'I went twice more; and was both times interrogated in French, by the insolent maitre d'hotel, so as to convince me that he thought my coming again so soon was a proof of no common degree of impudence.

'Oh Euripides! Oh Sophocles! Did not your sublime shades glide wrathful by and menace the wretch in whom your divine art had been so degraded? How did I pray, as I passed the scowling porter, for the death of your great predecessor; that some eagle would drop a tortoise on my head, and instantly crush me to atoms!

'I had been the more anxious after patronage, because I wished the actress whom I have mentioned to play my heroine. There was no tragedian whose powers were in the least comparable to hers. But the difficulty of getting a piece on the stage, at the theatre to which she belonged, all the town told me was incredible. It was a chancery-suit, which no given time could terminate. The manager was the most liberal of men, the best of judges, and the first of writers; as void of envy as he was noble minded, and friendly to merit. Yes, friendly in heart and act, when he could be prevailed on to act. But his rare virtues and gifts were rendered useless, extinguished, by the killing vice of procrastination. He never listened to a story that he did not sympathize with the teller of it. The request must be a wild one indeed which he did not feel an instant desire to grant. He would promise with the most sincere and honest intentions to perform; but, hurried away by new petitioners, or projects of a more grand and important nature, he would with still greater facility forget. All who knew him uniformly affirmed, a soul more expansive, more munificent, could not inhabit a human form; yet, from this one defect, it was frequently his fate where he intended an essential benefit to commit an irreparable injury. He encouraged hopes that were never realized, retarded the merit he meant to promote, and raised up personal enemies who impeded his own utility; conspicuous and grand as this utility was and is, it would otherwise have been unexampled.

'I speak the sentiments of men who I believe were incapable of exaggeration. For my own part I have read his works, and I love him almost to adoring.

'He is I know assaulted by an infinite number of affairs, that all demand his attention. Many of them are totally beneath it, yet are undertaken by him with a too ready compliance; averse as he is to give the solicitor pain, and continually desirous to make every creature happy. He can do but one thing at once. Of the multitude of things to be done, not half are present to the memory at any one time; and, of those that are remembered, what can he do but select the most urgent? The mistake has often been rather in the too ready promise than in the non-performance. If prevented by serious occupation, by love of the chosen companions of his convivial hours, or by habits of forgetful revery, from reading my tragedy and being just to me, I attribute the neglect to its true cause; which certainly was not jealousy of, or indifference to, the man of talents. How can he honour merit, granting it to exist, with which he is unacquainted? Yet let me not be misunderstood; though I love his comprehensive benevolence of soul, I wish it were less undistinguishing:—I cannot applaud or approve the errors into which it leads, both himself and those he means to serve.

'In a word, I could find no mode of securing his attention. I endeavoured to fix it by the intervention of the great; who delighted in his social qualities, did homage to his wit, and were ambitious of his friendship. But in these attempts I likewise failed.

Hopeless therefore of aid from my favourite actress, I sent my play to the other house. How was I relieved, after the delay I had endured and the continual anxiety in which I had been kept, how delighted, by hearing from the manager within a fortnight! He appointed an interview, received me with affability, and immediately proceeded to the business in question.

He began with telling me, he could have wished I had rather turned my thoughts to the comic than the tragic muse; for tragedy was less fashionable, and consequently less profitable both to the house and the author, than comedy or opera. I sighed and answered, it was an ill proof of public taste, when it could receive greater pleasure from the unconnected scenes of an opera than from the fable, pathos, and sublime emotions of tragedy. But I feared the fault was less in the audience than in the poet; and added that the first fortunate writer who should produce a tragedy such as had been written, and such as I hoped it was possible again to write, would find audiences not insensible to his merit.

'He replied, it may be so. I can only answer that each author thinks himself the chosen bard you have described, and that each is disappointed. I am pleased, Sir, continued he, with many parts of your tragedy; but I think it has one great fault; it is too tragical: it rather excites horror than terror. Whether the age be more refined or more captious, more humanized or more effeminate than other ages have been I will not pretend to determine; but you have written some scenes that would not at present be endured. If you think proper to make such alterations as shall soften and adapt them to the present taste, and if I approve them when made, your piece shall then be performed.

'I knew not what to reply. The scenes to which he referred were conceived, as I had imagined, in the bold but true stile of tragedy. I intended them to produce a great effect; and was sorry to be informed, as among other things I had been, that ladies would faint, fall into hysterics, and be taken shrieking out of the boxes at hearing them. I had no remedy but to submit, re-consider, and, by lowering the tone of passion, perhaps spoil my tragedy!

'Oh what a tormenting trade is that of author! He that makes a chair, a table, or any common utensil, brings his work home, is paid for his labour, and there his trouble ends. It was quickly begun, and quickly over; it excited little hope, but it met with no disappointment. The author, on the contrary, has the labour of days, months, and years to encounter. When he begins, his difficulties are immeasurable; and while as he proceeds they seem to disappear, nay at the very moment when he sometimes thinks them all conquered, he discovers that they are but accumulated! Every part, every page, every period, have been considered, and re-considered, with unremitting anxiety. He has revised, re-written, corrected, expunged, again produced, and again erased, with endless iteration. Points and commas themselves have been settled with repeated and jealous solicitude.

'At length, as he thinks, his labour is over! He knows indeed that no work of man was ever perfect; but, circumstanced as he is, the eager prying of his own sleepless eye cannot discover what more to amend. He produces the tedious fruits of incessant fatigue to the world, and hopes the harvest will be in proportion to the unwearied and extreme care he has bestowed. Poor man! Mistaken mortal! How could he imagine that the sensations of multitudes should all correspond with his own? Educated in schools so various, under circumstances so contradictory and prejudices so different and distinct, how could he suppose his mind was the common measure of man? Faultless? Perfect? Vain supposition! Extravagant hope! The driver of a mill-horse, he who never had the wit to make much less to invent a mouse-trap, will detect and point out his blunders. All satisfied? No; not one! Not a man that reads but will detail, reprove, and ridicule his dull witted errors.

'Well! he finds he is mistaken, he pants after improvement, and listens to advice. He follows it, alters, and again appears. What is his success? Are cavilers less numerous? Absurd expectation! Do critics unite in its praise? Ridiculous hope! If he would escape censure, he must betake himself to a very different trade.

'It was the month of February when my tragedy was returned. The season was far advanced: I had then been nearly twelve months held in suspence; seeking the means of appearing before the public, soliciting patronage, and indulging hope. My mother and sister depended much on my aid. Out of the small pittance which the newspaper essays afforded, I at first made a proportionate deduction; and lived, that is contrived to exist, on the remainder.

'This could not long endure, and I sought other channels of emolument. I wrote a novel, which I hawked about among the booksellers. Some of them printed nothing in that way; others would venture to publish it, and share the profits, but not advance a shilling. One of them offered me five guineas for the two volumes, and told me it was a great price, for he seldom gave more than three.

'At last, I was fortunate enough to obtain double the sum. It was printed; but, being written in haste and in a state of mind entirely adverse to that fine flow which is the token, the test, and the triumph of genius, its success was less than I expected. Still however it more than answered the hopes of the bookseller; and I think I may safely affirm, it had marks of mind sufficient to excite applause, mingled with the censure of just criticism.

'Did it obtain this applause? No—"A vulgar narrative of uninteresting incidents"—was the laconic character given of it in that monthly publication in which, from its reputed impartiality, I most hoped for just and candid inquiry.

'Finding what a terrible animal a critic is, I determined to become one myself. I made the first essay of my talents for censure on such books as I could borrow, and sent my remarks to the magazines; into which they were immediately admitted.

'Thus encouraged, I applied to the publisher of a new review, and informed him of my course of reading, and of the languages and sciences with which I was acquainted. My proposal was graciously received, and I was admitted of that corps which has certainly done much good, and much harm to literature.

'I entered on my new office with great determination; but I soon discovered that, to a man of principle, who dare neither condemn nor approve a book he has not read, it was a very unproductive employment. It is the custom of the trade to pay various kinds of literary labour by the sheet, and this among the rest. Thus it frequently happened that a book, which would demand a day to peruse, was not worthy of five lines of animadversion.

'This is the true source of feeble and false criticism; a task in itself most difficult, and to which the chosen few alone are equal. Deep investigation, scientific acquirement, an acute and comprehensive mind, a correct and invigorating stile, and intelligence superior to prejudice, and an undeviating conscientious spirit of rectitude, are the rare endowments it requires. Its seat should be the summit of mental attainment; for its office is to enlighten. It has to instruct genius itself, and its powers should be equal to the hardy enterprise. In fine, its object ought to be the love of truth; it is the lust of gain. I need not expatiate on the consequences; they are self-evident.

Poor as the trade is, I exercised it with the scrupulous assiduity of which I knew it to be worthy. My labour therefore was as great as my emoluments were trifling; and, though I made no progress toward fame and fortune, my efforts were unremitting. I mention these circumstances to shew that my failure, in my attempts to gain what I believe to be my true rank in society, did not originate either in indolence, want of oeconomy, or any other neglect of mine. Day or night, I was scarcely ever without either a book or a pen in my hand. With the most sedulous industry and caution I endeavoured to render justice as well to the works of others as to my own. My uniform study was to increase knowledge, diffuse good taste, and, as I fondly hoped, promote the general pleasure and happiness of mankind.

But, while I was anxiously caring for all, no one seemed to care for me. I and my learning, taste and genius, if I possessed them, wandered through the croud unnoticed; or noticed only to be scorned: insulted by the vulgar, for the something in my manner which pretended to distinguish me from themselves; and contemned by the proud and the prosperous, because of the forlorn poverty of my appearance. Among the fashionable and the fortunate, where I might have hoped to find urbanity and the social polish of a civilized nation, I could gain no admittance; for I had no title, kept no carriage, and was no sycophant. The doors of the learned were shut upon me; for they were doctors or dignitaries, in church, physic, or law. Of science they were all satisfied they had enough: of profit, promotion, and the other good things of which they were in full pursuit, I had none to give. By my presence they would have been retarded, offended at the freedom of my conversation, and by my friendship disgraced. They sought other and far different associates.

'Bowed to the earth as I was by this soul-killing injustice, and wearied by these incessant toils, I still did not neglect my tragedy for an hour. I considered and reconsidered the objections that had been made. I was convinced they were ill founded: but I was not left to the exercise of my own judgment. I had no alternative. To lower the tone of passion was in my opinion to injure my tragedy; but it must be done, or must not be performed. The manager urged arguments that were and perhaps could not but be satisfactory, to any man in his situation: his experience of public taste was long and confirmed: the nightly expences of a theatre made it a most serious concern: the risk of every new piece was great, for the town was capricious. To obtain all possible security against risk, therefore, was a duty.

'The reluctance with which alterations were made occasioned them to be rather slow. At last however I finished them, as much to my own satisfaction as could under such circumstances be expected; and a fair copy, written as all the copies made of it were with my own hand, was again sent to the manager.

'A week longer than in the former instances elapsed, before I heard from him; and, when I did hear, the substance of his letter was that he had a new comedy in preparation; which, it being then the middle of March, would entirely fill up the remainder of the season!

'What could I do? No blame was imputable to him for the delay. It was no fault of his that I was pursued by the malice of poverty; that I was tormented with the desire of effectually relieving the necessities of my family; that I had written to my mother and sister, in the elated moment of hope, an assurance of being able to grant this relief in a very few weeks; and that, buoyed up by these calculations, I had indulged myself in procuring a suit of clothes and other necessaries, of which I was in extreme need, on credit.

'Thou world of vice! thou iron-hearted senseless mass of madness and folly! why did I ever dream that I had the power to arrest thy headlong course, and fix thy bewildered wits, thy garish idiot eye on me? On my weak efforts! my humble wishes! my craving wants! What signs of luxury, what tokens of dissipation, what innumerable marks of extravagant waste did I every where see around me, at the moment that poverty was thus pinching me to the very bone! Here a vain mortal, as insolent as uninstructed, drawn by six ponies; with a postillion before and three idle fellows behind, pampered in vice, that he might thus openly insult common sense, and thus publicly proclaim the folly of his head to be as egregious as the insensibility of his heart was hateful. There trifling and imbecile creatures, who, not satisfied with the appellation woman, call themselves ladies, and expend thousands on their routs, masked-balls, whipped creams, and other froth and frippery, procured from the achs and pains and blood and bones of the poor! Wretches more bent and weighed down by misery than even I was!

'What need I to recall such pictures to your imaginations? Can you look abroad and not behold them? Are not the vices of unequal distribution to be met with in every corner, nook, and alley? Is not the despotism of wealth, that is, of that property which the folly of man so much reveres and worships, every where visible? Does it not varnish vice, generate crime, and trample virtue and the virtuous in the dust? Is the deep sense which I have entertained of the relentless injustice of society all false?

'Impelled as I was by paltry yet pressing wants and debts that would admit of no delay, I sought relief in endeavouring to raise money on the presumptive profits of my tragedy. What can the wretch who is thus besieged, thus hunted do, but yield? I had promised aid to my family; and, depending on that promise which had been much too confidently given, my mother was in danger of having her trifling effects seized; my sister, whom I then tenderly loved, of being turned loose perhaps into the haunts of infamy; and myself of being thrown into a loathsome prison.

'My first attempt was a very wild one, and proved how little I yet knew of mankind. I wrote a letter to a woman of great fame in the literary world; the reputed writer of a work, the praises of which had been often echoed, and whose wealth was immense. To such a person I thought the appeal I had to make must come with resistless force. For a man of literature, a poet, capable of writing a tragedy, that had already been deemed worthy at least of attention from the theatre, and of the merits of which she so well could judge, for such a man she would be all kindness! all sensibility! all soul! What an incurable dolt was I! Thus repeatedly to degrade the character of bard, and thus too in vain. I blush!—No matter!

'I minutely detailed the circumstances of my case, to this female leader of literature; and, assiduously endeavouring to avoid every feature of meanness, requested the loan of one hundred pounds; appealing for the probability of reimbursement to her own conceptions of the rectitude of the mind that could produce the tragedy I sent, and which I requested her first to read. She herself would judge of the danger there might be of its condemnation. If she thought it would fail, I then should be anxious that she should run no risk: but, if not, the loan would be a most essential benefit to me, and perhaps a pleasure to herself.

'Fool that I was, thus to estimate ladies' pleasures! Whether she did or did not read my play I never knew; but this learned lady, this patroness of letters, this be-prosed and be-rhymed dowager, who professed to be the enraptured lover of poetry, wit and genius, returned it with a formal cold apology, that was insulting by its affected pity. "She was extremely sorry to be obliged to refuse me! extremely sorry indeed! It would have given her infinite pleasure to have advanced me the sum I required; but she was then building a fine house, which demanded all the money she could possibly spare."

'Why ay! She must have a fine house, with fifty fine rooms in it, forty-nine of which were useless; while I, my mother, my sister, and millions more, might perish without a hovel in which to shelter our heads!

'Convinced at last of the futility of applications like these, I sought an opposite resource. If men would not lend money to benefit me, they would perhaps to benefit themselves. One of the actors, with whom I became acquainted, informed me that there was a Jew, who frequented all theatrical haunts, knew I had a play in the manager's hands, and might possibly be induced to lend me the sum I wanted. To this Jew I addressed myself, stated the merits of the case, and, fearful of making too high a demand, requested a loan of seventy pounds.

'His first question was concerning the security I had to give? I had none! The Jew shook his head, and told me it was impossible to lend money without security. I replied, that if making over the profits of my tragedy to the amount of the principal and interest would but satisfy him, to that I should willingly consent. Again he shrugged his shoulders, and repeated it was very dangerous. Jews themselves, kind as they were, could not lend money without security. Beside, money was never so scarce as just at that moment. Indeed he had no such sum himself; but he had an uncle, in Duke's Place, who, if I could but get good personal security, would supply me, on paying a premium adequate to the risk.

'I must avoid being too circumstantial. I urged every incitement my imagination could honestly suggest: he pretended to state the matter to his uncle. The affair was kept in suspence, and I was obliged to travel to Duke's Place at least a dozen times: but, at last I gave my bond for a hundred pounds; for which I received fifty, and paid two guineas out of it, on the demand of the nephew, for the trouble he had taken in negociating the business; the uncle being the ostensible person with whom it was transacted.

'Determined to secure my mother from want as far as was in my power, I remitted the whole sum to her, except what was necessary to pay my immediate debts; and blessed the Jew extortioner, as a man who, compared to the learned lady, abounded in the milk of human kindness!

'By the continuance of my literary drudgery, the time passed away to the middle of September; the season at which the winter theatres usually open. I now felt tenfold anxiety concerning my tragedy. The bond I had given at six months would soon become due; failure would send me to prison, perhaps for life; it would disgrace me, would distract my family, would cut short my hopes of fame, and the grand progress which I sometimes fondly imagined I should make. Every way it would be fatal! I trembled at its possibility. Success, which had so lately appeared certain, seemed to become more and more dubious.

'During the summer, I had heard nothing from the manager. I now inquired at the theatre, and was told he was at Bath, and would not be in town in less than a fortnight. I waited with increasing fears, haunted the play-house, and teazed the attendants at it with my inquiries. Of these I soon perceived not only the sneers but the duplicity; for, when the manager was returned to town, and, as I was told by a performer, was actually in the theatre, they affirmed the contrary! He had been, but was gone! I plainly read the lie in their looks to each other. At that time it was new to me, and gave me great pain; but I soon became accustomed though never reconciled to their manners; which were characterized by that low cunning, that supercilious mixture of insolence and meanness, that is always detested by the honest and the open. A set of—Pshaw! They are unworthy my remembrance.

'Finding the manager was now returned, I immediately wrote to him; and a meeting was appointed three days after, at the theatre. He then informed me there were still some few alterations, which he was desirous should be immediately made; after which the tragedy should be put into rehearsal, and performed in about three weeks.

This was happy news to me. I returned with an elated heart to make the proposed corrections, finished them the same day, and again delivered the piece into the manager's hands. He proceeded with a punctuality that delighted me: the parts were cast, and the performers called to the theatre to hear it read.

'This was a new scene, a new trial of patience, a new degradation. Instead of that steady attention from my small audience which I expected, that deep interest which I supposed the story must inspire, suffusing them in tears or transfixing them in terror, the ladies and gentlemen amused themselves with whispers, winks, jokes, titters, and giggling; which, when they caught my attention and fixed my eye upon the laughers, were turned into an affected gravity that added to the insult. No heart panted! no face turned pale! no eye shed a tear! and, if I were to judge from this experiment, a more uninteresting soul-less piece had never been written. But the manager was not present, and I was not a person of consequence enough to command respect or ceremony, from any party. I complained to him of the total want of effect in my tragedy, over the passions of the actors; but he treated that as a very equivocal sign indeed, and of no worth.

'There was another circumstance, of which he informed me, that to him and as it afterward proved to me was of a much more serious nature. They had not been altogether so inattentive as I had imagined. Amid their monkey tricks and common place foolery, their hearts had been burning with jealousy of each other. Neither men nor women were satisfied with their parts. I had three male and two female characters of great importance in the play, but rising in gradation. Of the first of these all the actors were ambitious; and one of them who knew his own consequence, and that the manager could not carry on the business of the theatre at that time without him, threw up his part.

'In vain did I plead, write, and remonstrate. No reasons, no motives of generosity or of justice, to the manager, the piece, or the public, could prevail; and his aid, though most essential, could not be obtained. Had the part been totally beneath his abilities, his plea would have been good; but it was avowedly, in the manager's opinion and in the opinion of every other performer, superior to half of those he nightly played. That it could have disgraced or injured him partiality itself could not affirm.

'And is the poet, after having spent a life in that deep investigation of the human heart which alone can enable him to write a play, whose efforts must be prodigious, and, if he succeed, his pathos, wit, and genius, rare, is he, after all his struggles, to be at the mercy of an ignorant actor or actress? who, so far from deeply studying the sense, frequently do not remember the words they ought to repeat!

'Every mister is discontented with the character allotted him, each envies the other, and mutters accusations against both author and manager. Sir won't speak the prologue, it is not in his way; and Madam will have the epilogue, or she will positively throw up her part. One gentleman thinks his dialogue too long and heavy, and t'other too short and trifling. This fine lady refuses to attend rehearsals: another comes, but has less of the spirit of the author at the fifth repetition than she had at the first. Of their parts individually they know but very little; of the play as a whole they are absolutely ignorant. On the first representation, by which the reputation of a play is decided, they are so confused and imperfect, owing partly to their imbecility but more still to their indolence, that the sense of the author is mutilated, his characters travestied, and his piece rather burlesqued than performed. The reality of the scene depends on the passions excited in the actor listening almost as essentially as in the actor speaking; but at the end of each speech the player supposes his part is over: the arms, attitude, and features, all sink into insignificance, and have no more meaning than the face of Punch when beating Joan.

'Of the reality of this picture I soon had full proof. My tragedy, after a number of rehearsals, during which all these vexatious incidents and many more were experienced by me, was at length performed. To say that the applause it received equalled my expectations would be false: but it greatly exceeded the expectations of others. It was materially injured by the want of the actor who had refused his part. The reigning vice of recitation, which since the death of Garrick has again prevailed, injured it more. The tide of passion, which should have rushed in torrents and burst upon the astonished ear, was sung out in slow and measured syllables, with a monotonous and funeral cadence, painful in its motion, and such as reminded me of the Sloth and his horrid cry: plaintive indeed, but exciting strange disgust!

'My success however was thought extraordinary. The actors when the play was over swarmed into the green-room, to congratulate me. The actresses were ready to kiss me; good natured souls! The green-room loungers, newspaper critics, authors, and pretended friends of the house flocked round me, to wish me joy and stare at that enviable animal a successful poet. One of them, himself an approved writer of comedy, offered me five hundred pounds for the profits of my piece, and as far as money was concerned I thought my fortune was made: doubts and difficulties were fairly over, and the reward of all my toils was at last secure. Sanguine blockhead, thus everlastingly to embitter my own cup of sorrow! Secure? Oh no! The nectar of hope was soon dashed from my lips.

'I must detail the causes of this reverse; they were various and decisive.

'It had been the custom on the appearance of every new play to give it what is called a run, that is to perform it without intermission as many nights as the house should continue to be tolerably filled. The managers of both theatres had at this time deemed the practice prejudicial, and determined to reform it. Of this reform I was the victim. My play was the first that appeared after the resolution had been taken; and, in the bills of the day which announced the performance of my tragedy for the Saturday evening, the public were advertised that another piece would be acted on Monday. Ignorant of the true reason, the town misinterpreted this notice into an avowal that no favourable expectations were formed of my tragedy; and, as the author was an obscure person whose name was totally unknown to the world, none of that public curiosity on which popularity depends was excited.

'This was but one of the damning causes. My play appeared about the middle of October, when the season continued to be fine: the citizens were all at the watering places, the court was at Windsor, the parliament had not met, and the town was empty.

'To add to all this, one of the performers was taken ill on the second night. Another of them thought proper to ride over to Egham races, on the third; where he got drunk and absented himself from the theatre; so that substitutes were obliged to be found for both the parts. In fine though some few, struck as they affirmed with the merits of the play, were just enough to attempt to bring it into public esteem, it gradually sunk into neglect. My third night, after paying the expences of the house, produced me only twenty pounds. On the sixth night, the receipts were less than the charges, and it was played no more. The overplus of the third night was little more than sufficient to defray the deficiences of the sixth; and thus vanished my golden dreams of profit, prosperity, and fame!

'The evil did not rest here. I was in danger of all the misfortunes I had foreseen from the Jew, and the bond. There was not only hardship and severity but injustice in my case, and I determined to remonstrate to the manager. My mind was sore and my appeal was spirited, but proper: it was an appeal to his equity.

'He listened to me, acknowledged I had been unfortunate, and said that, though the theatre could not and ought not to be accountable for my loss, yet some compensation he thought was justly my due. He therefore gave me a draft on his treasurer for one hundred pounds, and wished me better success in future.

'This it is true was of the most essential service to me; it relieved me, not only from imprisonment, but from the degradation of having my honesty questioned. It did not however restore me to the hope that should have rouzed me to greater exertions.

'Some new efforts indeed I was obliged to make; for the time consumed in revising my tragedy, and attending rehearsals, had occasioned me to neglect other pursuits, and I was again some few pounds in debt. No dread of labour, no degree of misery could induce me to leave these debts unpaid. I therefore worked and starved till they were all discharged: after which I returned to the country, and became usher at the school where I first knew you, Mr. Trevor.

'To paint the family distresses that succeeded, the disgrace, the infamy that attended them, the wretchedness that afterward preyed upon me, till I could endure no more, were needless. I was satisfied that I had a right to end a state of suffering, and to be rid of a world that considers itself as burthened not benefited by such creatures as I am. At torments after death, concerning which bigotry and cunning have invented such horrid fables, accusing and blaspheming a God whom they pretend to adore of tyranny the most monstrous, and injustice the most abhorred, at tales like these I laughed.

'You, Mr. Turl, say you can shew me better arguments, moral motives that are indispensable, why I ought to live. These are assertions, of which I must consider. You have restored me to life: prove that you have done me a favour! Of that I doubt! My first sensation, after recovering my faculties, was anger at your officious pity: shew me that it was ill timed and unjust. If you have reduced me to the necessity of again debating the same painful and gloomy question, if you cannot give that elasticity to my mind which will animate it to despise difficulty and steel it against injustice, however good your intentions may have been, I fear you have but imposed misery upon me.'



CHAPTER X

Remarks on the mistakes of Mr. Wilmot, by Turl: Law, or important truths discussed; to which few will attend, fewer will understand, and very few indeed will believe

The state of mind into which his mistakes had brought him rendered Wilmot an object of compassion. The tone in which he concluded testified the alarming errors into which he was still liable to fall. For this reason, though Turl treated him with all possible humanity and tenderness, he considered it as dangerous to him, and scarcely less so to me, on whom he perceived the strong impression the narrative had made, to be silent. With a voice and countenance therefore of perfect urbanity, he thus replied.

'Do not imagine, Mr. Wilmot, that I have not been deeply penetrated by your sufferings; that I am insensible of your uncommon worth, or that I approve the vices of society, and the injustice and unfeeling neglect with which you have been treated. Thousands are at this moment subject to the same oppression.

'But the province of wisdom is not to lament over our wrongs: it is to find their remedy. Querulous complaint (Pardon me, if my words or expressions have any ill-timed severity: indeed that is far from my intention.) Querulous complaint is worthy only of the infancy of understanding. The world is unjust: and why? Because it is ignorant. Ought that to excite either complaint or anger? Would not the energies of intellect be more worthily employed in removing the cause, by the communication of knowledge?

'You bid me restore the elasticity of your mind. Can you look round on the follies and mistakes of men, which you have the power to detect, expose, and in part reform, and be in want of motive? You demand that I should communicate to you the desire of life. Can you have a perception of the essential duties that you are fitted to perform, and dare you think of dying?

'You have been brooding over your own wrongs, which your distorted fancy has painted as perhaps the most insufferable in the whole circle of existence! How could you be so blind? Look at the mass of evil, by which you are surrounded! What is its origin? Ignorance. Ignorance is the source of all evil; and there is one species of ignorance to which you and men like you have been egregiously subject: ignorance of the true mode of exercising your rare faculties; ignorance of their unbounded power of enjoyment.

'You have been persuaded that this power was destroyed, by the ridiculous distinctions of rich and poor. Oh, mad world! Monstrous absurdity! Incomprehensible blindness! Look at the rich! In what are they happy? In what do they excel the poor? Not in their greater stores of wealth: which is but a source of vice, disease, and death; but in a little superiority of knowledge; a trifling advance toward truth. How may this advantage be made general? Not by the indulgence of the desires you have fostered; the tendency of which was vicious; but by retrenching those false wants, that you panted to gratify; and thus by giving leisure to the poor or rather to all mankind, to make the acquirement of knowledge the grand business of life.

'This is the object on which the attention of every wise man should be turned. He that by precept or example shall prevail on community to relinquish one superfluous dish, one useless and contemptible trapping, will be the general friend of man. He who labours for riches, to countenance by his practice their abuse, is labouring to secure misery to himself, and perpetuate it in society. Who ought to be esteemed the most rich? He whose faculties are the most enlarged. How wealthy were you, had you but known it, at the moment your mind was distracting itself by these dirges of distress.

'He that would riot in luxury, let him wait the hour of appetite; and carry his morsel into the harvest field. There let him seat himself on a bank, eat, and cast his eyes around. Then, while he shall appease the cravings of hunger (not pamper the detestable caprice of gluttony) let him remember how many thousands shall in like manner be fed, by the plenty he every where beholds. How poor and pitiable a creature would he be, were his pleasure destroyed, or narrowed, because the earth on which it was produced was not what he had absurdly been taught to call his own!

'You complain that the titled and the dignified rejected your intercourse. How could you thus mistake your true rank? How exalted was it, compared to the ridiculous arrogance you envied! Were you now visiting Bedlam, would you think yourself miserable because its mad inhabitants despised you, for not being as mighty a monarch as each of themselves? But little depth of penetration is necessary, to perceive that the lunatics around us are no less worthy of our laughter and our pity.

'If I do not mistake, you, Mr. Trevor, are hurrying into the very errors that have misled your noble minded friend and instructor. Your active genius is busying itself how to obtain those riches and distinctions on which you have falsely supposed happiness depends. You are in search of a profession, by which your fortune is to be made. Beware! Notwithstanding that I am frequently assaulted by the same kind of folly myself, I yet never recollect it without astonishment!'

While Turl confined the application of his precepts to Wilmot, I listened and assented with scarcely a doubt: but, the moment he directed them against me, I turned upon him with all the force to which by my passions and fears I was rouzed.

'What,' said I, 'would you persuade me to renounce those pursuits by which alone I can gain distinction and respect in society? Would you have me remain in poverty, and thus relinquish the dearest portion of existence?'

Olivia was full in my thoughts, as I spoke.

'Of what worth would life be, were I so doomed? Rather than accept it on such terms, were there ten thousand Serpentine rivers I would drown in them all!'

Turl glanced significantly first at me and then at Wilmot. 'Do you consider the danger, the possible consequences, of the doctrine you are now inculcating, Mr. Trevor?'

Too much devoured by passion to attend to his reproof, in the sense he meant it, I retorted in a still louder key. 'I can discover no ill consequences in being sincere. I repeat, were there millions of seas, I would sooner drown in them all! You are continually pushing your philosophy to extremes, Mr. Turl.'

'You should rather say, Mr. Trevor, you are pushing your want of philosophy to an extreme.'

'The self denial you require is not in the nature of man.'

'The nature of man is a senseless jargon. Man is that which he is made by the various occurrences to which he is subjected. Those occurrences continually differ; no two men, therefore, were ever alike. But how are you to obtain the wealth and dignity you seek? By honest means?'

'Can you suppose me capable of any other?'

'Alas! How universal, how dangerous, are the mistakes of mankind! Your hopes are childish. The law, I understand, is your present pursuit. Do you suppose it possible to practise the law, in any form, and be honest?'

'Sir!—Mr. Turl?—You amaze me! Where is the dishonesty of pleading for the oppressed?'

'How little have you considered the subject! How ignorant are you of the practice of the law! Oppressed? Do counsel ever ask who is the oppressed? Do they refuse a brief because the justice of the case is doubtful? Do they not always inquire, not what is justice, but, what is law? Do they not triumph most, and acquire most fame, when they can gain a cause in the very teeth of the law they profess to support and revere? Who is the greatest lawyer? Not he who can most enlighten, but he who can most perplex and confound the understanding of his hearers! He who can best brow-beat and confuse witnesses; and embroil and mislead the intellect of judge and jury. Yet the mischiefs I have mentioned are but the sprouts and branches of this tree of evil; its root is much deeper: it is in the law itself; and in the system of property, of which law is the support.'

'Pshaw! These are the distempered dreams of reform run mad.'

'Are they? Consider! Beware of the mischief of deciding rashly! Beware of your passions, that are alarmed lest they should be disappointed.'

'It is you that decide. Prove this rooted evil of law.'

'Suppose me unable to prove it: are its consequences the less real? But I will endeavour.

'He, who is told that, "to do justice is to conduce with all his power to the well being of the whole," has a simple intelligible rule for his conduct.

'He, on the contrary, who is told that, "to do justice is to obey the law," has to inquire, not what is justice! but, what is the law? Now to know the law, (were it practicable!) would be not only to know the statutes at large by rote, but all the precedents, and all the legal discussions and litigations, to which the practitioners of law appeal! Innumerable volumes, filled with innumerable subtleties and incoherencies, and written in a barbarous and unintelligible jargon, must be studied! Memory is utterly inadequate to the task; and reason revolts, spurns at and turns from it with loathing.

'A short statement of facts will, in my opinion, demonstrate that law, in its origin and essence, is absolutely unjust.

'To make a law is to make a rule, by which a certain class of future events shall be judged.

'Future events can only be partially and imperfectly foreseen.

'Consequently, the law must be partial and imperfect.

'Let us take the facts in another point of view—The law never varies.

'The cases never agree.

'The law is general.

'The case is individual.

'The penalty of the law is uniform.

'The justice or injustice of the case is continually different.

'To prejudge any case, that is, to give a decided opinion on it while any of the circumstances remain unknown, is unjust even to a proverb. Yet this is precisely what is done, by making a law.'

'This is strange doctrine, Mr. Turl!'

'Disprove the facts, Mr. Trevor. They are indisputable; and on them the following syllogism may indisputably be formed.

'To make a law is publicly to countenance and promote injustice.

'Publicly to countenance and promote injustice is a most odious and pernicious action.

'Consequently, to make a law is a most odious and pernicious action.

'How unlimited are the moral mischiefs that result! To make positive laws is to turn the mind from the inquiry into what is just, and compel it to inquire what is law!

'To make positive laws is to habituate and reconcile the mind to injustice, by stamping injustice with public approbation!

'To make positive laws is to deaden the mind to that constant and lively sense of what is just and unjust, to which it must otherwise be invariably awake, by not only encouraging but by obliging it to have recourse to rules founded in falsehood!

'Each case is law to itself: that is, each case ought to be decided by the justice, or the injustice arising out of the circumstances of that individual case; and by no other case or law whatever; for the reason I have already given, that there never were nor ever can be two cases that were not different from each other.

'I therefore once more warn you, Mr. Trevor, that law is a pernicious mass of errors; and that the practitioners of it can only thrive by the mischiefs which they themselves produce, the falsehoods they propagate, and the miseries they inflict!'

'This would be dangerous doctrine to the preacher, were it heard in Westminster hall.'

'I am sorry for it! I am sorry that man can be in danger from his fellow men, because he endeavours to do them good!'



CHAPTER XI

Painful meditations: A new project for acquiring wealth: A journey to Bath

That the reader may judge of the arguments of Turl, I have been anxious to state them simply; and not perplexed with the digressions, commentaries, cavils, and violent opposition they met with from me. Striking as they did at the very root of all my promised pleasures, how could I listen and not oppose? Destroying as they did all my towering hopes at a breath, what could I do but rave? When my arguments and my anger were exhausted, I sat silent for a while, sunk in melancholy revery. At length I recovered myself so far as to endeavour to console Mr. Wilmot, offer him every assistance in my power, and persuade him to an interview with his sister. Aided by the benevolent arguments of Turl, this purpose was with some little difficulty effected, and I returned home to relate to Miss Wilmot what had happened.

In very bitterness of soul I then began to meditate on the prospect before me. The sensations I experienced were at some moments agonizing! Could I even have renounced fame and fortune, and patiently have resigned myself to live in obscure poverty, yet to live, as in such a case I must do, without Olivia would be misery to which no arguments could induce me to submit. But how obtain her? Where were all my bright visions fled? Poor Wilmot! What an example did he afford of ineffectual struggles, talents neglected, and genius trampled in the dust! Was there more security for me? Turl indeed seemed to resign himself without a murmur, and to be happy in despite of fate. But he had no Olivia to regret! If he had, happiness without her would be impossible!

To attempt to repeat all the tormenting fears that hurried and agitated my mind, on this occasion, were fruitless. Suffice it to say, this was one of those severe conflicts to which by education and accident I was subject; and it was not the least painful part of the present one that I could come to no decision.

I persuaded myself indeed that, with respect to law, Turl's reasoning was much too severe and absolute. It was true I could not but own that law was inclined to debase and corrupt the morals of its practitioners; but surely there were exceptions, and if I pursued the law why should not I be one of them. If therefore the happiness at which I aimed were attainable by this means, I asserted to myself that I had heard no reasons which ought to deter me from practising the law.

In the mean time, I had conceived a project that related to the immediate state of my feelings; the acuteness of which I was obliged to seek some method to appease. Olivia was gone to Bath, with her aunt; and thither I was determined to follow her.

Full of this design, I dispatched Philip with orders that a post chaise should be ready at the door by nine o'clock the next morning; after which, to rid myself as much as possible of the thoughts that haunted me, I once more went in search of the false Belmont.

I found him at the usual place engaged at play. The betting was high, he appeared to be overmatched, and for a few games his antagonist, who like himself was a first rate player, triumphed. My passions were always of the touch-wood kind. Rouzed and tempted by the bets that were so plentifully offered, the thought suddenly occurred how possible it was for a man of penetration, who could keep himself perfectly cool, as I was persuaded I could (What was there indeed that I persuaded myself I could not do?) to make a fortune by gambling! I did not indeed call it by the odious term gambling: it was calculation, foresight, acuteness of discernment. My morality was fast asleep; so intent was I on profiting by this new and surprisingly certain source of wealth! and so avaricious of the means that at a glance seemed to promise the gratification of all my desires!

I had not frequented a billiard table without have exercised my own skill, learned the odds, and obtained a tolerable knowledge of the game itself. So fixed was my cupidity on its object that I began with the caution of a black-leg; made a bet, and the moment the odds turned in my favour secured myself by taking them; hedged again, as the advantage changed; and thus made myself a certain winner. I exulted in my own clearness of perception! and wondered that so palpable a method of winning should escape even an idiot!

The experience however of a few games taught me that my discovery was not quite of so lucrative a nature as I had supposed. The odds did not every game vary, from side to side; people were not always inclined to bet the odds; and, if I would run no great risk, I even found it necessary to bet them sometimes myself. Every man who has made the experiment knows that the thirst of lucre, when thus awakened in a young mind, is insatiable, impetuous, and rash. I was weary of petty gains, and riches by retail. The ardour with which I examined the players, and each circumstance as it occurred, persuaded me that there were tokens by which an acute observer might discover the winning party. I had on former occasions remarked that players but rarely win game and game alternately, even when they leave off equal; but that success has a tide, with a kind of periodical ebb and flow. This said I may be attributed to the temper of the players; the loser is too angry to attend with sufficient caution to his game; he persuades himself that luck is against him, strikes at random, and does mischief every stroke. After a while the winner grows careless, loses a game, and becomes angry and conquered in turn.

Exulting in my prodigious penetration, and fortified in my daring by reasoning so deep, I determined to hedge no more bets. Belmont, whose notice my sudden rage for betting had by no means escaped, was at this time losing, and I was backing his antagonist. To one of the bets I offered, he said, 'Done;' and, though I felt a reluctance to win his money, it seemed ungentlemanlike to refuse. I won the first three bets; and, exulting in my own acuteness and certainty, intreated him in pity to desist. He refused, and I pleaded the pain I felt at winning the money of a friend. Beside, it was not only dishonourable but dishonest; it was absolutely picking his pocket!

My triumph was premature. From this time fortune veered, and he began to win. I was then willing to have taken the other side, but could not procure a bet. He bantering bade me not be afraid of winning my friend's money; it was neither dishonourable, dishonest, nor picking his pocket. Piqued by his sarcasms, I continued till I had lost five and twenty guineas; and then my vexation and pride, which almost foamed at the suspicion of my own folly, made me propose to bet double or quit. I lost again, again resorted to the same desperate remedy, and met with the same ill success. My frenzy was such that I a third time urged him to continue. Fortunately for me his antagonist would play no more, and I was left to reflect that my calculations and avaricious arts to rob fools and outwit knaves were as crude as they were contemptible.

Wrung as I was to the heart, I was ashamed of having it supposed that the loss of my hundred guineas in the least affected me. Belmont insisted that I should sup with him, and when I attempted to decline his invitation bantered me out of my refusal, by asking if I had parted with my hundred guineas to purchase the spleen. During supper I informed him of my intended journey to Bath; and he immediately proposed to accompany me, telling me that he had himself had the same intention. On this we accordingly agreed, and I left him early and retired to bed; but not to rest. The quick decay of my small substance, the helpless state in which I found myself, the impatience with which I desired wealth and power, and the increasing distance at which I seemed to be thrown from Olivia by this last act of folly, kept me not only awake but in a fever of thought.

The next day we set off, and arrived at Bath the same evening; where the first inquiries I made were at the Pump-room, to learn where Olivia and her aunt were lodged. So inconsiderate and eager were my desires, that I endeavoured to obtain apartments in the same house; but ineffectually, they were all let. I was recommended to others however in Milsom-street, in which I fixed my abode. There was not room for Belmont, and he got lodgings on the South Parade.



CHAPTER XII

Desperate measures: Olivia and her aunt: A rash accusation; and its strange consequences: Affairs brought to a crisis

Before I proceed to the history of my Bath adventures, it is necessary to take a brief retrospect of the state of my affairs. The total of my expences, from the time that I received the four hundred and fifty pounds of Thornby, to my arrival at Bath, was about two hundred and forty pounds, including the sum I had lost at billiards, the money I had paid for printing my pamphlet (the last sheet of which I corrected before I left town) thirty pounds that in consequence of a letter from my mother I remitted to her, and twenty for the purchase of a lottery ticket; for, among other absurd and vicious ways of becoming rich, that suggested itself to my eager fancy.

The quick decay of my very small inheritance lay corroding at my heart, and prompted me to a thousand different schemes, without the power of determining me to any. My general propensity however was more to the desperate, which should at once be decisive, than to the slow and lingering plans of timid prudence. In reality both seemed hopeless, and therefore the briefest suffering was the best. At some short intervals the glow of hope, which had lately been so fervid, would return, and those powers of thought that seemed to be struggling within me would promise great and glorious success; but these were only flashes of lightening darting through a midnight sky, the texture of which was deep obscurity; 'darkness visible.'

To one point however I was fixed, that of using every endeavour to learn the true sentiments of Olivia respecting me; and, if any possible opportunity offered, of declaring my own. To effect this I resolved, since I knew not what better method to take, that I would watch the few public places to which all the visitors at Bath resort. I therefore immediately subscribed to the upper and lower rooms, and traversed the city in every direction.

People, not confined to their chamber, are here sure to be soon met with; and, on the second morning after my arrival, I discovered Olivia, seated at the farther end of the Pump-room. She had an old lady, who proved to be her aunt, by her side; and a circle round her, in which were several handsome fellows, who my jealous eye instantly discovered were all ambitious of her regard.

The moment I had a glimpse of her, I was seized with a trembling that shook my whole frame, and a sickness that I with difficulty subdued. I approached, stopped, turned aside, again advanced, again hesitated, and was once more almost overcome by a rising of the heart that was suffocating, and a swimming of the brain that made my limbs stagger, my eyes roll, and deprived me of sight.

It was sometime before I could make another attempt. At length I caught her eye. With the rapidity of lightening her cheek was suffused with blushes, and as instantaneously changed to a death-like pale. It was my habitual error to interpret every thing in my own favour; and the conviction that she was suffering emotions similar to my own was transport to me.

For some minutes I mingled with the croud, fearful of a relapse on my own part and on hers, but keeping her in sight, and presenting myself to her view, till I was rouzed by an apparent motion of the aunt to rise. I then advanced, but still in an ague fit of apprehension. I attempted to bow, and in a faltering and feeble voice pronounced her name, 'hoped she was well, and'—I could proceed no farther.

My disease was infectious. She sat a moment, severely struggling with her feelings, and then returned a kind of inarticulate complimentary answer.

'What is the matter Olivia?' said the aunt. 'How strangely you look child? Who is the gentleman?'

Olivia made another effort. '—It is Mr. Trevor, Madam; the grandson of the rector of ***.'

'Oh ho! The young Oxonian that my nephew Hector tells the comical story about; of the methodist preacher, and of his throwing you into the water, and then taking you out again.'

The tone, form, and features of the old lady, with this short introductory dialogue, gave me a strong, but no encouraging picture, of her character. Her voice was masculine, her nose short, her mouth wide, her brow bent and bushy, and the corners of her eyes and cheeks deeply wrinkled. I attempted to enter into conversation, but my efforts were aukward; the answers of the aunt were broad, coarse, and discouraging; and Olivia, though embarrassed, I accused of being cold. The manner of the old lady clearly indicated, that she suspected my design; and an endeavour in me to prolong the conversation, by turning it on my native county, drew from her the following animadversions.

'I have heard a great deal about your family, Mr. Trevor; and of the ridiculous opposition which your grandfather pretended to make to my late brother, Mowbray. Your mother, I think, was twice married, and, as I have been told, both times very imprudently; so that the proud hopes which the rector entertained of raising a family were all overthrown. But that is always the case with clandestine matches. Many families, of much greater consequence than ever yours was, Mr. Trevor, have been brought low by such foolish and wicked doings. Young girls that have indulged improper connections, and secret lovers, have involved themselves, and all their relations, in ruin by their guilty proceedings. You are but a petty instance of the base and bad consequences of the crimes of such foolish young hussies. Come, niece!'

They both rose to go. The dialogue that had just passed had no listeners, though of that circumstance the aunt was evidently regardless. The circle round Olivia had presently dispersed, as good manners required, when I a stranger came up. The repugnant and ominous behaviour of the aunt did but increase the impetuous haste that I felt to know the worst, and addressing myself to Olivia, I asked with some eagerness, 'If I might be permitted to pay her my respects while she continued at Bath?'

The aunt fixed her eye on me, 'Look you,' said she, 'Mr. Trevor, you are a handsome young fellow, and I do not want handsome young fellows about my niece. I see too many of them: they have little fortune, and less shame; they give me a deal of trouble; no good can come of their smirking and smiling, their foppery and their forward prate. My niece I believe has much more prudence than is usual with the young minxes of the present day. But no matter for that: I am sure there is no prudence in setting gunpowder too near the fire. I have heard her talk of your taking her out of the water in a manner that, if I did not know her, I should not quite like. So I must plainly tell you, Sir, as I can see no good that can come of your acquaintance, I shall take care to prevent all harm. Not that there is much fear, for she knows her duty, and has always done it. Neither can you have entertained any impertinent notions: it would be too ridiculous! Though what my nephew and Mr. Andrews told me, I own, did seem as if you could strangely forget yourself. But at once to cut matters short, I now tell you plainly, and down right, her choice is made. Yes, Sir, her choice is positively made; and so, though I do not suppose you have taken any foolish crotchets, and improper whims into your head, for that would be too impertinent, yet as you knew one another when children, and so forth, it was best to be plain with you at once, because, though such ridiculous nonsense was quite impossible, I hear on all hands you are a bold and flighty young gentleman, and that you have no little opinion of yourself.'

Dumb founded as I was by this undisguised refusal, this hard, unfeeling reprimand, I made no attempt to reply or follow. The flushings of Olivia's face indeed were continual; but what were they more than indignant repellings of her aunt's broad surmises? Had they been favourable to me why did she not declare them with the openness of which she had so striking an example? She curtsied as she went; but it was a half-souled compliment, that while I attempted to return my heart resented.

They disappeared, and I remained, feeling as if now first made sensible of the extreme folly, the lunacy of all my actions! The dialogue I had just heard vibrated in my brain, burning and wasting it with the frenzy of agonizing recollection. 'I was a forward prating fop, of little fortune, and less shame! Bold and flighty, with no little opinion of myself; again and again I was ridiculous, and impertinent! My crotchets, whims, and nonsense were impossible!'

Nor was this all! There was another piece of intelligence; an additional and dreadful feature of despair; the name of Andrews! Detested sound! Racking idea! 'Her choice is made; positively made!' Excruciating thought! Why then, welcome ruin! sudden and irrevocable ruin!

As soon as I could recover sufficient recollection, I hurried home; where I remained in a trance of torment, and disposed to a thousand acts of madness that were conceived and dismissed with a rapidity of pain that rendered my mind impotent to all, except the inflicting torture on itself.

At last, the agony in which I sat was interrupted by the appearance of Belmont. We had agreed to go to Lansdown races, he told me it was now time, took me by the arm, and hurried me away.

Reckless of where I went, or what I did, I obeyed. The course was at no great distance, a carriage was not to be procured, and we walked. The steepness of the hill, the heat of the day, and above all the anguish of my heart, threw me into a violent heat. The drops rolled down my cheeks, and I put my handkerchief lightly into my hat, to prevent its pressure. Lost in a revery of misery, I acted instinctively, and breathed the dust, heard the hubbub, and saw the confusion around me without perceiving them.

After the first heat there was a battle, toward which I was dragged by Belmont. In the tumult and distraction of my thoughts, I scarcely knew what happened; and feeling in my pocket for my handkerchief I missed it. A croud and a pick-pocket was an immediate suggestion. Neither coolness nor recollection were present to me. I saw a man putting up a red and white handkerchief, which I supposed to be mine, and springing forward, I caught him by the collar, and exclaimed, 'Rascal, you have robbed me!' In an instant the mob flocked round us, and the supposed pick-pocket was seized. 'Duck him! Duck him!' was the general cry; and away the poor fellow was immediately hurried. Half awakened by the unpremeditated danger into which I had brought him, I began to repent. Belmont, who had lost sight of me, came up, and asked what was the matter.

'A fellow has picked my pocket,' said I.

'Of what?'

'Of my handkerchief.'

'Your handkerchief? Is it not under your hat?'

I snatched it off, examined, and there the handkerchief was!—I was struck speechless!

The man whom I had falsely accused made a violent resistance; the mob was dragging him along, rending his clothes off his back, and half-tearing him in pieces. The state of my mind was little short of frenzy. In a tone of command, I bade Belmont follow, made my way into the thickest of the croud, and furiously began to beat the people who were ill-using the prisoner; calling till I was hoarse, 'Let him alone! He is innocent! I am to blame!'

My efforts were vain. A mob has many hands but no ears. My blows were returned fifty fold. I was inveloped by one mob myself, while the poor wretch was hauled along by another. Not all my struggles could save him. I could not get free; and the man, as Belmost afterward informed me, was half drowned; after which he escaped, and nobody knew what was become of him.

These were but a part of the accidents of the day. My mind was maddening, and I was ripe for mischief. Belmont in the evening went to the hazard table, and I determined to accompany him, to which he encouraged me. The impetus was given, and, as if resolved on destruction, I put all my money, except a ten pound note to pay my Bath debts, in my pocket. Though ignorant of the cause of them, Belmont discovered my inclinations. He took care to be at the place before the company assembled.

An accomplice (as I afterward learned) was present, who displayed guineas and bank notes sufficient to convince me that he was my man, if I could but win them. I was as eager as they could desire, and to increase my ardour was occasionally suffered to win a rich stake. My success was of short duration; I soon began to lose and foam with rage. In the midst of this scene, Hector Mowbray and tall Andrews came in; who unknown to me were at Bath. They saw me close my accounts, and by their looks enjoyed my fury. The whole company, which now began to be numerous, understood that I left off play because I had no more money to lose. The pigeon was completely plucked.

This was the climax of misery, at which I seemed ambitious to arrive. During six hours, I sat in a state of absolute stupor; and echoed the uproar and blasphemy that surrounded me with deep but unconscious groans. I do not know that I so much as moved, till the company was entirely dispersed, and I was awakened from my torpor by the groom porter. I then languidly returned to my lodging, exhausted and unable longer to support the conflicting torture.

END OF VOLUME III



VOLUME IV



CHAPTER I

The pains and penalties of illicit attempts to become rich: The sleep of a gamester: Morning meditations

The pungency of extreme grief acts as a temporary opiate: for a short time it lulls the sufferer to insensibility, and sleep; but it is only to recruit him and awaken him to new torments.

When I reached my lodgings, I appeared to myself to have sunk into a state of quiescent resignation. The die was cast. My doom was irrevocable; and despair itself seemed to have lost its charm: the animation, the vigour, of misery was gone. I was reduced to an inevitable post-horse kind of endurance; and had only now to be thankful if I might be permitted to exist. From an audacious and arrogant confidence in my own strength, I had suddenly yet by perceptible gradations declined, though with excruciating pangs at every step, till I now at last found myself in a state of sluggish and brute imbecility.

Staggering home in this temper, I undressed myself, went to bed with stupid composure, and felt like a wretch that had been stretched on the rack, and, having just been taken off, was suffered to sink into lifeless languor, because he could endure no more. I was mistaken. My sleeping sensations soon became turbulent, oppressive, fevered, terrific, yet cumbrous, and impossible to awake from and escape.

It was seven in the morning, when I returned to my lodging. When I went to bed, my heaviness was so great that I seemed as if I could have slept for centuries; and, so multifarious and torturing were the images that haunted me, that, the time actually appeared indefinitely protracted: a month, a year, an age: yet it was little more than two hours. The moment struggling nature had cast off her horrible night-mares, and I had once more started into identity, the anguish of the past day and night again seized me. Pains innumerable, and intolerable, rushed upon me. Each new thought was a new serpent. Mine was the head of Medusa: with this difference; my scorpions shed all their venom inward.

Confusion of mind is the source of pain: but confusion is the greatest in minds that are the seldomest subject to it; and with those the pain is proportionably intense. The conflict was too violent to be endured, without an endeavour to get rid of it. I rose, traversed my room I know not how long, and at last rushed into the street; with a sort of feeling that, when in the open air, the atmosphere of misery that enveloped me would be swallowed up, and lost, in the infinite expanse.

The hope was vain: it wrapped me round like a cloak. It was a universal caustic, that would not endure to be touched; much less torn away. I groaned. I gnashed my teeth. I griped my hands. I struck myself violent blows. I ran with fury, in circles, in zigzag, with sudden turns and frantic bounds; and, finding myself on the banks of the Avon, plunged headlong in.

I acted from no plan, or forethought; therefore was far from any intention to drown myself; and, being in the water, I swam as I had run, like a mad or hunted bull.

That unpremeditated sensation which enforces immediate action is what, I suppose, Philosophers mean by instinct: if the word ever had any definite meaning. Thousands of these instinctive experiments are, no doubt, injurious to the animals that make them: but, their number being unlimited, some of them are successful. The benefit is remembered; they are repeated; and a future race profits by the wisdom that becomes habitual. I am well persuaded that my immersion in the stream was assuaging; and gamesters hereafter, or the faculty themselves, may, if they please, profit by the experiment.

I have no distinct recollection of coming out of the water: though I remember walking afterward, two or three hours, till my cloaths were again entirely dry. My feelings, in the interval, were somewhat similar to those of the preceding evening; declining from frantic agitation to stupidity, and torpor.



CHAPTER II

An unexpected rencontre; and a desperate contest: Victory dearly bought

Man is, or, which is the same thing, his sensations are, continually changing; and it may be truly affirmed that he is many different animals in the course of a day. A very unexpected, yet very natural, incident again rouzed me, to a state of activity.

During my ramble, I had strayed among the new buildings, below the Crescent. I know not whether I had any latent hope, or wish, of having a distant sight of Olivia, walking there as is customary for air and exercise: though I was certainly far too much degraded, in my own opinion, to intend being seen myself, even by her; much less by any of those proud beings, those ephemera; of fortune, with whom, while I despised their arrogance, not to associate, not to be familiar, nay not to treat with a sort of conscious superiority, was misery. We all practise that haughtiness, ourselves, which, in others, is so irritating to our feelings; and for which we pretend to have so sovereign a contempt.

As I passed a number of workmen, my moody apathy, though great, did not prevent me from hearing one of them exclaim, with a loud and suddenly angry surprize, 'By G—— that is he!'

I was at some little distance. I heard the steps of a man running speedily toward me. I turned round. He looked me full in the face; and, with no less eagerness, repeated—'Yes! D—mn me if it is not! Dick! Will! Come here! Run!'

I stood fixed. I did not recollect ever to have seen the exact figure before me; but I had a strong and instantaneously a painful impression, of the same form in a different garb. It was the man whom I had accused, the day before, of picking my pocket: the poor fellow who had been so unmercifully ducked, and ill treated, by the mob.

His impatience of revenge was furious. Without uttering another word, he made a desperate blow at me. I was unprepared; and it brought me to the ground. His foot was up, to second it with as violent a kick; but, fortunately, the generous spirit of my opponent and the laws of mob honour were mutually my shield. He recollected the cowardice as well as the opprobrium of kicking a combatant, when down; and, in the tone of rage, commanded me to get up.

I was not slow in obeying the mandate; nor he in repeating the assault. I warded several of his blows, which were dealt with too much thoughtless fury to be dangerous; but again and again called on him to stop, for a moment, and hear me. I felt I had been the cause of much mischief to the man; and had no alacrity to increase the wrong. My behaviour was not that of fear; and his companions at length got between us, and for a moment prevented the battle.

We were at the bottom of the hill: the beginning of the fray had been seen, and the crowd was collecting in every direction. The beaus descended from the crescent; and left the belles to view us through their opera-glasses, and pocket-telescopes, while they came to collect more circumstantial information. The Mowbray family had just arrived at this public promenade. Hector and tall Andrews joined the mob: the aunt and Olivia remained on the walk.

The story of the false accusation, the ducking, and the injuries done to my antagonist, ran, varied and mangled, from mouth to mouth: a general sensation of rage was excited against me; and Hector and Andrews very charitably gave it every assistance in their power. Not satisfied with this, they proposed the Lex Talionis; and called—'Duck him!' 'Duck him!' They took care, however, to turn their backs; imagining that, amid the hubbub, I should not distinguish their voices.

My antagonist, though but a journeyman carpenter, had too much of the hero in him to admit of this mean revenge. His anger could only be appeased by chastising me with his own arm; and proving to me, as well as to the crowd, how unworthy he was of that contemptible character which my accusation had endeavoured to fix upon him. He was therefore determined to oblige me to fight.

I never remember to have felt greater repugnance, than I now had, to defend myself, by committing more hurt and injury upon this indignant, but brave, fellow. I tried to expostulate, nay to intreat, but in vain: my remonstrances were construed into cowardice, and fight I must, or suffer such disgrace as my tyro-philosophy was ill calculated to endure.

My antagonist was stripped in form; and, as the diversion of a battle is what an English mob will never willingly forego, I found partisans; who determined to see fair play, encouraged, instructed me, clapped me on the back, and, partly by intreaty partly by violence, stripped off my coat. They were vexed at my obstinate refusal to part with my waistcoat and shirt.

With their usual activity, they soon made a ring; and I stood undetermined, and excessively reluctant; not very willing to receive, but infinitely averse to return the blows he now once more began to deal!

The carpenter was an athletic and powerful man; famous for the battles he had fought, and the victories he had gained. His companions, who evidently had an affection for him, and who knew his prowess, had no supposition that I could withstand him for five minutes: though the hopes of those who were the most eager for the sport had been a little raised, by the alertness with which I rose, after being at first knocked down, and the skill with which I then stood on my defence.

The doubts that pervaded my mind imparted, I suppose, something of that appearance to my countenance which is occasioned by fear; for my adversary approached me with looks of contempt; and, as I retreated, bade me stand forward and face him like a man. The crowd behind seconded him; and, fearing it should be a run-away victory, was rather willing to press upon and push me forward than to recede, and give me any play. Hector and Andrews were all the while very active, as instigators.

My indecision occasioned me to receive several severe blows, without returning one; till, at length, I was again extended on the ground, by a very desperate blow near the ear; which, for a few seconds, deprived me of all sense and recollection.

This was no longer to be endured. As soon as I recovered, I sprang on my feet, condescended to strip, and became in turn the assailant. The joy and vociferation of the mob were immense. They thought it had been all over; and to see me now rise, stand forward, and fight, as I did, with so much determination and effect, was, to them, rapture. They had discovered a hero. Their education had taught them, for such is education, that the man who has the power to endure and to inflict the most misery is the most admirable.

For six successive rounds, I had completely the advantage; during which my brave foe had received five knock-down blows: for that is the phrase. His companions and friends were astonished. The beau pugilists were vociferating their bets; five pounds to a crown in my favour.

The carpenter was as hardy as he was courageous. He collected himself; I had become less circumspect, and he threw in another dangerous blow near my temple, with the left hand, that again felled me insensible to the earth.

I now recovered more slowly, and less effectually. I had been severely breathed, by the violence of exertion. The laws of pugilistic war will not suffer a man to lie, after being knocked down, more than a certain number of seconds. Hector had his stop-watch in his hand; and tall Andrews joined him, to enforce the rule in all its rigour. I was lifted on my feet before I had perfectly recovered my recollection; and was again knocked down, though with less injury. While down, I received a kick in the side; of which my partisans instantly accused Andrews.

Meaning to do me mischief, he did me a favour. The wrangling that took place gave me time to recover; and being again brought in face of my opponent, I once more proposed a reconciliation; and, stretching out my arm, asked him to shake hands. But, no. The ducking was too bitterly remembered. 'He would beat me; or never go alive from the ground.'

For a moment, the generous thought of acknowledging myself vanquished suggested itself: but rising vanity, and false shame, spurned at the proposal, therefore, since he was so desperate, I had no resource but in being equally savage. Accordingly, I bent my whole powers to this detestable purpose, brought him twice more to the ground, and, on the third assault, gave him a blow that verified his own prediction; for he fell dead at my feet, and was taken up lifeless from the place.

Agony to agony! Vice to vice! Such was my fate! Where, when, how, was it to have an end? Were not my own personal sufferings sufficient? Accuse an innocent man of theft; deliver him over to the fury of a mob; and, not contented with that, meet him again to fight, beat, murder him! And without malice; without evil intention! Nay, with the very reverse: abhorring the mischief I had done him; and admiring the intrepidity and fortitude he had displayed!

Nor did it end here: the intelligence that was instantly sent round was horror indeed. He had left a wife and seven children!



CHAPTER III

The kind behaviour of old friends: A joyful recovery: More misfortunes: Patience per force

Never were sensations more truly tragical than mine: yet, as is frequent, they had a dash of the ridiculous; which resulted from the machinations of my good friends, Hector and Andrews. To inspire others with the contempt in which they held, or rather endeavoured to hold, me, and to revenge the insults which they supposed themselves to have received from me, were their incentives. They knew I had been stripped of my money at the gaming-table: they mingled with the partisans of the carpenter; and, informing them that I was a pretended gentleman, advised them to have me taken before a magistrate; for that the law would at least make me provide for the widow and children. Perhaps it would hang me: as I deserved. They farther proposed a subscription, to begin with me; and accordingly they came up to me, as by deputation, with the murdered man's hat.

The mortification they intended me had its full effect. I was pennyless; and the epithets which generous souls like these appropriate, to such upstart intruders upon their rights and privileges as myself, were muttered with as much insolence as they had the courage to assume.

I was not yet tamed. I could not endure this baiting. I hated, almost abhorred, Andrews. He dared to pretend love to Olivia: he had brought me into disgrace with her; nay was soon to rob me of her everlastingly; and, recollecting the kick he had bestowed upon me when down, I called him a scoundrel; and accompanied the coarse expression with a blow.

In a moment, the mob were again in agitation, expected another battle, admired my hardy valour, and called for a ring. Andrews knew better: he saved them the trouble; and shuffled away; followed though scouted even by Hector himself, for his cowardice. Mowbray remembered the battle of the rats; and, by comparison, found himself a very hero.

The moment I was permitted, I enquired to what place the poor carpenter had been taken; and followed with infinite terror, but with a faint degree of hope; some affirming that he was dead, others that he was not. I was attended by several of my admirers.

It would be vain to attempt any picture of what my feelings were, when, coming into his dwelling, I found him alive! sitting surrounded by his wife, children, and companions! I fell on my knees to him. I owned all the mischief I had done him. I conjured him, for God's sake, to forgive me. I was half frantic; and the worthy fellow, in the same free spirit with which he had fought, stretched out his hand, in token of his forgiveness and friendship.

His unaffected magnanimity prompted me instantly to execute a design which I had before formed. 'Stay where you are, my good friends,' said I, to the people that stood round him. 'I will be back in a few minutes. The little reparation that I can make I will make: to shew you that it was from error, and not ill intention, that I have done this brave man so much injury.'

So saying, I ran out of the house, directed my course to my lodgings, and hastened to my trunk; to take out the ten-pound note, which I had reserved to pay my Bath debts. My passions were too much in a hurry to admit of any enquiry how these debts were to be paid, when I should have given the bank-note to the carpenter. I was determined not to enquire; but to appease my feelings, rescue my character, and bestow it on him.

Where were my troubles to end? The persecuting malice of fortune was intolerable. Philip, the footman whom I had hired, but scarcely ever employed, had disappeared: having previously broken open my trunk, and taken, with the ten pounds, such of my linen and effects as he could carry under his cloaths, and in his pockets, without being seen.

This was a stroke little less painful than the worst of the accidents that had befallen me: yet, so harassed was my mind, and so wearied with grieving, that I did not feel it with half the poignancy.

Act however I must. But how? I had left the carpenter and his family in suspense. Must I talk of favours which I could not confer? or mention remuneration that would but seem like mockery? This was painful: but not so painful as falsehood.

I therefore returned, related the story of the robbery, and added that 'my intentions were to have endeavoured to afford some small recompence, for the unintentional injury I had committed. I was sorry that, at present, this accident had deprived me of the power: but I hoped I should not always be so very destitute. I certainly should neither forget the debt I had incurred, nor the noble behaviour of the man who had suffered so much from me. At present I was very unfortunate: but, if ever I should become more prosperous, I should remember my obligation, and in what manner it would become me to see it discharged.'

I was heard with patience, and with no disappointment. My auditors, though poor, were far from selfish. Beside, as I had not previously declared what I had intended, I had excited little expectation. My vanquished opponent, whose name was Clarke, was soothed by the justice I did him, in defending his innocence and praising his courage; and said 'I had given him the satisfaction of a man, and that was all he asked.' He rather sympathized with my loss than felt a loss of his own; and gave various indications of a generous spirit, such as is seldom to be found among persons who would think themselves highly disgraced by any comparison between them and a poor carpenter. I own I quitted him with a degree of esteem, such as neither the lord nor the bishop I had once been so willing, or rather so industrious, to revere had the good fortune to inspire.