Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

strong as the fondness of imitating the French has been among people of fashion, they have not yet introduced among us their contempt for trade. A French marquis, who has nothing to boast of but his high birth, would scorn to take a merchant's daughter by the hand in wedlock, though her father should be as rich as the Bussy of the East Indies; as if a Frenchman was only to be valued, like a blackpudding, for the goodness of his blood; while our nobility not only go into the city for a wife, but send their younger sons to a merchant's counting-house for education. But, I confess, I never considered, till very lately, how far they have from time to time departed from this French folly in their esteem for trade: and I find,that the greatest part of our nobility may be properly deemed merchants, if not traders, and even shopkeepers.

it from me. I called again the next day, and found, to my great surprise, a somewhat better reception from my friend the porter, who immediately, as I heard after wards, by order from his lord, introduced me into the library. When I entered, I saw a gentleman in an arm-chair reading a pamphlet, whom, as I did not know him, I took for my lord himself, especially as he did not rise from his chair, or so much as offer to look towards me, on my entering. I immediately addressed myself to him with "My lord"-But was instantly told by him, without taking his eyes from the pamphlet, that his brother was dressing he read on, and left me to contemplate the situation I was in, that if I had been treated with so much contempt from the porter and my lord's brother, what must I expect from my noble patron? While I was thus reflecting, in comes a gentleman, running up to me, In the first place we may consider many and taking me cordially by the hand, of our nobility in the same light as Beaver said, he was heartily glad to see me. I or Henson, or any other keepers of repowas greatly distressed to know how to sitories. The breeding of running-horses behave. I could not imagine this to be is become a favourite traffic among them; his lordship, who was so affable and cour- and we know how very largely persons of teous, and I could not suppose it was the first fashion deal this way, and what any body who meant to insult me. My great addition they make to their yearly anxiety was removed by his pulling out income by winning plates and matches, the letter I had left, and saying, "He was and then selling the horse for a prodigious very happy that it was in his power to sum. What advantages must accrue to comply with the contents of it;" at them if they have a mare of blood to breed the same time introducing me to his bro- from! But what a treasure have they if ther, as a gentleman he was happy to they are possessed of the stallion in fashion! know. This younger brother arose from I can therefore see no difference between his chair with great indifference; and, this occupation of my lord and that of any taking me coolly by the hand, said, "He Yorkshire dealer whatsoever: and if his "should be proud of so valuable an lordship is not always so successful in his acquaintance;" and, resuming his seat, trade as the jockey of the North, it is not proceeded to finish his pamphlet. Upon because he does not equally hold it fair to taking leave, my lord renewed his former cheat his own brother in horse flesh. If a declaration; but his brother was too in- duke rides his own horses on the course, tent on his reading to observe the bow he does not, in my judgment, differ from made to him by the valuable acquaintance any other jockey on the turf; and I think he a few minutes before professed him- it the same thing, whether a man gets self so proud of. money by keeping a stallion, or whether he gets it by keeping a bull or a boar for the parish.

66

66

I am not ignorant, however, that there are many younger brothers to peers, who acknowledge, with much concern, the truth of what has been said, and are ready to allow, that, in too many families of distinction, the younger brother is not the finer gentleman.

I am your humble servant, &c.
B. Thornton.

$112. Persons of Quality proved to be

Traders.

I always reflect with pleasure, that

We know of many persons of quality whose passion for trade has made them dealers in fighting-cocks, and I heard one declare to me lately, that there was no trusting to servants in that business; that he should make nothing of it, if he did not look after the cocks himself; and that, for a month before he is to fight a match, he always takes care of and feeds them himself; and for that purpose (strange as it

may seem) he lies in a little room close by them every night. I cannot but admire this industry, which can make my noble friend quit his lady's bed, while tradesmen of a lower rank neglect their business for the charms of a kept mistress. But it must be allowed, that these dealers in live fowl are to be considered as poulterers, as well as those who sell the deer of their park are to be ranked among the butchers in Claremarket; though the latter endeavour artfully to avoid this, by selling their venison to pastry-cooks and fishmongers.

What shall we say of those who send venison, hares, pheasants, partridges, and all other game, to their poulterer and fishmonger in London, to receive an equivalent in poultry and fish in winter when they are in town?-Though these sportsmen do not truck their commodities for money, they are nothing less than higlers and hucksters, dealers and chapmen, in the proper sense of the words; for an exchange was never denied to be a sale, though it is affirmed to be no robbery.

I come now to the consideration of those who deal in a much larger and more extensive way, and are properly styled merchants, while those already mentioned are little more than traders in the retailing business; what immense sums are received by those electioneering merchants, whose fortunes and influence in many counties and boroughs enable them to procure a seat in parliament for any that will pay for it! How profitable has nursing the estates of extravagant persons of distinction proved to many a right honourable friend! I do not mean from his shewing himself a true steward, but from the weight and interest he has got by it at a general election. What Jew deals larger than many of our nobility in the stocks and in lottery tickets? and perhaps one should not find more bulls and bears at Jonathan's than at Arthur's. If you cannot, at this last place, insure your house from fire, or a ship from the danger of the seas, or the French, you may get largely underwrit on lives, and insure your own against that of your mother or grandmother for any sum whatsoever. There are those who deal as greatly in this practice of putting one life against another as any underwriter in the city of London: and indeed, the end of insuring is less answered by the latter than the former: for the prudent citizen will not set his name to any policy,

where the person to be insured is not in perfect health; while the merchants at St. James's, who insure by means of bets instead of policies, will pay you any sum whatsoever, if a man dies that is run through the body, shot through the head, or has tumbled off his chair in an apoplexy; for as there are persons who will lay on either side, he who wants to insure need only choose that which answers his purpose. And as to the dealings of these merchants of fashion in annuities upon lives, we often hear that one sells his whole estate, for his life, to another; and there is no other form of conveyance used between the buyer and seller, than by shuffling a pack of cards, or throwing a pair of dice; but I cannot look upon this sort of traffic in any other light than that, when a condemned felon sells his own body to a surgeon to be anatomized.

After all, there is no branch of trade that is usually extended so far, and has such a variety in it, as gaming; whether we consider it as carried on by cards, dice, horse-racing, pitting, betting, &c. &c. &c. These merchants deal in very various commodities, and do not seem to be very anxious in general about any dif ference in value, when they are striking a bargain: for, though some expect ready money for ready money when they play, as they would blood for blood in a duel, many, very many, part with their ready money to those who deal upon trust, nay oftentimes to those who are known to be incapable of paying. Sometimes I have seen a gentleman bet his gold with a lady who has ear-rings, bracelets, and other diamonds to answer her stake: but I have much ofterer seen a lady play against a roll of guineas, with nothing but her virtue to part with to preserve her honour if she lost. The markets, in which the multiplicity of business of this kind is transacted, are very many, and are chiefly appropriated to that end and no other, such as routs, assemblies, Arthur's. Newmarket, and the courses in every county. Where these merchants trade in ready money only, or in bank notes, I consider them as bankers of quality: where in ready money against trust, and notes of hand of persons that are but little able to pay, they must be broken merchants: and whoever plays with money against a lady's jewels, should, in my mind, hang out the Three Blue Balls in a private alley; and the lady who stakes her virtue. for

gold, should take the house of a late venerable matron in the Piazza to carry on her trade in that place.

But it is with pleasure I see our merchants of quality neglecting several branches of trade that have been carried on with success, and in which great fortunes have been raised in former times by some of their ancestors. What immense sums have, we know, been got by some great men in the smuggling trade! And we have heard of large profits being made by the sale of commissions in the army and navy; by procuring places and pensions; and vast sums received for quartering a lord's sister, nephew, or natural son on any one who holds a profitable post under the government. Smuggling, surely, should be left to our good friends on the shores of Kent and Sussex; and, I think, he who sells commissions in the navy or army, the free gifts of the prince, should suffer like a deserter, to be keel hauled to death under a first-rate man of war: and he who like a Turkish vizier, levies contributions on those who hold posts and places under his master, should, like him, be squeezed in his turn, till the spunge is dry, and then bow-stringed for the good of the people.

I am your humble servant,
B. Thornton.

$113. On Pedantry.

Sir, To display the least symptom of learning, or to seem to know more than your footman, is become an offence against the rules of politeness, and is branded with the name of pedantry and ill-breeding. The very sound of a Roman or a Grecian name, of a hard name, as the ladies call it, though their own perhaps are harder by half, is enough to disconcert the temper of a dozen countesses, and to strike a whole assembly of fine gentlemen dumb with amazement.

This squeamishness of theirs is owing to their aversion to pedantry, which they understand to be a sort of mustiness that can only be contracted in a recluse and a studious life, and a foible peculiar to men of letters. But if a strong attachment to a particular subject, a total ignorance of every other, an eagerness to introduce that subject upon all occasions, and a confirmed habit of declaiming upon it without either wit or discretion, be the marks of a pedantic character, as they certainly

are, it belongs to the illiterate as well as the learned; and St. James's itself may boast of producing as arrant pedants as were even sent forth from a college.

I know a woman of fashion who is perpetually employed in remarks upon the weather, who observes from morning to noon that it is likely to rain, and from noon to night that it spits, that it misles, that it is set in for a wet evening; and, being incapable of any other discourse, is as insipid a companion, and just as pedantic, as he who quotes Aristotle over his tea, or talks Greek at a cardtable.

A gentleman of my acquaintance is a constant attendant upon parliamentary business, and I have heard him entertain a large circle, by the hour, with the speeches that were made in a debate upon mum and perry. He has a wonderful memory, and a kind of oratorical tune in his elocution, that serves him instead of an emphasis. By those means he has acquired the reputation of having a deal to say for himself; but as it consists entirely of what others have said for themselves before him, and if he should be deaf during the sessions, he would certainly be dumb in the intervals, I must needs set him down for a pedant.

But the most troublesome, as well as most dangerous character of this sort that I am so unhappy as to be connected with, is a strippling who spends his whole life in a fencing-school. This amiable young pedant is, indeed, a most formidable creature; his whole conversation lies in Quart and Tierce; if you meet him in the street, he salutes you in the gymnastic manner, throws himself back upon his left hip, level his cane at the pit of your stomach, and looks as fierce as a prizefighter. In the midst of a discourse upon politics, he starts from the table on a sudden, and splits himself into a monstrous lounge against the wainscot; immediately he puts a foil into your hand, insists upon teaching you his murdering thrust, and if, in the course of his instructions, he pushes out an eye or a fore-tooth, he tells you, that you flapp'd your point, or dropp'd your wrist, and imputes all the mischief to the awkwardness of his pupil.

The musical pedant, who, instead of attending to the discourse, diverts himself with humming an air, or, if he speaks, expresses himself in the language of the

orchestra; the Newmarket pedant, who has no knowledge but what he gathers upon the turf; the female pedant, who is an adept in nothing but the patterns of silk and flounces; and the coffee-house pedant, whose whole erudition lies within the margin of a newspaper, are nuisances so extremely common, that it is almost unnecessary to mention them. Yet, pedants as they are, they shelter themselves under the fashionableness of the foible, and, with all the properties of the character, generally escape the imputation of it. In my opinion, however, they deserve our censure more than the merest book-worm imaginable. The man of letters is usually confined to his study, and having but little pleasure in conversing with men of the world, does not often intrude himself into their company these unlearned pedants, on the contrary, are to be met with every where; they have nothing to do but to run about and be troublesome, and are universally the bane of agreeable conversation. I am, Sir, &c.

B. Thornton.

§ 114. A Sunday in the Country. Sir, Aug. 8, 1761. As life is so short, you will agree with me, that we cannot afford to lose any of that precious time, every moment of which should be employed in such gratifications as are suitable to our stations and dispositions. For this reason we cannot but lament, that the year should be curtailed of almost a seventh part, and that, out of three hundred and sixty-five days, fiftytwo of them should be allotted, with respect to many persons, to dulness and insipidity. You will easily conceive, that, by what I have said, I allude to that enemy to all mirth and gaiety, Sunday, whose impertinent intrusion puts a check on our amusements, and casts a gloom over our cheerful thoughts. Persons, indeed, of high fashion regard it no more than the other part of the week, and would no more be restrained from their pleasures on this day, than they would keep fast on a fast-day but others, who have the same taste and spirit, though less fortunes, are constrained, in order to save appearances, to debar themselves of every amusement except that of going to church, which they can only enjoy in common with the vulgar. The vulgar, it is true, have the happy privilege of converting this holy day into a day of extraordinary

festivity; and the mechanic is allowed to get drunk on this day, if on no other, because he has nothing else to do. It is true, that the citizen on this day gets loose from his counter, to which he had been fastened all the rest of the week like a bad shilling, and riots in the luxuries of Islington or Mile-end. But what shall be said of those who have no business to follow but the bent of their inclinations? on whose hands, indeed, all the days of their life would hang as heavy as Sundays, if they were not enlivened by the dear variety of amusements and diversions. How can a woman of any spirit pass her time on this dismal day, when the play-houses, and Vauxhall, and Ranelagh are shut, and no places of public meeting are open, but the churches? I talk not of those in higher life, who are so much above the world, that they are out of the reach of its censures; I mean those who are confined in a narrower sphere, so as to be obliged to pay some regard to reputation. But if people in town have reason to complain of this weekly bar put upon their pleasures, how unhappy must they be who are immured in the old mansion house in the country, and cloistered up (as it were) in a nunnery? This is my hard case: my aunt, who is a woman of the last age, took me down with her this summer to her house in Northamptonshire; nor shall I be released from my prison till the time of the coronation, which will be as joyful to me as the act of grace to an insolvent debtor. My time, however, is spent agreeably enough, as far as any thing can be agreeable in the country, as we live in a good neighbourhood, see a good deal of company, pay a good many visits, and are near enough Astrop-Wells for me to play at cards at all the public breakfastings, and to dance at the assemblies. But, as I told you, my aunt is an old-fashioned lady, and has got queer notions of I know not what. I dread nothing so much as the coming round of Sunday, which is sure to prove, to me at least, a day of penance and mortification. In the morning we are dragged, in the old family coach, to the parish church, not a stone's throw off the house, for grandeur sake; and, though I dress me ever so gay, the ignorant bumpkins take no more notice of me than they do of my aunt, who is muffled up to the chin. At dinner we never see a creature but the parson, who never fails coming for his customary fee of roast

beef and plum pudding; in the afternoon the same dull work of church-going is repeated; and the evening is as melancholy as it is to a criminal who is to be executed the next morning. When I first came down, I proposed playing a game at whist, and invited the doctor to make a fourth; but my aunt looked upon the very mention of it as an abomination. I thought there could be no harm in a little innocent music; and therefore, one morning, while she was getting ready for church, I began to tune my guitar, the sound of which quickly brought her down stairs, and she vowed she would break it all to pieces, if I was so wicked as to touch it: though I offered to compromise the matter with her, by playing nothing but psalm-tunes to please her. I hate reading any thing, but especially good books, as my aunt calls them, which are dull at any time, but much duller on a Sunday; yet my aunt wonders I will not employ myself, when I have nothing to do, in reading Nelson on the Feasts and Fasts, or a chapter in the Bible. You must know, that the day I write this on is Sunday; and it happens to be so very rainy, that my aunt is afraid to venture herself in the damp church, for fear of increasing her rheumatism; she has therefore put on her spectacles, ordered the great family bible into the hall, and is going to read prayers herself to the servants. I excused myself from being present, by pretending an head-ach, and stole into my closet, in order to divert myself in writing to you. How I shall be able to go through the rest of the day, I know not; as the rain, I believe, will not suffer us to stir out, and we shall sit moping and yawning at one another, and looking stupidly at the rain out of the Gothic window in the little parlour, like the clean and unclean beasts in Noah's ark. It is said, that the gloomy weather in November induces Englishmen commonly to make away with themselves; and, indeed, considering the weather and all together, I believe I shall be tempted to drown myself at once in the pond before the door, or fairly tuck myself up in my own garters.

I am your very humble servant,
DOROTHY THURSDAY.
B. Thornton.

$115. On the Militia.

Sir,
Aug. 9, 1761.
The weather here in England is as un-

settled and variable as the tempers of the people; nor can you judge, from the appearance of the sky, whether it will rain or hold up for a moment together, any more than you can tell by the face of a man, whether he will lower in a frown, or clear up in a smile. An unexpected shower has obliged me to turn into the first inn; and I think I may e'en as well pass my time in writing for your paper, especially as I have nothing else to do, having examined all the prints in the room, read over all the rhymes, and admired all the Dear Misses and Charming Misses on the window-panes.

As I had the honour to pay my shilling at the ordinary in this town with some of the officers of the militia, I am enabled to send you a few thoughts on that subject. With respect to the common men, it will be sufficient to observe, that in many military practices, no body of regulars can possibly exceed them. Their prowess in marauding is unquestionable; as they are sure to take prisoners whatever stragglers they meet with on their march, such as geese, turkeys, chickens, &c. and have been often known to make a perfect desert of a farmer's yard. Bythe-bye, it is possibly on this account, that a turkey bears so great an antipathy to the colour of red. These fellows are, indeed, so intrepid, that they will attack. any convoy of provisions that falls in their way; and my landlord assures me, that as soon as they come into a town, they immediately lay close siege to the pantry and kitchen: which they commonly take by storm, and never give any quarter; as also, that they are excellent miners, in working their way into the cellar.

I little imagined that I should have met with my old university acquaintance Jack Five Bar in this part of the country, as I could not but think we had been at least two hundred miles asunder. Indeed I did not know him at his first accosting me, as he approached slowly to me with a distantly familiar air, and a sliding bow forward, and a "Sir, your most humble servant," instead of springing upon me like a greyhound, and clapping me on the shoulder like a bailiff, squeezing my four fingers in his rough palm, like a nut-cracker, and then whirling my arm to and fro, like the handle of a great pump, with a blunt "How dost do?-I am glad to see thee? --and a hearty Damme at the beginning

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »