that blush which marred the performance of it▪ this raised his esteem something above what the most sanguine des­criptions of her goodness had been able to do; for certain it is, that notwithstanding the laboured definitions which very wise men have given us of the inherent beauty of virtue, we are always in­clined to think her handsomest when she condescends to smile upon ourselves.

It would be trite to observe the easy gradation from esteem to [Page 7] love: in the bosom of Harley there scarce needed a transition; for there were certain seasons when his ideas were flushed to a degree much above their common complexion. In times not credulous of inspiration, we should account for this from some natural cause: but we do not mean to account for it at all; it were sufficient to des­cribe its effects; but they were sometimes so ludicrous, as might derogate from the dignity of the sensations which produced them to describe, They were treated, indeed, as such by most of Har­ley's [...] friends, who often laughed very heartily at the aukward blunders of the real Harley, when the different faculties, which should have prevented them, were entirely occupied by the ideal. In some of these paroxisms of fancy, Miss Walton did not fail to be introduced; and the picture which had been drawn amidst the sur­rounding objects of unnoticed levity, was now singled out to be viewed through the medium of romantic imagination: it was im­proved of course, and esteem was a word inexpressive of the feel­ings it excited.

CHAP. XIV. He sets out on his journey.—The beggar and his dog.

HE had taken leave of his aunt on the eye of his intended de­parture; but the good lady's affection for her nephew inter­rupted her sleep, and early as it was next morning when Harley came down stairs to set out, he found her in the parlour with a tear on her cheek, and her caudle cup in her hand. She kn [...]w enough of physic to prescribe against going abroad of a morning with an empty stomach. She gave her blessing with the draught [...] her [...]ructions she had delivered the night before. They consist­ed mostly of negatives; for London, in her idea, was so replete with temptations, that it needed the whole armour of her friendly cautions to repel their attacks.

Peter stood at the door. We have mentioned this faithful fellow formerly: Harley's father had taken him up an orphan, and saved him from being cast on the parish, and he had ever since remained in the service of him and of his son. Harley shook him by the hand as he passed, smiling, as if he had said, "I will not weep." He sprung hastily into the chaise that waited for him: P [...]e [...] folded up the step. "My dear master, said he, (shaking the [...] litary look that hung on either side of his head) I have been tol [...] as how London is a sad place."—He was choaked with the thought, and his benediction could not be heard:—but it shall be heard, honest Peter!—where these tears will add to its energy.

In a few hours Harley reached the inn where he proposed [...] fasting; but the fulness of his heart would not suffer him to [...] a morsel. He walked out on the road, and gaining a [...] height, stood gazing on that qua [...]ter he had le [...]t. He looked [...] [Page 8] his wonted prospect, his fields, his woods, and his hills: they were lost in the distant clouds! He penciled them on the clouds, and bade them farewel with a sigh!

He sat down on a large stone to take out a little pebble from his shoe, when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him. He had on a loose sort of coat, mended with different-co­loured rags, amongst which the blue and the russet were predomi­nant. He had a short knotty stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a ram's horn; his knees (though he was no pilgrim) had worn the stuff of his breeches; he wore no shoes, and his stockings had entirely lost that part of them which should have co­vered his feet and ancles: in his face, however, was the plump appearance of good-humour; he walked at a good round pace, and a crook-legged dog trotted at his heels.

"Our delicacies, said Harley to himself, are fantastic: they are not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones barefooted, while I have lost the most delightful dream in the world, from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe."—. The beggar had by this time come up, and pulling off a piece of ha [...], asked charity of Harley; the dog began to beg too:—it was impossible to resist both; and, in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made both unnecessary, for Harley had destined sixpence for him before. The beggar, on receiveing it, poured forth blessings without number, and, with a sort of smile on his countenance said to Harley, "that if he wanted to have his for­tune told"—Harley turned his eye briskly on the beggar: it was an unpromising look for the subject of a prediction, silenced the prophet immediately. "I would much rather learn, said Har­ley, what it is in your power to tell me: your trade must be an en­tertaining one: sit down on this stone, and let me know something of your profession; I have often thought of turning fort [...] [...]eller for a week or two myself."

"Master, replied the beggar, I like your frankness much; God knows I had the humour of plain dealing in me from a child; but there is no doing with it in this world; we must live as we can, and lying is, as you call it, my profession: but I was in some sort forced to the trade, for I dealt once in telling truth.

"I was a labourer, Sir, and gained as much as to make me live: I never laid by indeed; for I was reckoned a piece of a wag, and your wags, I take it, are seldom rich, Mr. Harley" "So, said Harley you seem to know me." "Ay, there are few folks in the country that I don't know something of: how should I tell fortunes else?" "True, but to go on with your story: you were a labourer, you say, and a wag; your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade, but your humour you preserve to be of use to you in your new."

"What signifies sadness, Sir? a man grows lean on't: but I was brought to my idleness by degrees; first I could not work, and then it [...]ent against my stomach to work ever after. I was seized with a ga [...]l fever at the time of the assizes being in the county where I lived; [Page 9] for I was always curious to get acquainted with the felons, because they are commonly fellows of much mirth and little thought, qualities I had ever an esteem for. In the height of this fever, Mr. Harley, the house where I lay took fire, and burnt to the ground: I was car­ried out in that condition, and lay all the rest of my i [...]ness in a barn. I got the better of my [...]isease however, but I was so weak that I spit blood whenever I attempted to work. I had no relation living that I knew of, and I never kept a friend above a week, when I was able to joke; I seldom remained above six months in a parish, so that I might have died before I had found a settlement in any: so I was forced to beg for my bread, and a sorry trade I found it, Mr Harley. I told all my misfortunes truly, but they were seldom believed; and the few who gave me a halfpenny as they passed, did it with a s [...]ake of the head, and an inj [...]nction not to trouble them with a long story ▪ In short, I found that people don't care to give alms without some security for their money; a wooden leg or a withered arm is a sort of draught upon heaven for those who choose to have their money placed to account there; so I changed my plan, and, instead of telling my own misfor­tunes, [...]egan to prophesy happiness to others. This I found by much the better way: folks will always listen when the tale is their own; and of many who say they do not believe in fortune-telling, I have known few on whom it had not a very sensible effect.

I pick up the names of their acquaintance; amours and little squab­bles are easily glea [...]ed amongst the servants of great families; and in­deed people themselves are the best intelligencers in the world for our purpose: they dare not puzzle us for their own sakes, for every one is anxious to hear something which they would wish to believe; and they who repeat it to laugh at it when they have done, are generally more serious than their bearers are apt to imagine.

With a tolerable good memory, and some share of cunning, with the help [...] walking sometimes a nights over heaths and church yards, with [...]is, and shewing the tricks of that there dog, whom I stole from the serjeant of a marching regiment, (and by the way he can steal too upon occasion,) I make shift to pick up a livelihood.

My trade, indeed, is none of the honestest; yet people are not much cheated neither, who give a few half-pence for being made to expect happiness, which I have heard some persons say is all a man can arrive at in this world.—But I must bid you good day, Sir; for I have three miles to walk before noon, to inform some boarding school young ladies, whether their husbands are to be pe [...]rs of the realm, or captains in the army: a question I promised to answer them by that time."

Harley had drawn a shilling from his pocket; but virtue bade him consider on whom he was going to be [...]lows [...].—Virtue held bac [...] his arm:—but a mi [...]der form, a younger sister of virtue's, not so severe as virtue, nor so serious as pity, smiled on him: His [...]ingers lost their com [...]ression;—nor did virtue offer to catch the money as it fell. It had no sooner reached the ground than the watchful cur (a trick he had [Page 10] been taught) snapped it up in his mouth; and, contrary to the most ap­proved method of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the hands of his master.

CHAP. XIX. He makes a second expedition to the Baronet's. The laudable ambition of a young man to be thought something by the world.

WE have related, in a former chapter, the little success of his first visit to the great man, for whom he had the intro­ductory letter from Mr. Walton. To people of equal sensibility, the influence of those trifles we mentioned on his deportment will not appear surpri [...]ing; but to his friends in the country, they could not be stated, nor would they have allowed them any place in the account.

In some of their letters, therefore, which he received soon after, they expressed their surprise at his not having been more urgent in his application, and again recommended the blushless assiduity of sucessful merit.

He resolved to make another attempt at the baronet's; fortified with higher notions of his own dignity, and with less apprehension of a repulse. In his way to Grosvenor-square he began to ruminate on the folly of mankind, who affixed those ideas of superiority to riches, which reduced the minds of men, by nature equal with the more fortunate, to that sort of servility which he felt in his own. By the time he had reached the Square, and was walking [...]ong the pavement which led to the baronet's, he had brought his reasoning on the subject to such a point, that the conclusion, by every rule of logic, should have led him to a thorough indifference in his ap­proaches to a fellow-mortal, whether that fellow-mortal was pos­sessed of six or six thousand pounds a year.

It is probable, however, that the premises had been improperly formed; for it is certain, that when he approached the great man's door, he felt his heart agitated by an unusual pulsation.

He had almost reached it, when he observed a young gentleman coming out, dressed in a white frock, and a red-laced waistcoat, with a small switch in his hand, which he seemed to manage with a particular good grace. As he passed him on the steps, the stranger very politely made him a bow, which Harley returned, though he could not remember ever having seen him before. He asked him, in the same civil manner, if he was going to wait on his friend the Barone [...]? "For I was just calling, said he, and am sorry to find that he is gone for some days into the country."

[Page 11] Harley thanked him for his information; and was turning from the door, when the other observed, that it would be proper to leave his name, and very obligingly knocked for that purpose. "Here is a gentleman, Tom, who meant to have waited on your master."

"Your name, if your please, Sir?" "Harley.—You'll remem­ber, Tom, Harley.—The door was shut. "Since we are here, said he, we shall not lose our walk, if we add a little to it by a turn or two in Hyde▪ Park." He accompanied this proposal with a second bow, and Harley accepted of it by another in return:

The conversation, as they walked, was brilliant on the side of his companion. The playhouse, the opera, with every occurrence in high-life, he seemed perfectly master of; and talked of some reigning beauties of quality, in a manner the most feeling in the world. Harley admired the happiness of his vivacity; and, though it was opposite to the reservedness of his own nature, began to be much pleased with its effects.

Though I am not of opinion with some wise men, that the exist­ence of objects depends on idea; yet, I am convinced, that their appearance is not a little influenced by it. The optics of some minds are in so unlucky a perspective, as to throw a certain shade on every picture that is presented to them; while those of others (of which number wa [...] Harley) like the mirrors of the ladies, have a wonderful effect in bettering their complexions. Through such a medium perhaps he was looking on his present companion.

When they had finished their walk, and were returning by the corner of the Park, they observed a board hung out of a window, signifying, "An excellent ORDINARY Saturdays and Sundays." It happened to be Saturday, and the table was covered for the pur­pose. "What if we should go in and dine here, if you happen not to be engaged, Sir? said the young gentleman. It is not im­possible but we shall meet with some original or other; it is a sort of humour I like hugely." Harley made no objection; and the stranger shewed him the way into the parlour.

He was placed, by the curtesy of his introductor, in an armed chair that stood at one side of the fire. Over against him was seat­ed a man of a grave considering aspect, with that look of sober prudence which indicates what is commonly called a warm man. He wore a pretty large wig, which had once been white, but was now of a brownish yellow; his coat was one of those modest-col­ [...]ured drab [...] which mock the injuries of dust and dirt; two jack­ [...]oots concealed, in part, the well-mended knees of an old pair of buckskin breeches, while the spotted handkerchief round his neck, preserved at once its owner from catching cold, and his neck-cloth from being di [...]tied.

Next him sat another man, with a tankard in his hand, and a [...]uid of tobacco in his cheek, whose eye was rather more vivacious, and whose dress was something smarter.

The first mentioned gentleman took notice, that the room had been so lately washed, as not to have had time to dry; and re­marked, [Page 12] marked, that wet lodging was unwholesome for man or beast. He looked round at the same time for a poker to stir the fire with, which, he at last observed to the company, the people of the house had removed, in order to save their coals.

This difficulty, however, he overcame, by the help of Harley's stick, saying, "that as they should, no doubt, pay for their fire in some shape or other, he faw no reason why they should not have the use of it while they [...]at."

The door was now opened for the admission of dinner."I don't know how it is with you, gentlemen, said Harley's new acquaint­ance, but I am afraid I shall not be able to get down a morsel at this horrid mechanical hour of dining." He sat down▪ however, and did not shew any want of appetite by his eating. He took on him the carving of the meat, and criticising on the goodness of the pudding.

When the table-cloth was removed, he proposed calling for some punch, which was readily agreed to; he seemed at first inclined to make i [...] himself, but afterwards changed his mind, and left that province to the waiter, telling him to have it pure West-India, or he could not taste a drop of it.

When the punch was brought, he undertook to fill the glasses and call the toasts.—"The king."—That toast naturally produc­ed politics. It is the privilege of Englishmen to drink the king's health, and to talk of his conduct. The man who sat opposite to Harley (who by this time, partly from himself and partly from his acquaintance on this left hand, was discovered to be a gra­zier) observed, "That it was a shame for [...] many pen [...]ioners to be allowed to taken the bread out of the mouth of the poor." "Ay, and provisions, said his friend, were never so dear in the memory of man; I wish the king, and his counsellors, would look to that." "As for the matter of provisions, neighbour Wrightson, he re­plied, I am sure the prices of cattle—" A dispute would have pro­bably ensued, but it was prevented by the spruce toast master, who gave a Sentiment; and turning to the two politicans, "Come, gentlemen, said he, let us have done with these musty politics, pray now: I would always leave them to the bee [...]-suckers in But­cher Row. Come, let us have something of the fine arts. That was a damn'd hard match betwixt the Nailor and [...]im Bucke [...]. The knowing ones were cursedly taken in there! I lost a cool hundred myself, faith."

At mention of the cool hundred, the grazier threw this eyes aslant, with a mingled look of doubt and surprise; while the man at his elbow looked arch, and gave a short emphatical sort of cough,

Both seemed to be silenced, however, by this intelligence, and, while the remainder of the punch lasted, the conversation was wholly engrossed by the gentleman with the fine waistcoat, who told a great many "immense comical stories," and "con [...]ounded smart things," as he termed them, acted and spoken by lords, ladies, and young bucks of quality, of his acquaintance.

[Page 13] At last, the grazier, pulling out a watch, of a very unusual size, and telling the hour, said, that he had an appointment.▪"Is it so late? said the young gentleman; then I am afraid I have missed an appointment already: but the truth is, I am cursedly given to missing of appointments."

When the grazier and he were gone, Harley turned to the re­maining man of the company, and asked him, if he knew that young gentleman? "A gentleman! said he; ay, he is one of your gentlemen at the top of an affidavit. I knew him, some years ago, in the quality of a foot-man; and, I believe, he had sometimes the honour to be a pimp. At last, some of the great folks, to whom he had been serviceable in both capacities, had him made a gauger; in which station he still remains, and has the assurance to pretend an acquaintance with men of quality. The impudent dog! with a few shillings in his pocket, he will talk you three times as much as my friend Mundy there, who is worth nine thousand, if he's worth a farthing. But I know the rascal, and despise him, as he deserves."

Harley began to despise him too, and to conceive some indig­nation at having sat with patience to hear such a fellow speak nonsense. But he corrected himself, by reflecting, that he was perhaps as well entertained, and instructed too, by this same mo­dest gauger, as he should have been by such a man as he had thought proper to personate. And surely the fault may more pro­perly be imputed to that rank where the futility is real, than where it is fe [...]gned; to that rank, whose opportunities for nobler accomplishments have only served to [...]ear a fabric of folly, which the un [...]utored hand of affectation, even among the meanest of man­kind, can imitate with success.

CHAP. XX. He visits Bedlam.—The distresses of a daughter.

OF those things called Sights, in London, which it is supposed every stranger is desirous to see, Bedlam is one. To that place, therefore, an acquaintance of Harley's, after having ac­companied him to several other shews, proposed a visit. Harley objected to it, "because, said he, I think it an inhuman practice to expose the greatest misery our nature is afflicted with to evey idle visitant who can afford a trifling perquisite to the keeper; especially as it is a distress which the humane must see with the painful reflection, that it is not in their power to allevia [...] it." He was overpowered, however, by the solicitations of his friend, and the other persons of the party, (amongst whom were several ladies) and they went in a body to Moorfields.

[Page 14] Their conductor led them first to the dismal mansions of those who are in the most horrid state of incurable madness. The clank­ing of chains, the wildness of their cries, and the imprecations which some of them uttered, formed a scene inexpressibly shocking. Harley and his companions, especially the female part of them, begged their guide to return: he s [...]emed surprised at their uneasi­ness, and was with difficulty prevailed on to leave that part of the house without shewing them some others; who, as he expressed it in the phrase of those who keep wild beasts for a shew, were much worth seeing than any they had passed, being ten times more [...]erce and unmangeable.

He led them next to that quarter where those reside, who, as they are not dangerous to themselves or others, enjoy a certain de­gree of freedom, according to the slate of their distemper.

Harley had fallen behind his companions, looking at a man, who was making pendulums with bits of thread, and little balls of clay. He had delineated a segment of a circle on the wall with chalk, and marked their different vibrations, by intersecting it with cross lines.

A decent-looking man came up, and smiling at the maniac, turned to Harley, and told him, that gentleman had once been a very celebrated mathematician. "He fell a sacrifice, said he, to the theory of comets; for, after having, with infinite labour, formed a table on the conjectures of Sir Isaac Newton, he was dis­appointed in the return of one of those luminaries, and was very soon after obliged to be placed here by his friends. If you please to follow me, Sir, continued the stranger, I believe I shall be able to give you a more satisfactory account of the unfortunate people you see here, than the man who attends your companions." Har­ley bowed, and accepted of his offer.

The next person they came up to had scrawled a variety of fig­ures on a piece of slate. Harley had the curiosity to take a nearer view of them. They consisted of different columns, a-top of which were marked South Sea annuities, India stock, and Three per cent. annuities consol. "This, said Harley's instructor, was a gentle­man well known in Change-Alley.

He was once worth fifty thousand pounds, and had actually agreed for the purchase of an estate in the west, in order to realize his mo­ney; but he quarrelled with the proprietor about the repairs of the garden wall, and so returned to town to follow his old trade of stock­jobbing a little longer; when an unlucky fluctuation of stock, in which, he was engaged to an immense extent, reduced him at once to poverty and to madness.

Poor wretch! he told me t'other day, that against the next pay­ment of differences, he should be some hundreds above a plum."—

"It is a spondee, and I will maintain it," interrupted a voice on his left hand. This assertion was followed by a very rapid re­cital of some verses from Home [...]. "That figure, said the gentle­man, whose clothes are so bedaubed with snuff, was a school-mas­ter of some reputation: he came here to be resolved of some doubts [Page 15] he entertained concerning the genuine pronunciation of the Greek vowels. In his highest sits, he makes frequent mention of one Mr. Bently.

"But delusive ideas, Sir, are the motives of the greatest part of mankind, and a heated imagination the power by which their ac­tions are incited: the world, in the eye of a philosopher, may be said to be a large madhouse." "It is true, answered Harley, the passions of men are temporary madnesses; and sometimes very fatal in their effects,

"It was indeed, said the stranger, a very mad thing in Charles, to think of adding so vast a country as Russia to his dominions; that would have been fatal indeed; the balance of the North would then have been lost; but the Sultan and I would never have al­lowed it."—"Sir!" said Harley, with no small surprize on his countenance. "Why yes, answered the other, the Sultan and I; do you know me? I am the Chan of Tartary."

Harley was a good deal struck by this discovery; he had pru­dence enough, however, to conceal his amazement, and bowing as low to the [...]march, as his dignity required, left him immedi­ately, and joined his companions.

He found them in a quarter of the house set apart for the ins [...]ne of the other sex, several of whom had gathered about the female part of the company, and were examining, with rather more ac­curacy than might have been expected, the particulars of their dress.

Separate from the rest stood one, whose appearance had some­thing of superior dignity. Her face, though pale and wasted, was less squalid than those of the others, and shewed a dejection of that decent kind, which moves our pity unmixed with horror: upon her, therefore, the eyes of all were immediately turned. The keeper, who accompanied them, observed it: "This, said he, is a young lady, who was born to ride in her coach and six, She was beloved, if the story I have heard is true, by a young gentle­man, her equal in birth, but by no means her match as to for­tune: but Love, they say, is blind, and so she fancied him as much as he did her.

Her father, it seems, would not hear of their marriage, and threatened to turn her out of doors, if ever she saw him again. Upon this the young gentleman took a voyage to the West-Indies, in hopes of bettering his fortune, and obtaining his mistress; but he was scarcely landed, when he was seized with one of the fevers which are common in those islands, and died in a few days, la­mented by every one that knew him. This news soon reached his mistress, who was at the same time pressed by her father to marry a rich miserly fellow, who was old enough to be her grandfather.

The death of her lover had no effect on her inhuman parent; he was only the more earnest for he marriage with the man he had provided for her; and what between her despair at the death of [Page 16] the one, and her aversion to the other, the poor young lady was reduced to the condition you s [...]e her in. But God would not pro­sper such cruelty; and soon after her father's affairs went to wreck, and he died almost a beggar."

Though this story was told in very plain language, it had par­ticularly attracted Harley's notice: he had given it the tribute of some tears.

The unfortunate young lady had till now seemed intranced in thought, with her eyes fixed on a little garnet [...]i [...]g she wore on her finger: she turned them now upon Harley. "My Billy is no more! said she, do you weep for my Billy? Blessings on your tears! I would weep too, but my brain is dry; and i [...] burns, it burns!"—She drew nearer to Harley.—"Be comforted, young Lady, said he, your Billy is in heaven." "Is he indeed? and shall we meet again? And shall that frightful man (pointing to the keeper) not be there?—Alas! I am grown naughty of late; I have almost forgotten to think of heaven: yet I pray sometimes when I can I pray; and sometimes I sing; when I am saddest I sing:—You shall hear me, hush!

There was a plaintive wildness in the air not to be withstood▪ and except the keepers's, there was not an unmoistened eye around her.

"Do you weep again? said she; I would not have you weep: you are like my Billy; you are, believe me; just so he looked when he gave me this ring; poor Billy! it was the last time ever we met!—

"It was when the seas were roaring—I love you for resem­bling my Billy; but I shall never love any ma [...] like him."—She stretched out her hand to Harley; he pressed it between both of his, and bathed it with his tears.—"Nay, that is Billy's ring, said she, you cannot have it, indeed; but here is another, look here, which I plaited to day of some gold thread from this [...] of stuff; will you keep it for my sake? I am a strange girl;—but my heart is harmless: my poor heart! it will burst some day; feel how it beats"—

She pressed his hand to her bosom, then holding her head in the attitude of listening—"Hark! one, two, three! be quiet, thou little trembler; my Billy is cold!—but I had forgotten the ring."—She put it on his finger.—"Farewell! I must leave you n [...]w."—She would have withdrawn her hand; Harley held it to his lips.—"I dare not stay longer: my head throbs sadly: farewell!"—She walked with a hurried step to a li [...]le apartment at some distance. Harley stood fixed in astonishment and pity! his friend gave money to the keeper.—Harley looked on his ring.—He [...] a couple of guineas into the man's hand: "Be kind [...]o that unfortunate"—He burst into tears, and left them▪

CHAP. XXI. The Misanthrope.

THE friend, who had conducted him to Moorfields, called on him again the next evening. After some talk on the adven­ture of the preceding day; "I carried you yesterday, said he to Harley, to visit the mad; let me introduce you to-night, at sup­per, to one of the wise: but you must not look for any thing of the Socratic pleasantry about him; on the contrary, I warn you, to expect the spirit of a D [...]ogenes. That you may be somewhat prepared for his extraordinary manner, I will let you into some par­ticulars of his history.

"He is the eldest of two sons of a gentleman of considerable estate in the country. Their father died when they were young: both were remarkable at school for quickness of parts, and extent of genius; this one had been bred to no profession, because his fa­ther's fortune, which descended to him, was thought sufficient to set him above it; the other was put an apprentice to an eminent attorney.

"In this the expectations of his friends were more consulted than his own inclination; for both his brother and he had feelings of that warm ki [...], that could ill brook a study so dry as the law, especially in that department of it which was allotted to him. But the difference of their tempers made the characteristical distinction between them.

"The younger, from the gentleness of his nature, bore with patience a situation entirely discordant to his genius and dispositi­on. At times, indeed, his pride would suggest, of how little im­portance those talents were, which the partiality of his friends had often extolled: they were now incumbrances in a walk of life where the dull and the ignorant passed him at every turn; his fan­cy and his feeling, were invincible obstacles to eminence in a situ­ation, where his fancy had no room for exertion, and his feeling experienced perpetual disgust.

"But these murmurings he never suffered to be heard; and that he might not offend the prudence of those who had been con­cerned in the choice of his profession, he continued to labour in it for several years, till, by the death of a relation, he fell into an estate of little better than 100l, a year, with which, and the small patrimony left him by his father, he retired into the country, and made a love-match with a young lady of a temper similar to his own.

"But his elder brother, whom you are to see at supper, if you will do us the favour of your company, was naturally impetuous, decisive, and overbearing. He entered into life with those ardent expectations which young men are commonly deluded by: in his friendships, warm to excess; and equally violent in his dislikes. [Page 18] He was on the brink of marriage with a young lady, when one of those friends, for whose honour he would have pawned his life, made an elopement with this very goddess; and left him besides deeply engaged for sums which his extravagance had squandered.

"The dreams he had formerly enjoyed were now changed for ideas of a very different nature. He abjured all confidence in any thing of human form; sold his lands in the country, which still produced him a very large reversion, came to town, and immured himself with a woman who had been his nurse, in little better than a garret; and has ever since applied his talents to the perpe­tual vilifying of his species.

"One thing I must take the liberty to instruct you in; however different your sentiments may be (and different they must be) you will suffer him to go on without contradiction; otherwise he will be silent immediately, and we shall not be able to get a word from him all the night after."

Harley promised to remember this injunction, and accepted the invitation of his friend.

When they arrived at the house, they were informed that the gentleman was already come, and had been shewn into the parlour. They found him sitting with a daughter of his friend's, about three years old, on his knee, whom he was teaching the alphabet from a horn-book: at a little distance stood a sister of hers, some years older.

"Get you away, Miss, said he to this last, you are a pert gos­sip, and I will have nothing to do with you." "Nay, answered she▪ Nancy is your favourite; you are quit in love with Nancy." "Take away that girl, said he to her father, whom he now observed to have entered the room, she has woman about her already." The children were accordingly dismissed.

Betwixt that and supper-time he did not utter a syllable. When supper came, he quarrelled with every dish at table, but eat of them all; only exempting from his censures a [...]allad, which you have not spoiled, said he, because you have not attempted to cook it.

When the wine was set upon the table he took from his pocket a particular smoking apparatus, and filled up his pipe, without taking any more notice of Harley, or his friend, than if no such people had been in the room.

Harley could not help stealing a look of surprize at him; but his friend, who knew his humour, returned it, by annihilating his presence in the like manner, and, leaving him to his own medita­tions, addressed himself entirely to Harley.

In their discourse some mention happened to be made of an ami­able character, and the words honour and politeness were applied to it. Upon this the gentleman, laying down his pipe, and changing the tone of his countenance, from an ironical grin to something more intently contemptuous: "Honour, said he, Honour and Politeness! this is the coin of the world, and passes current with the fools of it.

[Page 19] You have substituted the shadow Honour, instead of the sub­st [...]a [...] Virtue; and have b [...]nished the reality of friendship for the [...]ctitious femblance of what you have termed Politeness: politeness, which consists in a certain ceremonious jargon [...] more ridiculous to the ear of reason than the voice of a puppet.

You have inve [...]ted sounds, which you worship, though they ty­rannize over your peace; and are surrounded with empty forms, which take from the honest emotions of joy, and add to the poign­ancy of misfortune."—"Sir,"—said Harley—His friend wink­ed to him, to remind him of the caution he had received. He was silenced by the thought.—

The philosopher turned his eye upon him: he examined him from top to toe, with a sort triumphant contempt. Harley's coat happened to be a new one; the other's was as shabby as could possibly be supposed to be on the back of a gentleman: there was much significancy in his look with regard to this coat: it spoke of the sleekness of folly, and the thread bareness of wisdom.

"Truth, continued he, the most amiable, as well as the most natural of virtues, you are at pains to eradicate. Your very nur­series are seminaries of falsehood; and what is called Fashion in manhood completes the system of avowed insincerity. Mankind, in the gross, is a gaping monster, that loves to be deceived, and has seldom been disappointed: nor is their vanity less fallacious to your philosophers, who adopt modes of truth to follow them through the paths of error, and de [...]end paradoxes merely to be singular in defending them.

These are they whom ye term Ingenious; it is a phrase of com­mendation I detest; it implies an attempt to impose on my judg­ment, by flattering my imagination: yet these are they whose works are read by the old with delight, which the young are taught to look on as the codes of knowledge and philosophy.

"Indeed, the education of your youth is every way preposterous: you waste at school years in improving talents, without having ever spent an hour in discovering them; one promiscuous line of instruc­tion is followed, without regard to genius, capacity, or probable situation in the commonwealth.

From this menagerie of the pedagogue, a raw unprincipled boy is turned loose upon the world to travel; without any ideas but those of improving his dress at Paris, or starting into taste by gaz­ing on some paintings at Rome.

Ask him of the manners of the people, and he will tell you, That the skirt is worn much shorter in France, and that every bo­dy eats macaroni in Italy. When he returns home, he buys a feat in parliament, and studies the constitution at Arthur's.

"Nor are your females trained to any more useful purpose: they are taught by the very rewards which their nurses propose for good behaviour, by the first thing like a jest which they hear from every male visitor of the family, that a young woman is a creature to be married; and when they are grown somewhat older, are in­structed, [Page 20] that it is the purpose of marriage to have the enjoyment of pin-money, and the expectation of a jointure."

^* "These, indeed, are the effects of luxury, which is perhaps inseparable from a certain degree of power and grandeur in a na­tion.

"But it is not simply the progress of luxury we have to com­plain of: did its votaries keep in their own sphere of thoughtless dissipation, we might despise them without emotion; but the fri­volous pursuits of pleasure are mingled with the most important concerns of the state; and public enterprize shall sleep [...] he who should guide its operation has decided his betts at Newmarket, or fulfilled his engagement with a favourite mistress in the country.

"We want some man of acknowledged eminence to point our councils with that firmness which the councils of a great people require.

"We have hundreds of ministers, who press forward into office, without having ever learned that art which is necessary for every business, the art of thinking; and mistake the petulance, which could give inspiration to some smart sarcasms on an obnoxious mea­sure in a popular assembly, for the ability which is to balance the interest of kingdoms, and investigate the latent sources of national superiority.

"With the administration of such men the people can never be satisfied; for, besides that their confidence is gained only by the view of superior talents, it needs that depth of knowledge, which is not only acquainted with the just extent of power, but can also trace its connection with the expedient, to preserve its possessors from the contempt which attends irresolution, or the resentment which follows temerity."

(Here a considerable part is wanting)

—"In short, man is an animal equally selfish and vain▪ Vanity, indeed, is but a modification of selfishness. From the last, there are some who pretend to be free: they are generally such as declaim against the lust of wealth and power, because they have never been able to attain any high degree in either: they boast of generosity and [...]eeling.

They tell us (perhaps they tell us in rhime) that the sensations of an honest heart, of a mind universally benevolent, is the quiet [Page 21] bliss which they enjoy; but they will not, by this, be exempted from the charge of selfishness. Whence the luxurious happiness they describe in their little family circles? Whence the pleasure which they feel, when they trim their evening fires, and listen to the howling of the winter's wind? whence, but from the secret re­flection of what houseless w [...]etches feel from it? Or do you ad­minister comfort in affliction—the motive is at hand; I have bad it preached to me in nineteen out of twenty of your consolatory dis­courses—the comparative littleness of our own misfortunes.

"With [...] your best virtues are grossly tainted▪ your bene­volence, which ye deduce immediately from the natural impulse of the heart, s [...]ints to it for its reward. There are some, indeed, who tell us of the satisfaction which flows from a secret conscious­ness of good actions: this secret satisfaction is indeed excellent—when we have some friend to whom we may discover its excellence."

He now paused a moment to relight his pipe, when a clock, that stood at his back, struck eleven; he started up at the sound, took his hat and his cane, and nodding good-night with his head, walked out of the room. The gentleman of the house called a servant to bring him his surtout. "What sort of a night is it, fellow?" said he. "It rains, Sir, answered the servant, with an easterly wind."—"Easterly for ever!"—He made no other re­ply; but shrugging up his shoulders till they almost touched his ears, wrapped himself tight in his great-coat, and disappeared.

"This is a strange creature," said his friend to Harley. "I cannot say, answered he, that his remarks are of the pleasant kind: it is curious to observe how the nature of truth may be changed by the garb it wears; softened to the admonition of friendship, or soured into the severity of reproof: yet this severity may be useful to some tempers; it somewhat resembles a file; disagreeable in its operation, but hard metals may be the brighter for it.

CHAP. XXV. His skill in physiognomy.

THE company at the baronet's removed to the playhouse ac­cordingly, and Harley took his usual route into the Park. He observed, as he entered, a fresh looking elderly gentleman in conversation with a beggar, who, leaning on his cru [...]ch, was re­counting the hardships he had undergone, and explaining the wretchedness of his present condition.

This was a very interesting tete-a-tete to Harley; he was rude enough therefore to slacken his pace as he approached, and at last to make a full stop at the gentleman's back, who was just then ex­pressing his compassion for the beggar, and regretting that he had [Page 22] not a farthing of change about him. At saying this he looked piteously on the fellow: there was something in his physiognomy which catched Harley's notice: indeed physiognomy was one of Harley's foibles, for which he had been often rebuked by his aunt in the country; who used to [...] him, that when he wa [...] come to her years and experience, he would know that all's not gold that glisters: and it must be owned, that his aunt was a very sensible, harsh-looking, maiden lady of threescore and upwards.

But he was too apt to forget this caution; and now, it seems, it had not occured to him: stepping up, therefore, to the gentleman, who was lamenting the want of silver, "Your inten [...]ons, Sir, said he, are so good, that I cannot help lending you my a [...]ance to carry them into execution." and gave the beggar a sh [...]ing. The other returned a suitable compliment, and extolled the benevolence of Harley. They kept walking together, and benevolence grew the topic of discourse.

The stranger was fluent on the subject.

"There is no use of money, said he, equal to that of benefi­cence: with the profuse, it is lost; and even with those who lay it out according to the prudence of the world, the objects acquired by it pall on the sense, and have scarce become our own till they lose their value with the power of pleasing; but here the enjoy­ment grows on reflection, and our money is most truly ours, when it ceases being in our possession."

"Yet I agree in some measure, answered Harley, with those who think, that charity to our common beggars is often misplaced: there are objects less obtrusive whose title is a better one."

"We cannot easily distinguish, said the stranger; and even of the worthless, are there not many whose impudence, or whose vice, may have been one dreadful consequence of misfortune?"

Harley looked again in his face, and blessed himself for his skill in physiognomy.

By this time they had reached the end of the walk: the old gentleman leaned on the rails to take breath, and in the mean time they were joined by a younger man, whose figure was much above the appearence of his dress, which was poor and shabby: Harley's former companion addressed him as an acquaintance, and they turned on the walk together.

The oldest of the strangers complained of the closeness of the evening, and asked the other, if he would go with him into a house hard by, and take one draught of excellent cider. "The man who keeps this house, said he to Harley, was once a servant of mine: I could not think of turning loose upon the world a faith­ful old fellow, for no other reason but that his age had incapacitat­ed him; so I give him an annuity of ten pounds, with the help of which he has set up this little place here, and his daughter goes and sells milk in the city, while her father manages his tap-room, as he calls it, at home. I can't well ask a gentleman of your ap­pearance to accompany me to so paltry a place."—"Sir, replied [Page 23] Harley, interrupting him, I would much rather enter it than the most celebrated tavern in town: to give to the necessitous, may sometimes be a weakness in the man; to encourage industry, is a duty in the citizen." They entered the house accordingly.

On a table, at the corner of the room, lay a pack of cards, loose­ly thrown together. The old gentleman reproved the man of the house for encouraging so idle an amusement: Harley attempted to defend him from the necessity of accommodating himself to the hu­mour of his guests, and taking up the cards, began to shuffle them backwards and forwards in his hand. "Nay, I don't think cards so unpardonable an amusement as some do, replied the other; and sometimes, about this time of the evening, when my eyes begin to fail me for my book, I divert myself with a game at piquet, with­out finding my morals a bit relaxed by it. Do you play piquet, Sir▪" ( [...]o Harley) Harley answered in the affirmative; and the other proposed playing a pool at a shilling the game, doubling the stakes: adding, that he never played higher with any body.

Harley's good nature could not refuse this to the benevolent old man; and the younger stranger, though he at first pleaded a prior engagement, yet being earnestly solicited by his friend, at last a­greed [...]o it.

When they began to play, the old gentleman, somewhat to the surprise of Harley, produced ten shillings to serve for markers of his score. "He had no change for the beggar, said Harley to himself; but I can easily account for it: it is curious to observe the affection that inanimate things will acquire from us by a long ac­quaintance: if I may judge from my own feelings, the old man would not part with one of these counters for ten times its intrinsic value; it even got the better of his benevolence! I myself have a pair of old brass sleeve-buttons—Here he was interrupted by being told, that the old gentleman had beat the younger, and that it was his turn to take up the conqueror.

"Your game has been short," said Harley. "I repiqued him," answered the old man, with joy sparkling in his countenance."

Harley wished to be repiqued too, but he was disappointed; for he had the same good fortune against his opponent. Indeed never did fortune, mutable as she is, delight in mutability so much as at that moment: the victory was so quick, and so constantly alternate, that the stake, in a short time, amounted to no less a sum than 12 [...]. Harley's proportion of which was within half a guinea of the money he had in his pocket. He had before proposed a division, but the old gentleman opposed it with such a pleasant warmth in his manner, that it was always over-ruled.

Now, however, he told them, that he had an appointment with some gentlemen, and it was within a few minutes of his hour. The young stranger had gained one game, and was engaged in the se­cond with the other: they agreed therefore that the stake should be divided, if the old gentleman won that; which was more than probable, as his score was 90 to 35, and he was eldest hand; but [Page 24] a momentous repique decided it in favour of his adversary, who seemed to enjoy his victory mingled with regret, for having won too much, while his friend, with great ebullience of passion, ma­ny praises of his own good play, and many maledictions on the power of chance, took up the cards, and threw them into the fire.

CHAP. XXVI. The Man of Feeling in a brothel.

THE company he was engaged to meet were assembled in Fleet-street. He had walked for some time along the Strand, amidst the crowd of those wretches who wait the uncertain wages of prostitution, with ideas of pity suitable to the scene around him, and the feelings he possessed, and had got as far as Somerset-house when one of them laid hold of his arm, and, with a voice tremulous and faint, asked him for a pint of wine, in a manner more supplicatory than is usual with those whom the infamy of their profession has deprived of shame: he turned round at the demand, and looked stedfastly on the person who made it.

She was taller than the common size, and elegantly formed; her face was thin and hollow, and shewed the remains of tarnished beau­ty. Her eyes were black, but had little of their lus [...]re left: her cheeks had some paint on it, laid on without art, and productive of no advantage to her complexion, which exhibited on the other parts of her face a deadly paleness.

Harley stood in the attitude of hesitation; which she interpreting to her advantage, again repeated her request, and endeavoured to force a leer of invitation into her countenance. He took her arm, and they walked on to one of those obsequious taverns in the neighbourhood, where the dearness of the wine is a discharge in full for the character of the house.

From what impulse he did this, we do not mean to inquire; as it has ever been against our nature to search for motives where bad ones are to be found.—They entered, and a waiter shewed them a room, and placed a bottle of claret on the table.

Harley filled the lady's glass; which she had no sooner tasted, than dropping it on the floor, and eagerly catching his arm, her eye grew fix­ed, her lip assumed a clayey whiteness, and she f [...]ll back lifeless in her chair.

Harley started from his seat, and, catching her in his arms, sup­ported her from falling to the ground, looking wildly at the door, as if he wanted to run for assistance, but durst not leave the miserable creature alone. It was not till some minutes after, that it occurred to him to ring the bell, which at last however he thought of, and rung with repeated violence even after the waiter appeared. Luckily the waiter had his senses somewhat more about him; and snatching up a bottle of water, which stood on a bea [...]et at the end of the room, he [Page 25] sprinkled it on the hands and face of the dying figure before him. She be­gan to revive, and with the assistance of some hartshorn drops, which Harley now for the first time drew from his pocket, was able to desire the waiter to bring her a crust of bread; and when it was brought, she swallowed some mouthfuls of it with the appearance of the keenest hunger. The waiter withdrew: when turning to Harley, sobbing at the same time, and shedding tears, "I am sorry, Sir, said she, that I should have given you so much trouble; but you will pity me when I tell you, that till now I have not tasted a morsel these two days past."—He fixed his eyes on her's—every circumstance but the last was forgotten; and he took her hand with as much respect as if she had been a dutchess.

It was ever the priviledge of misfortune to be revered by him.—"Two days!—said he; and I have fared sumptuously every day!"—He was reaching to the bell; she understood his meaning, and pre­vented him. "I beg, Sir, said she, that you would give yourself no more trouble about a wretch who does not wish to live; but, at present, I could not eat a bit; my stomach even rose at the last mouthful of that crust" He offered to call a chair, saying, that he hoped a little rest would relieve her.—He had one half guinea left: "I am sorry, he said, that at present I should be able to make you an offer of no more than this paltry sum." She burst into tears! "Your generosity, Sir, i [...] abused; to bestow it on me is to take it from the virtuous: I have no little but misery to plead; misery of my own procuring." "No more of that, answered Harley; there is virtue in these tears; let the fruit of them be virtue."—He rung, and ordered a chair.—"Though I am the vilest of beings, said she, I have not forgotten every virtue; gratitude, I hope, I shall still have left, did I but know who this be­nefactor is."—"My name is Harley"—"Could I ever have an opportunity"—"You shall, and a glorious one too! your future con­duct—but I do not mean to reproach you—if, I say—it will be the noblest reward—I will do myself the pleasure of seeing you again."—Here the waiter entered, and told them the chair was at the door; the lady informed Harley of her lodgings, and he promised to wait on her at ten next morning.

He led her to the chair, and returned to clear with the waiter, without ever once reflecting that he had no money in his pocket. He was ashamed to make an excuse; yet an excuse must be made: he was beginning to frame one, when the waiter cut him short, by telling him, that he could not run scores; but that, if he would leave his watch, or any other pledge, it would be as safe as if it lay in his pocket. Har­ley jumped at the proposal, and pulling out his watch, delivered it in­to his hands immediately; and having, for once, had the precaution to take a note of the lodging he intended to visit next morning, sallied forth with a flush of triumph on his face, without taking notice of the s [...]eer of the waiter, who, twirling the watch in his hand, made him a profound bow at the door, and whispered to a girl, who stood in the passage, something, in which the word CULLY was honoured with a particular emphasis.

CHAP. XXVII. His skill in physiognomy is doubted.

AFTER he had been some time amongst the company with whom he had appointed to meet, and the last bottle was cal­led for, he first recollected that he should be again at a loss how to discharge his share of the reckoning. He applied therefore to one of them, with whom he was most intimate, acknowledging that he had not a farthing of money about him; and upon being jocularly asked the reason, acquainted them with the two adventures we have just now related. One of the company asked him, If the old man in Hyde-Park did not wear a brownish coat, with a narrow gold­edging, and his companion an old green frock, with a buff colour­ed waistcoat.

Upon Harley's recollecting that they did; "Then, said he, you may be thankful you have come off so well; they are two as noted [...]harpers, in their way, as any in town, and but [...] other night took me in for a much larger sum: I had some thoughts of applying to a justice, but one does not like to be seen in these matters."

Harley answered, "That he could not but fancy the gentleman was mistaken, as he never saw a face promise more honesty than the old man's he had met with."—"His face!" said a grave­looking man, who sat opposite to him, squirting the juice of his tob [...] obliquely into the grate. There was something very em­phatical in the action; for it was followed by a burst of laughter round the table.

"Gentlemen said Harley, you are disposed to be merry; it may be as you imagine, for I confess myself ignorant of the town: but there is one thing which makes me bear the loss of my money with temper; the young fellow who won it was certainly miserably poor; I observed him borrow money for the stake from his friend; he had distress and hunger in his countenance: be his character what it may, his necessities at least may plead for him.—At this there was a louder laugh than before.

Gentlemen, said the lawyer, one of whose conversations with Harley we have already recorded, here's a very pretty fellow for you: to have heard him talk some nights ago, as I did, you might have sworn he was a saint; yet now he games with sharpers, and loses his money; and is bubbled by a fine story invented by a whore, and pawns his watch; here are sanctified doings with a witness!"

"Young gentleman, said his friend on the other side of the ta­ble, let me advise you to be a little more cautious for the future; and as for faces—you may look into them to know, whether a man's nose be a long or a short one."

CHAP. XXVIII. He keeps his appointment.

THE last night's raillery of his companions was recalled to [...] remembrance when he awoke, and the colder homilies of prudence began to suggest some things which were nowise favourable for a performance of his promise to the unfortunate female he had met with before. He rose uncertain of his purpose; but the torpor of such considerations was seldom prevalent over the warmth of his nature. He walked some turns backwards and for­wards in his room; he recalled the languid form of the fainting wretch to his mind; he wept at the recollection of her tears.

"Though I am the vilest of beings, I have not forgotten every virtue; gratitude, I hope, I shall still have left."—

"He took a larger stride—"Powers of mercy that surround me! cry'd he, do ye not smile upon deeds like these? to calculate the chances of deception is too tedious a business for the life of man!"—The clock struck ten!—When he was got down stairs, he found that he had forgot the note of her lodgings; he gnawed his lips at the delay: he was fairly on the pavement, when he recollected having left his purse; he did but just prevent him­self from articulating an imprecation. He rushed a second time up into his chamber. "What a wretch I am, said he; ere this time perhaps—"It was a perhaps not to be borne:—two vibrations of a pendulum would have served him to lock his bureau;—but they could not be spared.

When he reached the house, and inquired for Miss Atkins, for that was the lady's name, he was shewn up three pair of stairs into a small room lighted by one narrow lattice, and patched round with shreds of different coloured paper. In the darkest corner stood something like a bed, before which a tattered coverlet hung by way of curtain. He had not waited long when she appeared. Her face had the glister of new-washed tears on it.

"I am ashamed, Sir, said she, that you should have taken this fresh piece of trouble about one so little worthy of it; but, to the humane, I know there is a pleasure in goodness for its own sake: if you have patience for the recital of my story, it may palliate, though it cannot excuse, my faults." Harley bowed, as a sign of assent; and she began as follows:

"I am the daughter of an officer, whom a service of forty years had advanced no higher than to the rank of captain. I have had hints from himself, and been informed by others, that it was in some measure owing to those principles of rigid honour, which it was his boast to possess, and which he early inculcated on me, that he had been able to arrive at no better station, My mother died when I was a child; old enough to grieve for her death, but inca­pable of remembering her precepts of advice.

Though my father was doatingly fond of her, yet there were some sentiments in which they materially differed: She had been [Page 28] bred from her infancy in the strictest principles of religion, and took the morality of her conduct from the motives which an ad [...] ­rence to these principles suggested. My father, who had been in the army from his youth, affixed an idea of pusillanimity to that virtue, which was formed by the doctrines excited by the rewards, or guarded by the terrors of revelation; his darling idol was the honour of a soldier; a term which he held in such revere [...]ce, that he commonly used it for his most sacred asseveration.

When my mother died, I was for some time suffered to continue in those sentiments which her instructions had produced; but soon after, though from respect to her memory, my father did not abso­lutely ridicule them, yet he shewed, in his discourse to others, so little regard to them, and, at times, suggested to me motives of action so different, that I was [...]on weaned from opinions, which I began to look on as the dreams of superstition, or the artful in­ventions of designing hypocrisy.

My mother's books were left behind at the different quarters we removed to, and my reading was principally confined to plays, no­vels, and those poetical descriptions of the beauty of virtue and hon­our, which the circulating libraries easily afforded.

"As I was generally reckoned handsome, and the quickness of my parts extolled by all our visitors, my father had a pride in shewing me to the world. I was young, giddy, open to adulation, and vain of those talents which acquired it.

"After the last war, my father was reduced to half-pay; with which we retired to a village in the country, which the acquaint­ance of some genteel families who resided in it, and the cheapness of living, particularly recommended. My father rented a small house, with a piece of ground sufficient to keep a horse for him, and a cow for the benefit of his family.

"An old man servant managed his ground; while a maid, who had formerly been my mother's, and had since been mine, undertook the care of our little dairy: they were assisted in each of their provinces by my father and me, and we passed our time in a state of tranquillity, which he had always talked of with delight, and my train of reading had taught me to admire.

"Though I had never seen the polite circles of the metropolis, the company my father had introduced me into had given me a de­gree of good-breeding, which soon discovered a superiority over the young ladies of our village. I was quoted as an example of politeness, and my company courted by most of the considerable families in the neighbourhood.

"Amongst the houses where I was frequently invited, was Sir George Winbrook's. He had two daughters nearly of my age, with whom, though they had been bred up in those maxims of vul­gar doctrine, which my superior understanding could not but des­pise, yet as their good nature led them to an imitation of my man­ners in every thing else, I cultivated a particular friendship.

[Page 29] "Some months after our first acquaintance, Sir George's eldest son came home from his travels. His figure, his address, and con­versation, were not unlike those warm ideas of an accomplished man which my favourite novels had taught me to form; and his sentiments, on the article of religion, were as liberal as my own: when any of these happened to be the topic of our discourse, I, who before had been silent, from a fear of being single in opposi­tion, now kindled at the fire he raised, and defended our mutual opinions with all the eloquence I was mistress of.

"He was commonly respectfully attentive all the while; and when I had ended, would raise his eyes from the ground, look at me with a gaze of admiration, and express his applause in the high­est strain of encomium. This was an incense the more pleasing, as I seldom or never had met with it before; for the young gentlemen who visited Sir George were for the most part of that athletic or­der, the pleasure of whose lives is derived from fox-hunting: these are seldom solicitous to please the women at all; or if they were, would never think of applying their flattery to the mind.

"Mr. Winbrooke observed the weakness of my soul, and took every occasion of improving the esteem he had gained. He asked my opinion of every author, of every sentiment, with that submis­sive diffidence, which shewed an unlimited confidence, in my un­derstanding. I saw myself reverend, as a superior sort of being, by one whose judgment my vanity told me was not likely to err; preferred by him to all the other visitors of my sex, whose superior fortunes and rank should have entitled them to a much higher degree of notice, I saw their little jealousies at the distinguished attention he paid me; it was gratitude, it was pride, it was love! Love which had made too fatal a progress in my heart, before any declaration on his part should have warrant­ed a return: but I interpreted every look of attention, every ex­pression of compliment, to the passion I imagined him inspired with, and imputed to his sensibility that silence which was the ef­fect of art and design.

"At length, however, he took an opportunity of declaring his love: he now expressed himself in such ardent terms, that prudence might have suspected their sincerity; but prudence is rarely [...] in the situation I had been unguardedly led into; besides, that the course of reading to which I had been accustomed, did not lead me to conclude, that his expressions could be too warm to be sincere: nor was I even alarmed at the manner in which he talked of marriage, a subjection, he often hinted, to which genuine love should scorn to be confined.

"The woman, he would often say, who had me [...]it like mine to fix his affection, could easily command it for ever. That honour too which I revered, was often called in to enforce his sentiments▪ I did not, however, absolutely assent to them; but I found my regard for the opposite ones diminish by degrees. If it is danger­ous [Page 30] to be convinced, it is ever dangerous to listen; for our reason is so much of a machine, that it will not always be able to resist, when the ear is perpetually assailed.

"In short, Mr. Harley, (for I tire you with a relation, the catastrophe of which you will already have imagined) I fell a prey to his artifices. He had not been able so thoroughly to convert me, that my conscience was silent on the subject; but he was so assiduous to shew repeated proofs of unabated affection, that I hushed its suggestions as they rose.

"The world, however, I knew, was not to be silenced; and therefore I took some occasion to express my uneasiness to my se­ducer, and intreat him, as he valued the peace of one to whom he professed such an attachment, to remove it by a marriage. He made an excuse from the dependance he was under on the will of his father, but quieted my fears by the promise of endeavouring to win his assent.

"My father had been some days absent on a journey to see a relation, who was thought to be dying, from whom he had con­siderable expectations. I was left at home, with no other compa­ny than my books: my books I found were not now such compa­nions as they used to be; I was restless, melancholy, unsatisfied with myself. But judge my situation when I received a billet from Mr. Wi [...]brooke, informing me, that he had sounded Sir George on the subject we had talked of, and found him so averse to any match so unequal to his own rank and fortune, that he was obliged, with whatever reluctance, to bid adieu to a place, the remembrance of which should ever be dear to him.

"I read this letter a hundred times over. Alone, helpless, conscious of guilt, and abandoned by every better thought, my mind was one dreadful scene of terror, confusion, and remorse. A thousand expedients suggested themselves, and a thousand fears told me they would be vain: at last, in an agony of despair, I packed up a few clothes, took what money and trinkets were in the house, and set out for London, where I understood he was gone, pretending to my maid, that I had received letters from my father requiring my immediate attendance. I had no other com­panion than a boy, a servant to the man from whom I hired my horses. I arrived in London within an hour of of Mr. Winbrooke, and accidentally alighted at the very inn where he was.

"He started and turned pale when he saw me; but recovered himself in time enough to make many new protestations of regard, and beg me to make myself easy under a disappointment which was equally afflicting to him. He procured me lodgings, where I slept, or rather endeavoured to sleep, for that night. Next morning I saw him again; he then mildly observed on the impru­dence of my precipitate [...]ight from the country, and proposed my removing to lodgings at another end of the town, to elude the search of my father, till he should fall on some method of excusing my conduct to him, and reconciling him to my return. We took a hackney-coach, and drove to the house he mentioned▪

[Page 31] "It was situated in a dirty lane, furnished with a taudry affec­tation of finery, with some old family pictures hanging on walls which their own cobwebs would have better suited. I was struck with a secret dread at entering; nor was it lessened by the appear­ance of the landlady, who had that look of selfish shrewdness, which, of all others, is the most hateful to those whose feelings are untinctured with the world. A girl, who she told us was her niece, sat beside her, playing on a guitar, and she herself was sewing, with the assistance of spectacles, and had a prayer book, with the leaves folded down in several places, lying on the table before her. Perhaps, Sir, I tire you with my minuteness; but the place, and every circumstance about it, is so impressed on my mind, that I shall never forget it.

"I dined that day with Mr. Winbrooke alone. He lost by de­grees that restraint which I perceived too well to hang about him before, and, with his former gaiety and good-humour, repeated the flattering things, which though they had once been fatal, I durst not now distrust. At last, taking my hand and kissing it,

"It is thus, said he, that love will last, while freedom is pre­served; thus let us ever be blest, without the galling thought that we are tied to a condition where we may cease to be so." I answered,

"That the world thought otherwise; that it had certain ideas of good fame, which it was impossible not to wish to maintain."

"The world, said he, is a tyrant; they are slaves who obey it: let us be happy without the pale of the world. To-morrow I shall leave this quarter of it, for one, where the talkers of the world shall be foiled, and lose us. Could not my Emily accompany me? my friend, my companion, the mistress of my soul! Nay, do not look so, Emily! your father may grieve for a while, but your father shall be taken care of; this bank-bill I intend as the com­fort for his daughter."

"I could contain myself no longer: Wretch, I exclaimed, dost thou imagine that my father's heart could brook dependance on the destoryer of his child, and tamely accept of a base equivalent for her honour and his own!" "Honour, my Emily, said he, is the word of fools, or of those wiser men who cheat them. It is a fan­tastic bauble that does not suit the gravity of your father's age; but, whatever it is, I am afraid it can never be perfectly restored to you: exchange the word then, and let pleasure be your object now." At these words he clasped me in his arms, and pressed his lips rudely to my bosom. I started from my seat, "Perfidious villain! said I, who darest insult the weakness thou hast undone; were that father here, thy coward soul would shrink from the ven­geance of his honour! Curst be that wretch who has deprived him of it! oh! doubly curst, who has dragged on his hoary head the infamy which should have crushed her own!" I snatched a knife which lay beside me, and would have plunged it in my breast; but the monster prevented my purpose, and smiling with the g [...]in of barbarous insult, "Madam, said he, I confess you are [Page 32] rather too much in heroics for me: I am sorry we should differ about trifles; but as I seem somehow to have offended you, I would willingly remedy it by taking my leave. You have been put to some foolish expence in this journey on my account; allow me to reimburse you." So saying, he laid a bank-bill, of what amount I had no patience to see, upon the table. Shame, grief, and in­dignation, choaked my utterance; unable to speak my wrongs, and unable to bear them in silence, I fell in a swoon at his feet.

"What happened in the interval I cannot tell; but when I came to myself, I was in the arms of the landlady, with her niece chaffing, my temples, and doing all in her power for my recovery. She had much compassion in her countenance: the old woman as­sumed the softest look she was capable of, and both endeavoured to bring me comfort. They continued to shew me many civilities, and even the aunt began to seem agreeable in my sight. To the wretched, to the forlorn, as I was, small offices of kindness are en­dearing.

"Mean time my money was fast spent, nor did I attempt to conceal my wants from their knowledge. I had frequent thoughts of returning to my father: but the dread of a life of scorn is in­surmountable. I avoided therefore going abroad when I had a chance of being seen by any former acquaintance, nor indeed did my health for a great while permit it; and suffered the old woman, at her own suggestion, to call me niece at home, where we now and then saw (when they could prevail on me to leave my room) one or two other elderly women, and sometimes a grave business­like man, who shewed great compassion for my indisposition, and made me very obligingly an offer of a room at his country-house for the r [...]covery of my health. This offer I did not choose to ac­cept; but told my landlady, "that I should be glad to be employ­ed in any way of business which my skill in needle-work could re­commend me to; confessing, at the same time, that I was afraid I should scarce be able to pay her what I already owed for board and lodging, and that for her other good offices, I had nothing but thanks to give her."

"My dear child, said she, do not talk of paying; since I lost my own sweet girl, (here she wept) your very picture she was, Miss Emily, I have no body, except my niece, to whom I should leave any little thing I have been able to save: you shall live with me, my dear, and I have sometimes a little millinery work, which, when you are inclined to it, you may assist us in. By the way, here are a pair of ruffles we have just finished for that gentleman you saw here at tea; he is a distant relation of mine, and a wor­thy man he is.

"It was a pity you refused his offer of a room at his country-house; my niece, you know, was to have accompanied you, and you might have fancied yourself at home: a most sweet place it is, and but a short mile beyond Hampstead. Who knows Miss Emily, [Page 33] what effects such a visit might have had: if I had half your beau­ty, I should not waste it pining after e'er a worthless fellow of them all."

I felt my heart swell at her words; I would have been angry if I could; but I was in that stupid state which is not easily awakened to anger: when I would have chid her, the reproof stuck in my throat; I could only weep!

"Her want of respect increased, as I had not spirit to assert it; my work was now rather imposed than offered, and I became a drudge for the bread I eat: but my dependance and servility grew in proportion, and I was now in a situation which could not make any extraordinary exertions to disengage itself from either; I found myself with child.

"At last the wretch, who had thus trained me to destruction, hinted the purpose for which these means had been followed. I discovered her to be an artful procuress for the pleasures of those, who are men of decency to the world in the midst of debauchery. I roused every spark of courage within me at the horrid proposal. She treated my passion at first somewhat mildly; but when I con­tinued to exert it, she resented it with insult, and told me plainly, That if I did not soon comply with her desires, I should pay her every farthing I owed, or rot in a gaol for life.

"I trembled at the thought; still, however, I re [...]isted her impor­tunities, and she put her threats in execution. I was conveyed to prison, weak from my condition, weaker from that struggle of grief and misery which for some time I had suffered. A miscar­riage was the consequence.

"Amidst all the horrors of such a state, surrounded with wretch­es callous to feeling, lost alike to humanity and to shame, think, Mr. Harley, think, what I endured: nor wonder that I at last yielded to the solicitations of that miscreant I had seen at her house, and sunk to the prostitution which he offered. But that was happi­ness compared to what I have suffered since. He soon abandoned me to the common use of the town, and I was cast among those miserable beings in whose society I have since remained.

"Oh! did the daughters of virtue know our sufferings! did they see our hearts torn with anguish amidst the affectation of gaie­ty which our faces are obliged to assume! our bodies tortured by disease, our minds with that consciousness which they cannot lose! Did they know, did they think of this, Mr. Harley!—their cen­sures are just; but their pity perhaps might spare the wretches whom their justice should condemn.

"Last night, but for an exertion of benevolence which the in­fection of our infamy prevents even in the humane, had I been thrust out from this miserable place which misfortune has yet left me; exposed to the brutal insults of drunkenness, or dragged by that justice which I could not bribe, to the punishment which may correct, but, alas! can never amend the abandoned objects of its terrors. From that, Mr. Harley, your goodness has relieved me."

[Page 34] He beckoned with his hand; he would have stopped the menti­on of his favours; but he could not speak, had it been to have beg­ged a diadem.

She saw his tears; her [...]ortitude began to fail at the sight, when the voice of some stranger on the stairs awakened her attention. She listened for a moment; then starting up, exclaimed, "Mer­ciful God! my father's voice!"

She had scarce uttered the word, when the door burst open, and a man entered in the garb of an officer. When he discovered his daughter and Harley, he started back a few paces; his look assum­ed a furious wildness! he laid his hand on his sword. The two objects of his wrath did not utter a syllable.

"Villain, he c [...]ied, thou seest a father who had once a daugh­ter's honour to preserve; blasted as it now is, behold him ready to avenge its loss!"

Harley had by this time some power of utterance. "Sir, said he, if you will be a moment calm"—"Infamous coward! interrupted the other, dost thou preach calmness to wrongs like mine?" He drew his sword.

"Sir, said Harley, let me tell you"—The blood ran quicker to his cheek—his pulse beat one—no more—and regained the temperament of humanity!—

"You are deceived, Sir, said he, you are much deceived; but I forgive suspicions which your misfortunes have justified: I would not wrong you, upon my soul I would not, for the dearest gratification of a thousand worlds; my heart bleeds for you!"

His daughter was now prostrate at his feet. "Strik [...], said sh [...] strike here a wretch, whose misery cannot end but with that dea [...] she deserves." Her hair had fallen on her shoulders! her look [...] the horrid calmness of out-breathed despair!

Her father would have spoken; his lip quivered, his cheek gr [...]w pale! his eyes lost the lightening of their fury! there was a re­proach in them, but with a mingling of pity! He turned them up to heaven,—then on his daughter.—He laid his left hand on his heart—the sword dropped from his right—he burst into tears.

CHAP. XXIX. The distresses of a father.

HARLEY kneeled also at the side of his unfortunate daughter; "Allow me, Sir, said he, to intreat your pardon for one whose offences have been already so signally punished. I know, I feel, that these tears, wrung from the heart of a father, are more dreadful to her than all the punishments your sword could have in­flicted: accept the contrition of a child whom heaven has restored to you." "Is she not lost, answered he, irrecoverably lost [...] Damnation! a common prostitute to the meanest ruffian!"—

[Page 35] "Calmly, my dear Sir, said Harley, did you know by what complicated misfortunes she has fallen to that miserable state in which you now behold her, I should have no need of words to ex­cite your compassion. Think, Sir, of what once she was! Would you abandon her to the insults of an unfeeling world, deny her op­portunity for penitence, and cut off the little comfort that still re­mains for your afflictions and her own!"

"Speak, said he, addressing himself to his daughter; speak, I will hear the [...]"—The desperation that supported her was lost; she fell to the ground, and bathed his feet with her tears!

Harley undertook her cause: he related the treacheries to which she had fallen a sacrifice, and again solicited the forgiveness of her father. He looked on her for some time in silence; the pride of a soldier's honour checked for a while the yearnings of his heart: but nature at last prevailed, he fell on her neck, and mingled his tears with hers. Harley, who discovered from the dress of the stranger that he was just arrived from a journey, begged that they would both remove to his lodgings, till he could procure others for them. Atkins looked at him with some marks of sur­prise. His daughter now first recovered the power of speech:

"W [...]etch as I am, said she, yet there is some gratitude due to the preserver of your child. See him now before you. To him I owe my l [...]e, or at least the comfort of imploring your forgiveness before I [...]."

"Pardon me, young gentleman, said Atkins, I fear my passi­on wronged you."

"Never, never, Sir, said Harley; if it had, your reconciliati­on to your daughter were an atonement a thousand fold." He then repeated his request that he might be allowed to conduct them to his lodgings, to which Mr. Atkins at last consented.

He took his daughter's arm, "Come, my Emily, said he, we can never, never recover that happiness we have lost; but time may teach us to remember our misfortunes with patience."

When they arrived at the house where Harley lodged, he was in­formed, that the first floor was then vacant, and that the gentle­man and his daughter might be accommodated there. While he was upon this inquiry, Miss Atkins informed her father more par­ticularly what she owed to his benevolence. When he returned in­to the room where they were, Atkins ran and embraced him; begged him again to forgive the offence he had given him, and made the warmest protestations of gratitude for his favours. We would attempt to describe the joy which Harley felt on this occasi­on, did it not occur to us, that one half of the world could not un­derstand it though we did; and the other half will, by this time, have understood it without any description at all.

Miss Atkins now retired to her chamber, to take some rest from the violence of these emotions she had suffered. When she was gone, her father, addressing himself to Harley, said, "You have a right, Sir. to be informed of the present situation of one who [Page 36] owes so much to your compassion for his misfortunes. My daugh­ter I find has informed you what that was at the fatal period when they began.

Her distresses you have heard, you have pitied as they deserved; mine perhaps I cannot so easily make you acquainted with. You have a feeling heart, Mr. Harley; I bless it that it has saved my child; but you never were a father; a father torn by that most dreadful of calamities, the dishonour of a child he doated on! You have been already informed of some of the circumstances of her elopement.

I was then from home, called by the death of a relation, who, though he would never advance me a shilling on the utmost exigen­cy in his life-time, left me all the gleanings of his frugality at his death. I would not write this intelligence to my daughter, be­cause I intended to be the bearer of the news myself; and soon as my business would allow me, I set out on my return, winged with all the haste of paternal affection. I fondly built those schemes of future happiness, which the flattery of present prosperity is ever busy to suggest: my Emily was concerned in them all.

As I approached our little dwelling, my heart throbbed with the anticipation of joy and welcome. I imagined the cheering sire, the blissful contentment of a frugal meal, made luxurious by a daughter's smiles: I painted to myself her surprize at the tidings of our new-acquired riches, our fond disputes about the dispo [...]l of them.

"The road was shortened by the dreams of happiness I enjoyed, and it began to de dark as I reached the house: I alighted from my horse, and walked softly up stairs to the room we commonly sat in. I was somewhat disappointed at not finding my daughter there. I rung the bell; her maid appeared, and shewed no small signs of wonder at the summons. She blessed herself as she entered the room: I smiled at her surprize. "Where is Miss Emily, Sir?" said she, "Emily!" "Yes, Sir; she has been gone from hence some days, upon receipt of these letters you sent her." "Let­ters!" said I. "Yes, Sir; so she told me, and went off in all haste that very night."

"I stood aghast as she spoke; but was able so far to recollect myself, as to put on the affectation of calmness, and telling her there was certainly some mistake in the affair, desired her to leave me.

"When she was gone, I threw myself into a chair in that state of uncertainty which is of all others the most dreadful. The gay visions I had delighted myself with, vanished in an instant: I was tortured with tracing back the same circle of doubt and disappoint­ment. My head grew dizzy, as I thought: I called the servant again, and asked [...]er a hundred questions to no purpose; there was not room even for conjecture.

"Something [...] last arose in my mind, which we call Hope, without knowing what it was. I wished myself deluded by it; [Page 37] but it could not prevail over my returning fears. I rose and walked through the room. My Emily's spinet stood at the end of it, open▪ with a book of music folded down at some of my favourite lessons▪ I touched the keys; there was a vibration in the sound that fro [...] my blood: I looked round, and methought the family-pictures on the walls gazed on me with compassion in their faces. I sat down again with an attempt at more composure; I started at every creaking of the door, and my ears rung with imaginary noises!

"I had not remained long in this situation, when the arrival of a friend, who had accidentally heard of my return, put an end to my doubts, by the recital of my daughter's dishonour. He told me he had his information from a young gentleman, to whom Winbrooke had boasted of his having seduced her.

"I started from my seat, with broken curses on my lips, and without knowing whither I should pursue them, ordered my servant to load my pistol, and saddle my horses. My friend, however▪ with great difficulty persuaded me to compose myself for that night▪ promising to accompany me on the morrow to Sir George Win­brooke's in quest of his son.

"The morrow came, after a night spent in a state little distant from madness. We went as early as decency would allow to Sir George's; he received me with politeness, and indeed compassion▪ protested his abhorrence of his son's conduct, and told me tha [...] he had set out some days before for London, on which place he had procured a draught for a large sum, on pretence of finishing his travels; but that he had not heard from him since his departure.

"I did not wait for any more, either of information [...] comfort, but against the united remonstrances of Sir George and my friend, set out instantly for London with a frantic uncertainty of purposes but there all manner of search was in vain. I could trace [...]either of them any farther than the inn they first put up at on their arrival▪ and after some days fruitless enquiry, returned home destitute of every little hope that had hitherto supported me. The journies I had made, the restless nights I had spent, above all, the pert [...] ­bation of my mind, had the effect which might naturally be ex­pected; a very dangerous fever was the consequence.

"From this, however, contrary to the expectation of my phy­sicians, I recovered. It was new that I first felt something [...] calmness of mind; probably from being reduced to a state which could not produce the exer [...]ions of anguish or despair. A [...] melancholy settled on my soul▪ I could endure to live with [...] apathy of life; a [...] times I forgot my resentment, and wept at the remembrance of my child.

"Such has been the [...] of my days since that fatal period wh [...] these misfortunes began, till yesterday, that I received a letter [...] a friend in town, [...] present situation. Could such tales as mine, Mr. Harley, be sometimes suggested to the daughters of levity, did they but knew with what anxiety the heart [Page 38] of a parent flutters round the child he loves, they would be less apt to construe into harshness that delicate concern for their conduct, which they often complain of as laying restraint upon things, to the young, the gay, and the thoughtless, seemingly harmless and indifferent. Alas! I fondly imagined that I needed not even these common cautions! my Emily was the joy of my age, and the pride of my soul!—These things are now no more! they are lost for ever! Her death I could have borne! but-the death of her honour has added obloquy and shame to that sorrow which bends my grey hairs to the dust!"

As he spoke these last words, his voice trembled in his throat; it was now lost in his tears! He sat with his face half turned from Harley, as if he would have hid the sorrow which he felt. Harley was in the same attitude himself; he durst not meet his eye with a tear; but gathering his stifled breath, "Let me intreat you, Sir, said he, to hope better things. The world is ever tyrannical; it warps our sorrows to edge them with keener affliction: let us not be slaves to the names it affixes to motive or to action. I know an ingenuous mind cannot help feeling when they sting: but these are considerations by which it may be overcome; its fantastic ideas vanish as they rise; they teach us—to look beyond it."

CHAP. XXXIII. He leaves London.—Characters in a stage-coach.

THE company in the stage-coach consisted of a grocer and his wife, who were going to pay a visit to some of their country friends; a young officer, who took this way of marching to quar­ters; a middle-aged gentlewoman, who had been hired as a house-keeper to some family in the country; and an elderly well looking man, with a remarkably old fashioned periwig.

Harley, upon entering, discovered but one vacant seat, next the grocer's wife, which, from his natural shyness of temper, he made no scruple to occupy, though he knew that being driven back­wards disagreed with him.

Though his inclination to physiognomy had met with some rubs in the metropolis, he had not yet lost his attachment to that science: he set himself therefore to examine the countenances of his compan­ions, as usual. In this indeed he was not long in doubt as to the preference; for besides that the elderly gentleman, who sat oppo­site [Page 40] are to him, had features by nature more expressive of good disposi­tions, there was something in that periwig we mentioned peculiar­ly attractive of Harley's regard.

He had not been long employed in these speculations, when he [...]ound himself attacked with that faintish sickness, which was the natural consequence of his situation [...] coach. The paleness of his countenance was first observed by the house keeper, who imme­diately made offer of her smelling bottle, which Harley however [...]ined, telling at the same time the cause of his uneasiness. The gentleman on the opposite side of the coach now first turned his [...] from the [...]ide direction in which it had been fixed, and begged Harley to exchange places w [...]h him, expressing his regret that he [...] not made the proposal before. Harley thanked him; and up­on being assured that both seats were alike to him, was about to accept of his offer, when the young gentleman of the sword, put­ [...] on an arch look, laid hold of the other's arm, "So, my old [...]oy, said he, I find you have still some youthful blood about you, [...], with your leave, I will do myself the honour of sitting by this [...]" and took his place accordingly. The grocer stared him as [...]all in the face as his own short neck would allow of; and his wife, who was a little round faced woman, with a great deal of colour [...] her cheeks, drew up at the compliment that was paid her, look­ing first at the officer, and then at the house-keeper.

"This incident was prod [...]uctive of some discourse; for before, though there was sometimes a cough or [...]em from the grocer, and [...] officer now and then hummed a few notes of a song, there had [...]ot a single word passed the lips of any of company.

Mrs. Grocer observed, how ill-convenient it was for people, who could not be drove backwards, to travel in astage-coach. This [...]ought on a differtion on stage coaches in general, and the plea­ [...]are of keeping a chay of one's own; which led to another, on the great riches of Mr. Deputy Bearskin, who according to her, [...] once been of that industrious order of youths who sweep the crossings of the streets for the conveniency of passengers, but, by various fortunate accidents, had now acquired an immense fortune, and kept his coach and a dozen livery-servants.

All this afforded ample fund for conversation, if conversation it might, be called, that was carried on solely by the before-mentioned lady, nobody offering to interrupt her, except that the officer sometimes signified his approbation by a variety of oaths, a sort of phraseology he seemed extremely conversant in.

She appealed indeed frequently to her husband as to the authen­ticity of certain facts, which the good man as often protested his entire ignorance of; but as he was always called fool, or some­thing very like it, for his pains, he at last contrived to assist the credit of his wife without prejudice to his conscience, and signifi­ed his assent by a noise not unlike the grunting of that animal which in shape and fatness he somewhat resembled. The house-keeper, and the old gentleman who sat next to Harley, were now [Page 41] observed to be fast asleep; at which the lady, who had been at such pains to entertain them, muttered some words of displeasure, and, upon the officer's whispering to smoak the old put, both she and her husband pursed up their mouths into a contemptuous smile, Harley looked sternly on the grocer: "You are come, Sir, said he, to those years when you might have learned some reverence for age: as for this young man, who has so lately escaped from the nursery, he may be allowed to divert himself." "Dam'me, Sir, said the officer, do you call me young?" striking up the front of his hat, and stretching forward on his seat, till his face almost touched Harley's. It is probable, however, that he discovered something there which tended to pacify him; for, on the lady's in­treating them not to quarrel, he very soon resumed his posture and calmness together, and was rather less profuse of his oaths during the rest of the journey. It is possible the old gentleman had waked time enough to hear the last part of this discourse; at least (whether from that cause, or that he too was a physiognomist) he wore a look remarkably complacent to Harley, who, on his part, shewed a particular observance of him: indeed they had soon a better opportunity of making their acquaintance, as the coach arrived that night at the town where the officer's regiment lay, and the places of destination of their other fellow-travellers, it seems, were at no great distance; for next morning the old gen­tleman and Harley were the only passengers remaining.

When they left the inn in the morning, Harley, pulling out a little pocket book, began to examine the contents, and make some corrections with a pencil. "This, said he, turning to his com­panion, is an amusement I sometimes pass idle hours at an inn with: these are quotations from those humble poets, who trust their fame to the brittle tenure of windows and drinking-glasses."

"From our inns, returned the gentleman, a stranger might ima­gine that we were a nation of poets; machines at least, which con­strained with the motion of a journey emptied of their contents: is it from the vanity of being thought men of genius, or a mere mechanical imitation of the custom of others, that we are led to scrawl rhime upon such places?"

"Whether vanity is the cause of our becoming rhimesters or not, answered Harley, it is a pretty certain effect of it. An old man of my acquaintance, who deals in apophthegms, used to say, That he had known few men without envy, few wits without ill-nature, and no poet without vanity; and I believe his remark is a pretty just one: vanity has been immemorially the charter of poets. In this the ancients were more honest than we are; the old poets fre­quently make boastful predictions of the immortality their works shall acquire them; ours, in their dedications and prefatory dis­courses, employ much eloquence to praise their patrons, with much seeming modesty to condemn themselves, or at least to apologize for their productions to the world: but this, in my opinion, is the most assuming manner of the two; for of all the garbs, I ever [Page 42] saw pride put on, that of her humility is to me the most disgust­ing."

"It is natural enough for a poet to be vain, said the stranger: the little worlds which he raises, the inspiration which he claims, may easily be productive of self-importance; though that inspirati­on is fabulous, it brings on egotism, which is always the parent of vanity."

"It may be supposed, answered Harley, that inspiration of old was an article of religious faith; in modern times it may be translated a propensity to compose; and I believe it is not always most readily found where the poets have fixed its residence, amidst groves and plains, and the scenes of pastoral retirement. The mind may be there unb [...] from the cares of the world; but it will fre­quently, at the same time, be unnerved from any great exertion: it will feel imperfect ideas which it cannot express, and wander without effort over the regions of reflection."

"There is at least, said the stranger, one advantage in the poe­tical inclination, that it is an incentive to philanthrophy. There is a certain poetical ground, on which a man cannot tread without feelings that enlarge the heart, the causes of human depravity vanish before the romantic enthusiasm he profestes; and many who are not able to reach the Parnassian heights, may yet approach so near as to be bettered by the air of the climate."

"I have always thought so, replied Harley; but this is an ar­gument with the prudent against it: they urge the danger of unfit­ness for the world."

"I allow it, returned the other; but I believe it is not always rightfully imputed to the bent for poetry: this is only one effect of the common cause.—Jack, says his father, is indeed no scholar; nor could all the drubbings from his master ever bring him one bit forward in his grammar or his syntax: but I intend him for a merchant.—Allow the same indulgence to Tom.—

"Tom reads Virgil and Horace when he should be casting ac­compts; and but t'other day he pawned his great coat for an edi­tion of Shakespeare.—But Tom would have been as he is, though Virgil and Horace had never been born, though Shakespeare had died a link boy; for his nurse will tell you, that when he was a child, he broke his rattle, to discover what it was that sounded within it; and burnt the sticks of his go-cart, because le liked to see the sparkling of timber in the fire.—

"It is a sad case; but what is to be done?—Why Jack shall grow rich, dine on venison, and drink claret.—Ay, but Tom—Tom shall dine with his brother, when his pride will let him; at other times, he shall bless God over a half-pint of ale and a Welsh­rabbit; and both shall go to heaven as they may.—That's a poor prospect for Tom, says the father.—To go to heaven! I cannot agree with him."

"Perhaps, said Harley, we now a-days discourage the romantic turn a little too much. Our boys are prudent too soon. Mistake [Page 43] me not, I do not mean to blame them for want of levity or dissipa­tion; but their pleasures are those of hackneyed vice, blunted to every finer emotion by the repetition of debauch; and their desire of pleasure is warped to the desire of wealth, as the means of pro­curing it.

"The immense riches acquired by individuals has erected a standard of ambition, destructive of private morals, and of public virtue. The weaknesses of vice are left us; but the most allow­able of our failings we are taught to despise. Love, the passion most natural to the sensibility of youth, has lost the plaintive digni­ty he once possessed, for the unmeaning simper of a dangling cox­comb; and the only serious concern, that of a dowry, is settled, even amongst the beardless leaders of the dancing-school The Frivolous and the Interested (might a satyrist say) are the character­istical features of the age; they are visible even in the essays of our philosophers.

"They laugh at the pedantry of our fathers, who complained of the times in which they lived; they are at pains to persuade us how much these were deceived; they pride themselves in defending things as they find them, and in exploding the barren sounds which had been reared into motives for action. To this their stile is suited; and the manly tone of reason is exchanged for perpetu­al efforts at sneer and ridicule. This I hold to be an alarming crisis in the corruption of a state; when not only is virtue declined and vice prevailing, but when the praises of virtue are forgotten, and the infamy of vice unfelt."

They soon after arrived at the next inn upon the route of the stage coach, when the stranger told Harley, that his brother's house to which he was returning, lay at no great distance, and he must therefore unwillingly bid him adieu.

"I should like, said Harley, taking his hand, to have some word to remember so much seeming worth by: my name is Har­ley."—"I shall remember it answered the old gentleman, in my prayers: mine is Silton."

And Silton indeed it was; Ben Silton himself! Once more, my honoured friend, farewell!—Born to be happy without the world, to that peaceful happiness which the world has not to bestow! En­vy never scowled on thy life, nor hatred smiled on thy grave.

CHAP. XXXIV. He meets an old acquaintance.

WHEN the stage coach arrived at the place of its destination, Harley began to consider how he should proceed the re­maining part of his journey. He was very civilly accosted by the master of the inn where he alighted, who offered to accomodate him either with a post-chaise or horses, to any distance he had a [Page 44] mind: but as he did things frequently in a way different from what other people call natural, he refused these offers, and set out immediately a foot, having first put a spare shirt in his pocket, and given directions for the forwarding of his portmanteau.

This was a method of travelling which he was accustomed to take; it saved the trouble of provision for any animal but himself, and left him at liberty to choose his quarters, either at an inn, or at the first cottage in which he saw a face he liked: nay, when he was not peculiarly attracted by the reasonable creation, he would sometimes consort with a species of an inferior rank, and lay him­self down to sleep by the side of a rock, or on the banks of a rivu­let. He did few things without a motive, but his motives were ra­ther eccentric; and the useful and expedient were terms which he held to be very indefinite, and which therefore he did not always apply to the sense they are commonly understood in.

The sun was now in his decline, and the evening remarkably se­rene, when he entered a hollow part of the road, which winded between the surrounding banks, and seamed the sward in different lines, as the choice of travellers had directed them to tread it. It seemed to be little frequented now, for some of these had partly recovered their former verdure. The scene was such as induced Harley to stand and enjoy it; when, turning round, his notice was attracted by an object, which the fixture of his eye on the spot he walked had before prevented him from observing.

An old man, who from his dress seemed to have been a soldier, lay fast asleep on the ground; a knapsack was rested on a stone at his right hand, while his staff and brass hilted sword were crossed at his left.

Harley looked on him with the most earnest attention. He was one of those figures which Salvator would have drawn; nor was the surrounding scenery unlike the wildness of that painter's back­grounds. The banks on each side were covered with fantastic shrub-wood, and at a little distance, on the top of one of them, stood a finger post, to mark the directions of two roads which di­verged from the point where it was placed. A rock, with some dangling wild flowers, jutted out above where the soldier lay, on which grew the stump of a large tree, white with age, and a single twisted branch shaded his face as he slept. His face had the marks of manly comeliness impaired by time; his forehead was not altogether bald, but its hairs might have been numbered; while a few white locks behind crossed the brown of his neck with a contrast the most venerable to a mind like Harley's.

"Thou art old, said he to himself, but age has not brought thee rest for its infirmities; I fear these silver hairs have not found shelter from thy country, though that neck has been bronzed in its service." The stranger waked. He looked on Harley with the appearance of some confusion: it was a pain which he knew too well to think of causing in another; he turned and went on. The old man re-adjusted his knapsack, and fellowed in one of the tracts on the opposite side of the road.

[Page 45] When Harley heard the tread of his feet behind him, he could not help stealing back a glance at his fellow-traveller. He seem­ed to bend under the weight of his knapsack: he halted on his walk, and one of his arms was supported by a sling, and lay mo­tionless across his breast. He had that steady look of sorrow which indicates that its owner has gazed upon his griefs till he has forgotten to lament them; yet not without those streaks of com­placency, which a good mind will sometimes throw into the coun­tenance, through all the incumbent [...] of its depression.

He had now advanced nearer to Harley, and, with an uncertain sort of voice, begged to know what it was o'clock; "I fear, said he, sleep has beguiled me of my time, and I shall hardly have light enough left to carry me to the end of my journey." "Father! said Harley, (who by this time sound the romantic enthusiasm ri­sing within him) how far do you mean to go!" "But a little way, Sir, returned the other; and indeed it is but a little way I can manage now: it is just four miles from the height to the vil­lage where I am going." "I am going there too, said Harley; we may make the road shorter to one another. You seem to have served your country, Sir, to have served it hardly too; it is a cha­racter I have the highest esteem for.—I would not be impertinently inquisitive; but there is that in your appearance which excites my curiosity to know something more of you: in the mean time suffer me to carry that knapsack."

The old man gazed on him; a tear stood in his eye! "Young gentleman, said he, you are too good; may heaven bless you for an old man's sake, who has nothing but his blessing to give! but my knapsack is so familiar to my shoulders, that I should walk the worse for wanting it; and it would be troublesome to you, who have not been used to its weight." "Far from it, answered Harley, I should tread the lighter; it would be the most honourable badge I ever wore."

"Sir, said the stranger, who had looked earnestly in Harley's face during the last part of his discourse, is not your name Harley?" "It is, replied he; I am ashamed to say I have forgotten your's." "You may well have forgotten my face, said the stranger, it is a long time since you saw it; but possibly you may remember some­thing of old Edwards."—"Edwards! cried Harley, Oh! heavens! and sprung to embrace him; let me clasp those knees on which I have sat so often: Edwards!—I shall never forget that fire side, round which I have been so happy! But where, where have you been? where is Jack? where is your daughter? How has it fared with them, when fortune, I fear, has been so unkind to you?"—"It is a long tale, replied Edwards; but I will try to tell it you as we walk.

"When you was at school in the neighbourhood, you remem­ber me at South- [...] that farm had been possessed by my father, grandfather, and great grandfather, which last was a younger brother of that very man's ancestor who is now lord of the manor. I thought I managed it as they had done, with prudence; I paid [Page 46] my rent regularly as it became due, and had always as much be­hind as gave bread to me and my children. But my last lease was out soon after you left that part of the country; and the squire, who had lately got a London attorney for his steward, would not renew it, because, he said, he did not choose to have any farm under 300l. a year value on his estate; but offered to give me the preference on the same terms with another, if I choose to take the one he had marked out, of which mine was a part.

"What could I do, Mr. Harley? I feared the undertaking was too great for me; yet to leave, at my age, the house I had lived in from my cradle! I could not, Mr. Harley, I could not; there was not a tree about it that I did not look on as my father, my brother, or my child: so I even ran the risque, and took the squire's offer of the whole. But I had soon reason to repent of my bargain: the steward had taken care that my former farm should be the best land of the division: I was obliged to hire more ser­vants, and I could not have my eye over them all; some unfavour­able seasons followed one another, and I found my affairs entang­ling on my hands.

"To add to my distress, a considerable corn-factor turned bank­rupt with a sum of mine in his possession: I failed paying my rent so punctually as I was wont to do, and the same steward had my stock taken in execution in a few days after. So, Mr. Harley, there was an end of my prosperity. However, there was as much produced from the sale of my effects as paid my debts, and saved me from a gaol: I thank God I wronged no man, and the world could never charge me with dishonesty.

"Had you seen us, Mr. Harley, when we were turned out of South-hill, I am sure you would have wept at the sight. You re­member old Trusty, my shag house▪ dog; I shall never forget it while I live; the poor creature was blind with age, and could scarce crawl after us to the door; he went however as far as the gooseberry-bush; that you may remember stood on the left hand of the yard; he was wont to bask in the sun there: when he had reached that spot, he stopped; we went on: I called to him, he wagged his tail, but did not stir: I called again; he lay down: I whistled, and cried Trusty, he gave a short howl, and died! I could have lain down and died too, but God gave me strength to live for my children."

The old man now paused a moment to take breath. He looked on Harley's face; it was bathed in 'tears: it was a tale he had been accustomed to think often on; he dropped one tear and no more.

"Though I was poor, continued he, I was not altogether with­out credit. A gentleman in the neighbourhood, who had a small farm unoccupied at the time, offered to let me have it, on giving security for the rent, which I made shift to procure. It was a piece of ground which needed management to make any thing of; but it was nearly within the compass of my son's labour and my own. We exerted all our industry to bring it into some heart. We be­gan [Page 47] to succeed tolerably well, and▪ lived contented on its produce, when an unlucky accident brought us under the displeasure of a neighbouring justice of the peace, and broke all our family happi­ness again.

"My son was a remarkable good shooter; he had always kept a pointer on our former farm, and thought no harm in doing so now; when one day, having sprung a covey of birds on our own ground, the dog, of his own accord, followed them into the jus­tice's. My son laid down his gun, and went after his dog to bring him back: the game keeper, who had marked the birds, came up, and seeing the pointer, shot him just as my son approached. The creature fell; my son ran up to him: he died with a complaining sort of cry at his master's feet. Jack could bear it no longer; but flying at the game-keeper, wrenched his gun out of his hand, and with the butt-end of it felled him to the ground.

"He had scarce got home, when a constable came with a war­rant, and dragged him to prison; there he lay, for the justices would not take bail, till he was tried at the quarter-sessions for the assault and battery. His fine was ha [...]d upon us to pay; we con­trived however to live the worse for it, and make up the loss by our frugality: but the justice was not content with that punishment, and soon after had an opportunity of punishing us indeed.

"An officer with press-orders came down to our county, and having met with the justices, agreed that they should pitch on a certain number, who could most easily be spared from the county, whom he would take care to make it rid of: my son's name was in the justice's list.

"It was on a Christmas-eve, and the birth-day too of my son's little boy. The night was piercing cold, and it blew a storm, with showers of hail and snow. We had made up a cheering fire in an inner room; I sat before it in my wickerchair, blessing Pro­vidence, that had still left a shelter for me and my children. My son's two little ones were holding their gambols around us; my heart warmed at the sight; I brought a bottle of my best ale, and all our misfortunes were forgotten.

"It had long been our custom to play a game at blind man's buff on that night, and it was not omitted now; so to it we fell, I, and my son, and his wife, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, who happened to be with us at the time, the two children, and an old maid servant, that had lived with me from a child. The lot fell on my son to be blindfolded: we had continued some time in our game, when he groped his way into an outer-room in pur­suit of some of us, who, he imagined, had taken shelter there; we kept snug in our places, and enjoyed his mistake. He had not been long there, when he was suddenly seized from behind; "I shall have you now," said he, and turned about. "Shall you so, master, answered the ruffian who had laid hold of him; we shall make you play at another sort of game by and by."—At these words Harley started with a convulsive sort of motion, and grasp­ing [Page 48] Edwards's sword, drew it half out of the scabbard, with a look of the most frantic wildness. Edwards gently replaced it in its sheath, and went on with his relation.

"On hearing these words in a strange voice, we all rushed out to discover the cause; the room by this time was almost full of the gang. My daughter-in-law fainted at the sight, the maid and I ran to assist her, while my poor son remained motionless, gazing by turns on his children and their mother. We soon recovered her to life, and begged her to retire and wait the issue of the affair, but she flew to her husband, and clung round him in an agony of grief and terror▪

"Amongst the gang there was one of a smoother aspect, whom, by his dress, we discovered to be a serjeant of foot: he came up to me, and told me, that my son had his choice of the sea or land service, whisper­ing at the same time, that if he choose the land, he might get off, on procuring him another man, and paying a certain sum for his freedom. The money we could just muster up in the house, by the assistance of the maid, who produced, in a green bag, all the little savings of her ser­vice; but the man we could not expect to find. My daughter in▪law gazed upon her children with a look of the wildest despair: "My poor infants! said she, your father is forced from you; who shall now la­bour for your bread? or must your mother beg for herself and you?" I prayed her to be patient; but comfort I had none to give her. At last, calling the serjeant aside, I asked him, If I was too old to be ac­cepted of in place of my son?" "Why, I don't know, said he; you are rather old to be sure, but yet the money may do much." "I put the money in his hand; and coming back to my children, "Jack, said I, you are free; live to give your wife and these little ones bread; I will go, my child, in your stead: I have but little life to lose, and if I staid, should add one to the wretches you left behind."

"No, replied my son, I am not that coward you imagine me; hea­ven forbid, that my father's grey hairs should be so exposed, while I sat idle at home; I am young, and able to endure much, and God will take care of you and my family." "Jack, said I, I will put an end to this matter; you have never hitherto disobeyed me; I will not be con­tradicted in this; stay at home, I charge you, and, for my sake, be kind to my children."

"Our parting, Mr. Harley, I cannot describe to you; it was the first time we had ever parted: the very press gang could scarcely keep from tears; but the serjeant, who had seemed the softest before, was now the least moved of them all. He conducted me to a party of new raised recruits, who lay at village in the neighbourhood; and we soon after joined the regiment. I had not been long with it, when we were ordered to the East Indies, where I was soon made a serjeant, and might have picked up some money, if my heart had been as hard as some others were; but my nature was never of that kind, that could think of making rich at the expence of my conscience.

"Amongst our prisoners was an old Indian, whom some of our officers supposed to have a treasure hidden some-where, which is not [Page 49] an uncommon practice in that country. They pressed him to discover it. He declared he had none; but that would not satisfy them: so they or­dered him to be tied to a stake, and suffer fifty lashes every morning, till he should learn to speak out as they said. Oh! Mr. Harley, had you seen him, as I did, with his hands bound behind him, suffering in silence, while the big drops trickled down his shrivelled cheeks, and wet his grey beard which some of the inhuman soldiers plucked in scorn! I could not bear it, I could not for my soul; and one morning, when the rest of the guard were out of the way, I found means to let him escape. I was tried by a court-martial for negligence of my post, and ordered, in compassion of my age, and having got this wound in my arm, and that in my leg, in the service, only to suffer 300 lashes, and be turned out of the regiment; but my sentence was mitigated as to the lashes, and I only had 200.

When I had suffered these, I was turned out of the camp, and had betwixt three and four hundred miles to travel before I could reach a sea-p [...]t, without guide to conduct me, or money to buy me provisions by the way. I set out however, resolved to walk as far as I could, and then to lay myself down and die. But I had scarce gone a mile, when I was met by the Indian whom I had delivered. He pressed me in his arms, and kissed the marks of the lashes on my back a thousand times: he led me to a little hut, where some friend of his dwelt, and after I was recovered of my wounds, conducted me so far on my journey him­self, and sent another Indian to guide me through the rest. When we parted, he pulled out a purse with two hundred pieces of gold in it: "Take this, said he, my dear preserver, it is all I have been able to procure."

"I begged him not to bring himself to poverty for my sake, who should probably have no need of it long;" but he insisted o [...] my accept­ing it. He embraced me.—"You are an Englishman, said he, but the Great Spirit has given thee an Indian heart; may he bear up the weight of your old age, and blunt the arrow that brings it rest!" We parted; and not long after I made shift to get my passage to Eng­land. It is but about a week since I landed, and I am going to end my days in the arms of my son. This sum may be of use to him and his children; it is all the value I put on it. I thank heaven I never was covetous of wealth; I never had much, but was always so happy as to be contented with my little."

When Edwards had ended his relation, Harley stood for a while looking at him in silence; at last he pressed him in his arms, and when he had given went to the fullness of his heart by a shower of tears, "Edwards, said he, let me hold thee to my bosom; let me imprint the virtue of thy sufferings on my soul. Come, my honoured veteran! let me endeavour to soften the last days of a life, worn out in the service of humanity: call me also your son, and let me cherish you as a father." Edwards, from whom the recollection of his own sufferings had scarce forced a tear, now blubbered like a boy; he could not speak his grati­tude, but by some short exclamations of blessings upon Harley.

CHAP. XXXV. He misses an old acquaintance.—An adventure consequent upon it.

WHEN they had arrived within a little way of the village they journeyed to, Harley stopped short, and looked sted­fastly on the mouldering walls of a ruined house that stood on the road-side: "Oh heavens! he cried, what do I see! silent, un­roofed, and desolate! Are all thy gay tenants gone; do I hear their hum no more; Edwards, look there, look there! the scene of my infant joys, my earliest friendships, laid waste and ruin­ous! That was the very school where I was boarded when you were at South-hill: it is but a twelvemonth since I saw it standing, and its benches filled with little cherubims: that opposite side of the road was the green on which they sported; see it now plough­ed up! I would have given fifty times its value to have saved it from the sacrilege of that plow."

"Dear Sir, replied Edwards, perhaps they have left it from choice, and may have got another spot as good." "They cannot, said Harley, they cannot; I shall never see the sward covered with its daisies, nor pressed by the dance of the dear innocents: I shall never see that stump decked with the garlands which their little hands had gathered. These two long stones which now lie at the foot of it, were once the supports of a hut I myself assisted to rear: I have sat on the sods within it, when we had spread our banquet of apples before us, and been more blest.—Oh! Edwards! in­finitely more blest than ever I shall be again."

Just then a woman passed them on the road, and discovered some signs of wonder at the attitude of Harley, who stood, with his hands folded together, looking with a moistened eye on the fallen pillars of the hut. He was too much intranced in thought to ob­serve her at all; but Edwards civilly accosting her, desired to know, if that had not been the school-house, and how it came into that condition they now saw it in? "Alack a-day! said she, it was the school-house indeed; but to be sure, Sir, the squire has pulled it down, because it stood in the way of his prospects."—"What! how! prospects! pulled down! cried Harley."—Yes, to be sure, Sir; and the green, where the children used to play, he has ploughed up, because, he said, they hurt his fence on the other side of it."—"Curses on his narrow heart, cried Harley, that could violate a right so sacred! Heaven blast the wretch!

But I need not, Edwards, I need not, (recovering himself a little) he is cursed enough already: to him the noblest source of happi­ness is denied; and the cares of his sordid soul shall g [...]aw it, while [Page 51] thou sittest over a brown crust, smiling on these mangled limbs that have saved your son and his children!" "If you want any thing with the school mistress, Sir, said the woman, I can shew you the way to her house." He followed her without knowing whither he went.

They stopped at the door of a snug-looking house, where sat an elderly woman with a boy and a girl before her, with each a supper of bread and milk in their hands. "There, Sir, is the school-mistress."—"Madam, said Harley, was not an old venerable-looking man school-master here some time ago?" "Yes, Sir, he was; poor man! the loss of his former school-house, I believe, broke his heart, for he died soon after it was taken down; and as another has not yet been found, I have that charge in the mean time."—"And this boy and girl, I presume, are your pupils?"—"Ay, Sir, they are poor orphans, put under my care by the parish; and more promising children I never saw." "Orphans!" said Harley. "Yes, Sir, of honest creditable parents as any in the parish; and it is a shame for some folks to forget their relations, at a time when they have most need to remember them."—"Madam, said Harley, let us never forget that we are all relati­ons." He kissed the children.

"Their father, Sir, continued she, was a farmer here in the neighbourhood, and a sober industrious man he was; but nobody can help misfortunes; what with bad crops, and bad debts, which are worse, his affairs went to wreck, and both he and his wife died of broken hearts. And a sweet couple they were, Sir; there was not a properer man to look on in the county than John Ed­wards, and so indeed were all the Edwardses." "What Edward­ses?" cried the old soldier hastily "The Edwardses of South-hill; and a worthy family they were."—"South-hill!" said he in a languid voice, and fell back into the arms of the astonished Harley.

The school-mistress ran for some water, and a smelling-bottle, with the assistance of which they soon recovered the unfortunate Edwards. He stared wildly for some time, then folding his orphan grand-children in his arms, "Oh! my children, my children! he cried, have I found you thus? My poor Jack! art thou gone? I thought thou shouldest have carried thy father's grey hairs to the grave! And these little ones"—his tears choaked his utterance, and he fell again on the necks of the children.

"My dear old man! said Harley, Providence has sent thee to relieve them; it will bless me, if I can be the means of assisting you."—"Yes indeed, Sir, answered the boy; father, when he was a­dying, bade God bless us; and prayed, that if grandfather lived, he might send him to support us."—"Where did they lay my boy?" said Edwards. "In the Old Church-Yard, replied the woman, hard by his mother."—"I will shew it you, answered the boy; for I have wept over it many a time, when first I came a­mongst strange folks." He took the old man's hand, Harley laid [Page 52] hold of his sister's, and they walked in silence to the church-yard. There was an old stone, with the corner broken off, and some letters, half covered with moss, to denote the names of the dead: there was a cyphered R. E. plainer than the rest: it was the tomb they sought.

"Here it is, grandfather," said the boy. Edwards gazed up­on it without uttering a word: the girl, who had only sighed be­fore, now wept out-right; her brother sobbed, but he stifled his sobbing. "I have told sister, said he, that she should not take it so to heart; she can knit already, and I shall soon be able to dig: we shall not starve, sister, indeed we shall not, nor shall grand­father neither."—The girl cried afresh; Harley kissed off her tears as they flowed, and wept between every kiss.

CHAP. XXXVI. He returns home.—A description of his retinue.

IT was with some difficulty that Harley prevailed on the old man to leave the spot where the remains of his son were laid. At last, with the assistance of the school-mistress, he prevailed; and she accommodated Edwards and him with beds in her house, there being nothing like an inn nearer than the distance of some miles. In the morning, Harley persuaded Edwards to come, with the children, to his house, which was distant but a short day's journey.

The boy walked in his grand-father's hand; and the name of Edwards procured him a neighbouring farmer's horse, on which a servant mounted, with the girl seated on a pillow before him.

With this train Harley returned to the abode of his fathers: and we cannot but think, that his enjoyment was as great as if he had arrived from the tour of Europe, with a Swiss valet for his com­panion, and half a dozen snuff-boxes, with invisible hinges, in his pocket. But we take our ideas from sounds which folly has in­vented; Fashion, Bon-ton, and Vertu, are the names of certain idols, to which we sacrifice the genuine pleasures of the [...]oul: in this world of semblance, we are contented with personating happi­ness; to feel it, is an art beyond us.

It was otherwise with Harley: he ran up stairs to his aunt, with the history of his fellow-travellers glowing on his lips. His aunt was an oeconomist; but she knew the pleasure of doing charitable things, and withal was fond of her nephew, and solicitous to oblige him. She received old Edwards therefore with a look of more complacency than is perhaps natural to maiden ladies of three­score, and was remarkably attentive to his grand-children: she roasted apples with her own hands for their supper, and made up a little bed beside her own for the girl. Edwards made some at­tempts [Page 53] towards an acknowledgment for these favours; but his young friend stopped them in their beginnings. "Whosoever re­ceiveth any of these children"—said his aunt; for her acquaint­ance with her bible was habitual.

Early next morning, Harley stole into the room where Edwards lay: he expected to have found him a bed; but in this he was mis­taken: the old man had risen, and was leaning over his sleeping grandson, with the tears flowing down his checks. At first he did not perceive Harley; when he did, he endeavoured to hide his grief, and crossing his eyes with his hand, expressed his surprise at seeing him so early astir. "I was thinking of you, said Harley, and your children: I learned last night that a small farm of mine in the neighbourhood is now vacant; if you will occupy it, I shall gain a good neighbour, and be able in some measure to repay you the notice you took of me when a boy; and as the furniture of the house is mine, it will be so much trouble saved." Edwards's tears gushed afresh, and Harley led him to see the place he intended for him.

The house upon this farm was indeed little better than a hut; its situation, however, was pleasant, and Edwards, assisted by the beneficence of Harley, set about improving its neatness and con­venience. He staked out a piece of the green before for a garden, and Peter, who acted in Harley's family as valet, butler, and gar­dener, had orders to furnish him with parcels of the different seeds he chose to sow in it. I have seen his master at work in this little spot, with his coat off, and his dibble in his hand: it was a scene of tranquil virtue to have stopped an angel on his errands of mer­cy! Harley had contrived to lead a little bubbling brook through a green walk in the middle of the ground, upon which he had erect­ed a mill in miniature for the diversion of Edward's infant grand­son, and made shift in its construction to introduce a pliant bit of wood, that answered with its fairy clack to the murmuring of the [...]ill that turned it. I have seen him stand, listening to these min­gled sounds, with his eye fixed on the boy, and the smile of con­scious satisfaction on his cheek; while the old man, with a look half turned to Harley, and half to heaven, breathed an ejaculation of gratitude and piety.

Father of mercies! I also would thank thee! that not only hast thou assigned eternal rewards to virtue, but that, even in this bad world, the lines of our duty, and our happiness, are so frequently woven together.

CHAP. XL. The Man of Feeling jealous.

THE desire of communicating knowledge or intelligence, is an ar­gument with those who hold that man is naturally a social animal. It is indeed one of the earliest propensities we discover; but it may be doubted whether the pleasure (for pleasure there certainly is) arising from it be not often more selfish than social: for we frequently observe the tidings of Ill communicated as eagerly as the annunciation of Good. Is it that we delight in observing the effects of the stronger pas­sions? for we are all philosophers in this respect; and it is perhaps amongst the spectators at Tyburn that the most genuine are to be found.

Was it from this motive that Peter came one morning into his mas­ter's room with a meaning face of recital? His master indeed did not at first observe it; for he was sitting, with one shoe buckled, busied in delineating portraits in the fire. "I have brushed these clothes, Sir, as you ordered me."—Harley nodded his head; but Peter observ­ed that his hat wanted brushing too: his master nodded again. At last Peter bethought him, that the fire needed stirring; and, taking up the poker, demolished the turband-head of a Saracen, while his master was seeking out a body for it. "The morning is main cold, Sir," said Peter. "Is it?" said Harley. "Yes, Sir; I have been as far as Tom Dowson's to fetch some barberries he had picked for Mrs. Margery. There was a rare junketing last night at Thomas's among Sir Harry Benson's servants: he lay at Squire Walton's, but he [...]ould not suffer his servants to trouble the family; so, to be sure, they [...] all at Tom's, and had a fiddle and a hot supper in the big room [...]ere the justices meet about the destroying of hares and partridges, [...] them things; and Tom's eyes looked so red and so bleared when I called him to get the barberries:—And I hear as how Sir Harry is going to be married to Miss Walton."—"How! Miss Walton mar­ried▪" said Harley. "why, it may not be true, Sir, for all that; but Tom's wife told it me, and to be sure the servants told her, and their master told them, as I guess, Sir; but it may not be true for all that, as I said before."—"Have done with your idle information, said Harley:—Is my aunt come down into the parlour to breakfast?"—"Yes, Sir"—"Tell her I'll be with her immediately."—

When Peter was gone, he stood with his eyes fixed on the ground, and the last words of his intelligence vibrating in his ears. "Miss Walton married!" he sighed—and walked down stairs, with his sho [...] as it was, and the buckle in his hand. His aunt, however, was pretty well accustomed to these appearances of absence; besides, that the natural gravity of her temper, which was commonly called into exertion by the care of her household concerns, was such, as not easily to be discomposed by any circumstance of accidental impropriety. She too had been informed of the intended match between Sir Harry Benson and Miss Walton. "I have been thinking, said she, that they are [Page 57] distant relations; for the great grand-father of this Sir Harry Benson, who was knight of the shir [...] in the reign of Charles the First, and one of the cavaliers of those times, was married to a daughter of the Wal­ton family." Harley answered drily, that it might be so; but that he never troubled himself about these matters. "Indeed, said she, you are to blame, nephew, for not knowing a little more of them: be­fore I was near your age, I ha [...] sewed the pedigree of our family in a set of chair bottoms, that were made a present of to my grand-mother, who was a very notable woman, and had a proper regard for gentili­ty, I'll assure you; but now-a-days, it is money, not birth, that makes people respected; the more shame for the times."

Harley was in no very good humour for entering into a discussion of this question; but he always entertained so much parental respect for his aunt, as to attend to her discourse.

"We blame the pride of the rich, said he; but are not we ashamed of our poverty?"

"Why, one would not choose, replied his aunt, to make a much worse figure than one's neighbours; but, as I was saying before, the times (as my friend Mrs. Dorothy Walton observes) are shamefully degenerated in this respect. There was but the other day, at Mr. Walton's, that fat fellow's daughter, the Lon­don Merchant, as he calls himself, though I have heard that he was little better than the keeper of a chandler's shop:—We were leaving the gentlemen to go to tea. She had a hoop forsooth as large and as stiff—and it shewed a pair of bandy legs as thick as two—I was nearer the door by an apron's length, and the pert hussy brushed by me, as who should say, make way for your betters, and with one of her London bobs—but Mrs. Dorothy did not let her pass with it; for all the time of drinking tea, she spoke of the precedency of family, and the disparity there is between people who are come of something, and your mushroom-gentry who wear their coats of arms in their purses."

Her indignation was interrupted by the arrival of her maid with a damask table cloth, and a set of napkins, from the loom, which had been spun by her mistress's own hand. There was the family crest in each corner, and in the middle a view of the battle of Worcester, where one of her ancestors had been a captain in the king's forces; and, with a sort of poetical license as to perspective, there was seen the Royal Oak, with more wig than leaves on it.

All this the good lady was very copious on and took up the re­maining intervals of filling tea, to describe its excellencies to Harley; adding, that she intended this as a present for his wife, when he should get one. He sighed and looked foolish, and com­mending the serenity of the day, walked out into the garden.

He sat down on a little seat which commanded an extensive prospect round the house. He leaned on his hand, and scored the ground with his stick: "Miss Walton married! said he; but [Page 58] what is that to me? May she be happy! her virtues deserve it; to me her marriage is otherwise indifferent:—I had romantic dreams! they are fled! it is perfectly indifferent."

Just at that moment he saw a servant, with a knot of ribbands in his ha [...], go into the house. His cheeks grew flushed at the sight! He kept his eye fixed for some time on the door by which he had entered, then starting to his feet, hastily followed him.

When he approached the door of the ki [...]c [...]en where he supposed the man had gone, his heart throbbed so violently, that when he would have called Peter, his voice failed in the attempt. He stood a moment listening in this breathless state of palpitation: Peter came out by chance. "Did your honour want any thing?"—"Where is the servant that came just now from Mr. Walton's?"—"From Mr. Walton's, Sir! there is none of his servants here that I know of."—"Nor of Sir Harry Benson's?"—He did not wait for an answer; but having by this time observed the hat with its party-coloured ornament hanging on a peg near the door, he pressed forwards into the kitchen, and addressing himself to a strang­er whom he saw there, asked him, with no small tremor in his voice, If he had any commands for him? The man looked silly, and said, That he had nothing to trouble his honour with. "Are not you a servant of Sir Harry Benson's?"—"No, Sir."—"You'll pardon me, young man; I judged by the favour in your [...]at."—"Sir, I am his majesty's servant, God bless him! and these fav­ours we always wear when we are recruiting."—

"Recruiting!" his eyes glistened at the word: he seized the soldier's hand, and shaking it violently, ordered Peter to fetch a bottle of his aunt's best d [...]am. The bottle was brought: "You shall drink the king's health, said Harley, in a bumper."—"The king and your honour."—"Nay, you shall drink the king's health by itself; you may drink mine in another." Peter looked in his master's face, and filled with some little reluctance. "Now to your mistress." The man excused himself—"to your mistress! you cannot refuse it." It was Mrs. Margery's best dram! Peter stood with the bottle a little inclined, but not so as to dis­charge a drop of its contents: "Fill it, Peter, said his master, fill it to the brim." Peter filled it; and the soldier having named Sukey Simson, dispatched it in a twinkling. "Thou art an hon­est fellow, said Harley, and I love thee;" and shaking his hand a­gain, desired Peter to make him his guest at dinner, and walked up into his room with a p [...]ce much quicker and springy than usual. This agreeable disappointment however he was not long suffered to felicitate himself upon.

The curate happened that day to dine with him: his visits indeed were more properly to the aunt than the nephew; and ma­ny of the intelligent ladies in the parish, who, like some very great philosophers, have the happy knack at accounting for every thing, gave out, that there was a particular attachment between them, which wanted only to be maturated by some more years of court­ship to end in the tenderest connection.

[Page 59] In this conclusion indeed, supposing the premises to have been true, they were somewhat justified by the known opinion of the lady, who frequently declared herself a friend to the etiquette of former times, when a lover might have sighed seven years at his mistress's feet, before he was allowed the liberty of kissing her hand. It is true Mrs. Margery was now about her grand climacteric; but that is nothing: for it is just the age when we expect to grow younger. But I verily believe there was nothing in the report; the curate's connection was only as a genealogist; for in that science he was no ways inferior to Mrs. Margery herself. He dealt also in the present times; for he was a politician and a news-monger.

He had hardly said grace after dinner, when he told Mrs. Mar­gery, that she might soon expect a pair of white gloves, as Sir Harry Benson, he was very well informed, was just going to be married to Miss Walton. Harley spilt the wine he was carrying to his mouth: he had time however to recollect himself before the curate had finished the different minutiae of his intelligence, and summoning up all the heroism he was master of, filled a bumper and drank to Miss Walton.

"With all my heart, said the curate, the bride that is to be." Harley would have said bride too; but the word Bride stuck in his throat. His confusion indeed was manifest: but the curate began to enter on some point of descent with Mrs. Margery, and Harley had very soon after an opportunity of leaving them, while they were deeply engaged in a question, whether the name of some great man in the time of Henry the Seventh was Richard or Hum­phrey.

He did not see his aunt again till supper; the time between he spent in walking, like some troubled ghost, round the place where his treasure lay. He went as far as a little gate, that led into a copse near Mr. Walton's house, to which that gentleman had been so obliging us to let him have a key.

He had just begun to open it, when he saw, on a terrass below, Miss Walton walking with a gentleman in a riding-dress, whom he immediately guessed to be Sir Harry Benson. He stopped of a sudden; his hand shook so much that he could hardly turn the key; he opened the gate however, and advanced a few paces. The la­dy's lap-dog pricked up its ears, and barked: he stopped again.—

His resolution failed; he slunk back, and locking the gate as soft­ly as he could, stood on tiptoe looking over the wall till they were gone. At that instant a shepherd blew his horn: the romantic melancholy of the sound quite overcame him!—it was the very note that wanted to be touched—he sighed! he dropped a tear!—and returned.

At supper his aunt observed that he was duller than usual; but she did not suspect the cause: indeed it may seem odd that she was [Page 60] the only person in the family who had no suspicion of his attach­ment to Miss Walton. It was frequently matter of discourse a­mongst the servants: perhaps her maiden coldness—but these things need not be accounted for.

In a day or two he was so much master of himself as to be able to [...]hime upon the subject. The following pastoral he left, some time after, on the handle of a tea-kettle, at a neighbouring house where we were visiting; and as I filled the tea-pot after him, I happened to put it in my pocket by a similar act of forgetfulness. It is such as might be expected from a man who makes verses for amusement.

I am pleased with somewhat of good-nature that runs through it, because I have commonly observed the writers of these com­plaints bestow some epithets on their lost mistresses rather too harsh for the mere liberty of choice, which led them to prefer another to the poet himself: I do not doubt the vehemence of their passion; but alas! the sensations of love are something more than the re­turns of gratitude.

[At this place had the greatest depredations of the curate began. There were so very few connected passages of the subsequent chap­ters remaining, that even the partiality of an editor could not of­fer them to the public. I discovered, from some scattered sen­tences, that they were of much the same tenor with those preced­ing; recitals of little adventures, in which the dispositions of a man, sensible to judge, and still more warm to feel, had room to unfold themselves. Some instruction, and some example, I make no doubt, they contained; but it is likely that many of those, whom chance hath led to a perusal of what I have already presented them with, may have read it with little pleasure, and will feel no disappointment from the want of those parts which I have been unable to procure: to such as may have expected the intricacies of a novel, a few incidents in a life undistinguished, except by some features of the heart, cannot have afforded much entertainment.

Harley's own story, from the mutilated passages I have menti­oned, as well as from some inquiries I was at the trouble of making in the country, I found to have been simple to excess. His mistress I could perceive was not married to Sir Harry Benson: but it would seem, by one of the following chapters, which is still entire, that Harley had not profited on the occasion by making any de­claration of his own passion, after those of the other had been unsuccessful. The state of his health for some part of this period, [Page 64] appears to have been such as to forbid any thoughts of that kind: he had been seized with a very dangerous fever, catched by attend­ing old Edwards in one of an infectious kind. From this he had recovered but imperfectly, and though he had no formed complaint, his health was manifestly on the decline.

It appears that the sagacity of some friend had at length point­ed out to his aunt a cause from which this might be supposed to proceed, to wit, his hopeless love for Miss Walton; for according to the conceptions of the world, the love of a man of Harley's fortune for the heiress of 4000l. a year, is indeed desperate. Whether it was so in this case may be gathered from the next chapter, which, with the two following, concluding the perfor­mance, have escaped those accidents which were fatal to the rest.]

CHAP. LV. He sees Miss Walton, and is happy.

HARLEY was one of those few friends whom the male [...] [...] of fortune had yet left me: I could not therefore [...] [...] sibly concerned for his present indisposition; there seldom [...] day on which I did not make inquiry about him.

The Physician who attended him informed me the eve [...] [...] fore, that he thought him considerably better than he had [...] some time past. I called next morning to be confirmed in [...] of intelligence so welcome to me.

When I entered his apartment, I found him sitting on a [...], leaning on his hand, with his eye turned upwards in the [...] of thoughtful inspiration. His look had always an open benigni­ty, which commanded esteem; there was now something more—a gentle triumph in it.

He rose, and met me with his usual kindness. When I told him the good accounts I had from his Physician, "I am foolish enough said he, to rely but little, in this instance, upon Physic: my pre­sentiment may be false: but I think I feel myself approaching to my end, by steps so easy, that they woo me to approach it.

"There is a certain dignity in retiring from life at a time, when the infirmities of age have not sapped our faculties. This world, my dear Charles, was a scene in which I never much de­lighted. I was not formed for the bustle of the busy; nor the dis­sipation of the gay; a thousand things occurred where I blushed for the impropriety of my conduct when I thought on the world, though my reason told me I should have blushed to have done otherwise.—It was a scene of dissimulation, of restraint, of disap­pointment. I leave it to enter on that state, which, I have learn­ed to believe, is repl [...]te with the genuine happiness attendant upon [Page 69] virtue. I look back on the tenor of my life, with the conscious­ness of sew great offences to account for. There are blemishes, I confess, which deform in some degree the picture. But I know the benignity of the Supreme Being, and rejoice at the thoughts of its exertion in my favour. My mind expands at the thought I shall enter into the society of the blessed, wise as angels, with the simplicity of children." He had by this time clasped my hand, and found it wet by a tear which had just fallen on it.—His eye began to moisten too—we sat for some time silent.—At last, with an attempt to a look of more composure, "There are some re­membrances (said Harley) which rise involuntarily on my heart, and make me almost wish to live.

"I have been blessed with a few friends, which redeem my op­inion of mankind. I recollect the scenes of pleasure! have passed among them with the tenderest emotion; but we shall meet again, my friend, never to be separated. There are some feelings which perhaps are too tender to be suffered by the world. The world is in general selfish, interested, and unthinking, and throws the im­putation of romance or melancholy on every temper more suscepti­ble than its own.

"I cannot think but in these regions which I contemplate, if there is any thing of mortality left about us, that these feelings will subsist;—they are called,—perhaps they are—weaknesses here;—but there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of virtues." He sighed as he spoke these last words. He had scarcely finished them, when the door opened, and his aunt appeared leading in Miss Walton.

"My dear, says she, here is Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself." I could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his seat—"If to know Miss Walton's goodness, said he, be a tittle to deserve it, I have some claim." She begged him to resume his seat, and placed herself on the sofa beside him. I took my leave. Mrs. Margery accom­panied me to the door. He was left with Miss Walton alone. She inquired anxiously about his health. "I believe said he, from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery.—

She started as he spoke; but recollecting herself immediately, endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were groundless. "I know, said he, that it is usual with persons at my time of life to have these hopes which your kindness suggests; but I would not wish to be deceived. To meet death as becomes a man, is a privilege bestowed on few.—I would endeavour to make it mine;—nor do I think that I can ever be better prepared for it than now:—It is that chiefly which determines the fitness of its approach."—"These sentiments, answered Miss Walton, are just: but your good sense, Mr. Harley, will own that life has its proper value.—As the province of virtue, life is enobled; as [Page 70] such, it is to be desired.—To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things assigned rewards enough, even here to fix its attach­ment."

The subject began to overpower her.—Harlay lifted his eyes from the ground—"There are, said he, in a very low voice, there are attachments, Miss Walton"—His glance met her's—They both betrayed a confusion, and were both instantly with­drawn—He paused some moments—"I am in such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also excuse it—It is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. I feel something particularly solemn in the ac­knowledgment, yet my heart swells to make it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a sense of your perfections"—He paused again—"Let it not offend you to know their power over one so unworthy—It will, I believe, soon cease to beat, even with that feeling which it shall lose the latest.—To love Miss Walton could not be a crime;—if to declare it is one—the expiation will be made."—Her tears were now flowing without controul.—"Let me intreat you, said she, to have better hopes—Let not life be so indifferent to you; if my wishes can put any value on it—I will not pretend to misunderstand you—I know your worth—I have known it long—I have esteemed it—What would you have me say?—I have loved it as it deserved."—He seized her hand—a languid colour reddened his cheek—a smile brightened faintly in his eye. As he gazed on her, it grew dim, it fixed, it closed—He sighed, and fell back on his seat.—Miss Walton screamed at the sight—His aunt and the servants rushed into the room—They found them lying motionless together.—His physician happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried to recover them—With Miss Walton they succeeded—But Harley was gone for ever!

CHAP. LVI. The emotions of the heart.

I Entered the room where his body lay; I approached it with reve­rence, not fear: I looked; the recollection of the past crowded upon me. I saw that form, which, but a little before, was animat­ed with a soul which did honour to humanity, stretched without sense or feeling before me. It is a connection we cannot easily forget:—I took his hand in mine; I repeated his name involuntarily;—I felt a pulse in every vein at the sound. I looked earnestly in his face; his eye was closed, his lip pale and motionless. There is an enthusiasm in sorrow that forgets impossibility; I wondered that it was so. The sight drew a prayer from my heart; it was the voice of frailty and of man! the confusion of my mind began to subside into thought; I had time [...]o weep!

I turned, with the last farewell upon my lips, when I observed old Edwards standing behind me. I looked him full in the face; but his [Page 71] eye was fixed on another object: he pressed between me and the bed, and stood gazing on the breathless remains of his benefactor. I spoke to him I know not what; but he took no notice of what I said, and remained i [...] the same attitude as before. He stood some minutes in that posture, then turned and walked towards the door. He paused as he went;—he returned a second time: I could observe his lips move as he looked; but the voice they would have uttered was lost. He at­tempted going again; and a third time he returned as before.—I saw him wipe his cheek; then covering his face with his hands, his breast heaving with the most convulsive throbs, he flung out of the room.