G MI SMI 139! 1, 3 V i & s ^ L23x c ? S |32)| I %uwsm^ ,,JtoS-ANCflfj> I^V-1 1 I g i i I mishes their rebellion by no greater severity than the grant of their request. " And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee : for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 113 reign over them. Howbeit, protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. " And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you : " He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, lor his chariots, and to be his horsemen. And some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest. And he will take your daughters to be confectioners, and cooks, and bakers, and he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them. And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your good- liest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work, and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your king which ye shall have chosen you ; and the Lord will not hear you in that day. " Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of the Lord and of Samuel ; and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us." And now, Harry, what do you gather from all these sacred authorities ? I gather, sir, answered Harry, from the express and repeated declarations of holy writ, that whoever he be, whether sovereign or subject, who doth not wish that all men should be limited or restrained from doing injury to any, is a rebel to the will of the God of Heneficence, and an enemy to the well-being of human kind. You have, exclaimed Mr. Fenton you have, in a few words, spoke the whole of the matter. On what you have said hang all the law and the prophets. Again, my dear, continued Mr. Fenton, it is evident from the history, that the Jews themselves did not pay the smallest regard to the divine hereditary right of kingship. Both 114: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. David and Solomon, the second and third in succession, were established on the throne in direct contradiction to such pre- tended right. And on the succession of Rehoboam, the fourth king, ten of the twelve tribes repented of their sub- mission to an arbitrary monarchy, and required the king to consent to a limitation of his authority, and to enter into a contract with the people. "And they spake unto Rehoboam, saying Thy father ^made our yoke grievous; now, therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee." But when Rehoboam, by the advice of his sleek-headed ministry, refused to covenant with the people, the ten tribes cried out "What portion have we in David? Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse ; to your tents, O Israel !" And thus the ten tribes revolted from the arbitrary domination of the houses of Saul and David. For as the sacred text says " The cause icasfrom the Lord.' 1 '' Now when these ten tribes sent and called Jeroboam, the son of N"ebat, and made him king over Israel, it is most evi- dent that they obliged him to limit the regal authority, and to covenant with them for the restoration and re-establish- ment of their popular rights. For in the sixth succession, when Ah ab sat upon the throne, the regal prerogative had not yet so far usurped on the constitutional rights of the people, as to entitle Ahab to deprive his subjects even of a garden for herbs. "And Ahab said unto Naboth, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden for herbs, because it is near unto my house, and I will give thee for it a better vineyard ; or, if it seems good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. But Nabpth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. So Ahab came to his house heavy displeased, because Naboth had said I will not THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 115 give to tliee the inheritance of my fathers ; and he laid him clown upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread." Here we see that the people of Israel had so far recovered their originally inherent and hereditary rights, that the regal estate had not the privilege of wresting from any subject so much as an herb garden. This was a mortifying circumstance to royal elevation, but power is seldom unfruitful of expedients. A method was found of rending away Naboth's property (without his con- sent) under color of the law to which he had consented. He was falsely impeached, and forfeited his life and inheri- tance together. But God, by the signal punishment which he inflicted for this breach on the natural rights of his people, evinced to the world how dear they are in the eyes of eternal justice. How deplorable, then, my Harry, is the suppression of these rights, now nearly universal throughout the earth ! But when people, from their infancy, and from generation to generation, have been habituated to bondage, oppression and submission, without any tradition or memorial delivered down to them of a happier or more equitable manner of life ; they are accustomed to look on themselves, their possessions, and their progeny, as the rightful property of their rulers, to be disposed of at pleasure ; and they no more regret the want of Liberty that they never knew, than the blind born regret the want of the light of the sun. Before I give you this paper that I have in my hand, this epitome or picture, in miniature, of the incomparable beau- ties of the Britannic constitution, it may be requisite to pre- mise a few matters. Travellers, when they survey a grand Egyptian pyramid, are apt to inquire by whom the stupendous pile was erected, and how long it hath stood the assaults of time. But when 116 THE FOOL OF QUALITY, nothing of this can be developed, imagination runs back through antiquity without bounds ; and thence contemplates an object with peculiar veneration, that appears as it were to have had no beginning. Such a structure is the constitution of Great Britain ! No records discover when it had a commencement ; neither can any annals specify the time at which it was not. William the Norman, above seven hundred years ago, on his entering into the original contract with the people, en- gaged to govern them according to the bonce et approbates antiques, regni leges, the good, well-approved, and ancient laws of the kingdom ; this constitution was therefore ancient, even in ancient times. More than eighteen hundred years are now elapsed since Julius Caesar, in the sixth book of his commentaries, bore testimony as well to the antiquity as excellency of the system of the laws of Britain. He tells us that the venerable order of the Druids, who then administered justice through- out Gaul, derived their system of government from Britain ; and that it was customary for those who were desirous of being versed in the said ancient institutions to go over to Britain for that purpose. Caesar seems to recommend, while he specifies, one of the laws that was then peculiar to the constitution of Britain. He tells you that, if a woman was suspected of the death of her husband, she was questioned thereupon with severity " by her neighbours ;" and that, if she was found guilty, she was tied alive to a stake, and burned to death. The very trial used in Britain, "by a jury of neighbours," to this day. It is hence very obvious that our Gothic ancestors either adopted what they judged excellent in the British constitu- tion, or rather superadded what was deemed to be excellent in their own. The people who went under the general name of Goths, TIIE FOOL OF QUALITY. 117 were of many different nations, who, from the northern, poured down on the more southern parts of Europe. Their kings were originally chiefs or generals, appointed to lead voluntary armies, or colonies, for the forming of new settlements in foreign lands ; and they were followed by a free and independent multitude, who had previously stipu- lated that they should share and enjoy the possessions which their valour should conquer. Next to the general in order, the officers or principal men of the army were attended, on such expeditions, by their kinsfolk, friends, and dependents, who chose to attach themselves to their persons and fortunes respectively ; and such attachments gave these officers great power and con- sideration. On their conquest or seizure of any tract of country, a certain portion thereof was allotted to the general for the maintenance of his person and household. The general then divided the remainder among his officers, to hold of him in fief, at the certain service of so many horse or foot, well armed and provided, etc., and proportioned to the value and extent of the land assigned. And the said officers again parcelled out the greatest part of the said possessions among their respective followers, to hold of themselves in like man- ner and service as they held of their general. On the conquest of a country, they seldom chose to exter- minate the natives or old inhabitants, but allotted to them also separate remnants of the land ; and admitted them to the common and equal participation of such laws or usages as they brought from their own country, or chose to adopt. Independent of the military services above reserved, the prince, or chief, further reserved the civil services of personal attendance of his feudatory officers at certain times, and for certain terms, at his general or national court. This court was composed of three estates, the prince, the nobles, and 118 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. such of the priesthood, whether Pagan or Christian, as held in fief from the prince ; and from this national council our parliament took its origin. The feudal officers also, on their part, reserved the like service and personal attendance of their proper tenants and vassals, at their respective courts of judicature. And for as much as, in such courts, no civil or criminal sentence could take place till the voice of the judge was affirmed by the court, which consisted of such as were peers or equals to the party accused ; from thence we derive our free, ancient, and sacred institution of juries. If we look back upon one of those fief or feudal kings, seated high on his throne, and encircled with all the ensigns of royalty ; when we find him entitled the sole proprietor of all the lands within his dominions ; when we hear his sub- jects acknowledge that he alone is the fountain from whence are derived all possessions, rights, titles, distinctions, and dignities ; when we see his most potent prefects and nobles, with lifted hands and bended knees, swearing fealty at his feet who would not take him for an arbitrary and most absolute prince ? Such a judgment, however, would have been very prema- ture. No prince could be more limited. He had not the licence of doing hurt to the person or property of the mean- est vassal throughout his dominions. But was he the less powerful, think you, for being less absolute ? quite the con- trary. While he acted within the sphere of his compact with the people, he acted in all the persons and powers of the people. Though prescribed with respect to evil, the extent of his beneficence was wholly unconfined. He was not dreaded indeed, but on that account he was the more revered and beloved by his subjects. He was a part of themselves ; the principal member of their body. In him they beheld, with delight, their own dignity and strength so THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 119 gloriously represented ; and, by being the proprietor of all their hearts, he became the master of all their hands. O ! exclaimed Harry, who would wish, after this, to be unrestrained from any kind of evil ? how frightful, how de- testable is that power, which is not exercised in acts of benevolence alone ! and all who please may be infinite in the stretch of a good-will. True, my dear, said Mr. Fenton I have now, continued he, given you the rough and unformed rudiments of our Britannic constitution. And here I deliver to you my little model of the finished construction thereof, as it now stands on the revolution just achieved by his present glorious majesty, King William. Your reading has informed you, and may further inform you, of the several steps and struggles whereby this great business was finally effected. It was not suddenly brought to pass ; it was the work of many ages ; while Britain, like Antaeus, though often defeated, rose more vigorous and rein- forced from every soil. Of times long passed, what stupen- dous characters! what sacred names! what watchful councils! what bloody effusions ! what a people of heroes ! what senates of sages ! How hath the invention of nature been stretched, how have the veins of the valiant been exhausted, to form, support, reform, and bring to maturity, this unex- ampled constitution, this coalescence and grand effort of every human virtue, British liberty! [Here follows Mr. Fenton's short system of the beauties and benefits of our constitution. But, if the reader loves amusement preferable to instruction, he is at liberty to pass it over, and proceed in the story.] 120 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. THE REGAL ESTATE. THE king, in the constitution of Great Britain, is more properly the king of, than a king over the people, united to them, one of them, and contained in them. At the same time that he is acknowledged the head of their body, he is their principal servant or minister, being the deputee of their executive power. His claim to the throne is not a claim as of some matter of property or personal right ; he doth not claim, but is claimed by the people in their parliament ; and he is claimed or called upon, not to the investiture of possessions, but the performance of duties. He is called upon to govern the peo- ple according to the laws by which they themselves have consented to be governed ; to cause justice and mercy to be dispensed throughout the realm ; and to his utmost to exe- cute, protect, and maintain the laws of the gospel of God, and the rights and liberties of all the people without distinc- tion ; and this he swears on the gospel of God to perform. And thus, as all others owe allegiance to the king, the king himself oweth allegiance to the constitution. The existence of a king, as one of the three estates, is immutable, indispensable, and indefeasible ; the constitution cannot subsist without a king. But then his personal claim of possession, and of hereditary succession to the throne, is in several instances precarious and defeasible ; as in case of any natural incapacity to govern, or of an open avowal of principles incompatible with the constitution ; or in case of overt acts demonstrative of such principles ; or of any attempt to sap or overthrow a fundamental part of that sys- tem which he was called in, and constituted, and has sworn to maintain. Though the claim of all kings to the throne of Great THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 121 Britain is a limited and defeasible claim ; yet the world can afford no rival in power or glory, to a constitutional sover- eign of these free dominions. For the honour of their own body, they have invested this their head with all possible illustration ; he concentrates the rays of many nations. They have clothed him in royal robes, and circled his head with a diadem, and enthroned him on high ; and they bow down before the mirror of their own majesty. Neither are his the mere ensigns or external shows of regency ; he is invested also with powers much more real than if they were absolute. There are three capital prerogatives with which the king is intrusted, which, at first sight, appear of fearful and dan- gerous tendency, and which must infallibly and quickly end in arbitrary dominion if they were not counterpoised and counteracted. His principal prerogative is to make war or peace, as also treaties, leagues, and alliances with foreign potentates. His second prerogative is to nominate and appoint all ministers and servants of state, all judges and administrators of justice, and all officers, civil or military, throughout these realms. His third capital prerogative is, that he should have the whole executive power of the government of these nations by his said ministers and officers, both civil and military. I might here also have added a fourth prerogative, which must have been capitally eversive of the constitution, had it not been limited in the original trust I mean a power of granting pardon to criminals. Had this power been unre- strained, all obligations to justice might be absolved at the king's pleasure. An evil king might even encourage the breach of law; he must, unquestionably, have dispensed with all illicit acts that were perpetrated by his own orders; and VOL. II. 6 122 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. this assurance of pardon must, as unquestionably, have en- couraged all his ministers and officers to execute his will as the only rule of their obedience. But God and our glorious ancestors be praised ! He is restrained from protecting his best-beloved ministers when they have effected, or even imagined, the damage of the con- stitution. He is also limited in appeals brought by the sub- ject for murder or robbery. But on indictments in his own name, for offences against his proper person and government, such as rebellion, insurrection, riot, and breaches of the peace by murder, main, or robbery, etc., here he is at liberty to extend the arm of his mercy ; forasmuch as there are many cases so circumstanced, so admissive of pitiable and palliating considerations, that summumjus, or strict justice, might prove summa injuria, or extreme injustice. All pardonable offences are distinguished by the title of "crimina Isesae majestatis sins against the king:" all unpardonable offences are distinguished by the title of " crimina Isesse libertatis sins against the constitution." In the first case, the injury is presumed to extend no further than to one or a few individuals ; in the second, it is charged as a sin against the public, against the collective body of the whole people. Of the latter kind are nuisances that may en- danger the lives of travellers on the highway; but more capi- tally, any imagination, proven by overt act or evil ad- vice, tending to change the nature or form of any one of the three estates ; or tending to vest the government, or the administration thereof, in any one or any two of the said estates, independent of the other ; or tending to raise standing armies, or to continue them in time of peace without the consent of pai'liament ; or tending to give any foreign state an advantage over these realms by sea or by land, etc. The king hath also annexed to his dignity many further 123 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. very important powers and prerogatives, though they do not so intimately interfere Avith the constitution as the capital prerogatives above recited. He is first considered as the original proprietor of all the lands in these kingdoms ; and he founds this claim, as well on the conquest by William the Norman, as by the limited kings or leaders of our Gothic ancestors. Hence it comes to pass, that all lands to which no subject can prove a title, are" supposed to be in their original owner, and are therefore, by the constitution, vested in the crown. On the same principle, also, the king is entitled to the lands of all persons who die without heirs ; as also to the posses- sions of all who are convicted of crimes subversive of the constitution or public weal. His person, Avhile he is king or inclusive of the first estate, is constitutionally sacred, and exempted from all acts of vio- lence or constraint. As one of the estates, also, he is consti- tuted a corporation, and his Teste-Meipso, or written testi- mony, amounts to a matter of record. He also exercises, at present, the independent province of supplying members to the second estate by new creation, a very large accession to his original powers. Bishops also are now appointed and nominated by the king, another considerable addition to the royal prerogative. His is the sole prerogative to coin or im- press money, and to specify, change, or determine the cur- rent value thereof; and for this purpose he is supposed to have reserved, from his original grants of lands, a property in mines of gold and silver, which are therefore called roy- alties. As he is one of the three constitutional estates, no action can lie against him in any court , neither can he be barred of his title by length of time or entry. And these illustrations of his dignity cast rays of answerable privileges on his royal consort, heir-apparent, and eldest daughter. 124: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. The king hath also some other inferior and conditional powers, such as of instituting fairs and markets, and of issu- ing patents for special or personal purposes, provided they shall not be found to infringe on the rights of others. He is also intrusted with the guardianship of the persons and pos- sessions of idiots and lunatics, without account. I leave his majesty's prerogative of a negative voice in the legislature, as also his prerogative (or rather duty) fre- quently to call the two other estates to parliament, and duly to continue, prorogue, and dissolve the same, till I come to speak of the three estates when in such parliament assembled. Here then we find, that a King of Great Britain is consti- tutionally invested with every power that can possibly be exerted in acts of beneficence; and that, while he continues to move within the sphere of his benign appointment, he continues to be constituted the most worthy, most mighty, and most glorious representative of Omnipotence upon earth. In treating of the second and third estate, I come natur- ally to consider what those restraints are, which, while they are preserved inviolate, have so happy a tendency to the mutual prosperity of prince and people. THE ARISTOCRATICAL OK SECOND ESTATE. THE nobility, or second^ estate in the constitution of Great Britain, is originally representative. The members were en- nobled by tenure, and not by writ or patent ; and they were holden in service to the crown and kingdom for the respec- tive provinces, counties, or baronies, whose name they bore, and which they represented. A title to be a member of this second estate was from the beginning hereditary : the king could not anciently either create or defeat a title to nobility. Their titles were not forfeitable save by the judgments of their peers upon legal THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 125 trial ; and when any were so deprived, or happened to die without heirs, the succession was deemed too important to be otherwise filled than by the concurrence of the three estates, by the joint and solemn act of the Parliament, or Commune Concilium Regni. These truths are attested by many ancient records and parliamentary acts. And although this most highly enno- bling custom was, at particular times, infringed by particular tyrants, it was inviolably adhered to by the best of our Eng- lish kings, and was observed even by the worst, excepting a few instances, till the reign of Henry VII., who wished to give consequence to the third estate by deducting from the honours and powers of the second. In truth, it is not to be wondered that any kings, who were ambitious of extending their own power, should wush to break and weaken that of the nobility, who had distin- guished themselves by so many glorious stands for the main- tenance of liberty and the constitution ; more particularly during the reigns of John, Henry III., the second Edward, and second Richard. Till Harry VII. the nobles were looked upon as so many pillars whereon the people rested their rights. Accordingly we find that, in the coalition or grand compact between John and the collective body of the nation, the king and peo- ple jointly agree to confide to the nobles the superintendence of the execution of the great charter, with authority to them and their successors to enforce the due performance of the covenants therein comprised. What an illustrating distinction must it have been, when patriot-excellence alone (approved before the country in the field or the council) could give a claim to nobility, and com- pel, as it were, the united estates of kings, lords, and com- mons, to call a man up to a second seat in the government and steerage of the nation. 126 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. Such a preference must have proved an unremitting incite- ment to the cultivation and exercise of every virtue ; and to such exertions, achievements, and acts of public benefi- cence, as should draw a man forth to so shining a point of light, and set him like a gem in the gold of the constitution. The crown did not, at once, assume the independent right of conferring nobility. Henry HI. first omitted to call some of the barons to parliament who were personally obnoxious to him, and he issued his writs or written letters to some others who were not barons, but from whom he expected greater conformity to arbitrary measures. These writs, however, did not ennoble the party till he was admitted by the second estate to a seat in parliament ; neither was such nobility by writ hereditary. To supply these defects, the arbitrary ministry of Richard II. invented the method of ennobling by letters patent at the king's pleasure, whether for years or for life, or in special or general tail, or in fee-simple to a man and his heirs at large. This prerogative, however, was thereafter in many instances declined and discontinued, more particularly by the constitu- tional king Harry the Fifth, till, meeting with no opposition from the other two estates, it has successively descended from Harry VII., on nine crowned heads, through a prescription of near a century and a half. Next to the king, the people have allowed to their peerage several privileges of the most uncommon and illustrious dis- tinction. Their Christian names, and the names that descended to them from their ancestors, are absorbed by the name from whence they take their title of honour, and by this they make their signature in all letters and deeds. Every temporal peer of the realm is deemed a kinsman to the crown. Their deposition on their honour is admitted in place of their oath, save where they personally present them- selves as witnesses of the facts, and saving their oaths of THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 127 allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration. Their persons are at all times exempted from arrest, except in criminal cases. A defamation of their character is highly punishable, however true the facts may be, and deserving of censure. During session of parliament, all actions and suits at law against peers are suspended. In presentments or indictments by grand juries, and on impeachments by the house of commons, peers are to be tried by their peers alone ; for in all criminal cases they are privileged from the jurisdiction of inferior courts, excepting on appeals for murder or robbery. Peers are also exempted from serving on inquests. And in all civil cases, where a peer is plaintiff, there must be two or more knights empannelled on the jury. The bishops, or spiritual lords, have privilege of parlia- ment, but have not the above privileges of personal nobility. In all criminal cases, saving attainder and impeachment, they are to be tried by a petit jury. Moreover, bishops do not vote, in the house of lords, on the trial of any person for a capital crime. All the temporal and spiritual nobles that compose the house of lords, however different in their titles and degrees of nobility, are called peers (pares), or equals; because their voices are admitted as of equal value, and that the vote of a bishop or baron shall be equivalent to that of an archbishop or duke. The capital privilege (or rather prerogative) of the house of peers consists in their being the supreme court of judica- ture, to whom the final decision of all civil causes are confided and referred in the last resort. This constitutional privilege is a weighty counterpoise to his majesty's second prerogative of appointing the adminis- trators of justice throughout the nation; forasmuch as judges (who are immediately under the influence of the crown) are yet intimidated from infringing, by any sentence, on the laws 128 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. or constitution of these realms, while a judgment so highly superior to their own impends. The second great privilege of the house of peers consists in their having the sole judicature of all impeachments com- menced and prosecuted by the commons. And this, again, is a very weighty counterpoise to his majesty's third pre- rogative of the executive government of these nations by his ministers ; since no minister can be so great as not justly to dread the coming under a judgment from which the mighti- ness of his royal master cannot protect him. The third capital privilege of the house of peers subsists in their share, or particular department of rights, in the legis- lature. Thia extends to the framing of any bills, at their pleasure, for the purposes of good government ; saving always to the commons their incommunicable right of grant- ing taxes or subsidies to be levied on their constituents. But on such bills, as on all others, the house of lords have a negative a happy counterpoise to the power both of king and commons, should demands on the one part, or bounties on the other, exceed what is requisite. The change of the ancient modus in conferring nobility, has not hitherto, as I trust, been of any considerable detri- ment to the weal of the people. But should some future majesty, or rather some future ministry, entitle folk to a voice in the second estate on any consideration save that of eminent virtue and patriotic service, might it be possible that such ministers should take a further stride, and confer nobility for actions deserving of infamy ; should they even covenant to grant such honours and dignities in lieu of ser- vices subversive of the constitution ; a majority of such a peerage must either prove too light to effect any public benefit, or heavy enough to effect the public perdition. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 129 THE DE310CRATICAL OR THIRD ESTATE. THE election of commoners to be immediate trustees and apt representatives of the people in parliament, is the here- ditary and indefeasible privilege of the people. It is the privilege which they accepted, and which they retain, in exchange of their original inherent and hereditary right of sitting with the king and peers IN PERSON, for the guardian- ship of their own liberties, and the institution of their own laws. Such representatives, therefore, can never have it in their power to give, delegate, or extinguish the whole or any part of the people's inseparable and unextinguishable share in the legislative power ; neither to impart the same to any one of the other estates, or to any persons or person whatever, either in or out of parliament. Where plenipotentiaries take upon them to abolish the authority of their own princi- ples, or where any secondary agents attempt to defeat the power of their primaries, such agents and plenipotentiaries defeat their own commission, and all the powers of the trust necessarily revert to the constituents. The persons of these temporary trustees of the people, during their session, and for fourteen days before and after every meeting, adjournment, prorogation, and dissolution of parliament, are equally exempted, with the persons of peers, from arrests and duress of every sort. They are also, during their session, to have ready access to the king or house of lords, and to address or confer with them on all occasions. No member of the house of commons, no more than of the house of peers, shall suffer, or be questioned, or compelled to witness or answer, in any court or place whatsoever, touching any thing said or done by himself or others in par- 6* 130 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. liament, in order that perfect freedom of speech and action may leave nothing undone for the public weal. They have also, during session, an equal power with the house of lords, to punish any who shall presume to traduce their dignity, or detract from the rights or privileges of any member of the house. . The commons form a court of judicature distinct from the judicature of the house of lords. Theirs is the peculiar pri- vilege to try and adjudge the legality of the election of their own members. They may fine and confine their own mem- bers, as well as others, for delinquency or offence against the honour of their house ; but in all other matters of judicature, they are merely a court of inquisition and presentment, and not a tribunal of definitive judgment. In this respect, however, they are extremely formidable. They constitute the grand inquest of the nation ; for which great and good purpose they are supposed to be perfectly qualified by a personal knowledge of what hath been trans- acted throughout the several shires, cities, and boroughs from whence they assemble, and which they represent. Over and above their inquiry into all public grievances, wicked ministers, transgressing magistrates, corrupt judges and judiciaries, who sell, deny, or delay justice; evil coun- sellors of the crown, who attempt or devise the subversion or alteration of any part of the constitution ; with all such overgrown malefactors as are deemed above the reach of inferior courts all come under the particular cognizance of the commons, to be by them impeached, and presented for trial at the bar of the house of lords. And these inquisitory and judicial powers of the two houses, from which no man under the crown can be exempted, are deemed a sufiicient allay and counterpoise to the whole executive power of the king, by his ministers. The legislative department of the power of the commons THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 131 is in all respects coequal with that of the peers. They frame any bills at pleasure for the purposes of good government. They exercise a right, as the lords also do, to propose and bring in bills for the amendment or repeal of old laws, as well as for the ordaining or institution of new ones. And each house, alike, hath a negative on all bills that are framed and passed by the other. But the capital, the incommunicable privilege of the house of commons, arises from that holy trust which their constitu- ents repose in them ; whereby they are empowered to bor- row from the people a small portion of their property, in order to restore it threefold in the advantages of peace, equal government and the encouragement of trade, industry, and manufactures. To impart any of this trust would be a breach of the con- stitution ; and even to abuse it would be a felonious breach of common honesty. By this fundamental trust, and incommunicable privilege, the commons have the sole power over the money of the people ; to grant or deny aids, according as they shall judge them either requisite or unnecessary to the public service. Theirs is the province, and theirs alone, to inquire and judge of the several occasions for which such aids may be required, and to measure and appropriate the sums to their respective uses. Theirs also is the sole province of framing all bills or laws for the imposing of any taxes, and of appointing the means of levying the same upon the people. Neither may the first or second estate, either king or peerage, propound or do any thing relating to these matters that may any way interfere with the proceedings of the commons ; save in their negative or assent to such bills when presented to them, without addition, deduction, or alteration of any kind. After such like aids and taxes have been levied and dis- posed of, the commons have the further right of inquiring 132 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. and examining into the application of such aids ; of ordering all accounts relative thereto to be laid before them ; and of censuring the abuse or misapplication thereof. The royal assent to all other bills is expressed by the terms, "Le roy le veut the king wills it ;" but when the commons present their bills of aid to his majesty, it is answered "Le roy remercie ses loyal sujets, et ainsi le veut the king thanks his loyal subjects, and so willeth." An express acknowledgment, that the right of granting or levy- ing monies for public purposes lies solely, inherently, and incommunicably, in the people and their representatives. This capital privilege of the commons constitutes the grand counterpoise to the king's principal prerogative of making peace or war ; for how impotent must a warlike enterprise prove without money, which makes the sinews thereof! And thus the people and their representatives still retain in their hands the grand momentum of the constitu- tion, and of all human affairs. Distinguished representatives ! Happy people ! immutably happy while -worthily represented ! As the fathers of the several families throughout the king- dom, nearly and tenderly comprise and represent the per- sons, cares, and concerns, of their respective households, so these adopted fathers immediately represent, and intimately concentrate, the persons and concerns of their respective constituents, and in them the collective body or sum of the nation. And while these fathers continue true to their adopting children, a single stone cannot lapse from the great, fabric of the constitution. THE THREE ESTATES IN PARLIAMENT. WITH the king, lords, and commons, in parliament assem- bled, the people have deposited their legislative or absolute THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 133 power, ir. trust, for their whole body ; the said king, lords, and commons, when so assembled, being the great repre- sentative of the whole nation, as if all the people were then convened in one general assembly. As the institution, repeal, and amendment of laws, to- gether with the redress of public grievances and offences, are not within the capacity of any of the three estates distinct from the others ; the frequent holding of parliaments is the vital food, without which the constitution cannot subsist. The three estates originally, when assembled in parlia- ment, sat together consulting in the open field. Accord- ingly, at Running Mead, five hundred years ago, King John passed the great charter (as therein is expressed) by the advice of the lords spiritual and temporal, by the advice of several commoners (by name recited), et aliorum fidelium^ and of others his faithful people. And, in the twenty-first clause of the said charter, he covenants that, " for having the common council of the kingdom to assess aids, he will cause the lords spiritual and temporal to be summoned by his writs; and moreover, that he will cause the principal commoners, or those who held from him in chief, to be generally summoned to said parliaments by his sheriffs and bailiffs." In the said assemblies, however, the concourse became so great and disorderly, and the contests frequently so high, between the several estates, in assertion of their respective prerogatives and privileges, that they judged it more expe- dient to sit apart, and separately to exercise the offices of their respective departments. As there is no man or set of men, no class or corporation, no village or city throughout the kingdom, that is not repre- sented by these their delegates in parliament ; this great body-politic, or representative of the nation, consists, like the body-natural, of a head and several members, which, 134: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. being endowed with different powers for the exercise of different offices, are yet connected by one main and common interest, and actuated by one life or spirit of public reason, called the laws. In all steps of national import the king is to be conducted by the direction of the parliament, his great national council a council on whom it is equally incumbent to consult for the king with whom they are connected, and for the people by whom they are delegated, and whom they represent. Thus the king is, constitutionally, to be guided by the sense of the parliament, and the parliament alike is, constitutionally, to be guided by the general sense of the people. The two estates in parliament are the constituents of the king ; and the people, mediately or immediately, are the constituents of the two estates in parliament. Now, while the three estates act distinctly within their respective departments, they affect, and are reciprocally affected by each other. This action and reaction produces that general and systematic control which, like conscience, pervades and superintends the whole, checking and prohibit- ing evil from every part of the constitution. And from this confinement of every part to the rule of right reason, ariseth the great law of liberty to all. For instance : -the king has the sole prerogative of mak- ing war, etc. ; but then the means are in the hands of the people and their representatives. Again To the king is committed the whole executive power ; but then the ministers of that power are accountable to a tribunal from which a criminal has no appeal or deliver- ance to look for. Again To the king is committed the cognisance of all causes ; but should his judges or justiciaries pervert the rule of righteousness, an inquisition, impeachment, and trial im- pends, from whose judgment the judges cannot be exempted. THiC FOOL OF QUALITY. 135 Again The king hath a negative upon all bills, whereby his own prerogatives are guarded from invasion ; but should ho refuse the royal assent to bills tending to the general good of the subject, the commons can also withhold their bills of assessment, or annex the rejected bills to their bills of aids, and they never failed to pass in such agreeable company. Lastly To the king is committed the right of calling the two estates to parliament ; but should he refuse so to call them, such a refusal would be deemed " an abdication of the constitution ;" and no one need be told at this day, that " an abdication of the constitution is an abdication of the throne." Thus, while the king acts in consent with the parliament and his people, he is limitless, irresistible, omnipotent upon earth ; he is the free wielder of all the powers of a free and noble people a king throned over all the kings of the child- ren of men. But should he attempt to break bounds should he cast for independence he finds himself hedged in and straitened on every side he finds himself abandoned by all his powers, and justly left to a state of utter impotence and inaction. Hence is imputed to the sovereign head, in the constitution of Great Britain, the high and divine attribute the king can do no wrong ; for he is so circumscribed from the possibility of transgression, that no wrong can be permitted to any king in the constitution. While the king is thus controlled by the lords and the commons while the lords are thus controlled by the com- mons and the king and while the commons are thus con- trolled by the other two estates from attempting any thing to the prejudice of the general welfare ; the three estates may be aptly compared to three pillars, divided below at equidistant angles, but united and supported at top, merely 136 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. by the bearing of each pillar against the others. Take but any one of these pillars away, and the other two must inevit- ably tumble. But while all act on each other, all are equally counteracted, and thereby affirm and establish the general frame. How deplorable then would it be, should this elaboi-ate structure of our happy constitution, within the short period of a thousand years hence possibly in half the time fall a prey to effeminacy, pusillanimity, venality, and seduction ; like some ancient oak, the lord of the forest, to a pack of vile Avorms that lie gnawing at the root ; or, like Egypt, be con- temptibly destroyed by " lice and locusts !" Should the morals of our constituents ever come to be debauched, consent, \vhich is the salt of liberty, would then be corrupted,* and no salt might be found wherewith it could be seasoned. Those who are inwardly the servants of sin, must be outwardly the servants of influence. Each man would then be as the Trojan horse of old, and carry the ene- mies of his country within his bosom. Our own appetites would then induce us to betray our OAvn interests, and state policy would seize us by the hand of our lusts, and lead us " a willing sacrifice to our own perdition." Should it ever come to pass that corruption, like a dark and low-hung mist, should spread from man to man, and cover these lands should a general dissolution of manners prevail should vice be countenanced and communicated by the leaders of fashion should it come to be propagated by ministers among legislators, and by the legislators among their constituents should guilt lift up its head without fear of reproach, and avow itself in the face of the sun, and laugh virtue out of countenance by force of numbers should public duty turn public strumpet should shops come to be advertised where men may dispose of their honour and honesty at so much per ell should public markets be opened THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 137 for the purchase of consciences, with an " O yes ! We bid most to those who set themselves, their trust, and their country, to sale." If such a day, I say, should ever arrive, it would be doomsday indeed to the virtue, to the liberty, and constitution of these kingdoms ! It would be the same to Great Britain as it would happen to the universe should the laws of cohesion cease to operate, and all the parts be dissipated, whose orderly connection now forms the beauty and common wealth of nature. Want of sanity in the mate- rials can never be supplied by any art in the building. A constitution of public freemen can never consist of private constitutes. 138 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. CHAPTER IV. IN little more than a month, Harry made himself perfect master of the system of the British constitution, and wrote comments upon it much more voluminous than the text. As he had lost his friend Ned, little Dicky Clement became the principal companion of his hours of amusement, and Dicky, with his good-will, would never be from his heels. One morning as they strolled up the road, some distance from the town, Harry observed a crowd gathering fast on the way, and hastened like others to see what was the matter. As soon as he arrived, he perceived Mr. Gripe the con- stable at the head of the posse, with his painted staff of authority exalted in his hand. Pray, what are yo i about Mr. Constable ? says Harry. I am going, sir, to seize a robber who has taken shelter in yonder waste hovel. And whom did he rob ? He robbed Mr. Niggards here, that is to say, his boy here, of a sixpenny loaf. Perhaps the man was hungry, said Harry, and had not wherewithal to buy one. Pray tell me, my lad, how the affair was. Why, master, you must know as how Mr. Niggards, my master here, sent me this morning to the town with a shil- ling to buy two sixpenny loaves. So, as I was coming back, I met an able-looking man, who made me afraid with his pale and meagre face. My good boy, says he, will you give me one of those loaves in charity ? I dare not, sir, says I ; they are none of my own. Here, says he, I Avill THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 139 give you my hat for one of them ; but this I refused, as his hat, to my thinking, was not worth a groat. Nay, says he, I must have one of the loaves, that is certain, for I have a wife and seven children all starving in yonder hovel, and while there is bread in the world I cannot but snatch a mor- sel for them. So, as I told you, I was frighted. I gave him one of the loaves without any more words, and away he run as fast as his legs could carry him ; but I followed him with my eye till I saw him safe lodged. Here Harry wiped his eye, and mused awhile. Tell me truly now, my good boy, continued he, if both those loaves had been your own, would you willingly have given one of them to keep the poor man and his family from perishing ? I would, sir, said the lad, with a very good will. And, had I a sixpence of my own, I would have gone back Avith all my heart and have bought another loaf. But my master is a hard man, and so I was forced to tell him the truth. Here, my lad, says Harry ; here is a crown. Go back, buy two loaves for your master in place of the one he has lost, and keep the remaining four shillings to yourself for your trouble. You see, Mr. Constable, continued he, you never can make anything like felony of this matter. The boy confesses that he gave the bread with a very good will, and that he would not have informed had it not been for fear of his master. It is very true, please your honour, replied Mr. Gripe ; I myself do pity the poor man from my heart, and will have nothing more to say in this business. . Stay a while, says Harry, perhaps we may find some further employment for you. I think I should know the face of yonder man. Is not that the Niggards whom you had in custody the other day, and for whose deliverance I 140 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. paid five-and-twenty pounds to his creditors ? The very man, sir, says Gripe. Harry then put his hand in his pocket, and taking out a small scrip of parchment, exclaimed I am glad of what you tell me, with all my heart! Indeed, I did not like the looks of the man at the time, and that made me accept an assignment of this action. Here, Mr. Gripe> take your prisoner again into custody in my name. Away with him to jail directly ! As the holy gospel has it : " He shall not depart thence till he has paid the utmost farthing." Xo, no, Mr. Niggards ! I will not hear a word. Go and learn hence- forward to be merciful yourself, if you would look for any mercy from God or man. Dicky, my dear, go back again, says Harry ; our neigh- bour Joseph here will see you safe home. I will not suffer any one to go in my company, for fear of putting the poor man or his family to shame. Harry had not advanced fifty paces towards the hovel, when his ears were struck with the sound of sudden and joint lamentation ; and turning, he perceived that the inquisitive crowd had gathered at his heels. My friends, says he, I entreat, I beseech you to leave me for the present. I would not choose any witnesses to what I am about. Pray, oblige me so far as to depart on your own occasions. Hereupon, being loth to offend him, they retired a fe.w steps, and stood together aloof, attentive to the event of this uncommon adventure. Meanwhile the cry continued with a bitterness that thrilled through every nerve of our hero ; and, as he now approached the place, he did his utmost to restrain himself, and quell the feelings within him, and he drew his hat over his eyes to prevent the parties from seeing the emotion that they caused. The hovel was of mud walls, without any roofing ; but, THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 141 as there was an opening where a door had once been, Harry stole to the entrance, casting an under eye of observation about him. Hereupon a woman turned. She had been fearfully peer- ing over the wall at the crowd which had not yet dispersed ; but, having notice of Harry's entrance, she looked towards him, and dropped on her knees. O sir ! she cried, if you are the gentleman who owned the loaf, for Christ his sake I pray you to have mercy upon us ! Money, indeed, we have not ; but we have these shreds remaining, and we will strip ourselves of our covering to make you a recompense. Alas ! alas ! could we have guessed how my husband came by it, we would have fam- ished a thousand times rather than touch a morsel. But he, dear good man, did it all for our sakes, for the sake of the heavy burden with which he is overladen. Ah, I would to heaven we were all dead, hanged, or drowned, out of his way ! He might then walk the world at large, and be happy, as he deserves. Here again she set up her wailing, which was accompanied by her seven children, in such a woful concert as the heart of Harry could not sustain, neither suffer him for a season to interrupt or appease. At length he said with a faltering voice Pray, be not alarmed, madam, for I discern that you are a gentlewoman, though in a very unhappy disguise. The affair of the loaf is settled to your satisfaction ; and here are ten guineas, it is all that I have about me, and it is only to shew you for the present that you are not quite so friendless in the world as you thought. Mean time I request that you will all come with me to Hampstead, where we will try to do something better for you. Here the woman looked "with an earnest and eager rapture at him. May Jesus Christ, she cried, be your 142 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. portion, fair angel ! and he is already your portion ; he is seen in your sweet face, and breaks out at your eyes in pity to poor sinners. Harry was now stepping forth, and the rest prepared to follow him; when the poor man, who for shame had not yet uttered a syllable, gently stayed him at the opening. Turn, generous master, said he ; pray turn, and hear a small apology for my transgression. I am a very unhappy man, I have seen better times ; but I am driven by cruel usage from house, and home, and maintenance. I was going to London to apply to the law for relief, when my youngest child, who was on the breast, fell desperately sick about four days ago. As we had no money to hire lodging, and had begged the means of life for the two foregoing days, we were compelled to take up with this shelterless hovel. From hence I frequented the road, and for the three last days begged as much as sustained us in coarse bread and water. But this morning my boy died, and bis brothers and I, with our sticks and our hands, dug his grave that you see yonder, and I placed that flag over him to preserve his tender limbs from the pigs and the hounds, till it may please heaven to allow me means to bury him according to the holy rites of our church. This melancholy office, sir, de- tained me so long, and exercise had made the appetites of my children so outrageous, that I was in a manner compelled to do what I did. As I had no coffin nor winding-sheet, I took the waistcoat from my body, and wrapped it about my babe, and would willingly have wrapped him with my flesh and my bones, that we might quietly have lain in one grave together. Harry answered not a word, but walking onward before his company, plentifully watered the ground with his tears as he passed ; while the poor man took his youngest son in his arms, and the woman her youngest daughter on her THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 143 back, and thus, with a leisurely pace, they all arrived at Mr. Fenton's. The door being opened, Harry led his nine guests to the back parlour, where he instantly ordered plenty of bread and butter and milk for the children, with cold meat, ale, and cakes, for the father and mother : and this was a matter too customary in this house to be any cause of Avonder to any member of the family. As soon as they were refreshed, he took them all to his wardrobe, where he constrained the parents to take of the very best things for themselves and their children ; and having so done he walked out, and left them to dress. Mr. Fenton was in his study, and had just finished a letter as Harry entered with a smiling countenance. I have been very lucky this morning, sir, says he ; I think I have got the prettiest family of boys and girls that is to be found within five shires. Do you know any thing about them, Harry ? Nothing further as yet, sir, than that they and their parents are exceeding poor, and have fallen, as they say, into great misfortunes. The mother is a very handsome and genteel young woman, and the father a portly and very comely man, save that he has a large purple mark on the left side of his face. A purple mark ! cried Mr. Fenton, and started. Go, my dear, and bring that man to me directly. Why, pray, sir, do you know him ? No, my love, I should not know him though he stood before me ; but I would give a thou- sand pounds that he may prove the man I mean, and that I shall discover on short examination. By this time the father of our new family was dressed, and Harry, taking him by the hand, bade him be of good courage, and led him to his uncle. He bowed twice, and with an awful and timid respect, while Mr. Fenton rose and looked earnestly at him. I rejoice, sir, says he, to find that my son here has been of some little matter of use to you and 14A THE FOOL OF QUALITY. your family. Pray, take a scat nearer to me, sir, if you please. lie tells me you have met with misfortunes ; I also have had my share. I think myself nearly of kin to the unhappy ; and you will singularly oblige me by as much of your story as you shall please to communicate. I am inter- ested in it. I have nothing to conceal from your honour, answered the stranger. And I shall willingly give you an open and faithful narrative of my short but sad history. My name is Giffard Homely. My father was a farmer in easy circumstances near Stratford. He bound me appren- tice to a tanner, and, when my time was out, gave me a hundred and twenty pounds to set me up in my business. But, dying soon after, he bequeathed the bulk of his sub- stance to my elder brother. Though my brother was a spendthrift, yet I loved him dearly, and, when his creditors fell upon him, I became his bail for two hundred pounds. Within a few months after he suddenly disappeared, and I never could learn further tidings concerning him. A writ was thereupon marked against me, and put into the hands of bailiffs. But liberty was precious. I left all my substance to the possession of my pursuers, and, passing at a great rate, I escaped into Lincolnshire. There I joined myself to Anthony Granger, the tanner. Independent of his trade, he held a very beautiful and well- parked farm under Sir Spranger Thornhill, the lord of the manor. And as I served him with great zeal, affection, and application, his affairs prospered under my hands. He had an only child, a very lovely girl, of about ten years of age ; her manners, like her countenance, were extremely engaging, and I took vast delight, at all leisure hours, in teaching her to read and write, and in diverting her with a variety of little plays and amusements. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 145 I had no intention, at that time, of gaining her young heart, but that happened to prove the miserable consequence ; and a heavy price it is that my poor de'ar girl has since paid for her affection. Year after year she now grew in stature, but much more in loveliness, at least in my eyes ; and yet I flattered myself that I affected her merely for her own sake. I used to please myself with the prospect of her being advanced to high for- tune : and I thought that I would willingly have given her up at the altar to some lord of the land. One twelfth night a parcel of young folks of us were diverting ourselves about the fire with several pastimes, and among the rest the play was introduced of, I love my love icith an A, because she is amiable, and so on through the alphabet. When it came to my Peggy's turn, she said I love my love with an H, because he is very honest, and I never will hate him for his being homely. And this might have passed without any observation, had she not cast a glance at me, and blushed exceedingly, which threw me also into equal confusion. As this was the first discovery that I made of her affec- tion, it also served to open my eyes to the strength of my own passion, and this cost me many a sleepless night and aching heart. I did not look upon myself as a sufficient match for her ; I reflected that it would be very ungenerous to lessen the fortune or happiness of the girl that I loved ; and I resolved a hundred times to quit the country, that my absence might cure both her and myself of our foolish fond- ness for each other. But though this was what my reason still prompted and approved, my heart still held me back, as it were, for a while longer when I was on the brink of departure. Peggy was just arrived to her fifteenth year on the 24th VOL. ii. 7 146 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. of April, and was elected by the neighbours to be queen of the following May, and to deliver the prizes to the victors at the wake. I had made a vow within myself to forsake her and the country the very day after her regency ; but in the mean- while, I could not resist the temptation of showing my address before the queen of my wishes. Accordingly, on that day I entered the lists among the other young candidates. But I will not burden your hon- our with a particular detail of our insignificant contests. You have unquestionably been witness to the like on several occasions. It will be sufficient to inform you, that as I had the fortune to get the better at the race and at wrestling, when I successively went to receive the respective prizes my Peggy's eyes danced, and her feet trent pit-a-pat with joy, as I approached her. Cudgels came next in play, and a little stage of boards was erected for the purpose, that the spectators might see with the better advantage. I had long learned this art from a famous master in Stratford ; and, as I was confident of my superiority, I hurt my rivals as little as possible, only just sufficient to make them acknowledge that they were foiled. At length one Hector Pluck, a butcher, mounted the stage. He had, it seems, been quite an adept at this sport, and for ten foregoing years had carried off the prize in several neighbouring shires ; but he was now come to settle near Lincoln, and was to have been married the following day to a farmer's daughter, who was one of the fair spectators at the wake. The moment he assailed me, I perceived that his passions were up, and that his eye was a plain interpreter of the deadliness of his heart. He fought cautiously, however, and kept on a watchful reserve ; and we had long attacked and THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 147 defended, without any advantage on either part, when, with a motion and fury quick as lightning, he made a side stroke at me, and aimed to cut me across the face with the point of his stick. This was a blow which I had not time to inter- cept, or even to see. The villain, however, happily missed of his intention ; for his cudgel, being something advanced, only bruised my cheek, when instantly I gave him an exas- perated stroke on the head, and, cutting him in the skull, laid him sprawling on the stage, whereat all who knew me gave a great shout. After some time he rose, and advancing a little toward me, he stretched out his left hand as if in token of recon- ciliation ; while, pulling out his butcher's knife from a sheath in his side-pocket, he with his right hand made a stab at my heart, and, suddenly leaping off the stage, attempted to Immediately the blood poured from me in a stream, and ran along the boards. I found myself growing weak, and, sitting down on the stage, I had the presence of mind to open my bosom, and, taking out my handkerchief, I held it to the wound. In the mean time the whole concourse was in an uproar. The cry went about that Giffard Homely was murdered ! Giffard Homely was killed ! My poor dear Peggy fell sense- less from her throne, and was carried home in a tit. Several horsemen hasted away, of their own accord, for a sur- geon ; and the butcher was pursued, knocked down, hard pinioned, and conveyed with following curses to the jail of Lincoln. Among others who came to condole with me, little Master Billy Thornhill, our landlord's son and heir, came running, and desired to be lifted upon the stage. As soon as he saw the blood, and how weak and pale I looked, he broke out into a passionate fit of tears O Giffard, 14:8 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. ray Giffard, my poor Giffard ! he cried ; I fear you are a dead man ! You will no more be my holiday-companion, Giffard ! Never more will you go a-birding with me, or set gins for the rabbits, or catch little fishes for me, or carry me on your back through the water, or in your arms over the mire. Alack ! alack ! what shall I do if I lose you, my poor Giffard ! The surgeon came at full gallop. As soon as he had seen the greatness of the gash Say your last prayer, my friend, he cried ; in a very few minutes you must be a dead man. But when he had probed the wound, his face turned to cheerfulness. A most wonderful escape, he cried : the wea- pon has missed your vitals, and only glanced along the rib. Be of good courage ; I engage, in a few weeks, to set you once more upon your legs. Mean time my loving neighbours made a litter and bed for me of the tents and tent-poles, all striving who should carry me, and all escorting me home. The good Mr. Granger had been that day confined by a sprain in his ankle, and now sat weeping by his child, who fell out of one fainting fit into another, till she was told that I was brought home, and that the doctor had pronounced me out of danger. As soon as I was put to bed, and my kind attendants withdrawn, Mr. Granger on a crutch came limping, and sat down by me. He had endeavoured to restrain his tears before the crowd ; but as soon as he was seated they broke out anew. O Giffard, Giffard ! he cried ; my dear Peggy is very ill, and you are very ill ; and to lose you both at once would be hard upon me, indeed ! Notwithstanding a short fever, the doctor happened to keep his promise, with the assistance of youth and a good habit, and I began to gather strength and recover apace. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 149 As soon as I was up and about, I observed that Miss Peggy seemed no longer desirous of restraining her kind looks or her kind offices ; and this gave me some concern, till I also observed that her father took no umbrage or no notice of it. One evening, as we sat over a tankard of October Giffard, says he bluntly, what would you think of my Peggy for a wife ? Nothing at all, sir, says I. I would not marry your daughter if she would have me to-morrow. Pray, why so, Giffard ? Peggy is very pretty, and deserving, as I think, of as good a man as you. Her deservings, sir, said I, are my very objection ; I scarce know a man in the land who is deserving of her. If that is the case, Giffard, her hand is at your service, with all my heart. Oh, sir! I replied, I have no suitable fortune ; but know you are pleased to banter ; I am no match for her. You are an industrious and a making young man, said he ; and such a one is richer in my eye than a spender with thousands. Beside, you are loving and good-natured, my son ; and I shall not lose my child by you, but gain another child in you as dear to me as herself. Here I was so transported, so overpowered by the kind- ness of the dear good man, that I could not get out a syllable ; but, sinking before him, I eagerly grasped his legs, and then his knees, and rising went out to vent my passion. In about a month after, Sir Spranger Thornhill and my young friend, Master William, honoured our nuptials with their presence ; and all our kind neighbours came crowding to the solemnity, and, by their joy, appeared to be parties to our union. For eight following years never was known a happier family. And about that time Sir Spranger Thornhill sick- ened and died, and was attended to the dark mansion of the 150 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. bodies of his ancestors, by the greatest concourse of true mourners that ever was seen in the shire, all lamenting that goodness was not exempted from mortality. Our dear father could never be said to hold up his head from that day. He silently pined after his old friend and patron, Sir Spranger ; and all our cares and caresses were not able to withhold him from following the same appointed track. Never, sure, was grief like mine and my Peggy's. In looking at each other we saw the loss that we had sustained ; and while we lay arm in arm, often, often have we watered the good man's memory with our tears. Time, however, who has many severe sorrows in prospect, helps to soften and lessen those that he brings in his train. An increasing family of children, sweetly tempered like their mother, called for all my concern ; and our young landlord, Sir William, whenever he came from college, used to make our house his home, and take me with him. wherever he went, till Lord Lechmore, his guardian, took him from the university, and sent him abroad, with a tutor and servants, on his travels. As I had made considerable savings, and now looked to have a number of children to provide for, I resolved to realize all that I could for the poor things ; so I built a malthouse and windmill, and planted a large orchard, with other profitable improvements, that cost me to the amount of about eight hundred pounds. "Whilst these things were in agitation, Sir Freestone Hard- grave, one of the knights of our shire, came into that part of the country. He had lately purchased a fine estate ad- joining to the west side of my concern ; and was a man of vast opulence, but a stranger among us at that time. Though Sir Freestone was an old bachelor, and had one of the most remorseless hearts that ever informed the shape THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 151 of mau, he had yet a pleasing aspect and insinuating address, and always applied those qualities to the purpose of betray- ing. Alas ! I was informed, but too late, of his character that his avarice outgrew even the growth of his wealth ; and that his desires increased in exact proportion as age happened to deduct from his ability to gratify them. Unhappily he cast a greedy eye at my little farm. Like another lordly Ahab, he coveted the vineyard of poor N"a- both ; and at length compassed his ends by means equally iniquitous. When he proposed to give me more than value for it, I answered that I myself had taken a fancy to it, for the sake of the dear man who had given it to me in trust for his child and her posterity, and that I would not part with it for twenty times an equivalent. With this, however, he did not appear in the least disconcerted ; but said that he esteemed and affected me the more for my gratitude to the memory of my old benefactor. I was afterwards told, and learned by dear experience, that he never pardoned an offence, nor even a disappoint- ment ; but nothing of this appeared for the present. He visited made it his business to meet me in several places sought and seemed quite desirous of cultivating an acquaint- ance with me did me many little friendly offices with my richer neighbours condescended to toy with my little ones appeared to take a huge liking to my two eldest boys stood godfather to my little girl that is now in her mother's arms said he wondered how I contrived to maintain so numerous a family upon such slender means and promised to procure me a beneficial post in the collection of the customs. After a course of such specious kindnesses, and while my heart glowed with gratitude, in the recollection of his favours both passed and proposed, he came to my house in a mighty hurry. My dear Homely, says he, I have just struck up a 152 THE V FOOL OF QTJALITT. most advantageous bargain with our neighbour Squire Spendall. But he wants the. money immediately I have not the whole about me ; and yet, if I do not pay him down directly, some cursed disappointment may intervene. Do run and bring me all that you have quickly. I will repay you within two or three days at farthest. Here I hasted with joy to the corner where I had depo- sited my cash, as well for payment of rent as another little matter that I had in my eye ; and, bringing out a leathern bag, I laid it on the table. There, sir, said I, are two hun- dred and thirty guineas ; take but the trouble to count them out, and give me a short acknowledgment. No, said he, my dear Homely, never heed it for the present, I will be back with you the moment I have made the purchase ; and so saying, he caught up the bag and huddled away as fast as his old legs could scamper, while I sat still through astonish- ment, my heart misgiving me at the time, as if it foreboded the mischiefs that were to follow. I waited with great anxiety for his return till evening, when, hastening to his lodge, I was there informed that he had set out for London five hours before. This threw me into a panic, though not altogether without a mixture of hope, and so I waited till the three days of his promise should expire. Mr. Snack then came to me and demanded the rent. He was a Lincoln attorney, whom Lord Lech- more had lately preferred to the care of my landlord's con- cerns, upon the death of Mr. Kindly, the good old agent. I told him ingenuously how matters had happened, and said I would hurry to London and bring back the money directly. Accordingly I posted away, and rested not till I arrived at the great city. There, for seven days successively, I besieged the doors of Sir Freestone, hourly knocking and requesting to be admitted to his presence ; but he was THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 153 either not up, or just gone out, or had company with him, or was just then very busy, and not to be spoken to, and so forth. At length, when he found that I would not quit his house without an answer, he ordered me before him. His chariot waited at the gate, and he stood dressed in the hall. As I approached, and bowed with the respect and mortified air of a petitioner, he put on a look of the most strange and audacious effrontery I ever beheld. Who are you, friend, said he, and what may your business be with me ? I am come, and it please your honour, humbly to tell you that I am called upon for my rent ; and to beseech your honour to restore me the two hundred and thirty pieces you had from me the other day. Here, says he to his servants, this must be some desperado who is come to rob me in broad day, and in the middle of my own people. The fellow says I owe him money : I know not that I ever saw his face before. I desire that you will not suffer such a dangerous villain to enter my doors any more. And so saying, out he stepped, and away he drove. O, sirs, how I was struck to the heart at that instant ! I sneaked out, scarce half alive, not remembering where I was, or whither I was to go. Alas ! I was far from making the speed back again that I had done in going. I knew not how to shew my face to my Peggy or her dear little ones, whom I had plundered and stripped of their substance, by stupidly surrendering it without witnesses, or a single line whereby I might reclaim it. At length I got home, if home it might be called, that had then nothing in it, or at least nothing for me. Mr. Snack had taken the advantage of my absence to possess himself of my farm, and of all that I was worth. Under colour of distraining for rent, he had seized every thing, even the beds whereon my wife and children lay, with 7* 154: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. all their wearing apparel, save what they had on their backs. The bill of appraisement, which I have here, comes to up- wards of six hundred pounds ; but when the cattle and other effects were set up for sale, the auctioneer and bidders proved of Mr. Snack's providing ; all were intimidated from offering any thing save those who offered in trust for this charitable agent, and the whole of my substance went off within the value of one year's rent, being one hundred and eighty-five pounds. Never ! exclaimed Mr. Fenton ; never did I hear of so bare-faced and daring a violation of all laws, divine and human, and that too under sanction of the most perfect sys- tem of law that ever was framed. But what will not power effect, when unrestrained by conscience, when prompted by avarice, and abetted by cunning ? And is there no remedy, sir ? cried out our hero. None that I know of, my Harry, save where power opposes power in favour of weakness, or wealth opposes wealth in favour of poverty. But we will see what may be dene. Meanwhile let Mr. Homely proceed in his narrative. When my family, continued Homely, were thus turned out of doors, an old follower made way for them in his own cottage, and retired with his wife and daughter to a cow- house hard by. Meanwhile my loving neighbours supplied them with sufficient bedding, and daily kept them in victuals, even more than they could eat. While I went slowly to see them, stopping and turning every minute towards our old habitation, all the horrors of our situation flew upbraidingly in my face, and I accused myself as the robber and murderer of eight persons, for any one of whom I would have spent my life. When I stooped to enter their lowly roof, all trembling and sick at heart, I expected to meet nothing but faces of aversion and expressions of reproach ; but when they all set THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 155 up a shout of joy at my appearance, when they all crowded clasping and clinging about me, the violence and distrac- tion of my inward emotion deprived me of sensation, and I swooned away. When I revived, I cast a look about me, and perceived that their grief had been as extreme as their joy was at my arrival. Ah, my Peggy ! I cried, how have I undone you ! By you I got all my possessions, and, in return, I have deprived you of all that you possessed. You were every blessing to me, and I have repaid you with nothing but misery and ruin. Do not be concerned, my love, said she, nor repine at the consequences of your own goodness and honesty. You are not as God to see into all hearts ; the wisest may be deceived ; and the best, as I believe, are the most subject to be imposed upon. Common charity must have supposed that there could not be such a soul as Sir Freestone upon earth. But be of good courage, my husband, I have good news for you; I dreamed that our dear father appeared to me last night. Do not be disheartened, my child, says he ; bear the cross that is laid upon you with a cheerful and free will, and all shall be restored to you sevenfold upon earth, and seventy- seven fold in the life that has no ending. When I found that my Peggy, instead of distaste and upbraiding, had nothing but love in her looks, and consola- tion in her expressions, I folded her to my bosom, and to my soul that went to meet her, and I would willingly have made her one with my own being. My neighbours were not as birds of the season; they neither despised nor forsook me because of my poverty. They came crowding to condole with me ; they advised me to apply to the law against Sir Freestone and attorney Snack; and they offered to contribute towards my journey. They also joined in this written testimony of my character, 156 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. and prosperous circumstances, before Snack made the seizure ; and two of them have witnessed, in this bit of paper, that when the alarm came of Mr. Kindly's death, and of a strange agent being put in his room, they heard me say that I did not matter the worst he could do, and saw me count down twenty pieces over and above my year's rent. The late frights and fatigues which Peggy underwent dur- ing Snack's operations, together with her extremes of joy on my return, and of grief at the fit into which I had fallen, hastened on her labour, and she was delivered before her time of that weakly little babe whom I buried this morning. Within six weeks after her childbirth we prepared for our journey. Our neighbours, like the good Samaritan, had com- passion upon him who fell among the thieves. They made me up a purse of thirty-five pounds, and promised to contri- bute further towards the carrying on of my suit. We travelled happily, by easy journeys of a few miles a day, till, nine days ago, we reached a small village the other side of St. Alban's ; there we took up our rest for the night at a house that had no sign, but let occasional lodgings, and sold bread and small beer. As I desired a separate apartment for ourselves, we were put into a kind of waste room, that had no fastening to the door except a latch. After a slender supper, we lay down to sleep, and I stuffed my breeches close under my head with all possible caution. We had made an extraordinary journey that day, and I was particularly fatigued by carrying several of my tired children successively in my arms, so that we all slept but too soundly ; and, when I awoke in the morning, neither money nor breeches were to be found. Such a loss, at another time, would have been as nothing to me ; but in our present circumstances, it was a repetition and doubling of all that we had lost before. I instantly summoned the people of the house, and in a good deal of THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 157 warmth charged our landlord with the felony, telling him that I had been robbed of about thirty-three pounds. Why, master, says he, I know nothing to the contrary; but it would be very hard indeed if I was to be answerable for the honesty of every one who goes this road. If you had given your money in charge to me, I would have been ac- countable for it. I believe, by the grief you are in, that you must have been losers: I will therefore forgive you your reckoning, and give you a pair of breeches of my own into the bargain ; but this ia all I will do till the law forces me. As there was no remedy, at least for the present, I ac- cepted his overture, and set out. But, O sir ! it is impossible to describe the horrors of my soul as I silently stepped along, casting an eye of mingled pity and despair upon my children. I cursed in secret my own existence, and wished for some sudden thunderbolt to crush me into nothing. All trust in God, or his providence, had now wholly forsaken me, and I looked upon him as neglecting all other objects of his wrath, and exerting his omnipotence against me and mine alone. Peggy, as I suppose, perceived how it was with me, and kept behind a while, that she might give way to the present tumult and distemper of my mind. At length, hoping to administer some matter of comfort to me, she came up, and silently put a few shillings into my hand, saying Courage, my dear husband, all cannot be lost while we have a God who is infinitely rich to depend upon. Ah ! said I, these are the fruits of your dreams, these are your promised blessings that heaven had in store for us. And still has in store, she replied ; the same hand that holds the rod, holds the com- forting staff also. Tell me not of comfort, I cried ; I see that the face of God is set in blackness and blasting against me. But for me it matters not, had he not taken me at an 158 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. advantage. He sees that I have eight lives, all dearer than my own, and he is determined to kill me in every one of them. Do not cast from you, my love, she said, the only crutch that the world and the wretched have to rest upon. God is pleased, perhaps, to take all human means from us, that he may shew forth the wonders of his power in our relief. While any other hope is left, we are apt to trust to that hope, and we look not towards the secret hand by which we are fed and supported ; but when all is lost, all gone, when no other stay is left, should sudden mercy come upon us, our comforter them becomes visible, he stands revealed in his greatness and glory before us, and we are compelled to cry out, with unbelieving Thomas My Lord and my God! Though these pious expostulations of my dearly beloved preacher had little influence at the time for appeasing my own passions, I was yet pleased that my Peggy had her secret consolations, but little imagined that her prophecy approached so near to its completion. For two days we held on, living on such bread and milk as we could purchase at the cottages that had the charity to receive us. But my boy who was on the breast grew ex- ceedingly sick ; so we were obliged to shorten our journeys for the two succeeding days, partly begging, and partly pay- ing for such victuals as we could procure. Towards evening we came within sight of this town. Our little money was quite exhausted, and our child grown too ill to bear further travel ; so I looked about, and perceived some roofless walls that stood off from the highway, and thither we turned and took up our bleak abode. For the three following days, I frequented the road, and by begging procured what scantily kept my family from per- ishing ! Meantime my spirit was tamed and subdued by the THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 159 habit of mortification, and I looked up to heaven, and cried Pardon, pardon, O my God ! the offences and blasphemies of my murmurings against you ! You formerly blessed me with an over-abundance of blessings, and that, too", for a long season ; and, as Job justly says, Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ? O Friend and Saviour of sinners ! if thou lovest whom thou chastenest, and receivest those whom thou dost scourge, when death shall have put a period to the sufferings of mortality, may I not humbly look to find grace at the footstool of the throne of thy mercy ? At length our child died this morning, and we buried him in our hovel, and watered his grave with the tears that we shed for him, and for each other. The rest, sir, you know, till this angel of God was sent to accomplish the prediction of my Peggy in all its fulness. Here Homely concluded ; and after a pause and a deep sigh Mr. Fenton demanded : Have you told me the whole of your history, Mr. Homely ? I have so, please youi honour, through every particular of any signification. I am sorry for it. Pray think again. Did you never meet with any adventure that is yet unrecited ? Did you never save any person at your own peril ? No, sir. O, now I recol- lect ! Some two or three and twenty years ago, as I fled from the bailiffs who pursued me, as I told you, for the bail of my brother, I came to the river Avon ; the flood was great and rapid after the late rains, and I thought of looking for a place of smoother water for my passage, when a gentleman and lady, attended by a train of servants, came riding along the banks. As they road, chatting and laughing, a fowler, who was concealed in a copse just at hand, let fly at a bird, whereupon the fiery horse that the gentleman was on took fright, and, with a bound, suddenly plunged into the current, 160 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. whereat the lady gave a loud shriek, and fell senseless to the ground. The horse rose without his rider, and swam down the stream. Soon after the rider appeared, and the attend- ants were divided between their care of the lady and their lamentations for their master on the edge of the bank. Then, seeing no other help, my heart smote me, and I cast myself in without reflection. I kept aloof, however, for fear he should grapple at me, and sink us both together ; so I supported and shoved him before me towards land, till, having reached the bank, I laid hold on it with one hand, and with the other raised him up within the reach of his servants, who had stretched themselves flat upon the brink to receive him ; then, being already drenched, and having nothing further to do, I turned and swam over, and so made my escape. Did you ask the name of the party whom you saved in the manner you say ? No, truly, sir, there was no leisure for such an inquiry. Why did you not wait for the recompense that was so justly your due for so great a deliverance? Recompense ! Please your honour, I could have done no less for the beggar that begs at the corner. Noble, noble fellow ! exclaimed Mr. Fenton ; I am he I am he whom you saved that day, my brother ! And so say- ing, he arose and caught Homely in his arms, and pressed and pressed him over again to his bosom ; while Harry, all impatient, seized hold of Homely also, and struggled hard to get him to himself from his father. When they were something composed, and all again seated Ah, Homely ! says Mr. Fenton, I have sent and made many inquiries after you, but not for many years after the day in which you saved me. I hated, I loathed you, for having prolonged my life to such a misery as no other man ever endured. Oh, that lady ! that lady ! But no matter for the present (and, so saying, he wiped the swelling tear from his THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 161 eye). Tell me, Homely that devil, Sir Freestone I am not of a malicious temper, and yet I wish for nothing more than full vengeance on his head. Don't you believe that he went to you with a felonious intention of defrauding you of your property ? Believe it, sir ! I can swear it. The circumstances, and their consequences, are full evidence thereof. Very well, said Mr. Fenton, though we may not be able to carry a civil action against him, we may assail him with better advantage in a criminal way. I will draw up and take your deposition myself; and, to-morrow, I will send you with a note to Lord Portland, where more may be done for you, my Homely, than you think. In the mean time, you and your family shall take up your abode in the back part of my house, and from thence you shall not depart till, as your Peggy's dream has it, all your losses shall be restored to you sevenfold upon earth ; what your portion may be in heaven must be your own care, and may the Spirit of grace guide you in the way you should go ! Early the next morning Mr. Fenton sent Homely to Lon- don with his deposition and several papers, accompanied by a letter from himself to Lord Portland. In the evening Homely returned, and, entering with a face of triumph, he seized Mr. Fenton's hand, and eagerly kissing it Blessed, blessed be the hand, he cried, that hath the power of God among men for good works. When I sent in your honour's letter I was not detained a moment. His lordship made me sit down, perused my papers with attention, questioned me on the particulars, grew inflamed against Sir Freestone, and gave him two or three hearty curses for an execrable villain. He then called a gentleman to him who was in waiting, and ordered an attachment to be instantly issued against the knight. It was accordingly executed upon him, and he now 162 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. lies in Newgate. God be praised ! said Mr. Fenton ; so far there is equity still extant upon earth. It is not unnatural to suppose that Mr. Fenton's family were immoderately fond of those whose father had saved the life of their most dear master. Mr. Clement, in particular, took pains and pleasure in forwarding the boys in their let- ters ; and Mrs. Clement passed most of her time very happily with Peggy and her little girls. Frank, the butler, had been abroad upon an expedition at the time that Mr. Homely's family arrived, and did not return till Homely had come back from Lord Portland's. He was then informed, with joy, of the guests they had got; and he waited with impatience till the man he longed to see should come out from his master. As soon as he appeared, he catched one of histands in both of his, and looking lovingly at him, cried Do I once more behold that happy face, Mr. Homely ? I was the man to whose hands you delivered my precious lord from the devouring of the floods. Gladly, Heaven knows ! would I have sacrificed my own life for the salvation of his. But, alas ! I had no skill in contending with the waters, and the sure loss of my own life would not have given the smallest chance for the recovery of my master. You -are the person, Mr. Homely, to whom God committed that blessed task and trust : and Mr. James, and I, and all of us, have agreed to make up a hundred pounds apiece for your children, in acknowledgment of the benefit you did us on that day. Here Homely took Frank very affectionately into his arms, and with a faltering voice said Your oifer, sir, is dear, very dear indeed, unto me, as it is a proof of that love which you all so warmly bear to our common lord and master. If there is any occasion, I will not refuse this extraordinary instance of your benevolence ; but our master's influence and bounty are doing much in my behalf. And, in the mean time, I will THE FOOL OP QUALITY. 163 take it as a very particular favour, if you will be pleased to introduce me to my fellow-servants of this house. Within the following fortnight, a servant in a rich livery came on a foaming horse, and, delivering a letter at the door, rode away directly. The letter ran thus : "To HENRY FEXTON, ESQ. "Dear Sir, The trial of our recreant knight is at hand ; and, if you insist upon it, shall be prosecuted to the utmost extent of our laws. The wretch, indeed, deserves to be gibbeted. But he has relations of worth and consider- ation among us. They have besought me to shield them from shame on this occasion; and I join them in requesting you to accept the enclosed order for three thousand pounds in favour of your client, together with his farm and effects, which attorney Snack shah 1 immediately restore> " Let me have your answer within three days ; and believe me Your true, as well as obliged servant, " POKTLAND." The day following Mr. Fenton sent Harry in his chariot, attended by Mr. James and two servants in livery, to return his acknowledgments to the favourite of the king. Lord Portland received our hero with pleasure and sur- prise equally evident in his countenance. As he piqued him- self on being one of the finest personages in the nation, he secretly respected his own resemblance in another. After a few mutual compliments, and some occasional dis- course, the earl told Harry that he must take a private dinner with him. We are quite alone, says he, only two viscounts, a baronet, and four or five gentlemen of the ministerial quill. Pray, my lord, said Harry smiling, is a dinner the whole of their pension ? Not so, sir, I confess ; they are the Swiss of the lettered world, and fight for pay. They were formerly 164: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. of the opposite junto, but they have changed their opinions along with their party ; and our honour obliges us to give them at least as much in the cause of the crown, as they for- merly got in the cause of the populace. I doubt, my lord, returned Harry, that their silence would answer your ends full as well as their oratory, unless your treasury could hold out in bribing people to read also. Very pleasantly severe, indeed, replied the laughing earl. But come, the bell calls us to dinner. When dinner was over, and cheerfulness circulated with the bottle I would give a good deal to know, Mr. Harry, said the eai-1, what you and your father think of his majesty and his ministers ? Should I speak my downright sentiments, my lord, answered Harry, in some things I might offend, and in others appear to flatter. O, you cannot offend in the least, cried the earl ; we are daily accustomed to be told of all the faults whereof we aie, or may be, or might have been guilty ; and, as to flattery, you know it is the food of us courtiers. Why, my lord, you want no champion for the present, said Harry : you are all, as I perceive, on one side of the question, and if some one does not appear, however impotent,' to oppose you, the shuttlecock of conversation may fall to the ground. Right, very right, my sweet fellow, rejoined his lordship; proceed, you shall have nothing but fair-play, I promise you. To be serious, then, said Harry, my father thinks, in the first place (for I have no manner of skill in such matters) he thinks, I say, that his majesty is one of the greatest war- riors and one of the wisest statesmen that ever existed. He thinks, however, that he has attachments and views that look something further than the mere interests of the people by whom he has been elected; but he says that those views ought, in a measure, to be indulged in return for the very great benefits that he has done us. He is therefore grieved THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 165 to find, that his majesty has met with so much reluctance and coldness from a nation so obliged. You are a darling of a politician ! exclaimed the earl ; but we will not thank you for your compliments till we know what you have further to object against us. My father admits, my lord, that his majesty and his minis- ters have re-established and exhibited, in a fair and open light, the most glorious constitution that ever was con- structed. But then he apprehends that you are beginning to sap the foundations of the pile that you yourselves erected. As how, my dear young mentor ? By being over boun- teous in paying former friends, and by being still more pro- fuse in procuring new adherents. Child of honour, cried the earl, another less elegant than yourself would have said, that we are sapping the constitution by bribery and corruption. You have indeed, my Harry, delicately tempered with your admonitions even like the cup of life the sweets the bitters. But what say you, gentlemen, shall a babe lately from the breast bear away the whole palm from people grown grey in politics ? The young gentleman, says Mr. Veer (the principal of the court writers), talks wonderfully for one not versed in the subject of which he treats. The people of England are stupidly proud and licentiously ungovernable ; they are the most ignorant, and yet most obstinate, of any people upon earth. It is only by their being selfish that they become in any degree manageable. If their voices were not bought, they would either give them to persons of their own stupid cast, unknowing in our laws or our constitution, or to men of antimonarchal and republican spirit, who would be per- petually putting rubs before the wheels of good government. I never knew till now, sir, returned Harry, that, in order to make people true to their country and their king that is, in order to make men honest it was necessary to corrupt 166 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. them. But I have still good hopes that the picture which you have drawn of our governors is not altogether a just one. Governors ! cries Veer, I spoke not a word of governors. You spoke of the people, sir, says Harry, and they, as I take it, are our governors. The people our governors ! this is the most wonderful and the newest doctrine that ever I heard. A doctrine even as old as the constitution, rejoins Harry. They are not only our governors, but more abso- lutely so than any so styled. His lordship is the only man in company whose person, in some instances, is exempt from their jurisdiction ; but his property remains still subjected to their decision. No law can be made in Britain but by the people in their proxies; and, when those laws are made, the people are again constituted the judges thereof on their jury-tribunals, through their respective shires; as also judges of facts and rights, whether civil or criminal, throughout the realm. Thus their privilege of making laws for themselves in PARLIAMENT, and of judging of the said laws (when made) on JURIES, composes, as it were, a rudder, whereby the peo- ple are admitted (gloriously) to steer the vessel of their own commonwealth. ^ Would it not be a pity, then, that so great a people should be no other than such as Mr. Veer has described them a parcel of ignorant, licentious, selfish, base, venal prostitutes, unenlightened by reason, and uninfluenced by conscience ? If they should be reduced if it is possible, I say, that they should ever be reduced to so very vile and deplor- able a state, it can only be by the very measures that Mr. Veer has recommended. The character, as ye know, of a certain old tempter, is not over amiable, and I should be sorry that any whom I love and respect should follow in his steps. And now, gentlemen, take the argument home to your- THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 167 selves. The people have the disposal of our lives, liberties, and properties. Which of you, then, would like to have life itself, and all that is valuable in it, at the arbitration of a pack of wretches, who, being wholly selfish, can have no kindred feelings or compassion for you? who, being them- selves devoid of honour and" equity, cannot judge -according to the one or the other ; who, being already accustomed to influence and prostitution, have their ears and hands open to all who would whisper or bribe them to your prejudice ? I, as a fool, gentlemen, utter the dictates of wisdom ; for I speak the sentiments of a much wiser and much better man than myself. Should a general corruption take place in the land, adieu to all virtue ; adieu to humanity, and all social connections ! all reason and law, all conscience and magis- tracy, all public and private weal, must vanish or be con- founded in one chaos together. And from hence it is self- evident, that he who debauches the morals of the least of his majesty's subjects, is an enemy to his king, to his country, and mankind. I protest, said his lordship, with some little confusion, I never beheld this matter in the same light before ; but I shall take care to inspect and examine it at better leisure. Here the company rose to separate, when Harry, stepping towards Veer with an affectionate pleasantry in his counten- ance Mr. Veer, says he, I fear I have misbehaved a little to-day ; I am naturally warm, and am apt to be too much so on particular subjects. O, sir, says Veer, I am an old prize- fighter, and accustomed to cuts ; but I now know my man, and shall hereafter avoid engaging, or keep barely on the defensive ; do me the honour, however, as old combatants were wont, to shake hands at parting, in token of hearts free from malice. In the contest of love, Mr. Veer, you never shall foil me, cried Harry. Now, my lord, if you have any commands for my father, 168 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. pray, let me have the pleasure of being your messenger. Upon my honour, my dear boy and that is the oath of a lord you shall not part from me for this night at least. My father, sir, will be uneasy. I will despatch one to him directly. I have particular designs upon you ; you must go with me to the levee. I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of introducing you to his majesty; I expect to get credit by you. I rather fear, my lord, that I may do you some dis- grace. O ! cried the earl, you think you are not fine enough ! Why, truly, you will see folks there of much more illustrious attire. But let others disgrace their ornaments ; be you humbly content, my child, with adorning your dress. Harry blushed and bowed. When they arrived at court, the earl left his young friend a while in the levee-room, and went to impart some matters to the king in his closet. While our hero stood in the crowd, some one came and pinned a paper to his back, whereon was written in capital letters THE FOOL. However, it did not remain long enough to do him much disgrace. A young gentleman, of a graceful figure and very amiable aspect, pressed close behind Harry, and gently stole the writing away ; then, taking him by the hand, requested to speak with him apart. I wonder, sir, said the stranger, who it was that could be 'so malicious, or so base, as to fasten this title on your back ; I am certain he must never have seen your face. O, sir ! said Harry, blushing and smiling together, this must have been the office of some old acquaintance ; it is the title to which I have been accustomed from my infancy, and I am well contented to carry it with me to the grave. I am much affected, sir, however, by this uncommon instance of humanity to an unknown ; pray, add to the obligation, by THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 169 letting me know to whom it is that I am so endearingly bound. My name, sir, is Thornhill. I am just arrived from my travels ; and I would willingly go my long journey over again to become just such another fool as you are. Harry seized him by the hand, and gave him at once the squeeze and the look of love. Sir William Thornhill, I pre- sume ? The same, my dear sir. I have been enamoured of your character before I saw you, Sir "William. My name is Harry Fenton ; I live on Hampstead-hill ; I see that your pleasure lies in communicating pleasure. I am therefore per- suaded you will indulge me with a call at some leisure hour. I will not defer that advantage a single day. I shall have the longings of a lover till you arrive. Here the king entered, and all converse was broken off. Lord Portland, looking about, discovered Harry, and, taking him by the hand, led him up, and left him standing before his majesty. Then approaching the royal ear May it please you, sire, says he ; this is the son of the gentleman who advanced us two hundred thousand pounds on our expedi- tion from Holland. The King turned to Harry with a solemn and piercing look ; and, having eyed him for some time, he again turned to the earl, and cried Ay, Portland, this is something ; this, indeed, is a gem fit to set in the crown of a monarch. He then reached forth his hand, and, while our hero stooped to kiss it, he pressed Harry's shoulder with his other hand. My dear child, said the king, we are much obliged to your father. You, by inheritance, are attached to our crown, and you may justly demand whatever we can bestow. We humbly thank your majesty, answered Harry; we only claim the privilege of serving you with all our hearts and all em- powers. Which would you choose, the army or the court ? Indeed, VOL. II. 8 170 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. I should best like to have you about my own person. That is the pitch to which I aspire, answered Harry, as soon as I am capable of so high a duty. But why have you been such a stranger ? said the king, had we seen you before, I think we should not have forgot you. O sire ! said Harry, I am but as a bird from the nest, and this is the first of my unfledged excursions. If a bird, cried the king, it must be a young eagle. Not so, sire, answered Harry ; I should then better support the bright- ness of the sun that is now before me. I would give one of my kingdoms that you were my son ! I am already one of the millions of happy sons and daughters who have the glory of calling you their royal father. So saying, our hero bowed twice, and drew back ; while the king looked towards him in silence and wonder. After some talk with his courtiers, his majesty retired. And Lord Portland took Harry, and Avas followed by a number of the young gentry, to the ball-room. There the queen, at the upper end, was seated under a canopy, her maids of honour attending, and two brilliant ranges of foreign and British ladies were seated on either hand. The earl gave a whisper to the master of the ceremonies, and he immediately led Harry up to the presence, where he had the honour of kissing Queen Mary's fair hand. After some whispering chat between her majesty and Lord Portland, the ball was ordered to be opened by our hero and the lovely young Princess of Hesse. All eyes were fixed upon them with attention still as night, while they moved like Homer's gods, without seeming to press the ground ; or like a mist before the breeze along the side of some stately hill. As soon as the minuet was closed, the princess said softly to Harry, in French, The Louvre, sir, if you please. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 171 This was a dance of the newest fashion, and was calculated to show forth and exhibit a graceful person in all the possible elegances of movement and attitude. As soon as they had finished, the whole assembly could scarce refrain from break- ing forth in loud plaudits, as at the public theatre ; and a humming of mixed voices and patting feet was heard through- out. When Harry had led the princess to her seat, and left her with a bow of the most expressive respect, he happened to see Lady Louisa, and, hinting to the lord chamberlain his desire to dance with her, his lordship readily indulged him. When Harry had finished, the lord chamberlain honoured Sir William Thornhill with Lady Louisa's hand ; and, after four or five more minutes, the country dances began, in which all the younger part of the company joined, except Lord Bot- tom, who refused to step forth, and sat apart ruminating and feeding on his own cogitations. The princess and our hero led up the dance, and Louisa and Sir William were appointed the next in course, in order to do the principal honours to the two young strangers. In the intervals of dancing, Lady Louisa took occasion to say to Harry You are a great stranger, sir ; but we desire you should be so, since we did not treat you with the respect that your merit should have commanded. That, madam, answered Harry, is not wholly the cause of my distance ; but there are persons whose loveliness is more formidable to me, than a whole regiment of sabred hussars with their fierce- looking moustaches. Harry had no sooner said this than his heart smote him with remorse ; for, though Louisa was indeed lovely, and he 'elt for her the propensities and tenderness of a brother, yet she was not of that species of beauty that was formed to fix his heart ; and he secretly reproached himself for having 172 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. attempted to raise the vanity or draw the affections of an innocent girl, with no other view than of making a parade of his own talents a measure, he justly adjudged, unbecoming a man of a spark of honour or integrity. As soon as the dances were ended, and that all had mixed, and chatted, and roved about a while, Harry observed Sir William coming towards him in a little fluster. What is the matter, my friend, says Harry ; pray, what has discomposed you ? Tell me, my dear Harry, that jackanapes in the blue and gold, do you know who he is ? I protest, had it not been for the respect I owe the presence, I would have chas- tised him on the spot. The dance was no sooner done than he came up with a most provoking sauciness in his looks. I wonder, sir, said he, at the insolence of one of your rank ; you ought to have had more modesty than to suffer yourself to be paired with a lady so far above you. O ! cried Harry, taking Sir William very lovingly under the arm, pass this matter over, my sweet friend, I beseech you. That is young Lord Bottom, the very person who, I am pretty confident, contrived the honour of the pasquinade on my back this day. But he is brother to the sweet girl with whom you danced. For her sake, for my sake, forgive him, I entreat you ; but, above all, forgive him for the sake of his dear father, the Earl of Mansfield, one of the noblest nobles, and one of the worthiest men that ever stepped on English ground. He has been these two years past abroad upon an embassy ; and, while he is promoting the interests of the public, has left his own household unchastened and unguided. Here the converse of the friends was suddenly broken off. The lord chamberlain came, and, tapping Harry on the shoulder, told him that the queen desired to speak with him. When he had with a lowly reverence advanced to the THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 173 throne You are, said the queen, the most accomplished cava- lier that ever I beheld ; and, had I sufficient youth and beauty, I would choose you for my knight, to bear my fame through the world. I would rather, said Harry, that your majesty would employ me on some more dangerous enterprise. How is that? said the queen. Why, answered Harry, your majesty's champion could have little or nothing to do, as all would willingly acknowledge the justice of his cause. You are, cried the queen, the loveliest and the sweetest fellow I ever knew. My eye has followed you all along, and marked you for my own, and I must either beg or steal you from our good friend your father. I therefore want.no token to put me in mind of you, but you may want some token to keep your friends in your memory. Here are two pictures the one is the portrait of our master and sovereign lord, the other is the picture of the woman who sits before you, lowly, simple, unadorned ; choose which you please. Give me the plain picture, cried Harry, with a kind of rapture ; it shall henceforth become my riches and my oi'na- ment. So saying, he bent his knee, and taking the little portrait, he pressed it to his lips, with the ardour of an ancient lover in romance. Then, putting it into his bosom, he gracefully arose and retired from the presence. O the fool ! the egregious fool ! muttered some. Nobly, most nobly done ! cried others. As Harry was following the Earl of Portland down-stairs, Lord Bottom came up in the crowd, and in a half whisper said You are too great a man to-day, sir, to acknowledge your old acquaintance. But not so great a fool, retorted Harry, as not to be taught my distance with those who, like Lord Bottom, have a right to look down upon me. After a short but sound sleep, Harry hurried home to pre- pare for the reception of his new friend. He told Mr. Fentou 174: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. that Sir William was returned ; how he had been obligingly made known to him in the forementioned instance of his humanity to a stranger ; and that he had promised to be with them that morning. But pray, sir, don't tell Homely a word of the coming of his landlord, till we place them, as it were by surprise, face to face. In about an hour after, a chaise and four came rapidly to the door ; and Harry instantly sprung and caught his friend in his arms before he came to the ground. The two friends entered the parlour, caressing and ca- ressed, and casting looks of cordial love and delight on each other. My father, sir, said Harry, and led Sir William by the hand to Mr. Fenton, who received him with a coun- tenance of that heart-speaking complaisance which never fails to attach the soul of the person to whom it is directed. Ah, my Harry ! cried Sir William, I no longer wonder at you, I see that you are all that you are by inheritance. But, sir, continued he, you had like to have lost your son last night. Their majesties were most unwilling to quit their hold of him, and I believe in my soul, would willingly have adopted him the heir of their crown. I should be very sorry, Sir William, replied Mr. Fenton, to see a circle about his head that would give him an aching heart. I am sure thafe is the case with the present royal proprietors. In a limited monarchy like ours, the station of the prince is looked upon with a malignant eye by the envious, and, at the same time, rendered uneasy by the perpetual contests between rights and privileges on the one part, and prerogative on the other. Moreover, Sir William, I shall never wish to see one of my child's disposition on the throne of Great Britain. I should be jealous of such a person in behalf of my country. No people could be more tenacious of their liberties than the Swedes, till Gustavus the son of Eric ascended the throne. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 175 His manners were so amiable, his virtues so conspicuous, his government so just, and he made so popular an use of all his powers, that his subjects thought they could never commit enough into his hands. But what was the conse- quence ? His successors made his power a precedent for their own, without attending to the precedent of his admi- nistration. Thus you see that a prince of qualities, eminently popular, might prove of dangerous tendency to a free people, foras- much as he might charm the eyes of their jealousy to sleep, and so seduce them from that guard which is ever necessary to preclude the encroachments of ambition. , But, Sir William, may we not order your horses up ? You must not think of going till you take a plain dinner with us. A supper, too, sir, most joyfully answered the knight. I leave London in the morning on a certain expedition, and shall not have the pleasure of embracing you again for some time. Mr. Fenton then addressing the baronet with a smile Our Harry here, Sir William, never saw a court before ; it is natural, therefore, to think that he must have been greatly amused, and his young heart deceived by the splendor and parade. But you have seen and observed upon many courts of late ; pray what do you think of the entertainment they afford ? As of the dullest of all dull farces, answered the knight. All the courts that I have seen are nearly of the same cast. Conceive to yourself, sir, a stage or theatre of comedians without auditors or spectators. They are all actors, and all act nearly the same part of solemn complaisance and nauseous grimace. Each intends to impose, and yet no one is imposed upon ; where professions are taken to imply the very reverse of what they express. What do you say to this, Harry ? said Mr. Fenton. I 176 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. have very little to say, sir, in favor of the actors ; but the actresses, as I take it, afford better entertainment. Here Sir William and Mr. Fenton laughed ; and Harry, upon a wink, stepped out to bring in Homely, as it were by acci- dent. Sir William, said Mr. Fenton, there is a man come to this house who once saved my life at the risk of his own. It is a great many years ago, and I have not seen him since the action till very lately. I have sent Harry for him, that you may learn the particulars, and advise with me what recom- pense he ought to receive. If the recompense is to be proportioned to the value of the life he saved, my honoured sir, I should not know where to fix the bounds of retribution. And in truth, Mr. Fenton, from my knowledge of you this day, I also hold myself very highly his debtor. At this instant Harry led in Homely by the hand, and left him standing directly opposite to the baronet. Homely gazed with all his eyes, and stood mute through astonishment. At length he exclaimed Bless me! mercy upon me as sure as I hope for heaven it is I think it is my dear young master ! Sir William, at the voice, lifted up his eyes to Homely, and, remembering his marked man, rose quickly, and, spring- ing forward, embraced him with much familiar affection ; while Mr. Fenton sat, and his Harry stood beside him, both wrapped in their own delicious sensibilities. My <5ear Homely, my old companion and brother sports- man ! cried Sir William, how in the world comes this about ? so joyfully, so unexpectedly, to meet you here ! How is your wife and pretty babes ? I hope you left all well at home. Yes, please your honour, they are all well wonderfully well in this house, I assure you ; for, indeed, your Homely has no other home upon earth. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 177 "What you tell me is quite astonishing, replied the knight ; no home for you within the manor or demesne of your friend ? What misfortunes, what revolutions, could bring this wonder to pass ? Sit down, said Mr. Fenton ; pray be seated, Mr. Homely, and give your lord a succinct but deliberate account of the inimitable paii-, Sir Freestone and his coadjutor. As soon as Homely had told his tale from the commence- ment of his distresses to his arrival at the hovel, he stopped short, and said I have something more to impart ; but I hope your honour will pardon me. I am loth to deprive your friends of your company ; but then my Peggy and my boys will be so transported to see your dear face again, that I cannot but beseech you to indulge them, a minute or two, with that blessing. Sir William rose with a troubled humanity in his counte- nance, and followed to a back apartment, where Homely again stopped him short ; and, before he would take him to his Peggy, he gave him a minute detail of all his obligations to what he called this wonderful family. But pray, sir, con- tinued he, let them know very little of what I have told you ; for nothing puts them to so much pain as any kind of acknowledgments. After a short visit to Peggy and her children, Sir William returned to his friends, with such an inward awe and venera- tion for their characters, as for a while sunk his spirits, and solemnized his features. This poor man, sir, said he, has been miserably treated ; but God has been exceedingly gracious to him, in casting the shipwrecked wretch on such a happy shore as this. But this makes no discharge of any part of my duty towards him. Mark me, Homely, I am now of age, and Lord Lechmore has no further authority in my affairs ; wherefore, before I leave this house, I will give you a letter of attorney for the whole 8* 178 TEE FOOL OF QUALITY. agency of the manor. Thank your honour, thank your honour ! cried Homely in a kind of transport ; if I do not prove as faithful to you as another, I will do you justice on myself with the first rope I can lay hold on. As for that reprobate Snack, continued the knight, I will take care to be up with him. He owes the executors of my father six hundred and seventy pounds. I will have that matter put directly in suit, and, as soon as it is recovered, it shall be laid out on a commission for your son, my friend Tom ; as I do not choose yet to ask any favour from the ministry. Lastly, that you may no more be distressed for rent, I will never accept a penny of it till you are decently and competently provided for. O, sir ! exclaimed Homely, I shall be too rich, quite over- burdened ; I shall not know where to lay my treasures. Not so fast, my good friend, replied Sir William smiling; youjiave not heard of the drawback that I propose to have upon you. Whenever I reside in the country, you are to have a hot dish ay, and a cool hogshead, too ready for me and my company. Agreed, sir, cried Homely, provided I may have the liberty, during your absence, to drink your honour's health out of that same hogshead. A just reserve, said Harry, laughing. And full as grateful as it is jovial, cried Mr. Fenton. Why, gentlemen, rejoined Homely, a man of spirit would scorn to accept such benefits without making conditions. After twelve o'clock at night, and an affectionate and ten- der adieu, Sir William set out by moonlight for London. The two following days were employed in preparing for Homely's departure ; and a coach and four, with a chaise, were provided for the conveyance of him and his family. The night before their parting, Mr. Fenton desired that Homely and his wife should be sent to him to his closet. As soon as they entered, he closed the door. My deal THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 179 friends, said ho, as I may not be up in the morning, to take a timely leave of you, it might do as well to go through that melancholy office to-night. Here, Mrs. Homely, here is some little matter apiece towards beginning a fortune for your three pretty daughters. Pray, Homely, take care to have it dis- posed of for them upon good securities. Here he put three orders upon his banker, for five hundred pounds each, into Peggy's hand; then, turning to Homely, and taking him straitly in his arms God be with you and your dear Peggy, my Homely, he cried, and give us all a blessed meeting where friends shall part no more ! The distressed Homely was past utterance ; but disen- gaging, and flinging himself at the feet of his patron, while Peggy kept on her knees weeping and sobbing beside him ; O, he cried, at length, next to my God ! O, next to my Lord and my God ! My lord and my master, my master and my lord ! The next morning before sunrise Harry was up, and, going to Homely's apartment, embraced him and his wife. He then kissed and caressed all the girls and boys round, and gave to each of them a gold medal to keep him in their remembrance ; when Homely and his Peggy, with open arms, trembling lips, and swelling eyes, began to take their leave. God be with you ! God be with you ! sobbed Homely aloud ; never, never till I get to heaven, shall I meet with such another dear assembly ! Mr. Fenton now judged it time to forward his Harry's education, especially with respect to his knowledge of the world, of the views, pleasures, manners, bent, employments, and characters of mankind. For this purpose, he proposed to leave Arabella sole regent of his family, and, for a few weeks, to stay with Clement and Harry in London, there to shew him whatever might gratify his curiosity, or merit his inspection 180 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. While the coach was in waiting, and they all stood on the hill, the great city being extended in ample view beneath them, Mr. Fenton exclaimed Oh, London ! London ! thou mausoleum, of dead souls, how pleasant art thou to the eye, how beautiful in outward prospect ; but within, how full of rottenness and reeking abominations ! Thy dealers are all students in the mystery of iniquity, of fraud and imposition on ignorance and credulity. Thy public officers are hourly exercised in exactions and extortion. Thy courts of judica- ture are busied in the sale, the delay, or perversion of jus- tice; they are shut to the injured and indigent, but open to the wealthy pleas of the invader and oppressor. Thy magistracy is often employed in secretly countenancing and abetting the breach of those laws it was instituted to main- tarn. Thy charities subscribed for the support of the poor, are lavished by the trustees in pampering the rich, where drunkenness swallows till it wallows, gluttony stuffs till it pants, and unbuttons and stuffs again. Even the great ones of thy court have audaciously smiled away the gloom and horrors of guilt, and refined, as it were, all the grossness thereof, by inverting terms and palliating phrases. While the millions that crowd and hurry through thy streets are universally occupied in striving and struggling to rise by the fall, to fatten by the leanness, and to thrive by the ruin of their fellows. Thy offences are rank ; they steam and cloud the face of heaven. The gulf also is hollow beneath that is one day to receive thee. But the measure of thy abomina- tions is not yet full ; and the number of thy righteous hath hitherto exceeded the proportion that was found in the first Sodom. That evening they went to the opera, where Harry was so captivated by the sentimental meltings and varied harmony of the airs, that he requested Mr. Fenton to permit him to be*instructed on some instrument. Not by my advice, my THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 181 dear, answered Mr. Fenton; I would not wish you to attempt any thing in which you may not excel. Music is a science that requires the application of a man's whole life in order to arrive at any eminence. As it is enchanting in the hand of a master, it is also discordant and grating in its inferior degrees. Your labours have been employed to much more valuable purposes ; and I would not, as they say, give my child's time for a song. Harry instantly acquiesced with the best temper imaginable, as the will of his beloved patron was, truly speaking, his own will ; and that he only wanted to know it, to be at all times, and on all occasions, conform- able thereto. A few following days were employed in visiting the Tower, in surveying the armoury, regalia, etc., in viewing the Monument and Exchange ; and lastly, in contemplating the solemnity of Westminster Abbey, with the marbled effigies and monumental deposits of the renowned in death the place, as Mr. Fenton affectingly observed, to which all the living must finally adjourn. The next night they went to the theatre, to see the feats of Signor Volanti, the celebrated Italian posture-master, rope-dancer, and equilibrist. Such wonders are now so com- mon as to be scarce entertaining ; but at that time, they were received with bursts and roars of applause. Our hero felt himself attached by the similar excellences of his own activity in another ; and, going behind the scenes, he accosted Volanti in French. Signor, said he, I have been highly entertained by your performance this night, and here are five guineas in return of the pleasure you have given me. The foreigner looked at Harry, and then at the money, with a kind of astonishment. I thank you, noble sir, he cried ; my poor endeavours are seldom so liberally rewarded. Pray, how long do you stay with us ? In about a fortnight, BO please your nobleness, I intend to leave London ; but, 182 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. before I go, I would do something to leave a name behind me. A day or two before my departure, I will fly from the spire of Saint Clement's church, in the sight of all the peo- ple ; and this I will do gratis, or rather in acknowledgment of the favours I have received in this kingdom. But is it possible to execute what you propose ? With all ease and safety, sir ; I have done nearly as much three times in Ger- many, and once at Madrid. Here an arch thought struck Harry, and musing a moment Will you permit me, said he, to be the conductor of this affair? Allow me only to appoint the day, and draw up your advertisement, and I will make you a present of twenty pieces. Agreed, sir, cried Volanti, and twenty thousand thanks to confirm the bargain. Accept these five guineas, then, in earnest of my engagement ; my servant here will tell or shew you where I am to be found. That night at supper, Mr. Fenton remarked an unusual pleasantry in the muscles of his darling's sweetly sober countenance. My Harry, I find, said he, does not always impart all his secrets to his friends ; he has certainly some roguish matter in cogitation. Magi- cum calles, sir, cried Harry ; you are a conjurer, that is cer- tain. Why, the public, as you know, sir, have put the fool on me from my birth ; Homer says, that revenge is sweet as honey to the taste ; and so I am meditating in turn how to put the fool upon the public. And how do you contrive it, Harry? Only by acting the old proverb, That one fool makes many. But pray ask me not about the manner, till I bring the business to some bearing. The next day being Thursday, they all went in Mr. Fen- ton's coach to Smithfield, where numbers of tents were set up, and several drolls and pantomimes, etc., prepared, in imitation of the humours of Bartholomew fair. The weather was fair and calm, and they let down all the glasses, that they might see, without interruption, whatever was to be THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 183 seen. Their coach stopped just opposite to an itinerant stage, where a genius, who comprised within his single per- son the two important functions of a tumbler and merry- andrew, by his successive action and oratory, extorted plau- dits and huzzas from all the spectators. Among the rest a countryman, who rode upon a mule, sat gaping and grinning by intervals, in all the ecstatic rapture that can be ascribed to enthusiasm. While his attention was thus riveted, two knavish wags came, and, ungirthing his saddle, supported it on either hand till a third of the frater- nity led his mule away from under him, and a fourth came with a three-legged horse, such as housewives dry their linen on, and, having jammed it under the saddle, they all retreated in peace. The populace were so delighted at this humorous act of felony, that, instead of interrupting it, it only served to re- double their joys and clamours. Harry, too, greatly chuckled and laughed at the joke. But, when he saw the beast led off, and that the amazed proprietor, on stooping to take the bridle, had fallen precipitately to the ground, his heart twitched him with a kind of compunction, and throwing himself out of the coach, he made all the speed that the press would admit, and, recovering the mule, brought it back to its owner. Here, friend, said he, here is your beast again ; take care the next time that they do not steal your teeth. Thank you, master, said the clown ; since you have been so honest as to give him to me back, I will never be the one to bring you to the assizes or sessions. I am much obliged to your clemency, answered Harry ; but pray let me have the plea- sure of seeing you safe mounted. So saying, he held the stirrup, while the booby got up and said Well, my lad, very well; if we happen to meet at Croydon, we may take a pot together. 184: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. In the evening they adjourned from coffee to David's Harp in Fleet Street, in order to hear Marmulet, the famed Genoese musician, who performed on the psaletry, the viol d'amor, and some other instruments not known till then in England. They took Mr. James with them to partake of the enter- tainment, and were shewn to a large room, where each paid half a crown at the door. The room was divided into a number of boxes, where each company sat apart, while they were jointly gratified and charmed by the inimitable execution of the musician. A flask of burgundy was set before Mr. Fenton and his friends, while Mr. Hardy and Mr. Hilton, who sat in the next box, were regaling themselves with a glass of rosa solis. All was silence and attention till there was a pause in the performance. Then, said Mr. Hardy Do you know, Jack, that the Earl of Albemarle is to have a mask on Monday night ? I am sorry to hear it, said Mr. Hilton, as I am obliged to be out of town. I may happen to save something by that, said Hardy ; you must lend me your domino. Indeed I cannot ; it was torn to fritters in a scuffle, as I came out from the last masquerade. Lend me your mask, then. That, too, was lost at the same time ; but what occasion can you have for a mask, Hardy? I'm sure no one will take that for a natural face. Mine is the face of Mars, Hilton ; yours that of Adonis, with which no modern Venus will ever be smitten, I promise you. I will engage to out-rival an army of such jackanapes in an assault on the fair. If impu- dence may compensate for the want of other artillery, I believe you may do wonders, Hardy. And it does compen- sate, my friend. "Women, take my Avord and experience for it, love nothing of their own resemblance except in the glass. They detest any thing that looks like an ambiguity in the sex. While what you are pleased to call impudence, Jack, THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 185 spares their modesty, saves them the appearance of an advance on their part, and gives them the pleasure of piquing themselves on their extraordinary virtue, in case they should happen to make a defence. However, since you have com- plimented me on my assurance, I will put it to the test on this occasion, and go to his excellency's ball, without any other vizard save this which nature, in her great bounty, hath bestOAved. When our company Avere on the return to their lodgings Harry, said Mr. Fenton, would you not like to go to this masquerade ? Why, sir, as I have not yet seen one, perhaps it might not be amiss to satisfy my curiosity for once in my life. In truth, said Mr. Fenfon, I wish they never had been introduced into this kingdom, as they are inlets to intrigue, and give countenance to licentiousness. However, for once in your life, as you say, you shall be gratified, my Harry. Be pleased to tell me, sir, are they very entertaining ? They would be extremely diverting, my dear, if people acted up to the characters that they pretend to represent. But, on the contrary, they have sailors who don't know a point in the compass, or the name of a rope in the ship ; shepherds and shepherdesses who never eloped from the Cockney dia- lect of the city ; Indian queens who can say nothing as to their subjects or their sovereignty ; gods and goddesses totally ignorant of their own history in the mythology ; and Italian cardinals, who will swear you in the phrase of a York- shire fox-hunter. But what shall we do for tickets, Harry ? I don't care to apply to my friends, for fear of discovering that we are in town. O, sir ! said Ir. James, I am acquainted with his excellency's major-domo, and can procure you as many tickets as you please. Mr. Fenton assumed to himself, for the present, the appointment of Harry's character and dress. As the plain- 186 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. ness of your garb has hitherto, said he, been a mask and dis guise to your internal ornaments, the brilliancy of your dress shall now, on the other hand, disguise and conceal the simplicity of your manners. About two hours before the opening of the ball, Harry wrapped himself in a black domino, and stepped into a hack- ney coach with Mr. James, who had promised to introduce him to his friend, in order for him to reconnoitre the several scenes of operation before the action began. The major-domo received Harry with the" utmost compla- cence, for he held his mask in his hand, and the loveliness of his aspect shone w r ith peculiar lustre through the blackness of his attire. After surveying several apartments, they passed through the long room, and entered by an arched gateway into a kind of saloon, at the upper end of which was a pedestal of about five feet in height, whereon a celebrated statue of the Hercules Farnese had formerly stood. Harry eyed it attentively, and, conceiving a sudden frolic, he instantly cast away his cloak, clapped on his mask and winged helmet, grasped his caduceus with his right hand, and, laying his left on the top of the pedestal, sprung lightly up, and threw himself into that attitude to which the statuaries have formed their Mercury when just preparing for flight. His headpiece was of thinly-plated but polished gold, buckled together at the joining by four burning carbuncles. His silk jacket exceeded the tint of an Egyptian sky. It wns braced close to his body with emerald clasps, that showed the fitness of his proportion to inimitable advantage ; and over the whole, in celestial confusion, were sown stars of different magnitudes, all powdered with diamonds. The moment that Harry cast himself into his posture, the major-domo started back seven or eight paces, and, raising THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 187 his hands, with staring eyes and a mouth of open amazement, at length he exclaimed Stay a little, my dear sweet master ! do now ; do but stay just as you are for a minute, and you will oblige me past expression ; I will be your own for ever. So saying, he turned off, and running to an adjacent apart- ment, where their majesties, with the Princess of Denmark, the Princess of Hesse, and the chief of the court, were gathered, he told his master aloud that he had the greatest curiosity to shew him that human eye ever beheld. All rose with precipitation and crowded after the earl and the royal pair, as close as decency would admit, till they came to the saloon, and beheld, with astonishment, the per- son, shape, attitude, and attire, of our hero. Some doubted, but most believed, that he was a real statue, placed there by his excellency on purpose for a sur- prise. Mr. Fielding, who was the acknowledged connoisseur of the age, and was, in fact, what the people of taste call an elegcms formarum spectator, exclaimed with some vehe- mency Never, never did I behold such beauty of symmetry, such roundings of angles ; where, where, my lord, could you get this inestimable acquisition ? Others cried Phidias, Phidias never executed the like ; all the works of Praxiteles Avere nothing to it ! The earl, however, was well apprised of the deception, and knew that our Mercury was no part of his property. Son of Maia, said he aloud, what tidings from heaven ? A message, answered Harry, from my father, Jupiter, to their majesties. And, pray, what may your errand intend? Matters of highest importance ; that they are the favourite representatives of my father upon earth ; and that, while their majesties continue the monarchs of a free and Avilling people, they are greater than if they were regents of an universe of slaves. All buzzed their applause and adniira- 188 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. tion. It must be he, whispered the king. It can be nc other, cried the queen. Albemarle, whispered his majesty, we have marked this youth for our own ; keep your eye upon him, and do your best endeavours to engage and bind him to us. In the mean time, Harry, on delivering his celestial mes- sage, flew like a feather from his post, and, casting his cloak about him, vanished into an adjoining closet. The company now began to gather fast, and Harry, steal- ing from his retreat, kept his cloud about his sky, and mingled in the crowd. Mr. Clement had accompanied Mr. Fenton in dominoes. They soon discovered Harry, and were highly diverted by the account which he gave them of his metamorphosis into a statue. While the assembly was dividing into pairs and chatty parties, a phenomenon entered that drew all their attention. The Honourable Major Gromley, the lustiest and fattest young man in the kingdom, advanced without a mask, in petticoats, a slobbering bib and apron. He carried a large round of bread and butter in one hand, while Lady Betsy Minit, an elderly miss of about three feet high, held his leading-strings with her left hand, and in her right bran- dished a birch rod of lengthened authority. His governante pressed him forward, and seemed to threaten chastisement for his delay ; while the jolly, broad, foolish, humorous, half- laughing, half-crying, baby-face of the major, extorted peals of laughter from all who were present. And this is suffi- cient to convince us, that the performers of the ancient drama could not possibly in masks excite the passions of nature. No excellence of voice or gesture, of action or emphasis, could compensate for the exclusion of the imme- diate interpreters of the soul, the living speech of the eye, and varied expression of the countenance. After the major had leisurely traversed the full length of THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 189 the room, and inimitably executed the whole of his part, he retired to undress and assume a new appearance. Meanwhile, two females entered in very unusual habits. The first was dressed in a choice collection of old English and Scotch ballads, from Chevy-Chace and the fragment of Hardi-Canute, down to Barbara Allan and the Babes in the Wood. The other was all hung from top to bottom with looking-glasses. Immediately the crowd gathered about them. All who were fond of their own history, preferable to that of others, paid their homage in a circling throng, to the queen of the looking-glasses ; while the few who preferred instruction, were intent in perusing the fair covered with knowledge. But the lady of the mirrors did not long retain her votaries ; her glasses were all emblems of her own disposition they were the glasses of scandal and calumny, and represented the human species in the most distorted view ; some lengthened and some widened their objects beyond measure, while others wholly inverted and turned them topsy-turvy. All slunk away in disgust from such prospects of their own persons, and the reflecting lady was justly left to glitter apart from society. The next rho entered was a Goliath, all sheathed in com- plete steel. He advanced with slow and majestic steps to the sideboard, and asking for a flask of champagne, turned it down without taking it once from his head. He then demanded another, and another, and so on, till the prove- dore, who had looked and longed in vain to see him drop, ran panic-struck to his master, and, in a half whisper, said My lord your cellars will scarcely suffice to quench the thirst of one man here ; he has already turned down fifteen flasks of champagne, and still is unsatisfied, and calls for more. Then give him fifteen hogsheads, replied the earl, laughing; and, if that \vi:l not answer, send out for more. 190 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. In the mean time, the mailed champion had withdrawn from the sideboard, and, with a large drinking-glass in his hand, advanced till he got into the midst of the assembly. He then turned a little instrument that was fixed in a certain part of his double-cased armour, and filling the glass to the brim, he unclasped the lower part of his beaver, and accost- ing a Peruvian princess who stood just opposite Permit me the honour, madam, says he, of drinking your highness's health ; so saying, the liquor was out of sight in a twinkling. Will your royal highness, continued he, be pleased to try how you relish our European wines ? I am obliged to you, sir, said she, I am actually athirst ; then, raising her mask below, she pledged him to the bottom. Her companion, a shining Arcadian, advanced and requested the same favour. Then another and another lady, and several others in succes- sion, all of whom he graciously gratified till he was nearly exhausted. Some of the men then pressed to him, and entreated for a glass. No, no, gentlemen, said he, go and be served elsewhere ; I am a merchant for ladies alone ; I import no liquors for vile male animals. Our former acquaintance, Mr. Hardy, had adventured, according to promise, without a mask. After looking about a while for some object of his gallantry, he fixed upon a lady of a very elegant shape and sprightly appearance. When they had bandied between them some occasional chat, of more smartness than humour, and more wit than meaning, he called for a favourite air, and led the fair one a minuet, in which they both performed assez Men. He now began to grow more warm in his addresses. If your face, madam, said he, should happen to be answerable to the enchantments of your form, and the siren in your voice, I beseech yon to keep that mask on for ever ; the safety of mankind is interested in my request. But suppose, said she, that my face should happen to prove an antidote to THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 191 the danger of my other charms ? Then, madam, let me see it by all means ; and make haste, I pray you, before I am past remedy. I see, said she, tittering, I see that you are already more than half a dying man ; poor wretch, I pity you, and have taken it into my head to slay you outright, in order to put you out of pain ! So saying, she drew her mask on one side, and showed him indeed a very lovely countenance. But while his flood of complimentary eloquence was just upon breaking forth Hush sir ! cried the lady, I will not hear a syllable till you first return the compliment that I have paid you, and let me see what you have got under that vizard of yours. Here Hardy, in spite of impudence, stood mute with astonishment. The lady burst into a laugh the joke was caught and spread like wildfire the laugh grew universal all eyes were on poor Hardy, and a hundred tongues cried dt once Your mask, sir, your mask, sir ! take ofi* your mask for the lady ! This was something more than human assurance could stand. Hardy retired with precipitate confusion, and justly suffered for the presumption of his boasted facility of conquests over the fair. Our hero had hitherto kept himself concealed, being secretly ashamed of the lustre of his apparel ; but, at Mr. Fenton's desire, he laid his cloak aside, and instantly all the eyes of the assembly were upon him. In order to avoid their gaze, he advanced into the throng, where a parcel of circling females asked him a number of insignificant ques- tions, to which he returned in kind answers pretty nearly as insignificant. At length a Diana approached, whose diamond crescent was of the value of a princely ransom. She took him care- lessly by the hand and said Come, brother Mercury, let us give these mortals a sample of what we celestials can perform. Lead where you please, madam, said Harry, I 192 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. cannot miss my way while I tread in the light of so fair a moon. The lady called to the orchestra for a saraband, and all made ample room, attentive to the motions of the shining pair. The dance began, and the spectators in a manner sup- pressed their breathing for fear of giving or receiving the smallest interruption. The performers stepped music, their action was grace, and they seemed with difficulty retained to the floor over which they moved. They ended, and the assembly was still mute with astonishment, till they broke out into a general murmur of praise. Mr. Mercury, said Diana, the story of Argus tells us, that you were formerly accustomed to set folks to sleep ; but, for the present, you have opened all eyes to observation. Ah, madam! answered Harry, could I have guessed at the moon that was to shine this night, I should have assumed a very different character. What character, I pray you ? That of Endymion, madam. I wish, she whispered, that you were a prince, or that I were a peasant ; and so saying, she turned from him and mixed in the crowd. Harry was next addressed by a shepherdess, and again by a nun. But he declined as honourably as he could to tend the flock of the one, or to be the cause of any breach of vows in the other, observing to her that she had already taken the veil. The boy is a FOOL ! said she ; I know it, said Harry. A gipsy then accosted, and taking him by the hand Will you be pleased, sir, to be told your fortune ? said she. By no means, my sweet-voiced Cassandra, answered Harry ; I would avoid, above all things, prying into futurity. Knowledge, sir, is surely desirable, and above all, fore- knowledge. Not so, said Harry, foreknowledge of evil would but double the misery ; and foreknowledge of good THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 193 would deprive me of hope by certainty; and hope is a blessing perhaps preferable to possession. Tell me, sir, and tell me truly, did you ever yet see the girl that you could like? Yes, madam, two or three, for whom I have con- ceived a very tender friendship, but no one yet for whom I have conceived a passion. Ah, then, Mr. Mercury ! said the gentle prophetess, I have only to desire the last cast of your office ; when I am dead, be so grateful as to waft my friendly spirit to the shades of Elysium, there to join Dido and other unfortunate lovers. So saying, she turned and retired with a sigh that entered and sunk into the heart of our hero. The company now began to depart, when the Earl of Albe- marle, coming up to Harry, took him a little apart, and throwing his arm over his shoulder, pressed him to him and said My dear fellow, you have done me singular honour this night ; pray, double the favour to me by letting me see you again speedily and as often as you can. For the present, you must not go till their majesties have spoken with you. Not to-night, so please your excellency, answered Harry ; at all other times I shall be ready to attend and serve their majesties without any mask. The next morning Mr. Fenton was much surprised by a visit from the great man. During breakfast the earl pressed eagerly for Harry's attendance at court, and promised every advantage and honour that the crown could bestow. You must pardon me, my lord, said Mr. Fenton ; I am willing to advance to you two hundred thousand pounds more towards his majesty's present expedition against the French, whom I look upon to be our natural and salutary enemies. They are as Carthage was to Rome ; they hold us in exercise, and keep a quarrelsome people from falling out among themselves. Indeed, my lord, I am desirous of gratifying my royal master with anything except the sacrifice of my child. I cannot VOL. II. 9 194: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. part with him till his education is completed; and then, if he answers my expectations, I doubt I may be more unwilling to part with him than ever. In the afternoon our company went again to the Tower, to see as well as to hear the recent story of the great lion and the little dog. They found the place thronged, and all were obliged to pay treble prices, on account of the unprecedented novelty of the show, so that the keeper in a short space acquired a little fortune. The great cage in the front was occupied by a beast who, by way of pre-eminence, was called the king's lion ; and, while he traversed the limits of his straitened dominions, he was attended by a small and very beautiful black spaniel, who frisked and gamboled about him, and at times would pretend to snarl and bite at him ; and again the noble animal, with an air of fond complacence, would hold down his head, while the little creature licked his formidable chops. Their history, as the keeper related, was this: It was customary for all who were unable or unwilling to pay their sixpence, to bring a dog or a cat as an oblation to the beast in lieu of money to the keeper. Among others, a fellow had caught up this pretty black spaniel in the streets, and he was accordingly thrown into the cage of the great lion. Immediately the little animal trembled and shivered, and crouched and threw itself on its back, and put forth its tongue, and held up its paws, in supplicatory attitudes, as an acknowledgment of superior power, and praying for mercy. In the mean time, the lordly brute, instead of devouring it, beheld it with an eye of philosophic inspection. He turned it over with one paw, and then turned it with the other ; and smelled to it, and seemed desirous of courting a further ac- quaintance. The keeper, on seeing this, brought a large mess of his THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 195 own family-dinner ; but the lion kept aloof, and refused to eat, keeping his eye on the dog, and inviting him as it were to be his taster. At length, the little animal's fears being something abated, and his appetite quickened by the smell of the victuals, he approached slowly, and, with trembling, ventured to eat. The lion then advanced gently and began to partake, and they finished their meal very lovingly to- gether. From this day the strictest friendship commenced between them a friendship consisting of all possible affection and tenderness on the part of the lion, and of the utmost confi- dence and boldness on the part of the dog ; insomuch that he would lay himself down to sleep within the fangs and under the jaws of his terrible patron. A gentleman who had lost the spaniel, and had advertised a reward of two guineas to the finder, at length heard of the adventure, and went to reclaim his dog. You see, sir, said the keeper, it would be a great pity to part such loving friends. However, if you insist upon your property, you must even be pleased to take him yourself; it is a task that I would not engage in for five hundred guineas. The gen- tleman rose into great wrath, but finally chose to acquiesce rather than have a personal dispute with tbe lion. As Mr. Fenton had a curiosity to see the two friends eat together, he sent for twenty pounds of beef, which was accordingly cut in pieces, and given into the cage ; when immediately the little brute, whose appetite happened to be eager at the time, was desirous of making a monopoly of the whole, and putting his paws upon the meat, and grumbling and barking, he audaciously flew in the face of the lion. But the generous creature, instead of being offended by his impotent companion, started back, and seemed terrified at the fury of his attack ; neither attempted to eat a bit till his favourite had tacitly given permission. 196 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. When they were both gorged, the lion stretched and turned himself, and lay down in an evident posture for re- pose, but this his sportive companion would not admit. He frisked and gamboled about him, barked at him, would now scrape and tear at his head with his claws, and again seize him by the eai', and bite and pull away ; while the noble beast appeared affected by no other sentiment save that of pleasure and complacence. But let us proceed to the tragic catastrophe of this extra- ordinary story, still known to many, as delivered down by tradition from father to son. In about twelve months the spaniel sickened and died, and left his loving patron the most desolate of creatures. For a time, the lion did not appear to conceive otherwise than that his favourite was asleep. He would continue to smell to him, and then would stir him with his nose, and turn him over with his paw ; but, finding that all his efforts to awake him were vain, he would traverse his cage from end to end at a swift and uneasy pace, then stop and look down upon him with a fixed and drooping regard ; and again lift his head on high, and open his horrible throat, and prolong a roar as of distant thunder, for several minutes together. They attempted, but in vain, to convey the carcase from him ; he watched it perpetually, and would suffer nothing to touch it. The keeper then endeavoured to tempt him with variety of victuals, but he turned from all that was offered with loathing. They then put several living dogs into his cage, and these he instantly tore piecemeal, but left their members on the floor. His passion being thus inflamed, he would dart his fangs into the boards, and pluck away large splinters, and again grapple at the bars of his cage, and seem enraged at his restraint from tearing the world in pieces. Again, as quite spent, he would stretch himself by the remains of his beloved associate, and gather him in with his THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 197 paws, and put Mm to his bosom ; and then utter under roars of such terrible melancholy as seeme-d to threaten all around, for the loss of his little playfellow, the only friend, the only companion, that he had upon earth. For five days he thus languished, and gradually declined, without taking any sustenance, or admitting any comfort; till one morning, he was found dead, with his head lovingly reclined on the carcase of his little friend. They were both interred together, and their grave plentifully watered by the tears of the keeper, and his loudly lamenting family. But to return. When our company were on their way from the Tower to their lodgings Sir, said Harry, what we have just seen re- minds me of the opinion of my friend Peter Patience, that one who is fearless cannot be provoked. You saw how that little, teasing, petulant wretch had the insolence to fly in the face of his benefactor, without offending or exciting in him any kind of resentment. True, Harry, for^the lion was sen- sible that his testy companion was little and impotent, and depended upon him, and had confidence in his clemency, and therefore he loved him Avith all his faults. Anger, how- ever, in some cases, is not only' allowable, but becomes a duty. The scripture says " Be angry, but sin not." We ought to feel and fear for others ; and lust, violence, and oppression of every sort, will excite the indignation of a gen- erous and benevolent person, though he may not fear for himself. After supper, Harry appeared to ruminate, and said How comes it, sir, that creatures not endued with reason or conscience, shall yet, in the affections that are peculiarly called humane, exceed even most of the human species ? You . have seen that it was the case between the lion and little dog. It was the opinion, my Harry, of an ancient philosopher, 198 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. that God was the soul and spirit of brutes ; and this he judged from observing that what we call instinct was incom- parably wiser, more sagacious, and more accomplishing for attaining its ends, throughout its sphere of action, than the most perfect human reason. Now had this philosopher, instead of saying that God was the soul of brutes, barely alleged that he ruled- and dictated within them, he would not have gone a tittle wide of the truth. God, indeed, is himself the beauty and the benefit of all his works. As they cannot exist but in him and by him, so his impression is upon them, and his impregnation is through them. Though the elements, and all that we know of nature and creature, have a mixture of natural and physical evil, God is, however, throughout, an internal, though often a hidden principle of good, and never wholly departs from his right of dominion and operation in his creatures ; but is, and is alone, the beauty and beneficence, the whole glory and graciousness that can possibly be in them. As the apostle says, " The invisible things of God are made manifest by the things that are seen." He is the secret and central light that kindles up the sun, his dazzling representative ; and he lives, enlightens, and comforts in the diffusion of his beams. His spirit inspires and actuates the air, and is in it a breath of life to all his creatures. He blooms in the blossom, and unfolds in the rose. He is fragrance in flowers, and flavour in fruits. He holds infinitude in the hollow of his hand, and opens his world of wonders in the minims of nature. He is the virtue of every heart that is softened by a sense of pity or touch of benevolence. He coos in the tur- tle and bleats in the lamb ; and, through the paps of the stern bear and implacable tigress, he yields forth the milk of loving-kindness to their little ones. Even, my Harry, when THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 199 we hear the delicious enchantment of music, it is but an external sketch and faint echo of those sentimental and rap- turous tunings that rise up, throughout the immensity of our God, from eternity to eternity. Thus all things are secretly pregnant with their God. And the lover of sinners, the universal Redeemer, is a prin- ciple of good within them, that contends with the malignity of their lapsed state. And thus, as the apostle speaks " All nature is in travail, and groaneth" to be delivered from the evil ; till the breath of the love of God shall kindle upon the final fire, out of which the new heavens and new earth shall come forth, as gold seven times refined, to shine for ever and ever ! Harry, agreeable to his covenant with Signor Volanti, had penned the following advertisement, and inserted it in all the public papers, to wit : On Saturday next, between the hours of ten and twelve in the forenoon, the celebrated Dominico Jachimo Tonino Volanti will take his flight from the spire of Clement's steeple, and alight at the distance of two bows shot, on the Strand; and this he will perform before the eyes of all people." On the impatiently-expected morning, Harry took Mr. Clement with him in a hackney chaise, and found an innumer- able concourse, as well of the gentry in their carriages as of the populace on foot. London had poured forth its numbers to behold this astonishing flight. The windows were all eyes on every side, and the house-tops were hung with clusters of people as of bees. After Harry had surveyed the crowd with inward titilla- tion, he whispered to Clement, and said You shall see now what a sudden discomfiture I will make of this huge army. He then put forth his head and said to all around Do not ye perceive, my friends, what fools we are all made ? do not ye remember that this is the^r-s^ of April? 200 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. He had scarce spoken the words when they spread from man to man, and soon were muttered throughout the assembly. And then louder, and more loud, the first of April! the first of April I was repeated all about. The company now began to be in motion. All heads were instantly withdrawn from the late thronged windows, and the house-tops began to be cleared with a shameful caution. Immediately was heard the rolling of many wheels, and the lashing of many whips, while every coachman pressed through the crowd, impatient to deliver his honourable freight from public shame. But the public now began to relish a joke that was so much against their betters; and in peals of laughter, and united shouts of triumph, they echoed and re-echoed after them, April fools ! Ajyril fools ! Among others, Lord Bottom had come with his friend Rakely, in an elevated phaeton, of which his lordship was charioteer. As they happened to brush close by Harry's car- riage, swearing and puffing, and lashing and cursing at the crowd, Harry cried to his old enemy You need not be in so violent a hurry, my lord ; perhaps you are not so great a FOOL as you imagine. The fools of fashion were scarce withdrawn, when a long and strong rope was let down from the top of the steeple, to which it was fastened at the upper end. A man then, laying hold on it below, dragged it along through the crowd, and braced it, at a great distance, to an iron ring that was stapled into a post, purposely sunk on a level with the pave- ment. They then brought a large and well stuffed feather- bed, and fixed it under the cord where it joined the ring. In the mean time Volanti appeared on the top of the steeple, and bending cautiously forward, and getting the cord within an iron groove that was braced to his bosom he pushed himself onward, and with a kindling rapidity flew over the heads of the shouting multitude, poising himself THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 201 with expanded legs and arms as he passed, till he was landed without damage on his yielding receiver. And in the very next papers Harry published the following advertisement, to wit : "Before the first of April next, Signor Dominico Jachimo Tonino Volanti, by the help of canvass wings contrived for the purpose, purposes to fly over-sea from Dover to Calais, and invites all his London friends to come and see him set out." Harry had now seen whatever London could exhibit of elegant, curious, or pleasing ; and Mr. Fenton judged it time to hold up to him the melancholy reverse of this picture to shew him the house of mourning the end of all men to shew him the dreary shades and frightful passages of mortality, which humanity shudders to think of, but through which human nature of necessity must go. For this purpose he took him to the GENERAL HOSPITAL, where death opened all his gates, and shewed himself in all his forms. But the great poet, on this occasion, has antici- pated all description : Immediately a place Before his eyes appear'd sad, noisome, dark. A lazar-house it seem'd, wherein were laid Numbers of all diseased, all maladies Of ghastly spasm, of racking torture, qualms Of heart-sick agony all fev'rous kinds, Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, Intestine stone and ulcer; cholic pangs, Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, And moonstruck madness ; pining atrophy, Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums. Dire was the tossing, deep the groan Despair Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch, And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invoked With vows as their chief good. MILTOH. 9* 202 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. While Mr. Fenton led his pupil through groaning galleries* and the chambers of death and disease, Harry let down the leaf of his hat, and drew it over his eyes to conceal his emotions. All that day he was silent, and his countenance downcast ; and at night he hastened to bed, where he wept a large tribute to the mournfully inevitable condition of man's miserable state upon earth. The next day Mr. Fenton took him to the Bethlehem Hospital for idiots and lunatics. But when Harry beheld and contemplated objects so shocking to thought, so terrible to sight when he had contemplated, I say, the ruin above all ruins, human intelligence and human reason so fearfully over- thrown ; where the ideas of the soul, though distorted and misplaced, are quick and all alive to horror and agony ; he grew sick and turned pale, and suddenly catching his uncle by the arm Come, sir, let us go, said he, I can stand this no longer. When they had reached home, and that Harry was moro composed : Are all the miseries, sir, said he, that we have witnessed these two days, the consequences of sin ? Even so, indeed, my Harry ; all these, and thousands more, equally pitiable and disgusting, are the natural progeny of that woe- begetting parent. Nor are those miseries confined to hospitals alone ; every house, nay every bosom, is a certain though secret lazar-house, where the sick couch is preparing, with all the dismal apparatus, for tears and lamentations, for agonies and death. Since that is the case, sir, who would laugh any more ? Is it not like feasting in the midst of famine, and dancing amidst the tombs ? All things in their season, my dear, provided that those who laugh be as though they laughed not, remembering that they must weep ; and provided that those who weep be as though they wept not, having joy in their knowledge that the fashion of this world quickly paeseth away. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 203 On the following day, Mr. Fenton returned to Hampstead, leaving Harry and Mr. Clement ability to indulge the benevo- lence of their hearts. + One evening, as our companions were drinking tea in the Temple Exchange Coffee-house, a man, advanced in years but of a very respectable appearance, got up and addressed the assembly : Gentlemen, said he, among the several hospitals and other charitable foundations that have done honour to the humanity of the inhabitants of this city, there is one still wanting, which, as I conceive above all others, would give distinction to the beneficence of its founders ; it is a house for repenting prostitutes, an asylum for unhappy wretches who have no other home to whom all doors are shut, to whom no haven is open, no habitation or hole for rest upon the face of the earth. Most of them have been seduced from native innocence and modesty by the arts of cruel men. Many have been deceived under promise and vows of marriage ; some under the appearance of the actual ceremony, and afterwards abandoned or turned forth to infamy by their barbarous and base undoers. Shall no place, then, be left for repentance, even to those who do repent ? Forbid it, charity ; forbid it, manhood ! Man is born the natural protector of the weak- ness of woman ; and, if he has not been able to guard her innocence from invasion, he ought at least to provide a reception for her return to virtue. I have the plan of this charitable foundation in my pocket ; and if any of you gentlemen approve my proposal, and are willing to subscribe, or to solicit your friends to so beneficent a purpose, I request your company to the tavern over the way. Here the speaker walked towards the door, and was fol- lowed by Harry and Clement, and thirteen or fourteen more of the assembly. 204 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. When the company was seated round a large table, the gentleman produced his plan, with a summary of the rules and institutes for the conduct of the house, which he pro- posed to call the Magdalene House : a plan which hath since been espoused and happily executed by others, without ascribing any of the merit to the first projector. As all present applauded the manner of the scheme, and intention of the charity, each of them subscribed from a hundred to twenty pounds, till it came to Harry's turn, who subscribed a thousand pounds in Mr. Fenton's name. I suppose, sir, said one of the company, that your largest contributions will arise from the ladies, as the whole is in- tended for the benefit of the sex. I shall not, answered the gentleman, apply to a single lady on this occasion. Not one of them will dare to contribute a penny, lest it should be thought that they partly allow in themselves the vices that they can pardon or patronize in others. It is this that makes the case of the wretches whom we are about to be- friend, deplorable beyond measure. They are first betrayed by our sex, and then driven out to irretrievable infamy and misery by their own. For women to Avomen are as turkeys to turkeys; do but cast a little dirt upon the head of any one of them, and the rest of the flock combine in an instant to pick out her eyes, and to tear her to pieces. Mr. Mole, a learned philosopher, and a man of principal figure in the present company, then addressed the projector, and said If you will admit me, sir, into partnership in the conduct of your scheme, I will engage to levy contributions to the amount of some thousands over and above the hun- dred I have subscribed. You are heai-tily welcome, sir, replied the gentleman, either to join or take the conduct of the whole upon yourself; provided the good is done, I care not by what means. All my ends will be answered ; I wish to be nameless. That is not fair, neither, said another of the THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 205 company ; you, Mr. Goodville, had the trouble of contriving this business, and you ought at least to have the honour, if not the conduct, of your own plan. Mr. Goodville ! Mr. Goodville ! exclaimed Clement in a surprise, eagerly staring at him, and recollecting, as from a dream, the altered features of his quondam friend and benefactor. Pray, sir, do you remember any thing of one Clement, a worthless young fellow, whom once in your good- ness you condescended to patronize ? Clement ! Clement ! cried Mr. Goodville, getting up and hastening to him, and catching him in his arms. My dear, my dear Clement, my man of merit and misfortunes, how rejoiced am I to find you ! God be praised ! God be praised ! it is at length in my power to do something material for you ! But come with me to another room, I have something to say to you ; we will leave these gentlemen the while to think further of the plan that lies before them. When Mr. Goodville and Clement had withdrawn Mr. Mole, said one of the company, you are concerned in a num- ber of these public benefactions. Yes, gentlemen, answered Mole, I believe there is no charitable institution of any note in London in which I am not a trustee, and to which I am not a contributor. For, though I do not set up for sanctifi- cation by faith, yet I think I may pretend to some justifica- tion by charity. Let the vulgar herd pay their priesthood for cheating them out of their senses I give nothing to the fat impostors, or their lucrative fable ; my substance is little enough for myself and the poor. "Why, pray, sir, said Harry, are you not a Christian ? No, indeed, master, answered Mole, nor any man who has sense enough to think for him- self. Be pleased then, cried Harry, to hand me that paper a moment ; here, sir, I dash my name and contribution from the list of the subscribers. He who denies glory to God in the highest, a\n never have peace or good will towards men} 206 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. and so, sir, you shall never be the almoner of a penny of my money. You talk as you look, my dear, cried Mole ; like one just eloped from the nursery, where you were affrighted by tales of ghosts and hobgoblins. I acknowledge, gentlemen, the benefit and beauty of morality in its fullest extent ; and had Jesus, the Christian Prophet, confined himself to his system of moral precepts, I think he would justly have been es- teemed the greatest philosopher and legislator that ever breathed ; but when he, or rather his disciples in his name, in order to enhance the authority of their mission, pretended to divinity in their master, the low-bred and ignorant wretches pulled together against the grain, and compounded such a strange medley of fighting inconsistencies, and self- evident absurdities, as are wholly eversive of every principle of right reason and common-sense. They taught that God was made a man that, in order to expiate the sins of the world, the innocent was appointed to suffer for the guilty that the sins of all offenders were to be imputed to one who had never offended, and that the righteousness of him who had never offended was to be imputed to criminals of the deepest dye that the Creator submitted himself to the malignity of his creatures, and that God himself died a shameful death on the cross. And this, gentlemen, makes such a heap of ridiculous incoherences such contradictions in sense and terms as exceeds even the worship of apes and serpents, leeks and onions, and the other garbage of Egypt. You are a villain, and a thief, and a liar, cried Harry, altogether inflamed with choler. Mole, on hearing these terms of highest affront and reproach, instantly caught up a bottle and threw it at our hero's head ; but it happily missed him, and only bruised the fleshy part of the shoulder of the gentleman who sat next. Harry instantly sprung up THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 207 and made at Mole, while the company rose also and at- tempted to interfere ; but some he cast on one hand and some on the other, and overturning such as directly opposed him, he reached Mole, and with one blow of his fist on the temple, he laid him motionless along the floor. Then, look- ing down on his adversary I should be sorry, said he, that the wretch would die in his present state of reprobacy; here, drawer, run quickly and bring me a surgeon. Then, returning to his place, he sat down with great composure. After a pause, he looked round I hope, gentlemen, said he, that none of you are hurt. Indeed, I am much con- cerned for having in any degree contributed to your dis- turbance. But, had any one of you a dear benefactor and patron, to whom you were bound beyond measure, whom you loved and honoured above all things, could you bear to hear him defamed and vilified to your face ? No, certainly, answered one man. No man could bear it, cried another. But pray, asked a third, how came you to call the gentleman a thief? Because, replied our hero, he attempted to rob me of my whole estate. He endeavoured to thieve from me the only friend I had in the universe the friend of my heart the peace and rest of my bosom my infinite treasure my never-ending delight the friend without whom I would not choose to be without whom existence would become a curse and an abhorrence unto me. Happy young creature 1 exclaimed an elderly gentleman, I understand you ; you mean your Christ and my Christ the friend who has already opened his early heaven within you. By this time Mr. Mole began to move ; whereupon Harry rose, and putting his hand in bis packet Here, gentlemen, said he, is one guinea for the surgeon and another for the reckoning. When my companion returns be pleased to tell him I am gone to our lodgings ; for I will not stay to hold further converse or altercation with that bane of society 208 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. that pest, which the rulers in darkness have commissioned to spread contagion, distemper, and death among men. Harry went early to bed, but lay restless and much dis- turbed in his spirit all night. Mr. Clement had heard the particulars of our hero's behaviour, which he partly disap- proved ; but, as he saw him already dejected, he did not choose to expostulate with him for the present. The next day they returned to Hampstead, where Mr. Fenton, notwithstanding the constrained smiles of his Harry, observed an unusual cloud and uneasiness in his countenance. I want to speak with you, my love, said he ; and beckoning him into his closet, he took him affectionately by the hand and made him sit beside him. "What is the matter, my dear, said he, looking concernedly in his face ; what is it that has disturbed the peace of the bosom of my beloved ? Ah, sir ! cried Harry, I am indeed very unhappy. I doubt that I am partly losing my faith, and the fear of that has given me inexpressible horror. It is like tearing me from a fort, out of which there is no home or rest for me in the universe. Here Harry made a recital of the late affair to his patron, and having closed his narrative Is not this very wonderful, sir, said he, how or where in the world could this Mole have mustered together such arguments against reason such appearances against truth ? How must the vulgar and illi- terate be staggered by such objections, when even I, who have been bred, as I may say, at the feet of Gamaliel, have not been able to answer them otherwise than by the chastise- ment which the blasphemer received at my hand ? Here Mr. Fenton smiled, and said Do not be alarmed, my love. We shall quickly dispel the thin mists of infidelity that were collected to shut the sun of righteousness from your eye. I confess, indeed, that this spawn of Antichrist has compiled a summary of all that has ever been uttered THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 209 against " the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world ;" yet he is but a Mole in nature as well as name ; and he with his brother moles know no more, and see no further, than the little heap of dirt and rubbish that the working of their own purblind and floundering reason hath cast about them. Sacred depths and stupendous mysteries belong to this matter, and, when you are able to bear them, they shall be clearly and fully unfolded to you, iny Harry ; in the mean space, a few simple observations will suflice to re-establish the peace of your sweet and pious heart. As Christianity was instituted for the salvation of the vul- gar, the principal truths thereof are very obvious and plain, and want no learning, no letters, to inculcate or teach them. They speak the language of nature, and all nature is ex- pressive of the sense and the sound thereof. Whatever is within you, whatever is without you, cries aloud for a Saviour. For sin hath been as the Mezentius, of whom you read in Virgil, who bound the bodies of the dead to the per- sons of the living. Thus it is that the sin of fallen angels, and of fallen man, hath bound change and corruption, distemper- ature and death, to the elements, to the vegetables, to animals, and even to the immortal image of God himself in the humanity ; so that all things cry out with the apostle St. Paul " Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" so that all things cry out with the apostle St. Peter " Save, Lord, or I perish !" These are inevitable truths, my Harry, which all men, at some time, must feel throughout their existence, whether they read them or not. And he alone, Avho never expe- rienced, nor never shall experience, frailty, error, or sickness, pain, anguish, or dissolution, is exempt from our solar system of salvation from sin. But what sort of a Saviour is it for whom all things cry 210 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. so loudly ? Is it a dry moralist, a legislator of bare and external precepts, such as your Mole philosopher required our Christ to be ? No, my darling, no ! The influence and existence of the Redeemer of nature must, at least, be as extensive as nature herself. Things are defiled and corrupted throughout ; they are distempered and devoted to death from the inmost essence of their being ; and nothing under him, in whom they live, and move, and have their being, can redeem them, can re- store them. " O, sir 1 exclaimed Harry his countenance brightening up why could I not think of this ? I should then have been able to foil my malignant adversary even at his own weapons. Our Jesus himself, continued Mr. Fenton, appeals to the truth I have told you, where he says to the sick of the palsy " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee." But when the Pharisees thereupon concluded that he blasphemed, he demonstrated his influence in and over the soul, by the sensible evidence of his operation and influence in and over the body. " What reason ye in your hearts ?" said Jesus ; "Whether is it easier to say, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee ;' or to say, ' Rise up and walk ?' " Then said he to the sick of the palsy, "Arise and take up thy couch, and go to thine house." And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he had been carried, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. Here it was necessary, for the performance of this wonder- ful and instantaneous cure, that Jesus should instantly ope- rate in and through every member, nerve, and fiber, of the sick of the palsy. And it was equally necessary, for that purpose, that the sick of the palsy should have lived, and have had his being, in Jesus. In like manner, also, his sins must have been pardoned by an inward salvation, by impart- THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 211 ing to the will of the sinner a new and rectified will, and by informing his spirit with a detestation of evil, and a love of goodness and virtue. But pray, sir, if it is not too profound a mystery for me, be pleased to inform me how God could be made man ? For this was one of the principal objections of Mole. God was never made man, my Harry. God cannot be debased. He could not degrade himself by any change into manhood, though he could exalt and assume humanity into God. Neither could God die or suffer. To this, Christ himself, who was God and man, bears testimony, where he cries out, in the agonies of his suffering humanity, " My God ! my God ! why hast thou forsaken me ?" And again, where, crying with a loud voice, he said, " Father into thy hands I commend my spirit." But you are leading me some- thing deeper than I choose to go for the present. From eternity, God saw that, should he produce any crea- tures in his own image, to be glorious by his likeness, and happy by his communication, he must of necessity create them intelligent and free : and that consequently as creatures, they must be finite ; and that, as creatures who were free, they should also be fallible. He therefore saw that all might fall, and he also foresaw that some would fall. But his graciousness had provided two infallible remedies for this evil of fallibility. He had pro- vided a Saviour, and he had also provided suffering. The Saviour was to restore them by an inward redemption, by a reinfusion and new birth of his own nature in their essence ; and suffering was to prepare and open his way, by humbling their pride, by mortifying their lust, and thus compelling them to unfold their hearts to their own happiness. Indeed, had no creature ever fallen, God could not have been duly glorified to all eternity. Millions of his infinitely amiable qualities must have lain an inscrutable secret to 212 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. worlds upon worlds. While all his creatures were happy in him, and participated of him, no distinction could be duly made between them and their Creator. Had evil never been, goodness would have sunk unspeakably in the sense of its value, which is now infinitely heightened and glorified by the contrast. Free grace and free mercy on the part of our God, and penitence and thanksgiving on the part of humbled sinners, would have been prevented of their thousand endear- ing connections. And all the amities and charities through- out the brotherhood of man; all the melting and fond relations which the vine Christ infuses throughout his ingrafted branches, bearing blossoms and fruits of divine fragrance and flavour, must ever have remained unblessing, and as dead, from eternity to eternity. But our God, my child, is as powerful as he is gracious and wise, to bring light out of darkness, and life out of death, and infinite and ever-enduring good out of the limited and short state of transitory evil. To prove that no beings beneath himself could stand of their own sufficiency, God permitted his two principal crea- tures the most immediate and most glorious representatives of his divine perfections to fall off from their allegiance, and consequently from their happiness, with all their pro- geny. The first was the angel Lucifer who fell through pride, and the second was the man Adam who fell through lust. These two capital sins of pride and of lust, are the genuine parents of all moral and natural evil, of all the guilt or misery that ever did, or ever can, rise throughout dura- tion ; and our heavenly Father, in his love, hath appointed intense suffering to abate and abase the one, to mortify and slay the other, that transgressors may finally be capable of his mercy, through the salvation and grace of his Christ. The first of these arch-felons deemed himself worthy of Deity, and being inexperienced in the power with whom he THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 213 had to contend, he attempted to arrogate all worship to him- self, and to rob his divine benefactor of glory and godhead. The second of these felons was tempted by the first to aspire, through his own merits, as a godlike independence ; to cast off his allegiance to the author of his being ; and to expect intelligence and knowledge from the sensual fruits of this world, after which he lusted. He accordingly took and eat of the tree that was pregnant with all the goods and all the evils of this external, elementary, and transient system ; " according to his faith it was done unto him ;" according to his lust his desire was accomplished ; his nature became a partaker of temporary nature ; and he fell, with his progeny, into all the depravity and evils that the sin of fallen Lucifer had introduced into these vast regions, now made more exceedingly corrupt and sinful by the sin of fallen Adam. Why, pray, sir, demanded Harry, had Lucifer any con- cern in this world before the fall of our first parents ? Yes, my dear; all the space that is now occupied by this earth and these elements, with the sun, moon, and stars, to an inconceivable extent, was once the heaven and dominion of Lucifer and his angels. But when, by their apostasy from the light, and love, and goodness of God, they had caused darkness and malignity, envy, rage, and uproar, and every species of evil and horror, to be predominant throughout their kingdom, God determined, by a new creation, to take it out of their hands. Accordingly he compacted it into the present system of temporary nature, whose duration is to be measured by the revolution of our luminaries, until the appointed period of the great consummation, when all the malignity that remains and is compacted therein, shall be finally clone away. To this truth Moses bears testimony, where he tells you that, at the commencement of the creation, darkness was 214 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. upon the face of the great deep. And again, where he tells you, that the tree of the knowledge of the goods and evils of this world sprung up even in the midst of the paradise of God. But it is altogether impious and blasphemous to sup- pose that God would create evil, or infuse a tendency thereto into any of his woi'ks. Again, the same truth is attested by many passages of the sacred writings, where Lucifer, or Satan, tells Christ to his face, that this world, with all its glories, are his portion and property ; that they were delivered unto him ; and that he giveth them to whom- ever he will. And again, where Christ calls him " the prince of air ;" and again, where he says, " The prince of this world cometh, and hath no part in me." Now when God, by this new creation, had delivered this system of things from the influence and dominion of evil spirits, they became altogether prisoners in their own dark- ness. But when Adam, the second lord of this vast domain, by a second apostasy had brought additional sin and evil into temporary nature, the paradise of God, that was over all, vanished ; and the new guilt of Adam opened a new and wide gate for the re-admission of Lucifer into his ancient possessions. And he remains a prince and a ruler in the elements and hearts of men unto this evil day. These two capital apostates, Lucifer and Adam, who had thus robbed their kind God of their affections and allegiance, were thereafter represented by the two thieves who suffered in company with Christ, who reached out to each of them a bleeding arm of his mercy. The one accepted his grace, and on that day entered paradise along with his Lord. The other rejected the Christ with contempt and reproach, and therefore, if ever reclaimable, must be constrained.by suffer- ing to open his heart to redemption ; when, after a process of many agonizing ages, blaspheming and indignantly spurn- ing at the power of his punisher, he may be compelled to cry THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 215 out O seed of the woman ! heal, heal the head thou hast crushed, and admit nie also, though last, to some, the least portion of thy pardoning salvation! These two, my Harry, even Lucifer and Adam, were also the thieves among whom the traveller fell, going from Jeru- salem to Jericho, from the city and place of peace to the place of destruction. He represented the wretched race of fallen man, whom Lucifer, and their first father, had robbed of all their substance, and stripped of their robe of righteous- ness, and wounded and left half dead in trespasses and sins. Neither did the law or the priesthood avail anything for their cure, till JESUS, the good SAMARITAN, had compassion upon them, and bound up their wounds, pouring therein the oil of his grace and the wine of his gladness ; and expended twopence, even the two precious pence of his own body and blood, for perfecting their recovery. But, my dearest sir, said Harry, if my question does not intrude, pray, how was it consistent with justice that the sufferings of the innocent should atone both for, and instead of, the guilty ? For this also was one of Mole's cardinal objections. Your question, said Mr. Fenton, falls aptly in its place. When Adam, as I have told you, apostatized from his God, and lusted after the gross and sensual fruits of this world, and fed upon them, and thereupon became a partaker of their nature and malignity; he fell from his paradise and sovereignty together, and he became a poor subject, and miserable slave, to all the evils and inclemencies of that tem- porary nature, over which he had been constituted a throned lord and controller. Here was a deep and woful fall, my Harry, from sove- reignty to slavery, from eternity into time, from immortality into corruption, from bliss into misery, and from life into death ! The very state in which the wretched heirs of his 216 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. fallen nature find themselves at this day. How then was he to rise, if ever to rise again ? Could this be effected by any powers of his own ? If he did not stand in the state of his strength, how shall he recover and be able to re-ascend in the state of his weakness ? How think you, my Harry ? A self-evident impossibility, answered Harry. Here then, continued Mr. Fenton, we find the universe of man depraved, fallen and sunk into the darkness of sin and error, into the dungeon of gross and corruptible flesh, and circled about and closed in by the barriers and gates of death. And these prisons were to be broken through, these gates were to burst open, before he could re-enter upon light and immortality. All the enemies who had conquered man, sin, Satan, and temptation, were also to be conquered. But how was this to be done ? A world lay at stake, and the great question Vas, Whether the whole race of man should continue in endless guilt and misery, or be restored to ever-enduring purity and blessedness ? Wherefore, what all the powers of creation were not able to attempt, Jesus, in the humanity, undertook to accomplish. Here you see, my child, that justice had little to do in the case. It was not the justice of punishment, but the mercy of deliverance, that the love of our heavenly Father required. Justice indeed affirmed that suffering was due to sin, and was the necessary attendant and consequence thereof; and this also the love of our Christ willingly took upon himself. He conquered suffering through sufferings, and was thereby made the perfect and accomplished captain of our salvation. He entered into our flesh, he went through all the passages of this vale of tears and region of misery into which we are fallen ; through poverty, contempt, rejection, reproach ; through all the rage and rancour of men and devils could inflict, his bloody sweat and horrors of hell, bonds, buffetings, spittings, scourgings, the bloody mockery of a thorny crown. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 217 and all the soul-rending tortures of an agonizing crucifixion, till at last he triumphantly cried "It is finished!" and gave up the ghost. From the cross he descended into the grave ; from the grave again he rose hi glory, and ascended into heaven, where he led captivity captive, and shewed the powers of darkness bound ; that he might lead all the fol- lowers of his beatific cross, in his own divine process, to con- quest through sufferings, to glory through abasement, to exaltation through humiliation, through death into life, arid through the calamities of tune to a never-ending, ever-bless- ing, ever-joyful, eternity ! But, sir, said Harry ; was the humanity of our blessed Saviour the same as ours is ? for so the scripture seems to ultimate, where it says " He was made man, like unto us in all things, sin only excepted.' This was only spoken, answered Mr. Fenton, with respect to his outward humanity. His creaturely soul indeed, and the flesh which he derived from his mortal mother, were even as ours are, sin only excepted. But these were only as the husk or case of his internal and divine humanity, which was conceived from the essence of the FATHEB, by the operation of the HOLY SPIRIT in the womb of a pure virgin. It was this humanity to which JESUS was intimately united, and that became one with the ever-blessed TRINITY. And it was of the ubiquity of this humanity that Christ speaketh, when he says to Nicodemus, " No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven." But when the external humanity of* Jesus was, by sufferings and death, prepared to be swallowed up in glory, the whole CHRIST was then assumed up into Godhead. He saw all things in Jesus, as they were and shall be from eternity to eternity. And, though the glory of his personal appearance may be visible in certain places, yet he is invisibly present in all places and in all hearts, begetting VOL. II. 1 218 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. in them a new birth of his own divine humanity ; that their bodies may also be fashioned like unto his glorious body; and that, when our corruptible shall have put on incorrup- tion, and when that our mortal shall have put on immor- tality, " we all may be made one, as he is in the Father, and the Father in him, that we also may be one in them." An elevation, sure, well worth the hardest striving, the highest ambition. Thus I have shewn you, my Harry, the inevitable necessity of the sufferings of our innocent Christ for the salvation of guilty sinners. And this also shews you the equal necessity of his taking upon himself the external imputation of the sins for which he suffered ; that he might thereby be inwardly imputed to us, and become to us, and in us, the LOED OUR EIGHTEOUSKESS ; and be to us a better Adam, a second and divine father, regenerating us to a birth of his own heavenly nature. And thus, as the first Adam died unto God, and lived to fallen nature, there was a necessity that Christ, as well in his own person as his redeemed progeny, should die to the fallen nature, that through him they might live again unto God. I thank you, thank you, sir, cried Harry; I shall hence- forth be enabled to give an account, to all who ask, of the faith that is in me. But, pray, did the divine humanity of our Christ suffer in the crucifixion ? I believe it did, Harry, even as our souls are found to suffer in our bodies, though of a nature so very different from them. It was the suffering of this divine humanity that caused such violent repugnance and convulsions in nature ; that shut up the world from light even at mid-day ; that rent the rocks ; that opened the graves, and gave up the dead to attend their Lord, and revive in the life of his resurrection. Will you be pleased, sir, to indulge me in one question THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 219 more? Could not God, in his omnipotence, have effected the salvation of man by some other means than the suffering of our dear Christ ? I think, were it to be done again, I would rather forfeit my salvation than that he should endure such agony on my account. I will not pretend, my Harry, to give limits or directions to the measures of my God, neither to say what he might or might not do within his own world, and with regard to his own creatures. But it is certain that he chose the most effectual method for compassing his great and eternal pur- pose that infinite love could dictate, infinite wisdom contrive, and infinite power execute. O, my Harry ! how unutterably endeared must this measure make our God to the universe of his creatures, and that to all eternity ; it is herein that the nature of our God is revealed ; it is hereby alone that he could ever have been duly known known to be the God of love to be nothing but love, in this his wonderful work of mercy, transcending mercy; and of grace, transcending grace, that he might bring us to glory transcending glory. In this stupendous work of redemption, I say Jesus makes himself as it were little, that we may become great; he stoops into manhood, that he may exalt us into God. He came not arrayed in the fool's coat of the lustre of this despicable world, nor in the weakness of its power, nor in the meanness of its dignity ; but over his immensity he threw the appearance of limitation, and with time he invested his eternity; and his omnipotence put on frailty; and his supremacy put on subjection ; and with the veil of mortality he shrouded his beauty, that he might become familiar to us, that we might behold and converse with him face to face, as man converses with man, and grows fond of his fellow. Before the incarnation, God was feared in his thunders, and adored in the majesty and magnificence of his works. But it is in the meek and lowly Jesus that he becomes the 220 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. object of affection; in the bleeding, the suffering, the dying Jesus, we behold him with weeping gratitude, we love him with a love of passion and burning, a love that languishes for him, that cannot bear to exist without him. How could that perverse people shut their eves to the divinity of their gracious Messiah, while he gave such hourly and ocular proofs of the power and extent of his godhead in and over all things ? while he went about doing good, carry- ing healing in his breath, in his touch, in his garments; while the lame sprung up as a bounding roe at his bidding ; while the tempest heard his voice and was still, and the sea spread itself as a carpet beneath the foot of its creator ; while the deaf ear was opened, and the dumb tongue loosed to utterance; while he poured the beams of his light upon the new opening eyes of the blind-born gazer ; and while in death, and amidst the tombs, his word was life and resurrec- tion? Thus, my Harry, you find yourself united to your Saviour by many endearing and intimate connections, by creation, by redemption, by brotherhood, by fatherhood in the flesh, in the spirit ; by his being bone of your bone, and spirit of your spirit ; by being the " first-born of many brethren," and by being the divine father of a new and celestial progeny. But what need we further ? the world from the beginning is fraught with him, and speaks of him. The world is, in itself, no other than a history of the two capital and eternally important truths the greatness of the fall in Lucifer and Adam, and the greatness of the redemption in Jesus Christ. These truths are engraven in the rocks as deep as the centre ; they are written on both sides of every leaf in nature. All that is within us, all that is without us, utters forth the same language, proclaims the same tidings aloud. All ceremonials, all institutions of divine authority, all ancient predictions and prophecies, were pregnant with, and in travail of the THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 221 great deliverance to be achieved by the Shiloh who was to come. They give us a previous history of his whole process upon earth, from his birth to his resurrection, as circumstan- tially, as minutely as though it were a bare transcript of what had recently passed before their eyes. But I shall only dwell a minute on three principal articles first, that Messiah was to be God ; secondly, that he was, however, to be a suf- fering Messiah ; and, thirdly, that he was to give himself to death for the salvation of sinners. First, With respect to his divinity, Daniel says " I saw in the night-visions, and behold, one like unto the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him ; his domin- ion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." Again Isaiah : " Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder ; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to order it, and to establish it, with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even for ever." Secondly, With respect to his character of rejection and suffering : " Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. He was oppressed and he was afflicted ; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep be- fore her shearers is dumb, so opened he not his mouth'. He was taken from prison and from judgment ; and who shall 222 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. declare his generation ? for he was cut off out of the land of the living ; for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death." Isaiah liii. David, too, says "Dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have en- closed me ; they pierced my hands and my feet. They part my garments among them, and cast lots for my vesture. But a bone of him shall not be broken. They shall look on him whom they pierced." Thirdly. With respect to this being a willing offering for sin, Isaiah says in the same chapter, " Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Jeremiah, too Here Mr. Fenton was interrupted. His man Frank entered booted, and all bespattered with dirt, and, having whispered something in his master's ear, Mr. Fenton turned aside his head to hide his concern from Harry, and stepping to his closet locked himself in. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. CHAPTER V. BUT it may now be thought full time to return to the head branch of this noble family. Nearly nine years have now elapsed since the earl and his lady had seen or heard of their Harry, except by two or three anonymous notes in a year, giving a short account of his health and accomplishments; insomuch that time and long absence had, in a measure, worn him from the regrets of the family ; excepting his brother Richard, on whom Harry's generosity, in taking his quarrel upon himself, had left an affecting and indelible impression. Lord Clinton was indeed sweetly dispositioned by nature, and of an aspect and person extremely elegant ; and, as he had tutors in all branches in which he chose to be instructed, he learned sufficient, by way of amusement, to render him one of the most accomplished youths in the nation. He was also naturally unassuming, and modestly disposed ; but the unremitted adulation of domestics and dependants, with the complimentary artillery of all the neighbours and visitants, could not fail of some impression, at loast so far as to make it evident that he was conscious of his condescension when he became familiar with you. He was, however, easy to all who applied to him for any favour ; exceeding charitable to the poor ; and particularly fond of our Harry's foster-mother, and kind to her for Harry's sake. He was turned of nineteen years of age when his parents, 224: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. for his amusement and the finishing of his education, resolved to accompany him on a tour to France. They set out with a suitable equipage and a nominal tutor, whom they engaged, rather with a view of being a watch upon our young lord's motions, than the intendant of his principles or the former of his manners. Nothing material happened till their arrival at Paris, where the earl took a sumptuous palace in the Rue de Vaugirard. When he had settled his household, he went to inquire after his intimates of fifty years ago. Some three or four of them still survived. He renewed his acquaintance with them, and engaged them, their friends and families, to rich and frequent entertainments, whereby his palace speedily became the resort of one of the most elegant circles in Paris. Young Clinton quickly entered into familiarity and confi- dence with such of the young nobility as frequented his father's; and they took him abroad on several parties of pleasure, and introduced him to the birds of their own dis- tinguished feather. Our young Englishman swam gracefully down the stream of pleasure ; a warm imagination susceptible of the slightest impressions, a spirit apt to receive and impart the kindliest feelings, made him the idol of his home, and the desire of the brilliant society he moved in and adorned. But, alas for the stability of all earthly bliss ! he was seized with the smallpox, which was then sweeping through Paris like a plague ; and, though the eruption was but slight, yet on the seventh day Lord Clinton was suddenly taken with convulsions, and in less than an hour expired. The old countess had never left his room since he had taken to his bed, and was now carried off in a deep swoon. She never after recovered her senses except by deplorable starts, THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 225 to lament that she was the most wretched of all that ever was created, and on the second day she also expired. The miserable earl, now an unit in creation, had their bodies embalmed and deposited in leaden coffins, ready for conveyance to his own vault in England, whither he now prepared to go. At length he set out with his sighing and silent train ; and after a voyage, lengthened by woe, arrived finally at Enfield. Never was seen such a concourse at any funeral since the funeral of Jacob, on which all Egypt attended ; they crowded from a distance of thirty miles round. But when they saw the old and reverend patron of the country all covered with sad and solemn weeds : when they beheld his countenance exceeding all pomp of sorrow, and conceived the weight and wringing that was then at his heart, envy was quite blunted and robbed of its sting. They now lamented the living more than they mourned the dead ; and the poorest among the poor looked down with an eye of compassion upon the great man, now rendered, as they deemed, more pitiable and deso- late even than themselves ; without child or kindred ; without any to continue his name or his honours; without any who could claim a share in his wealth or his woe; with out any cause of further comfort, or further care upon earth. During the following week the earl kept his chamber, and would admit of no visitor till Mr. Meekly arrived. Mr. Meekly had long estranged himself to Enfield ; he had gone elsewhere, seeking the houses of mourning, and breath- ing peace and consolation wherever he went ; but, as soon as he heard of the affliction of his noble friend, he hastened to help him to bear up under the weight of his calamity. He entered and seated himself in silence beside the earl, he there wept near an hour without uttering a syllable. My lord was the first who spoke Mr. Meekly, said he, 10* 226 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. my heart gratefully feels this melting proof of your love. You weep for me, my friend, because you see, and kindly feel, that there is no other comfort for me on this side the grave. God forbid ! God forbid ! said Mr. Meekly ; the best and greatest of all comforts is coming to you, my lord. Eternal truth has promised it, and he will make it good to you : " Blessed, blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be com- forted." Ah, Mr. Meekly ! replied the earl, the comfort that you mention is promised only to the deeply contrite and broken of heart; to those who duly lament the baseness of their offences against so great and good a God. Neither do I despair, my friend, but that I also may finally share some portion of that same comfort ; for, as I feelingly acknowledge myself the greatest of all sinners, so I wish for grace to make me the greatest of penitents. God be praised, cried Meekly, for the grace already given ! There was a time, my lord, when, as you told me, you had nothing of these divine dispositions ; when the world, as you said, seemed to hold out happiness to you on either hand ; when fortune, title, precedence, circling honours about you, and within you yo^uth and health, and a revelling flow of blood and spirits, wholly disguised and concealed the state of your nature from you ; when they hid from you your own body of frailty, distemper, sin, and death, and left you no occasion to call out for a Saviour, as you felt nothing from which you desired to be saved. But God has now been graciously pleased to send you his monitors, and to call upon you by affliction, that you, in your turn, may call upon him who alone can give you consolation. It is not, my lord, to the mourners for sin alone to whom comfort is promised : the state of suffering and mourning is in its nature extremely salutary, and of happy tendency to THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 227 man ; and it is, therefore, that the suffering JESUS hath pro- nounced it blessed. The God of all love takes no delight in the sufferings of his poor and pitiable creatures; neither would he have made this state of our mortality a vale of tears, and a state of misery, had it not been in order to conduct us through transitory evils to ever-enduring bliss, where "he himself will wipe all tears from our eyes." When Adam, by his apostasy and falling off from his Maker, had converted all the goods of his temporary state into evil incitements to lust, covetousness, and sensuality, God determined, by a gracious reverse, to turn all the evils of corrupt and fallen nature into means of enduring good to his fallen and frail creatures : he therefore appointed pain, affliction, distress, and disease, to be his ministers, his moni- tors, and preachers within us, to convince us of all the evil of our depraved and mortal nature ; to wean us from a world that is full of false promises, but empty of true enjoyment ; to remind us that we are strangers and pilgrims upon earth ; to turn our eye to the star that hath visited us from on high ; and finally, through our sufferings, to accomplish the great work of his own salvation in us. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Meekly ! these are comforting things indeed. They pluck comfort from the very depth and abyss of affliction ; I love that my God should be lovely to my heart. You have now rent the dark veil that long hung before my eyes ; and the Sun of righteousness breaks upon me through the clouds of my mortality. But what of death, Mr. Meekly ? what of death, my friend ? I am inte- rested in the question ; my time is approaching. When this body shall fall to dust, and all these organs of sensation be utterly cut off, what remains what then shall follow? by what means shall my spirit attain the powers of new percep- tion ? or am I to lie in the grave, in a state of total insensi- 228 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. bility, till the last trumpet shall sound ? My nature shrinks, I confess, from a total deprivation of the sense of existence. It is no .way evident to me, my lord, that body, or at least such gross bodies as we now have, are necessary to the perceptions and sensibilities of our spirit. God himself is a Spirit, an all-seeing, all-hearing, all-tasting, all-smelling, all- feeling, all-knowing, and all-governing Spirit. "He who made the eye, shall he not see ? He who made the ear, shall he not hear ?" Wherefore, as our spirits are ihe offsprings of his divine Spirit, we may justly presume them endowed with like capacities. But if body is necessary to the percep- tion of spirit, as Zoroaster, the illuminated philosopher, seems to intimate, where, speaking of God, he says, " whose body is light, and whose soul is truth ;" in this case, I say, we may reasonably suppose that, when our spirits shall be parted from these gross and frail bodies, they shall be instantly clothed upon with more pure and permanent bodies. Or, as I rather think that those pure and permanent bodies are already forming, and pregnant within our gross and cor- ruptible bodies; and that when the midwife, death, shall deli ver us from the dark womb of our woful travail and mor- tality, we shall immediately, spring forth into incorruption and glory. Of this, my lord, I am as confident as I am'of my being, that he who by faith hath already put on Christ, shall break through death in the brightness of the body of his new birth, incorruptible, immortal, and blessed to all eternity. Tell me, then, my dearest Meekly, what mean you by the body of this new birth ? for, alas ! I am but too apt to cry out with Nicodemus, " How can these things be ?" I mean, my lord, the forming of Christ within us : our being formed anew of a divine seed of our second Adam, even as our gross bodies were formed in the womb from THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 229 a corruptible seed of the old Adam. I mean the clothing of our spirits with the heavenly substantiality of the spi- ritual body and blood of the heavenly Jesus himself; for, as the apostle says, " There is a spiritual body, as there is a carnal body." I mean a body the same as that in which the believing thief entered paradise with his Lord on the day of the crucifixion. " I am the resurrection and the life," saith Jesus : whoso believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and he who liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Death shall become a new and divine birth unto him. And the great apostle says, " There are celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial ; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." And again he says, " For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." These are great things indeed, Mr. Meekly, and full of hope, as well as incitements to divine ambition. But why, my lord, should a new birth from Jesus Christ be thought wonderful ? Is there any thing more wonderful in it than in the forming and unfolding of the whole stu- pendous mechanism of the body of our old man from a scarce visible speck of entity ? Is there any thing more wonderful in it than in the growth and unfolding of any common vegetable from some latent principle or invisible speck in the seed, which not all the optics and glasses of a Galileo should be able to discover? Were not these the known facts of every day and hour, incredulity would have laughed the supposition to nought. But I think I have got about me something surprisingly analogous and apposite to the nature and manner of our new birth in Jesus. Mr. Meekly then put his hand in his pocket and took out 230 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. a lump of matter, in form like a long and huge maggot, evi- dently without motion, apparently without life, and hard and incrusted all about to the feeling. What have you got there, my friend ? said the earl. An old worm, my lord, that at this instant is pregnant with the birth of a new creature. Impossible ! cried the earl ; the thing is absolutely dead ! The body of the old worm is dead, indeed, my lord ; but there is certainly a principle of a new life within it, that will soon manifest itself in the birth of a very beautiful and wonderfully glorious creature. And this you will find if you leave it for a few days, where it may get the fostering warmth of the sun through one of your windows. Have you ever seen the fly they call the dragon- fly, my lord ? Yes ; and have admired the elegance of its shape, the mechanism of its double wings, and the lustre of its irradiations. This mass, my lord, of apparently insensible matter, is now actually pregnant with one of the same species. The parent, through whose death it is to attain life, was no other, as you see, than a vile and grovelling maggot ; but the new crea- ture that is to be born from it will be of a quite different nature and tendency. It will loathe the food and occupation of its foul progenitor ; it will soar sublime over carnal and earthly things ; it will drink the dews of heaven, and feed on the consummate nectar and fragrance of flowers. This, indeed, Mr. Meekly, rejoined the earl, is to make the invisible things of God visible, even to the naked eye, by the things that are seen. While my lord and his friend were thus deeply in dis- course, Mr. John, the house-steward, came in and told his master that one waited in the hall with a letter for him. A letter ! cried the earl ; what can I have to say, John, to any letter, or any of the writers thereof? But something is due to humanity, and it shall be paid ; desire him to step in. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 231 Hereupon a stranger entered, whose figure instantly caught the eyes and attention of the earl and his companion in an astonished captivity. The youth was dressed in a mourning frock ; and his dark brown locks, tied behind with a black riband, flowed carelessly between his shoulders, while some of the front-straying curls, as in sport, alter- nately shaded and discovered a part of his lovely counte- nance. He bowed, he moved attraction; and, gracefully advancing towards my lord, he again bowed, laid a letter be- fore him on the table, and then silently retired backwards a few steps. They viewed him they gazed on him as it had been the sudden vision of an angel of light. Mr. Meekly was not able to utter a word ; neither had my lord the power to lay a finger on the paper that was directed to him, till Mr. Meekly at last, giving a great stroke on the table, cried sud- denly out I would lay a thousand pounds of it ! it is he ! it is he ! my heart tells me he can be no other but your Harry Clinton ! Here Harry sprung forward, and, casting himself preci- pitately at the feet of the earl, he clasped his knees with an eager reverence, crying My father, my honoured, my dear, my dear father ! and broke into tears. ^. My lord, all in a tremor, attempted to raise him to his arms, and Harry, perceiving this, rose and threw himself into the bosom of his father. But the earl gently and fondly put him off a little, and gazing intently on a counte- nance that appeared to him lovely above all that was lovely in the circle of creation, he gathered new strength, and, catching Harry to his breast, he exclaimed in a transport " Let me die ! let me die ! since I have seen thy face, my son." Thus my lord, in the recent acquisition of such a son, forgot all his losses, and cast the whole weight of his late 262 THE FGOL OF QUALITY. calamities behind him. His eye could not be tired with seeing him, neither his ear with hearing the sweetness of his voice ; and he continued to hold, to gaze at him, to caress him, unmindful of aught else unmindful even of his friend Meekly, who sat enraptured beside him. Will you leave me again, my child? cried out the earl; do you intend to go from me again, my Harry ? You must not you shall not leave me not for an hour no, not for a minute , a second loss of my son would quickly bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Never, never, my lord, will I leave you ! tenderly cried Harry ; never for a moment will I forsake you again, my father ! I come pur- posely to watch over, to comfort, to tend you while I have life with all imaginable tenderness, affection and duty. But where, hastily asked the earl where is the murderer who stabbed my peace ? where is that old thief that robber who rent my child from me ? Ah, my lord ! cried Harry, he is very far from meriting such opprobrious epi- thets ; he is a summary of all that is excellent all that is amiable in nature. He respects and loves you too above the world, and all that is in it deserving of love. O, had you lately seen his grief for your losses the floods of tears he shed for for for Here Harry could no more ; but, on the recollection of his mother and brother, burst into tears. But tell me, my dear, continued the earl tell me who and what he is whom you commend so highly. Even the son of your own mother, my lord ; my much loved, my revered, my most honoured uncle. Impossible, my child ! That old despicable man, my brother ! No, no, my Harry, he must have deceived you ! My brother was all that was amiable upon earth " the fairest among ten thousand " the straightest cedar in the forest ! THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 233 And such he is at this day, my lord. But, alas, alas ! he has been broken by the batteries of many afflictions ; a man wholly made up of sorrows, and acquainted with killing griefs ! You wanted me not when he took me, my father ; you had other and richer treasures comforts that were infinitely more worthy your regard ; but, little and despica- ble as I was, he had nothing but me. I became his only comfort the only treasure in which he delighted. Yet, as soon as he heard that you wanted consolation, he chose rather to be without it himself, and so he restores me to you, if I may be any little matter of comfort to you, my father. And where is this dear uncle this precious brother my Harry ? Is he come with you ? Shall I be so blessed to take him in with my eye to take him in with my arms to petition to obtain his pardon to press him to my bosom to my heart to my soul ? Where is he where is this precious brother my Harry ? He is not come with me, my lord ; he feared, as he said, that you would not forgive him the carrying off your Gany- mede ; but he is desirous of attending you on the first inti- mation. Then you must write to him for that purpose to-morrow, my son ; and despatch your invitation by some of our swift- est horses. The influence of his darling will, unquestionably, be greater than that of an offending and unnatural brother. Is this letter from him, Harry ? It is, my lord. Then I will not peruse it till I get by myself. It probably contains reproaches but too well merited; or possibly matters of consolation too tender for me to bear. But, Mr. Meekly, my dearest Meekly, ten thousand pardons ! Harry, take to your arms the man in the world, next to your uncle, most deserv- ing of your reverence most deserving of your heart ! Here Mr. Meekly kissed and embraced our hero with 234 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. all the tenderness of a father, and the ardour of an old friend. Mr. Meekly, cried Harry, looking earnestly and fondly at him, do I not remember something of that face, Mr. Meekly ? Are you not the gentleman for whom I long since conceived such an attachment to whom my heart cleaved, as I may say, from my infancy ? I am, my heavenly creature, answered Meekly ; I am the man indeed whose soul was knit to yours, like the soul of Jonathan to David, the first moment I beheld you ; and who saw in you then all those noble, generous, and divinely humane propensities that I see arrived to their maturity at this happy day. While Mr. Meekly was thus rejoicing, Harry happened to turn his head aside, and, spying the lively portraits of my lady and Lord Richard, he started he rose ; and, gazing on them a minute, he went softly to the window, and, taking out his handkerchief, kept his back to the company, while he vented his emotions in a silent passion of tears. His father and Mr. Meekly perceived what he was about, but they did not disturb him. He brought fresh to their remembrance all the passages of late affliction, and they silently joined a flow of grief to his. But their tears were the tears of sympathiz- ing humanity, or rather tears of delight on observing the sweet sensibilities of their darling. In the mean time, Mr. Frank, who attended on Harry, had whisperingly given the mourning domestics an intimation concerning the person of the stranger who had arrived. Some of them well remembered him ; and all of them had heard of him, and conceived a very kindly impression of our Harry. They first expressed their mutual joy by kisses, embraces, and silent shakes of the hand ; but in a little space their congratulations became more loud and tumultuous, and the voice of exultation was heard through all the lower house. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 235 Harry hereupon felt himself secretly hurt, and turning to his father his yet tearful countenance My lord, says he, I beseech you to suppress this unseasonable sound of joy among your servants, in a house that ought so justly to be the house of morning. My love, mildly and kindly answered the earl, I cannot wholly refuse to my poor and afflicted people some share of that comfort which I myself feel on the return of my Harry. They are all my old and true servants, my child ; this is no other than an expression of their love to you and to me ; and I request you to receive them affection- ately for my sake. Here the earl rung a bell, and desired that all his domes- tics should come in. They accordingly entered. Harry perfectly recollected Mr. John the steward, Mr. Samuel the butler, and old Mrs. Mary the cook. He called them by their names, and reminded them of old times, and took them in his arms with much affection. He then turned to the other servants. He took each of them by the hand in turns, and spoke to them with such a natural ease and lowliness, as though he himself desired, in his father's house, to become also " as one of his hired servants." Hereupon, gathering all about him, they catched and kissed his hand by force ; and then, kneeling around, they promiscuously petitioned for blessings on his head ; and rising, retired in a pleasing passion of sobs and tears ; while the enraptured earl beheld all, with a mixture of such blissful sensations as he had never felt before. It now began to grow late ; and, after a short repast of some small matters, my lord proposed their retiring to bed. But, my friend, said he to Harry, you must content yourself with being my prisoner for the present ; you must lie in my chamber ; I will not trust my lamb from my side, for fear of its going once more astray. Ah, my lord! cried Harry, there is no fear of that ; my heart is wholly your 236 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. property, and you have thereby a sure hold of all that I am. The next morning Harry impatiently rose before the servants were stirring; and unlocking the great door, and closing it softly after him, he went out exulting on his pre- meditated expedition. He reconnoitered and recollected the quondam scenes of his childhood ; and, flying like a bird over the hedges and other obstacles, he made the shortest way to his still precious mammy's. When he approached the place of his infant endearments, he met his foster-father going forth to his field, with a solemn and melancholy air, on his usual occupations. Harry instantly remembered the features, once so delightful, and springing to him, and catching at him, he kissed and clasped him repeatedly, and cried aloud My dear daddy Dobson ! how glad am I to see you once again ! How is my nurse, my dear nurse ? how is little Tommy, and little Rachel, and all our dear family ? The old man then respectfully withdrawing a space I don't know you, my sweet master, said he ; I never saw you before. Indeed, but you did ; many and many a time and oft, cried Harry, you carried me in your arms, almost the livelong day, and pressed and hushed me to sleep at night in your bosom. Don't you remember your little Harry ? don't you remember my two dogs ? don't you remember my cock ? O ! exclaimed the good old man, I now believe that you are my child, the dearest child that ever was born ! But I never hoped to see him such a thing as you are ; I never thought to see such a glorious creature upon earth ! Here old Dobson returned Harry's caresses with a twofold force, and, blubbering all aloud, had like to have smothered him with the intenseness of his embraces. Bring me, bring me, cried Harry to the sight of my dearest nurse ! I am all impatient to behold her. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 237 Not so fast ! said Gaffer Dobson I love my old loving Kate ; and should she find you out of a sudden, she would certainly die of joy. But I will bring you to her as a stranger, and so you may bring matters about. And indeed I fear that my own head is likely to be crazed by this busi- ness ; for I do not find that I am the same man that I was a while agone. I shall grow too proud, I doubt, and look down upon all my better neighbours. Goodman Dobson then conducted Harry to their ancient habitation. Nurse Dobson was just up, and preparing to comb the heads of her children, when they entered. Kate, says he, I have brought to you a young stranger, who says he can give you some account of your little Harry ; who says he is still alive, notwithstanding all your frights, and will shortly pay a visit to some parts of this country ; and who knows then but that we, among others, may happen to set our eyes upon him, and that, I think, would be a great blessing, My Kate ? O no, no, no ! exclaimed nurse, without deigning to cast her eyes on the stranger he is dead, he is gone from me these many years ! I once hoped to have his infant on my knee and in my bosom ; but that hope is quite gone. Never, never shall I behold my darling again ! Harry had seated himself just opposite to nurse ; when, looking up, she started, and stared eagerly in his face Don't impose upon me, "William, says she. Tell me, tell me at once ; mayhap this is my child ! Ah, against the world, the dimple in that smile is the dimple of my Harry ! Here Harry sprung -up, and at one leap caught his rising nurse in his arms, crying Nurse, my dearest nurse, do I live to be pressed once more to your dear bosom ? But the poor woman breathed short, and could not get out a word. Twenty times she put him from her, and catched him to her again, gazing at him by intervals with a frantic 238 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. affection. At length she cast herself back on the bench that was behind her, and, clapping her hands together, she gave a great shout, and burst into an hysterical passion of tears ; while Harry seated himself beside her, and, gently drawing her head to him, placed it fondly on his bosom, and mixed his tears with hers. This gush came very seasonably for our loving nurse's relief. She soon recovered her breath and her senses ; and, seeing some drops on her Harry's cheeks, she drew them in with her lips, crying Precious pearls be these ! I would not exchange one of them for the brightest diamond in the mines. Nurse, says Harry I stole away to come and see you while my father was asleep, or else I should not have had leave to stir from him a foot. But you both must promise to come and dine with me ; we will have a table by ourselves. And do you, iny dear nurse, step to our house, and if my father should miss me, tell him I am gone into town, and will be back with him before breakfast. Harry then stepped to the village, and, remembering Gaffer Truck's house, he went familiarly in, and inquired of the good woman how all the family was. Pray, how is my honest old Bartholomew ? says he ; and how is your pretty daughter, Molly ? and, above, all, what is become of my old friend Tom ? The poor woman, all in amazement, cried A pretty Tom he is, forsooth, to be friend to such a sweet young gentleman as you are. But the truth is, that our Tom is at prentice to a barber at next door. Well, says Harry, when Gaffer Truck comes home, tell him that his old acquaintance, Harry Clinton, called to see him. Tom had just finished an operation on a neighbour as our hero entered. How are you, Tom ? said he, carelessly. Tom gaped, and stared, and gaped ; but answered not a word. Will you give me a cast of your office, Tom ? Ah ! that I THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 239 will, master, as soon as you get a beard. Why, Tom, you are grown a huge hulking fellow since I saw you last ; will you step to yonder green, and wrestle one fall with me ? No, no, master, I would not hurt you ; methinks I could throw a dozen of such fairweather gentlemen as you are, master. Harry instantly seized Tom by the breast with one hand, and by the shoulder with the other ; when Tom, feeling the hardness and hurt of his gripe, immediately exerted his powers, and grappled with his adversary. But Harry, giving him a slight foot, laid him on the broad of his back in the middle of his own floor; but kept him with both hands from being hurt against the ground. I believe, said Tom, rising, you must certainly be the devil ; and come, as they say, to fling poor sinners in the shape of an angel of light. Ah, Tom, Tom ! cried Harry, this is not the first struggle that you and I have had. Do you remember the bag of nuts, and poor blind Tommy? have you forgot your old friend, little Harry Clinton ? Blessed mercy ! exclaimed Tom, can you be my young lord, my heart's dear young master ? I am, indeed, an- swered Harry, your old acquaintance, my dear Tom ; your loving friend, Harry Clinton. And so saying, he took Tom about the neck, and kissed him very cordially. Tom, says Harry, I want you to take a walk with me : Tom instantly assented, and out they went. As they walked along, Harry began to grow sad. Tom, said he, do you know where my dear brother Dicky was buried? Yes, sir, said Tom, a great way off, in yonder church- yard below the town's-end. Do you know where the sexton lives, Tom ? In a little white house, sir, just joining the yard. As soon as they arrived, Tom called out the sexton, and Harry, putting a guinea into his hand, ordered him directly to unlock the family- vault. 240 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. The man looked astonished, but obeyed in silence ; and Harry, as he entered, desired the sexton and Tom to wait at a distance, and promised to be with them by and by. He put to the door after him, just leaving light enough to distinguish the recent deposits of the dead. O ! said he, as he advanced, thou true house of mourning, thou silent end of all men, how sad art thou to sense ! how sad to me above all, who bearest in thy dark bosom such precious and beloved relics ! Then casting himself on the coffins of my lady and Lord Richard, as they lay side by side, and clasping his arms about them as far as he could reach : O, he cried, my mother, my brother ! my dearest brother, my dearest mother ! you are gone, you are gone from me, and you never knew the love that your son and brother had for you ! Ah, how did I flatter myself! what happiness did I not propose, in attend- ing, serving, and pleasing you ; in doing thousands of tender, kindly, and endearing offices about you ! But you are snatched from me, my mother ! you are snatched from me^ my brother ! all my prospects are defeated and cut away for ever. You will no more return to me, but I shall go to you ; and O that I were laid with you this minute in this still and peaceful mansion, where hopes and fears cease, and all are humble together ! Meanwhile Mr. Meekly had gone abroad on his morning's walk. He met nurse on her way to the mansion-house, and accosting her in a kind of triumph My good uurse, says he, we have blessed tidings for you ; your Harry, your hero, is come to the country. I know it, sir, I know it, answered nurse ; it is but a little while ago that my babe left my bosom. Mr. Meekly then proceeded in order to join his young friend, inquiring of all he met which way Lord Harry went, till at last he was directed to the churchyard. There he THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 241 found Tom and the sexton, who, on further question, silently pointed to the door of the family vault that hung on the jar. Mr. Meekly felt himself affected, and withdrew to a greater distance, but still keeping his tearful eye on the sad mansion that now held the living with the dead. At length Harry came forth, drying his cheeks with his handkerchief. He assumed a constrained air of cheerfulness ; and, joining Tom and the sexton, observed that a great crowd was gathering in the town. Who are those, Tom ? said he. I suppose, answered Tom, your honour's tenants and old acquaintances, who are getting together to welcome you to the country. If that is the case, Tom, we must go and salute them, and you shall introduce me, and tell me who is who ; for, though my heart is heavy laden, it must not give a discharge in full to gratitude and humanity. Mr. Meekly, perceiving that Harry was on his return, kept onward, aloof from him, but with an eye on his mo- tions. By this time the crowd had sorted themselves ; the princi- pals of the families into one group, the young men into an- othef, and the fair maidens into another; and, as Harry approached, they all set up a joint shout of triumph. Please your honour, says Tom, this is my father, and this is Gaffer Gubbins, and this Goodman Demster, and this Far- mer Felster, and so on. Harry, with the lowliness of a washer of feet, would have kissed and embraced them all in turns ; but, pressing about him, they seized a hand on either side, and eagerly kissed them, as also the skirts of his clothes all round. God bless your sweet face ! cried Goodman Demster ; who sees it in a morning can't fail, I think, of prospering the live- long day. VOL. ii. 11 242 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. . When he came, in succession, to the companions of his infancy, as he kissed and shook hands with each in turn, some reminded him of his having beat them at boxing, others at wrestling, and all of his having played with them at prison-bars, leap-frog, shout the gate, and so forth. Meanwhile the girls panted, gazed at him, and longed to get him to themselves. Sir, says Tom, here is your old acquaintance, my sister, Molly; there is not a lad in the town whom she is not able to toss, except your honour. Molly looked full fif health as Hebe, and rosy as the May, and Harry caught her about the neck, and kissed her very cordially. Do you remember me, Molly? O, answered Molly, I shall never forget, since your honour's lordship and I used to wrestle every day behind our house. The rest of the girls now pressed for their share of Harry, and it was with difficulty that he divided himself with any satisfactory equality among them, as they all kissed him so close, and seemed so loth to part. At length Harry's watch reminded him that it was time to attend his father, and as he parted they shouted after him Long life, and health, and honours to our townsman, our own boy, our own dear, sweet child ! In the meantime Mr. Meekly had returned home, witk his heart full of tidings to the earl. When Harry arrived, break- fast was on table, and he perceived that his father had been in tears ; but no notice was taken of the affair at the charnel- house on either part. When breakfast was over, Harry called in John. Mr. John, says he, can you tell me how many families there are in this village of yours? Twenty-five families exactly, iny lord. Then Harry turned to his father and said If your lordship will be pleased to lend me five hundred guineas for the present, I will pay you very honestly the hour that my uncle comes to the country. Why, sirrah! cried the earl THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 243 pleasantly, what right has your uncle to pay your debts, especially to such a great amount as you speak of? O, my lord ! answered Harry, I have already squandered away about fifty thousand pounds of his money; and this is but a trifle, which I am sure I may very safely add to the rest. Here the earl looked truly astonished. Fifty thousand pounds ! he exclaimed. Impossible, Harry ! Why, you had neither such ponds nor lakes as mine in London, wherein you might make ducks and drakes of them. How hi the world could you contrive it ? Where did you dispose of them? In hospitals and in prisons, my father, answered Hany. In streets and highways, among the wretched and indigent, supplying eyes to the blind, and limbs to the lame, and cheer- fulness to the sorrowful and broken of heart ; and such were my uncle's orders. Let me go, let me go from this place, my lord! cried Meekly ; this boy will absolutely kill me if I stay any longer. He overpowers, he suffocates me with the weight of his sen- timents. Well, Harry, said the earl, go to my desk ; here is the key of the drawer on the left hand, and I make you a present of the key and the contents ; perhaps you may find there nearly as much as will answer your present exigencies. Harry went, and, opening the drawer, was astonished to see it quite full of gold. However he took no more than just the sum proposed ; and, returning to his father, said What shall I do, my lord, with that vast heap of money? Why, you extravagant rogue, replied the earl, there is not as much hi it as will pay the debt you have contracted with one man ! O, cried Harry, I am quite easy upon that score ! I will never affront my uncle by the offer of a penny. And don't you think, said the earl, that we have got poor among us hi 2M THE FOOL OF QUALITY. the country as well as you have in the city, Harry? I believe you may have got some, my lord ; but then I am much more difficult than you may think, in the objects on whom I would choose to confer charity. I look upon the money amassed by the wealthy, to have been already extracted from the earnings of the poor ; the poor farmer, the poor craftsman, the hard-handed peasant, and the day-labourer, whose seven children perhaps subsist on the milk of a couple of cows. Wherefore, the objects on whom we bestow these gatherings ought at least to be something poorer, and more worthy of compassion than those from whom the money was exacted. So saying, he stepped out. Amazing boy ! cried Mr. Meekly ; how new, and yet how j ust was that observation ! I am, cried the earl, as it were, in a kind of delicious dream, and can scarce yet believe my- self so blessed as to be the father of such a child ! In the mean time Harry had called John aside. Mr. John, says he, here are five hundred guineas. Be pleased to step and distribute them by twenty guineas to each of the families in the village. I would save you the trouble, and give them myself, but that for the present my heart turns with disgust from their thanks and their honours. Tell them, that this is a token in memory of my dear brother, to keep them in mind of him. Tell them further, that I will have no carousals, no rejoicing, on account of my arrival; and that it would please me infinitely better, if my return would bring their late losses to their remembrance, and set them all in tears and lamentations. My lord now proposed a saunter in the park, in order to procure an appetite for dinner. Accordingly the gate was ordered to be unlocked, and they entered on a gravel walk, that was walled in on the left hand, and paled in on the right, along the verge of five canals, that fell successively in cascades, the one into the other. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 245 As they talked and walked along, they met with a six- barred gate that directly thwarted their passage ; and ray lord reached his hand through the rails for the key, that the keeper had left in the lock on the inside, but he could not get at it. We are all at a full stop now, said he, unless Harry could make a shift to climb over the gate ; but no, do not, my dear ; your foot might happen to slip between the rails, and hurt you. I will obey your lordship, answered Harry ; I will not venture a foot upon one of them. So say- ing, he catched at the upmost bar with his left hand, and throw- ing himself slightly over, opened the gate for his companions. The earl and Mr. Meekly stood mute in utter astonishment. At length the earl cried Child, you must surely be of more than mortal mould, or else you have a familiar spirit that conveys you through the air. Harry smiled, but was silent. On their return, John called his master aside, and told him of his due distribution of Harry's bounty to the villagers. But, my lord, says he, when I went down I found them all very busily employed in preparing bonfires and illuminations in honour of my young lord. This, however, I was obliged to countermand by his special order; and it has greatly mortified all your poor people. Well, well, said the earl, it cannot be helped for the present ; we must not dare to offend our Harry at any rate ; and so those matters of rejoicing may rest in reserve till the arrival of my brother. Soon afterwards our hero's fosterers came, decked out in their best attire; and Harry ordered a side-table to be covered for him and them, but my lord insisted on their din- ing all together. Harry placed himself very lovingly between them at table, that he might help them, and prevail upon their bashfulness to eat. When the repast was nearly over, nurse inquired after the little beggar-boy, whose absence she imagined had caused 246 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. the elopement of her darling. He is come to great fortune, answered Harry ; he has found his father and mother, and is heir to a large estate. Harry then told the manner in which Ned had been discovered, and they were all highly pleased and affected by the relation. But, says Harry, what has become of my sister Nelly, on whose milk I was suckled ? and what has become of my little brother Tommy, who was but two years younger than my- self? They are both dead, my precious ; but God has been pleased to give me others in their room. "Well, nurse, I find we must all die, and, some time or other, that will be a great grief to one of us, whichever of us shall happen to outlive the other. I am satisfied to die once, said nurse, but never let me hear again of your dying, my angel : I can't suffer the thought, she cried, and burst forth into tears I could not bear, I could not bear to die a thousand deaths in the death of my Harry ! But, said Harry, in order to divert her passion, you have not yet inquired after the man with the beard. O the old rogue ! exclaimed nurse, I can't think of him with patience. Ay, but you must know that that same old rogue is my own darling uncle, an own and only dear brother to my own dear father here. If that is the case, said nurse, I don't wonder he should so greatly yearn after you ; and indeed I would rather wonder if all the world did not yearn and long after you, my love ! And now, nurse, to show you how much you are obliged to this same darling uncle, he has ordered me to make you a present of five hundred pounds, in payment, as he says, of the grief he has cost you. And take no heed for your child- ren, I will take that care upon myself; for this same dear uncle has made me a gift of the lands, and house, and plate, and furniture, that he has in this town, and so you see I am well able to provide for you all. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 247 Here my lord cast an eye of tender jealousy upon Harry. I perceive, my son, said he, that your uncle is your only trust, the only dependence that you choose to have upon earth. Harry, Avith a glance of his eye, instantly caught the meaning of the eye of his father, and throwing himself at his feet O pardon, my lord, he cried; pray, pardon the over- flowings of a grateful and simple heart ! My uncle is my property ; but I am yours, my father, to be disposed of in life and in death, at your pleasure. I do trust, I do depend upon you, my father ; and you have already overpowered me with the weight of your affections. My lord's eyes then glistened, and raising his son, and taking him fondly to his bosom I believe I have been wrong, my love, said he, and hereafter I shall always think so, rather than think any thing amiss in my Harry. But tell me, my dear, and tell me sincerely ; you speak of your uncle as one of the richest and greatest men upon earth as a prince as an emperor enabled to give away fortunes and provinces at pleasure. And he is, my lord, cried Harry he is greater than any prince or emperor upon earth. To speak only of his tem- poral wealth or power the most inconsiderable part of his value tie can do, as I may say, Avhat he pleases in England. The ministry are at his beck they profess themselves his servants ; and even his majesty acknowledges himself deeply his debtor, and owes him, I daresay, half a million. And yet this is the man, exclaimed the earl (turning an eye of penitence on Mr. Meekly) this is the man, as I told you, my friend, on whom I looked down with such provok- ing contempt whom I treated with such unpardonable inso- lence and ignominy ! My lord then inquired concerning the personal adventures of our hero in London, the account of which would have been more entertaining, had not Harry suppressed through- 24:8 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. out his narration whatever he apprehended might tend to his own honour. As soon as the fosterers had taken their leave, my lord proposed to his remaining guests a walk in the gardens, and after a few turns they sat down in a rural arbour, that was interwoven all about with jessamine and honeysuckle. * Mr. Meekly, said the earl, I have often longed to hear the particulars of your life ; and how you come to live by faith, and not by sight, and to hold your conversation in heaven, as you do at this day. I can soon obey your lordship, answered Meekly ; for my story is very short and very simple, and no way adorned with uncommon incidents. My mother died a few hours after I was born. My father did not survive her two years ; and I fell to the care of my only kinsman an uncle by my father's side. My uncle was an old bachelor, and though he was of a cold temper and had no tenderness for any one, he yet spared no cost in my education. He sent me to Eton school, and from thence to Cambridge, where I remained till I took my degrees. I then went to London, bought a sword and sword-knot, and commenced fine gentleman. Though my head had been duly stored by my tutors in the rudiments of our religion, my heart had not yet felt any of its precepts, and I conceived that to go regularly to church, receive the sacrament, confess myself a miserable- sinner, and avoid gross vices, was the sum of Christianity. I therefore entered without scruple into all the fashionable pleasures and vanities of the age ; and I held that to pardon an affront would have been one of the deadly sins in a gen- tleman Christian. One day, at St. James's coffee-house, Colonel Standard and another gentleman engaged at backgammon for five hundred guineas ; and as the stake was so considerable, and THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 249 both parties celebrated for their skill in the game, we all crowded about them to see the issue. I happened to be next behind the colonel's chair, and others pressed behind me, eagerly bending and looking over my shoulders. At length he began to fret as the game was drawing to a close, and going against him. Pray, gentle- men, he would cry, don't bear upon me so ; for heaven's sake keep off you will make me lose the game ! Hereupon, I did my utmost to bear back from him, but the company pressed me forward in spite of all I could do ; till the colonel, giving an unhappily decisive cast, turned about in fury, and spat directly in my face. Indignation gave me sudden and unusual strength, and casting all off who had borne upon me, I instantly drew my sword, and ran the colonel through the body. The company cried out that all was fair, and opening a window for me, they m-ged me to escape. Accordingly I got off, rode post to Dover, and there embarked for France. The colonel, God be praised ! did not die of his wound. He lay under the hands of the surgeons for above seven months, then recovered, and went to join his regiment in Flanders. Of this my uncle sent me advice, telling me at the same time that I might return with safety. Yes, thought I, with safety to my life, but with death to my honour! I have taken revenge, indeed, but not satisfaction ; the colonel must be compelled to make me personal reparation for the affront which he dared put upon me. His recovery has again dashed the spittle into my face ; and I will pursue him through the world till it is wiped from the observation and remembrance of all men. With this deadly determination I went post from Paris to Flanders, and traced the colonel from place to place, till I found him in a village on the road to Amsterdam. 11*. 250 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. I believe, sir, said I bluntly, you may not remember me, for our acquaintance was sudden, and of very short duration. I am the man in whose face you spit publicly at St. James's coffee-house. Then, sir, said he, I am scarce yet recovered of the cause which you gave me to bear you always in mind ; but, pray, what may your commands be with me for the pre- sent ? I am come to demand a remedy at your bands for the wound which you gave my honour, and which otherwise must remain for ever incurable. Ah ! he cried, no man ever exacted so severe a satisfaction as you have already taken ; what, then, may be the nature of the further reparation that you are pleased to require ? Either to ask my pardon, or fight me within this hour. That is. very hard upon me, indeed, replied the colonel; the honour of my commission will not allow me to beg pardon of any man, at least in order to avoid a combat ; so, sir, if you insist upon it, I must obey your summons, though very reluctantly, I confess. Then, sir, said I, meet me in half an hour, with your pistols and sword, behind yonder little hill. The colonel was punctual to the appointment. We both grasped a pistol at the distance of twenty paces, and advancing step by step, cried Fire ! Fire ! Each seemed determined to make sure of his adversary, till, coming within arm's length, I fired directly in his face, but the ball passed through his hat, and only grazed the skin of his left temple. The colonel then took his pistol into his left hand, and reaching out his right to me, with a smile of great compla- cence I think, sir, said he, I may now ask your pardon with honour ; and to convince you that I did not come to engage you in malice, be pleased to examine my arms, you will not find so much as'a grain of powder in the one or the other. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 251 Ah, colonel! I then exclaimed, I acknowledge you my conqueror both in honour and humanity. Had I been so unhappy as to kill you, and find your arms unloaded, I should certainly have done you justice by shooting myself through the head. But why did I pursue you from king- dom to kingdom ? why was I unappeased by all the blood that I shed ? Was it from any malignity of heart towards you ? by no means. But while I lamented the misery I had already occasioned you, I was impelled to finish your destruc- tion by a barbarian world, or rather, by the bloody pre- scribers of custom, whose censure I dreaded worse than death, or even futurity. Courage, colonel, incites soldiers to fight for their country ; but it is cowardice alone that drives duellists together. For three affectionate days I remained with my late enemy, but now warm friend. He then was obliged to return to quarters ; and we parted with a regret much exceeding the hostility with which we had met. On the departure of the colonel I went to Amsterdam, from whence I drew upon my uncle to the amount of 700. For I resolved, before my return, to take a tour through the seven provinces, though I had gone for a very different purpose. During nine months I resided, or journeyed from place to place, among that people. Holland is, unquestionably, the wealthiest, the busiest, and most populous state upon earth. Not a hand is unemployed, not a foot of ground un- occupied ; and, for a long time, I ascribed their extraordinary prosperity to an induetry and ingenuity peculiar to them alone. But, on further observation, I discovered the true source as well of their industry as their opulence, and am persuaded that any nation bordering on the ocean might derive the like prosperity from the same spring. Not, my lord, that I think opulence a real benefit to a 252 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. people, for " man's life consisteth not in the abundance of his possessions." But I look upon industry, the natural parent of opulence, to be as well a blessing as a duty to man, from the time that he was appointed to " earn his bread by the sweat of his brow." Many mental virtues, also, as well as temporal benefits, follow in the train of industry ; it makes men healthful, brave, honest, social, and pacific. He who labours hard to acquire a property, will struggle hard to pre- serve it, and exercise will make him active, robust, and able for the purpose. As the man of industry hath, in himself, a living fund of competence for his own occasions, he will be the less tempted to plunder or prey upon others ; and the poignant sense and apprehension of being deprived of a pro- perty so justly acquired, will give him the nicer and stronger sense of such an injui-y to others. Industry further incites to commerce and good neighbourhood, in order to dispose of mutual redundancies for the supply of mutual wants. And, lastly, it delighteth in peace, that its time and its labours may not be interrupted, nor the fruits thereof en- dangered, by rapine and invasion ; and all this may be said of nations as well as of men. Your observations, said the earl, are perfectly just ; the works of industry are, unquestionably, the works of peace, and tend to open the avenues wherein the virtues may walk. But how to incite men or nations to industry, that is the ques- tion. The finer arts, we see, may be encouraged and pro- moted by national bounties, as now in France ; but there is no inciting the bulk of the people to industry in like man- ner; that would be, as though the public should grant a bounty to itself. Nations certainly differ from nations as man differs from man ; some are by nature industrious and ingenious, such as China and Holland it is their propensity, their talent ; while others, like Ireland, are naturally lazy and listless, and therefore remain in well-merited indigence. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 253 You have greatly mistaken this point indeed, my lord. China and Holland are industrious and ingenious, because, whether it were through good hap or good policy, they hit upon the only method whereby industry and ingenuity could be duly promoted. "Whereas Great Britain and Ireland are totally ignorant of the said method to this day, though both of them highly capable of having it put in execution. You surprise me, Mr. Meekly, said the earl ; a method to make men ingenious a method to make them industrious! how can that be ? Experience has proved it to be even so, my lord; for where a method may be found for encouraging and promot- ing ingenuity and industry, that method will, infallibly, make people become both ingenious and industrious. No man will work, my lord, without some hire, or wages, or return for his labour ; neither will any who are in want refuse to work, when assured of a due reward for so doing. When the good householder walked out to the market- place, and found labourers loitering there when it was now toward evening, he asked them, " Why stand ye here all the day idle ?" And when they answered, " Because no man hath hired or given us employment," he took this for a suf- ficient apology ; he had compassion upon them, and he sup- plied them with the divinest of all kinds of charity, the means of earning their own bread. Now, throughout China and Holland, no person is in want, because all are hired, all employed, the young and the old, the lame and the blind ; and all find a ready sale, without anxiety or loss of time, without travel or delay, for products of their industry. Throughout Great Britain, on the con- trary, nineteen in twenty are in real want ; and in Ireland, as I am told, forty-nine in fifty are nearly in a state of beggary, merely for want of being employed for want of encourage- ment to labour. 254: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. Permit me, then, to explain to your lordship, how some men and some nations came to be encouraged to industry, and others to be discouraged or in a manner prohibited from it. Different men are endowed with different talents and powers, insufficient in many respects, though superfluous in others, to their own occasions. Different countries are also endowed with different productions, superfluous hi many res- pects to the natives, though necessary or desirable for the well-being of foreigners. Now, these alternate qualities of deficience and abundance, at once invite and impel all men, and all countries, to claim, and to impart that reciprocal assistance which is denomi- nated commerce. Each gives what he can spare, each receives what he wants; the exchange is to the mutual advantage of all parties. And, could a method be found out for encouraging manufacturers to persevere in their industry, and improve in their arts, by a ready conveyance and sale of all their redundancies, neither want nor superfluity could find place upon earth. All this is quite clear and self-evident, Mr. Meekly ; but how to procure this ready sale is the question. Your lordship must allow that the way to procure it would be to bring barterers and commuters, buyers and sellers, ah 1 who mutually want and mutually abound, together. For this is the end and purpose of every market upon earth. Now, in Great Britain and Ireland, and in all continents or inland countries, the several deserts, mountains, marshes, and other obstacles, with the difficulty, danger, and toil of travel, and the great expense of land carriage, have utterly precluded all commerce and communication to any considera- ble extent. Insomuch that it would be easier and cheaper to convey a commodity of any burden to either of the Indies, than from many parts of Great Britain and Ireland to others, by land. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 255 While God appears to separate the several nations of the earth from each other, by the intervention of seas, lakes, and rivers, he hath actually and intimately united them thereby. Water serves to the art and navigation of man, as air serves to the wings of the feathered species. It is the easy and speedy medium, the ready conduit and conveyance, whereby all redundancies are carried, and all wants supplied. It makes man, as it were, a denizen of every country on the globe. It shortens every distance, and ties the remotest regions together. It carries and communicates the know- ledge, the virtues, manufactures, and arts of each climate to all. It gives new springs and motives to industry, action, and invention. It gives a general importance to the meanest manufacturer. It gives to each man an interest in whatever is done upon earth, the productions of every region, and the tribute of every nation. Now, China and Holland are the only countries upon earth who have considerably availed themselves of this capital benefit of water carriage, or water commerce ; and therefore they are, incomparably, the most populous and most prosper- ous of all countries in the world. China, as your lordship knows, extends from under the Tropic of Cancer to about thirteen hundred miles north, and thereby contains within itself all the variety of climate, and degrees of heat and cold, that are requisite for the sundry productions upon earth. Inspired by some forecast or saga- city, not imparted to the rest of mankind, they cut and quar- tered this vast continent by as many navigable canals as answer to the ducts and veins in the human body for the dis- pensation of life and nourishment. These canals serve as links or chords to the grand community of the Chinese ; they bind region to region, house to house, and man to man, and hold the whole as one system or family together. This great 256 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. kingdom is thereby become as one city, and the canals as so many streets, through which plenty is diffused by com- merce to every part.. If any art or useful invention com- mences or receives improvement in any place, it is immedi- ately conveyed to every place for imitation and promotion. No portion of this wide continent lies waste or uncultivated, because the canals are as so many markets brought to every man's door, and by the perpetual demand of whatever is saleable, incite the natives to exert themselves in providing all the redundancies they possibly can, that they may derive wealth to themselves by supplying the respective wants of others. Thus, throughout the expanded dominion of China, nothing is wasted, nothing lost, nothing superfluous, nothing wanting. All are employed, active, industrious, ingenious, and thriving. Their canals are intimately to them what seas are diffusely to the rest of the globe. They are thereby become as a world within themselves, sufficient to their own happiness and occasions. They never change their manners or policy. They never enterprise war against others. And China is affirmed at this day to contain one hundred and twenty millions of prospering inhabitants. The Dutch also, about a hundred and forty years ago, followed the example of the Chinese. Their country is now become as one great and extended metropolis to the uni- verse ; and through their canals, as through paved and spa- cious high-ways, the world resorts with all its wealth. So encouraged and so incited, neither the lame, nor the blind nor the maimed, sit unemployed. Every child is taught its trade from the moment it can apply its little hands to a regular motion, and they bring* to the parents vast sums, in lieu of an infinite variety of toys and trifles that are dispersed among the idle of the other children of men. For, barterers and commuters, buyers and sellers, manufacturers and mer- chants, like Pyramus and Thisbe, want nothing but the THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 257 removal of envious obstacles to meet and to multiply a simi- lar progeny. From what has been premised, my lord, it is most evident that industry is the parent of the wealth of this world. That no man's industry is sufficient to his own occasions. That the mutual assistance denominated commerce is, there- fore, necessary to the well-being of all people. That the reciprocal advantage of this commerce consists in supplying mutual wants with mutual redundancies. That this com- merce, however, cannot be carried on without a medium for the conveyance of such supplies. That such a medium by land, even where it is practicable, is tedious, toilsome, expensive, extremely discouraging, and cannot be pushed to any considerable extent or effect. That God, however, hath opened for the purpose an easy, speedy, and universal medium of seas, lakes, and rivers, part of which he hath left unnavigable, that man might finish by art what nature had prepared, and contribute in some degree to his own advan- tages. That, accordingly, China and Holland (and France of late) have pursued the path so divinely appointed, and that power, wealth, and prosperity have flowed in upon them, in proportion as they have opened the medium of water-carriage for their reception. And that causes which have produced their concomitant effects, without variation, from the earliest ages to the present period, must be pre- sumed to produce the like effects through all countries and ages to the end of time. I protest, Mr. Meekly, exclaimed the earl, you have pushed this matter into mathematical demonstration. What a happy what a glorious prospect now opens to my view ! How easily, how speedily, how profitably, might this method be put in execution throughout the earth ! There is no defi- ciency of rivers or collateral streams for the purpose. The sinking into the earth would give vent to new springs, and 258 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. extract plenty of water in all places for an inland navigation ; and half the number of hands that perish through war and want, might be peacefully and plentifully employed in accomplishing this weal of mankind. Famine and depre- dation would then cease. Nation would no longer rise up against nation, nor man against man. The earth, by culture, would soon become capable of sustaining tenfold the number of its present inhabitants. We should no more be tempted to push each other from existence. We should find our- selves mutually interested in preserving and multiplying the lives of all from whose labours we were to derive such advan- tages. All would be plenty, all peace and benevolence throughout the globe. The number of inhabitants, instead of being a burden, would then become the riches of every climate. All hands would be set to work, when thus assured of a purchaser for every effect of labour. The buzz of wheels, reels, and looms ; the sound of hammers, files, and forges ; with the shouts of vintage and the songs of harvest, would be heard in all lands ! I am quite astonished that a work, so full of benefit and blessing to the universe of man, is not already commenced, advanced, and completed. How comes this to pass, Mr. Meekly ? have you yet men- tioned this matter to any of our great ones ? I have, my lord, to several. They confessed themselves convinced of the utility of the scheme ; and, could each of them be assured of engrossing to himself the most consider- able part of the profits that would thereby accrue to the public, the work would instantly be begun, and would shortly be perfected. For, such is the nature of uuregene- rate man, that he grudges to others any portion of those goods which he so eagerly craves and grapples after for himself. He would hedge in the air, and make a property of the light. In proportion as he sees his neighbours in com- parative want, he exults in the accumulation of imaginary THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 259 wealth. But should he deem them, in a measure, more prosperous than himself, he sighs at his inmost soul, and grows wretched and repining. I protest, cried the earl, were I young, I would to-morrow morning, at my own cost, set about this great work of . national, or rather of universal, beneficence. But my Harry here has youth enough, with an abundance of benevolence also for the purpose ; and I recommend it to him as the greatest of charities, a charity to Great Britain, a charity to mankind. What would you think, my lord, said Harry, of my expending your whole drawer of gold upon this busi- ness ? Great as it is, it would be but a small matter towards the value of purchasing peace upon earth, and the 'sons of peace upon earth will be likeliest to be the sons of love in heaven. So that we cannot lay out our money to better ad- vantage in any purchase for the benefit of the brothers of our own frailty. Alas, my love ! rejoined Mr. Meekly, though you w r ere master of half the wealth of the people of England, and were willing to employ the whole for their emolument in this way, the people themselves would oppose you in every step you should take. Some would be too proud to accept a benefit from you. Others would tell you that no man should dare to violate their property with either spade or pickaxe ; and others would indict you even for treading on their grounds. Nothing less than the act of the whole legis- lature, to whom tfhe people have committed their confluent powers, can avail for an undertaking of such national .mport. Then, my dear Mr. Meekly, be pleased to let me have in writing what you have already set forth on this head ; and if I live to come to the lower house of parliament, I will bend all my powers to this capital charity. And, if no other oratory will avail for the purpose, I will bribe the members 260 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. with a hundred thousand pounds, and corrupt them, if pos- sible, into one act of patriotism.* But, Mr. Meekly, I inter- rupt you. Pray, proceed in your narrative. On my return to Amsterdam, I grew affected one evening in a manner I had never before experienced. I did not feel myself any way sick or in pain, and yet I wished to exchange my sensations for any other species of malady. I was wholly pervaded by a gloomy despondence. I looked abroad for comfort, but it was nowhere to be found ; every object gave disgust to iny discontented imagination. I secretly inquired of my soul, if riches, honours, dignities, if the empire of the world would restore her to joy ? but she turned from them, and said All these things are strangers and aliens to my peace. Alas ! said I, tell me then where your peace may be found ? I know not, she replied ; but I feel that I am wretched. For three days I continued under this oppression of spirit ; and on the third night an increasing horror of deep and heavy darkness fell upon me. All hope died within me, and misery seemed to open a gulf of ever deepening destruction in my soul. I lay all night bathed in drops of unutterable anguish. I wished and struggled to arise and change my situa- tion ; but I felt that my mind was its own place, and its own hell, from whence there was no removal, no possible escape. * It is observable that, within ten years subsequent to the period of the above promise, the inland navigation of England commenced. Since which time, the river Isis has been made navigable from Oxford to Crick- lade in Wiltshire, and to Abington in Berkshire. The river Avon in War- wickshire, from Stratford to the Severn. The Avon from Bath to Bristol. The Hedway, from Maidstone in Kent to Tunbridge. The Lug in Here- fordshire, to the Wey. The Lea, from Ware to the Thames. The river Kennet in Berkshire, to the Thames at Reading, containing twenty locks in seventeen miles. The river Are in Yorkshire, containing sixteen locks, whose tolls are now valued at about 10,000 yearly. Beside the Stroud, the Nen, and the Wey, with many others now in hand. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 261 I now concluded that, somehow, I must have sinned beyond the measure of all sinners, since my damnation was deeper than that of any other. I therefore turned towards God and wished to repent ; but, as I did not feel conviction for the sins of which I accused myself, no place for repent- ance was found in my soul. Tremendous author ! I cried, I find that thou canst sink and slay at pleasure ; but canst thou not also raise up and make alive ? If all things have their existence in thee, O God ! is it not near and easy unto thee to impart to us some sensation of thine own existence also ? some sensation of thine own peace, the sense that it is thou alone who canst be our sustainer ? Save me, Jesus, save me from the hell of mine own nature ! Save me, thou Son of David ! O save me from myself ! While I thus prayed in an agony, my whole frame was suddenly overpowered, and sunk, as I suppose, into a state of insensibility, till the following day was far advanced. At length I perceived that I still existed. I dreamed that I found myself in a deep and noisome dungeon, without a single ray that might even suffice to shew me the horrors of my situation. I attempted to rise and grope about, but perceived that I was tied and fastened down to earth by a number and variety of bands and fetters. At length a sudden light appeared, and diffused itself throughout the darkness of my mansion ; when, looking up, I observed that the keeper of my prison had entered, the doors being yet locked. His head, as I thought, was bound about with a tiara, from whence the glory arose that shone around me. In the coronet, instead of gems, were inserted a number of thorns, whose points streamed with incessant and insufferable brightness ; and on the golden circlet was engraved in all languages, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. 262 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. Immediately my shackles loosened and fell away of them- selves, and I wished to cast my whole existence under the feet of my Lord, but was so overcome with ecstasy that I could not rise ; when, looking upon me with a smile of inef- fable graciousness, he approached and took me by the hand, and at the contact I sprung up a great height in my bed, and awoke to sensations of indescribable blessedness. You are come, then, my Lord, my salvation ! you are come, my Master ! I cried ; and I will cling inseparably to you. Never, O never more will I suffer you to depart ! Ah, 1 1 have felt, severely felt, what it is to be withou^you ! for in your absence, though but for a moment, lies the essence of hell and misery ; but in your presence, my be- loved, in your presence is peace unspeakable, and joy for evermore ! From that day my nature became, as it were, wholly inverted. All the honours and worldly respects for which I formerly risked my life, were now my aversion ; and I turned from carnal indulgence and sensuality with loathing. Nothing could now affront, nothing could now offend me. As I totally despised myself, so I wished, after the process of my divine Master, to be despised and rejected of men. This made ah 1 others, the very meanest of human creatures, respectable unto me. Even in reprobates methought I dis- cerned some unerased traces of the image and superscrip- tion of my God, and I bowed down before it. If any attempted to injure or defraud me of my property, I yielded it without variance, and thereby I found myself cordially enriched. I grew weary of my own will and of my own liberty, and I earnestly prayed my Lord that he would rid me of them, and be instead thereof a controlling principle within me, ever influencing and directing me according to his own plea-< sure. Turn me, Jesus, Master ! O turn me ! I cried, from TI1E FOOL OF QUALITY. 263 all the evil propensities of my own evil nature ; though thou shouldst turn me, as thou didst Sennacherib, with thy ruling rein on my neck, thy bridle in my mouth, and thy hook in my nose ! Take my heart and affections captive, and into thine own divine guidance ! Compel me into all the ways and all the works of thy commandments, till thy yoke shall become easy, and thy burden light and delightsome ; till I shall move, as down a descent, wherever thy goodness would guide me ; till I shall feelingly find and know that all thy ways are ways of pleasantness, and all thy paths the paths of peace ! This, my lord, may look somewhat like boasting ; but it boasteth of nought excepting Christ crucified, or rather arisen in me, whereby all worldly matters are crucified unto me. "Within about a fortnight after my conversion, I received a letter from a friend in London, informing me that my old uncle had secretly married a young creature who was lately delivered of a son ; that he now openly acknowledged her for his wife ; and that this, as he feared, did not bode me any good. At another time these tidings would have greatly alarmed me ; but I was now equally resigned and indifferent to all events. In a few days after, as I was stepping out of my lodgings, I was arrested, in the name and at the suit of my uncle, for 700, the precise sum for which I had drawn upon him about nine months before. All the consequences of this caption immediately occurred to me. I perceived that my uncle intended to deprive me of my patrimony in favour of his new family ; and, as I had no means for opposing his machinations save what lay in his own hands, I concluded that a jail was to be my portion for life. Wherefore I lifted up my heart, and said within myself To prison and to death 264 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. give me cheerfully to follow thee, O thou who in death art the life and resurrection ! My spirit had no sooner uttered this short ejaculation, than I felt such a weight of peace descending upon me, that my heart leaped within me at the prospect of suffering, and I would not have exchanged my prison for a throne. While I quietly walked with the officers towards the place of my durance, they came to a great tavern, where they entered, and proposed to regale themselves at my expense. Meantime a Dutch merchant, of great eminence, happened to be with his lady in the principal room, and, hearing a bustle in the house, he inquired the cause, and sent for the chief bailiff. Soon after, I was conducted into their presence. They both rose as I entered, and the gentleman approaching took me familiarly by the hand, and said in Dutch Mr. Meekly, I hear you are in distress, and that is sufficient to recom mend you to my services ; but your appearance exacts something more from my inclinations. Pray, let me know wherein and how far it may be requisite for you to com- mand me ? I muttered somewhat, as I suppose, inarticulately towards an answer ; for I protest, my lord, I was so struck, so awed, so confounded by his presence, that I was lost for the time to the consideration of my own affairs. Meanwhile he placed me at table, just opposite to the heavenly vision of his bride, and then went and resumed his seat beside her ; while I, gazing in silence and utmost wonder, recollected those lines of Milton, where, speaking of Adam and Eve, he calls them " The loveliest pair That ever since in love's embraces met : Adam, the goodliest man of men since born His sons ; the fairest of her daughters, Eve." THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 265 The gentleman perceived my astonishment, and, graciously smiling, again asked me what sum was requisite to extricate me from my present difficulty ? Ah, sir i said I, it is a sum that far exceeds all human bounty ; and, indeed, I would not accept the obligation from any man unless I were assured of being shortly in a capacity to reimburse him, of which I see no likelihood, I think no possibility. Here I told him, in a few words, how my father had left me an infant at the disposal of my uncle, who had now put me under arrest for 700, which, some time since, he had freely remitted to me, as in my own right. I see, said the gentleman, your uncle is a villain, and means, by casting you into prison in a strange and distant place, to deprive you of the power of bringing him to account. But he must be detected; it is a justice which you owe to the public as well as yourself. And as the amount of the pretended debt is not sufficient for that pur- pose, here is an order on the bank in town for double the sum. For this you must give me your note of hand. Be pleased to reimbm-se me when it is your convenience. If that should never happen, be under no concern ; for I hold myself already repaid with usury, in the opportunity of serv- ing an injured and a worthy man. O sir! I cried; I cannot, indeed I cannot I will not accept it on any account. I am patient, nay, I am pleased with the lot that is appointed me. Shall I, in an instant, break the yoke, and cast the burden w r hich my gracious Master but this instant has laid upon me ? No, sir ! I sub- mit myself to it with thankfulness ; I take this cross to my bosom, and press it to my heart. O Meekly ! said he, you are a very misdeeming Christian, if you think yourself entitled either to assume or retain your proper crosses at will. There is too much of self-righteous- ness in such a zeal, Meekly. Humility would rather bid the VOL. II. 12 266 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. will of our Master to be done ; and he offers you enfranchise- ment by my hand. Do, my dear sir, cried the angel beside him do let me petition, let me persuade you to accept this little instance of our good- will to so good a creature. Though my lord here has not been able to prevail, a lady has superior claims, and I must not be refused. Quite sunk, quite overwhelmed, I dropped involuntarily on my knees before them. Blessed pair ! I exclaimed, blessed and beauteous beyond expression ; if angels are like you, what happiness must be in heaven ! I could no more, my words were choked by my rising emotions. My benefactor then rose, and, coming tenderly towards me, he took me warmly in his arms. Mr. Meekly, says he, do not oppress me, I pray you, by this excess of acknowledg- ment. I am but a worthless instrument in the hands of your beloved ; for from him, and him alone, is every good gift, and even the will of the giver. O Mr. Meekly ! added the lady, her eyes glittering through water, we thank you, we cordially thank you, Mr. Meekly; you have occasioned us much pleasure this day, I assure you ; and the means of our happiness should be delightful in our eyes. My patron then rung a bell, and ordered his principal gentleman into his presence ; when, putting the order into his hand Here, says he, take this, with the bailiff, directly to the bank; there pay him his demand of 700 and fees; and bring me a hundred pounds in cash, and the remainder in bills on London. Then, calling for pen and ink, he drew the following short note "I owe you fourteen hundred pounds ;" to which I signed " Charles Meekly." On the return of the messenger, I was put in possession of the cash and bills, and a dinner of little elegances was served up. After a short repast, the decanters and glasses being placed, and the attendants dismissed, my two patrons gave THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 267 a loose to social joy, and invited me to be a partaker in their festivity. Never was I, nor ever shall I again, be witness to such flights of fancy, such a spontaneous fluency of heart- springing glee. With what pleasure did erudition cast off its formal garb ; how delightfully did wisdom assume the semblance, and at times the very phrase, of childhood! They laughed, they rallied me, themselves, and the world. Their merriment was as the breaking forth and exuberance of overflowing innocence and virtue. Conceive to yourself, my lord, a large room surrounded with benches, whereon are seated the principal philosophers, literati, lawyers, statesmen, chief captains, and chief conquerors in all ages ; then think you behold two sportively observant children in the midst, looking and laughing at the insignificance of the several sages; taking off and holding up the solemnity and self- importance of each profession in caricature, and setting the whole world, with all its wisdom, its toils and boasted acquirements, its solicitudes, applications, and achievements, at nought. The gentleman indeed pretended and only pretended to defend the sophists, the valiant, and the renowned of his sex, but he evidently exulted in his own defeat ; while the lady, with a drollery amazingly voluble, ran through the schools of philosophy, the systems of human policy, and histories of heroism, unpluming the crested, bringing the lofty low, and depreciating and reducing all magnitude to miniature. And all this she did with an archness of such pleasant meaning with such looks, eyes, and attitudes of bewitching transition, as would have infused fascination into old age and ugliness; what then must it have done when accompanied by a beauty that scarce ever was equalled, that could not be exceeded? Did the Sarah of the patriarch Abraham resemble her, I wonder not that nations should have been enamoured of her at the age of fourscore. 268 . THE FOOL OF QUALITY. At length the enraptured husband, no longer able to con- tain, bent towards her with looks of soul-darting delight, and restraining his arras that would have crushed her to his bosom O my Louisa! he cried, you are too much, too pearly, too precious a treasure for me ! But, giving him a sweetly petulant pat on the cheek. Away you rogue ! she cried, I'll none of your mockeries ! What can expression add further to this divinely pre-emi- nent of human creatures ? Whatever was her present glance, aspect or posture, you would have wished to fix her in it, that you might gaze and admire for ever ; but when she varied the enchantment of her action and attitude, you forgot the former attractions, and she became, as it were, a newness of ever-rising delight ! Alas, how transient, how momentary, was the bliss I then enjoyed! A chariot and six pied horses drove up to the door, attended by a retinue of ten or twelve men, all armed, gallantly mounted, and in rich apparel. My dear Meekly, mournfully said my benefactor, I am sorry that we are destined to different departments. I lodge to-night at a villa belonging to one of my correspondents, and to-morrow we set out to visit some of the German courts. Fare, fare-you-w r ell, Meekly, for a short season at least ! I would have cast myself at his feet. It was an emotion, a propensity, which I could not resist ; but he prevented me, by kissing and casting his arms affectionately about me. The lady then turned to me, and with a smile of heart-captivating graciousness God be with you ! God be with you, my good Mr. Meekly ! she cried ; perhaps we may meet ere long in your own England. I answered not ; but, bending on one knee, I caught her hand, pressed it fervently to my lips, and permittted her to depart. Alas, they did depart ! I saw them for the last time. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 269 They mounted their carriage, and, being seated, they bent forward, and bowing to me with a fixed regard, off they drove, and tore away with them, as I thought, the best part of my soul. I followed them with straining eyes. When out of sight methought I held them still in view, and I blessed and kissed, in imagination, the very ground over which they went. At length I awoke from my delirium, and with slow and heavy steps turned back into the house. I had not yet, through shame, so much as inquired the name of my benefactor. I therefore called to my host, in order to inform myself of all that I could learn concerning him ; as also to make out a bill for it had not been called for and I pleased myself with the thought of discharging a reckoning that my friends had forgotten. When I ques- tioned my host on this head, he put his hands to his sides, and broke into a violent fit of laughter No, no ! master, said he, there's nothing for any one to pay in this house, I assure you. Mynheer never troubles himself about those matters ; his major-domo pays all ; ay, and for many a guest too that happens to be in the same inn with his master. Why, pray, said I, is he a lord ? A lord ? quotha ; not so little as that comes to neither. No, sir ; he is a prince the very prince of our merchants ; and our merchants are princes above all lords. And, pray, how do they style or call him ? He has many names and titles. When our tra- ders speak of him, they call him Mynheer Van Glunthnog ; but others style him my lord of merchants, and others my lord the brother-man, and my lord the friend of the poor. The remainder of my story is very short, and still more insignificant. I soon set out for England, in order to file a bill against my uncle, and compel him to discover what patrimony my father had left me. But God was pleased, in the mean space, to cut off all debate ; his wife and child had 270 THE FOOI OF QUALITY. died of an epidemic distemper, and he did not survive them above a fortnight. lie left me a penitential letter, with a small will enclosed, whereby I became entitled to three hundred a year in right of my father, and an additional four hundred in right of my uncle, with a sum of near three thousand pounds in ready money. If I know my own heart, the only cause of rejoicing that I felt on that occasion was, that it put it in my power to dis- charge my pecuniary obligations to my late generous pre- server. I immediately wrote, and transmitted bills to Hol- land for the purpose ; but the bills were returned, and I could hear no tidings concerning the residence of my patron. I then put out his 1400 on the best securities that I could procure. It is now close upon five-and-thirty years since I saw him ; and in that time the principal, with interest upon interest, yearly turned into capital, has amounted to nearly 5000, one penny of which I never touch, but hold the whole as sacred. Meantime, it has cost me hundreds upon hundreds in cor- respondences, advertisements, and even in special messengers to several parts of Europe, to discover where this greatest, this most eminent of men could have concealed himself; but, alas ! my search proved as fruitless as that of the miser in hunting after the pearl of mighty price. During those five-and-thirty years, the image of the per- sons of those my two gracious patrons never left my memory were ever at my heart. Ah ! I would say to myself, they are dead they are dead ; or rapt, perhaps, like Elijah, alive into heaven ; flesh and blood refined as theirs might easily pass from its little impurities, through the fire of the love of God to the place of its bliss. And again, it was my daily and ardent petition that, if their mortal was not swallowed up of immortality, I might once set my eyes upon them before I died. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 271 Here Mr. Meekly ended. I thank you, ray dear friend, said the earl, for your history ; it has entertained me most pleasingly, and I have also been highly edified by some pas- sages in it. But, with respect to the glimpse that you had of your two wonderful friends, I think it must have been a vision, or merely a matter of imagination ; for I never saw in nature, nor read in fiction, of any thing comparable to the excellences that you have described in that exalted pair. If it was a vision, my lord, it must have been one of blessed angels indeed ; but I hope you will allow that the benefits which they conferred were no way visionary. O Mr. Meekly ! said Harry, w r ith a sigh, the picture that you have drawn of this dear lady has almost given me a distaste to all the rest of her sex. Ah ! might I meet hereafter some daughter some descendant some distant likeness of her how happy should I think myself! May heaven succeed your ominous wish, my dearest child ! cried Meekly. It is just, perhaps prophetic, that it should be so. For never did I see so perfect a resemblance between any two creatures, as between the consort of that bewitching woman and yourself it struck me the other night the moment you entered the room ; and I thought that I beheld my very benefactor newly arisen, like a young phoenix, from the ashes of old age. Near a fortnight now elapsed without any news or notice from Mr. Clinton, or from the messenger who was sent des- patch for him. Harry daily advanced in the favour and familiarity of his father ; and Mr. Meekly continued with them in a most pleasing society. On a fine morning, as they were walking together towards the village This is the first time, my Harry, said the earl with a sigh, that I have ventured to turn my face this way since the death of my wife, and the interment of your dear brother. O my lord ! cried Harry, I would gladly exchange 2Y2 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. who \^A T my lot in life with the meanest of yonder cottagers, earns his daily bread by the labour of his hands, provided I might thereby restore them both to your bosom. Not so, not so, my son ! fervently replied the earl ; I would not lose my Harry, though I were thereby to resuscitate all that are dead in England. I have no cause, no manner of right to complain ; I am still happy wonderfully happy too happy in the possession of such a child ! Just then a great shouting and uproar was heard in the village. The huge mastiff belonging to Peregrine Pelt, the tanner, had run mad, and came foaming up the road, pursued by thirty of the townsmen, armed with staves, spits, and pitchforks. The dog rushed on at such a rate that there was no possibility for our company to escape him ; and Harry, observing that he made directly towards his father, threw himself full in his way. Instantly the envenomed monster sprung up and cast himself open mouth upon our hero ; but Harry, with a wonderful presence of mind, having wrapped his left arm in the skirt of his coat, dashed it into the froth- ing jaws of the terrible animal ; when, giving a trip at the same time to his hinder legs, he threw him flat on the ground, and springing up into the air, he descended upon him with all the force of his heels, and dashed his bowels to pieces ; whereupon the creature uttered a faint howl, sprawled a while, and expired. The earl and Mr. Meekly stood yet a while, pale, aston- ished, and unassured ; and my lord, looking about in a panic, cried Where is the dog ? what's become of the mad dog ? In the mean time the villagers came on in full pursuit, crying out The mad dog ! the mad dog ! take care of the mad dog! But when they all arrived, and beheld their huge enemy looking formidable even in death, never was amaze- ment equal to theirs. They stared at the earl, Meekly, and Harry, in turns, and seeing no weapon in any of their hands THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 273 God ! cried Goodman Demster, God has been wonderfully gracious in your deliverance, my lord ; for nothing less than a thunderbolt could so suddenly have stricken this monster dead. I protest, said the earl, I was so much alarmed that I know not how it happened; I remember nothing further than that my dear child here thrust himself between his father and danger. But I beheld, said Meekly, when with one stroke of his arm he dashed the creature to the ground, and then instantly crushed him to death with his feet. Not I, Mr. Meekly, modestly replied Harry; God gave me strength for the season hi defence of my father. But are you not bit are you not hurt, my child ? cried the earl, coming up tremblingly to his son. Not touched indeed, my lord. Glory for that in the highest ! exultingly cried the earl. I knew, exclaimed Tom Truck, with a shout and look of triumph, I knew it could be no other but my brave and noble young master who did the feat. On my life, cried Farmer Felster, he is able with his naked arm, like another young David, to save his lambs from the jaws of the lion and the paws of the bear. Though these praises served only to put our hero to con- fusion, they went trickling, like balm of Gilead, to the heart of his father. Pelt, said the earl, let it be your task to flay and tan me the hide of your own dog. I will have his skin stuffed with incense, and his nails of solid gold ; and he shall hang up in my hall from generation to gen- eration, to commemorate the piety and prowess of my son ! Mean while, my good friends, I invite you all, with your families, kinsfolk, and neighbours, to come and feast with me this day. Sorrow hath endured her night ; but joy cometh with my child, and ariseth on us as a new morning ! In the afternoon all the townsfolk and neighbours, with 12* 274: THE FOOL OF QUALITY. their wives and children, convened to the great house, hav- ing their cattle and themselves heavy laden with fagots for a magnificent illumination. The whole court was spread with tables, and the tables with victuals and liquors ; besides two hogsheads of October that stood apart. The earl, in the joy of his own escape, and the recent prowess of his young hero, went forth with a cheerful countenance, and graciously welcomed all his guests ; whereat they wished health and long life to his lordship and their young lord, and giving a joint huzza, sat down to their ban- quet. From whence, after a night far spent in carousal, their great fire being out, and their great hogsheads exhausted, they peacefully helped each other to their respective homes ; regretting, however, that they had not been honoured with the presence of their young master among them ; for Harry had besought his father to dispense with him yet a while from partaking in any part or scene of festivity, especially when appointed in his own honour ; and Mr. Meekly highly approved and applauded his motion. On the eve of the following day, Mr. Meekly rode abroad on a charitable visit to a dying man in the neighbourhood ; and my lord was fondly toying and patting the cheek of his darling, as they stood at the hall door, when Harry spied a mourning coach turning up the lower end of the great avenue, and instantly cried out There's my uncle ! my lord ; my uncle 1 my dearest uncle ! and off he shot like lightning. The coach drove but slowly; Harry was up with it in a twinkling, and, vaulting in at the window, was in an instant in the bosom of his best friend and patron. In the mean time the earl had retired into the house in great agitation. He feared and was jealous of the manner in which his brother would meet him ; and this gave him equal doubt and hesitation respecting the manner in which he ought to receive his brother. Mr, Clinton, on the other THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 275 hand, was not wholly without some similar emotions ; so that, when Harry introduced his uncle into the parlour, no two noble personages could salute each other with a more distant respect. The earl, however, on casting a glance upon the face of his brother, felt a tide of returning affection, and lifting up his hands and eyes, exclaimed It is he ! it is he ! my Harry ! my Harry Clinton ! my dear, my long lost, my long sought brother! then hastened forward in a gush of passion, and caught him in his eager arms ; when Mr. Clinton, alternately folding the earl to his bosom, cried I am content, O my God ! give me now to depart in peace, since at last I find and feel that I have indeed a brother ! Our hero, observing the violence of their emotion, inter- posed with a gentle care, and supporting them to seats placed them tenderly by each other. For a while they both sat silent, with a handkerchief at their eyes, till the earl turned, and plaintively said You do not forgive me, Harry Clinton ! you never will, you never can forgive me, my brother ! Whereupon Mr. Clinton caught up the earl's hand to his lips, and, pressing it with a fervent respect, cried my brother and my lord ! my brother and my lord ! O then, said the earl, you do forgive me, I find ; but never can I, never will I forgive myself! My faults towards you, my noblest brother, for these many long years, have been ever before me ; my neglects, my pride and insolence, my contemptuous treatment of one so highly my superior of my Harry, the only boast and glory of our house ! Mean while our hero stood aloof, with his head averted, weeping and sobbing with evident agitation, till Mr. Clinton cried No more, my brother ! no more, I beseech you ! It is already too much ; I cannot bear my present excess of grateful affection for you ; it struggles to rush forth, but 276 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. utterance is not given. Beside, we shall break the heart of our dear child there ; his nature is too tender to support such a scene as this. Harry then smilingly turned his face towards his parents, ah 1 shining through tears, as the sun in a shower ; and ad- vancing, and kneeling before them as they sat, he took the hands of each alternately, and pressed them in silence to his lips. In about an hour after, while their affections were still at the highest, but their spirits somewhat composed, Mr. Meekly returned. The earl immediately rose, and, advancing, took him by the hand with a cordial familiarity. Mr. Meekly, says he, I shall now have the pleasure of introducing you to that inestimable brother, of whom you have heard me speak so often. Brother, this is Mr. Meekly, my best and worthiest friend ! Mr. Clinton rose and advanced ; and Meekly approached with an abased reverence, not venturing to look up, but saluted him as he would have saluted an angel of light. Meekly ! Meekly ! cried Mr. Clinton ; I have surely heard that name before ! Pray, Mr. Meekly, were you ever abroad ? have you travelled, sir ? Were you ever in Hol- land, Mr. Meekly ? Here Meekly started, as awaked by the sound of a voice whose recollected tunings went thrilling to his heart ; and lifting up his eyes, and beholding the traces of features once so lovely, and ever deeply endeared to his memory, he started, and, staggering back some steps, he sunk down on a chair behind him almost in a fainting n't. The earl, greatly alarmed, went up, and taking him by the hand What is the matter, my friend ? says he. Are you taken suddenly ill ? are you not well, my Meekly ? O, my lord ! he pantingly cried, there he is as sure as I live my patron my benefactor the wondrous man that I THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 277 told you of; there he stands in his own precious person before us! Mr. Clinton then approached, and, taking a seat beside him, leaned towards him with a melting complacence. Mr. Meekly, said he, I expected ere this to have embraced you in heaven ; but I rejoice to meet you even on earth, for I have ever retained a very affectionate impression of you ; and I more especially rejoice to meet you in the present society. But then but then you come alone you come alone, my lord and master ! Alas ! you wipe your eye. O, then, it must be so! and here he broke into a passionate gush of tears. My lord and our hero, hereupon recollecting the engaging circumstances of a character of whose description they had been so lately enamoured, could not refuse their tribute to the memory of that admirable lady, to whose person they now found themselves endearingly attached by affinity. At length Mr. Clinton, distressed to the last degree for the distress in which he saw the forlorn Meekly, sweetly turned from his own affliction to the consoling of that friend whom he found so deeply afflicted for him. Mr. Meekly, said he, let us not weep for the dead, but rather for the living ; for those who are yet in the vale of mortality. Shall we mourn the condition of angels ? shall we lament that a weight of glory is fallen on those whom we loved ! No ; let us rather rejoice in the prospect of being speedily partakers ! When supper was over, Harry laid hold of the first inter- val of converse to inquire after his friends in town, more especially Mr. Clement, his Arabella, and their little Dicky. They are come, said Mr. Clinton, to sudden and great afflu- ence. Old Clement is thoroughly reconciled to his son, and is doatingly fond of Arabella and her child. I am glad of 2T8 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. it with all my heart, cried Harry, clapping his hands ; but pray, how did the matter come about, sir ? By an event, my dear, in which this arm of Providence was signally visible. Old Clement's supposed wife was detected, and is dead, as is also her paramour, the villain who betrayed, and lately also attempted to murder, your Hammel. His history is wonderful ; but it is long, and too horrid to relate. What an astonishing distance there is, exclaimed the earl, between the characters and dispositions of man and man ! And how does my brother, my revered Harry Clinton, rise supreme above all his species, in every excellence, in every virtue, scarce less than divine ? Oh, my lord ! I am persuaded, said Mr. Clinton, that could it please God at this instant to withdraw from me the influ- ence of his holy and happy Spirit, I should become altogether as evil as the worst, as evil as the vilest. I cannot think so, my brother, replied the earl ; you would still continue a rational and free creature. There is cer- tainly a distinction in the nature of things ! There is the beautiful and deformed, the amiable and detestable ; your judgment would approve the one and reject the other ; and your freedom of agency would act conformable to your election. Ah, my lord ! cried Mr. Clinton, what things, what beauty, what amiableness, what freedom is this that you speak of? Have you found out another universe or another deity beside HIM in whom our life subsists ? Are there any things in nature save the things of our God ? Or what beauty or amiableness can they possibly exhibit, save what they derive from him ; save some quality or impregnation, some manifesta- tion or impression, of his own beauty or amiableness ? To make this matter clear, let us go somewhat deeper ; quite back, if you please, my lord, to the very birth of things. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 279 Throughout nature, we find that God can impart to his creatures a being, an identity, a fire of life, an intelligence or sagacity, a consciousness, a force or action, a will, and a free- dom, distinct from himself, and distinct from each other : and this is the utmost extent of creaturely nature, whether respecting the powers that are in hell or in heaven ; whether respecting the highest seraphim that are in bliss, or the low- est fallen spirits in perdition. Now all these powers or high prerogatives, although dis- tinct from God, are infinitely far from being independent of him ; for he will not, he cannot, depart from his supremacy, nor that universality of essence, by and in which alone all essences subsist. He can, indeed, impart the fore-mentioned powers to any limited degree that he pleases ; but then, in their highest degree of fire, life, or sagacity, force, action, or freedom, you will perceive, on the slightest reflection, that there is nothing of the beautiful or amiable that you spoke of; but that they are equally applicable, and may be equally exercised to evil or good purposes, according to the nature or disposition of the agent. I have already specified the many great and wonderful powers that God can impart to his creatures distinctly, though not independently, from himself. But there is one power, one quality which God cannot make creaturely ; which with all his omnipotence he cannot possibly impart, in any kind of distinction or separability, from himself, and this quality is called Goodness. And now, my dear lord, in order to convince you of this most capital and most important of all truths, a truth upon which time, eternity, and the universe all turn, as on their axis, it may be necessary to inquire what Goodness is. There is no species of allowed or conceivable virtue that is not reducible under the standard of their great leader, and all-generating parent, called Love. Good-will is the eternal 280 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. blesser of all to whom it is beneficent, and also generates its o\v r n blessing in the rery act of its love. Here lies the great and impassable gulf between God and his productions, between the creature and the Creator. The will of God is an eternal fire of love towards his creatures, and goes forth in blessings upon them as wide and universal as his own existence. But the will of the creature is con- fined and limited, like its essence. While it is distinct from, or uninformed by the will of God, it cannot possibly act beyond or out of itself; it cannot possibly feel for any thing except itself; it cannot wish any welfare except its own w el- fare, and this it endeavours to compass by the exertion of all its powers. From this distinct, selfish, and craving will of the creature, springs every possible evil, whether natural or moral. From the preference of its own identity to that of others, ariseth pride ; from the eagerness of its grasping at all advantages to itself, ariseth the envy of any imaginary advantage to another. Pride, covetousness, and envy, beget hatred, wrath, and contention, with every species and degree of malevolence and malignity; and the disappointment of these passions produce rancours and misery ; and all together they con- stitute the whole nature and kingdom of hell itself in the soul. But when God is pleased to inform the will of the creature with any measure of his own benign and benevolent will, he steals it sweetly forth in affection to others ; he speaks peace to the storm of rending passions ; and a new and delight- ful dawning arises on the spirit. And thus, on the grand and final consummation, when every will shall be subdued to the will of good to all, our Jesus will take in hand the resigned cordage of our hearts; he will tune them, with so many instruments, to the song of his own sentiments, and will touch them with the finger of his own divine feelings. Then THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 281 shall the wisdom, the might, and the goodness of our God, become the wisdom, might, and goodness of all his intelli- gent creatures; the happiness of each shall multiply and overflow in the wishes and participation of the happiness of all ; the universe shall begin to sound with the song of con- gratulation ; and all voices shall break forth in an eternal hallelujah of praise, transcending praise and glory, transcend- ing glory to God and the Lamb. Purblind reason here will say, even the goodness of God himself in the human heart will say If our God is all love, if he is a will to all rectitude and happiness in his creatures, why did he suifer any evil to begin in nature and creature ? Could evil have arisen contrary to the will of Omnipotence, if Omnipotence had willed that it should not arise ? Ah, my friends ! no evil ever did, nor ever can approach the will of God ; neither can he will or effect any species of evil in nature or creature ; but he can allow a temporary evil in the creature, as a travail toward its birth into the more eminent degree of that goodness and happiness which God effects. God cannot effect or take delight in the suffer- ings of the most abandoned reprobate that ever blasphemed his name ; but he can will that the sinner should be reclaimed to happiness, even by suffering, when there are no other means in nature whereby he may be reclaimed. Could creatures, without the experience of any lapse or evil, have been made duly sensible of the darkness and dependence of their creaturely nature, and of the distance and distinction between themselves and their God ; could they have known the nature and extent of his attributes, with infinity of his love ; could they have known the dread- ful consequences of falling off from him, without seeing any example, or experiencing any consequences of such a fall ; could they have otherwise felt and found that every act of creaturely will, and every attempt at creaturely power, was 282 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. a forsaking of that eternal wisdom and strength in which they stood; could all intelligent creatures have been con- tinued in that lowliness, that resignation, that gratitude of burning affection which the slain will of the mortified sinner feels when called up into the grace and enjoyment of his God ; could those endearing relations have subsisted in crea- tion, which have since newly risen between God and his lapsed creatures wholly subsequent thereto those relations, I say, of redemption, of regeneration, of a power of conver- sion, that extracts good out of evil, of a love that no apostasy can quench, that no offences can conquer if these eternal benefits could have been introduced, without their ground or foundation in the admission of evil, no lapse or falling off would ever have been. Here Mr. Clinton paused, and his auditors continued in a kind of respectful musing, as attentive to what he might further offer. At length the earl exclaimed Never, never more, my brother, will I debate or question with you, further than asking your advice or opinion, to which I shall instantly ajid implicitly submit, as I would to that of the highest seraph in heaven. Our dear Meekly here, and I, had some former converse on a few of these deep subjects, and I received much satisfaction and instruction from him ; but he was not quite so explicit and convincing as you have been. Ah, my lord ! cried Meekly, were I as intimate with the fountain of all knowledge as your precious brother is, you would not then have opposed me in the conversation we last held on those heads. On the following day, at breakfast, Mr. Meekly took out his pocket-book, and produced bank and stock-bills to the amount of something upward of five thousand pounds. He then presented them to Mr. Clinton, and said Here, sir, is a little matter towards repayment of the loan I had from TIIE FOOL OF QUALITY. 283 you in Holland. I bless I bless ray God that he has enabled me thus far to approve myself an honest man ; but, above all, I bless him for giving me once more a sight of the gracious countenance of my patron. But for you I had miserably perished in a dungeon ; to you, sir, I owe my liberty, to you I owe my life, to you I owe the recovery of the inheritance of my fathers. "With respect to such obligations, I am indeed a beggared insol- vent. But my heart is pleased with the thought, that the connection between us, of creditor on your part and debtor on mine, should remain on record to all eternity. Here the worthy Meekly became oppressed under sensa- tions of grateful recollection; and, putting his handkerchief to his eyes he sobbed out his passion. In the meantime, Mr. Clinton held the bills in his hand, and, carelessly casting his eye over them, perceived the amount. As soon as he saw that his friend's emotion had partly subsided, You have, Mr. Meekly, says he you have been quite a gospel steward, and have returned me my own with most unlooked-for usury ; and I heartily pray God, in recompense of your integrity, to give you the principality of many cities in the coming kingdom of his Son. But what shall I do with this montey, my dear Meekly ? My wealth already overflows ; it is my only trouble, my only encum- brance. It claims my attention, indeed, as it is a trust for which I know I am strictly accountable ; but I heartily wish that Providence would reclaim the whole to himself, and leave me as one of his mendicants, who daily wait on the hand that supplieth all who seek his kingdom, with neces- sary things; for my Harry has enough, and more than enough now, in the abundance of his noble father. You must therefore keep these bills to yourself, my worthy friend ; retain, or give, or dispose of them, even as it shall please you ; whether as your property or as my property, it 284 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. matters not sixpence ; but take them back, you must take them back indeed, my Meekly. And so saying, he shoved them over from him, on the table. Ah, my most honoured sir ! exclaimed the repining Meekly; surely you would not serve me so. My soul is but just eased of a load that lay heavy on it for many, many years. Be not then so severe as to replace the burden upon me. It would break my very heart should you persist in refusing this little instance of acknowledgment from one of your warmest lovers. Here Harry found himself affected and distressed for the parties ; and, in order to relieve them, took the decision of the matter upon himself. Gentlemen, says he, I will, with your good pleasure, put a very quick end to this dispute ; and I offer myself to you, as your joint trustee, to be your almoner and disposer of these bills. As I was lately on my rambles through some villages near London, the jingle of a number of infant-voices struck my ear ; and turning, and looking in at the ground floor of a long cottage, I perceived about thirty little girls neatly dressed in an uniform, and all very busily and variously employed in hackling, carding, knitting, or spinning, or in sewing at their sampler, or in learning their letters, and so forth. The adjoining house contained about an equal number of boys, most of whom were occupied in learning the rudi- ments of the several handicrafts; while the rest were busied in cultivating a back-field, intended as a garden for these two young seminaries. I was so pleased with what I saw, that I gave the masters and mistresses some small matter ; and I resolved within myself, if ever I should be able, to gather together a little family of my own for the like purposes. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 285 Now, gentlemen, here cornea Mr. Meekly's money, quite- in season for saving just so much of my own. But hang it, since I am grown suddenly rich, I think I will be generous for once in my life, and add as much more out of my proper stock. I shall also make so free as to draw on my uncle there for the like sum ; and these, totted together, will make a pretty beginning of my little project. As to my poor father here, he has nothing to spare, for he has already lavished all his wealth on his naughty boy. My lord and the company laughed heartily at Harry's little pleasantry. But harkee, honest friend, added the earl, you must not think to expose me by leaving me out of your scheme ; can't you lend me as much, Harry, as will answer my quota ? Yes, my lord, said Harry, upon proper securi- ties I think I may venture. You are a rogue, and a darling, and my treasure, and my honour, and my ornament, cried the earl, turning and bending fondly towards him. While Harry's eyes began to swim with pleasure, and, casting him- self into his father's bosom, he there hid the tears of his swelling delight; while Mr. Clinton and Mr. Meekly sat silently wrapped in the enjoyment of the touching scene. After dinner the earl said Tell me, my ever amiable Harry Clinton, where in the world could you hide yourself from my inquiries these twenty years past? I have got some scattered sketches of your history from Mr. Meekly, and my son here, and have been burning to learn the whole, but dreaded to ask you that favour, lest the recollection of some passages should give you distress. I refuse no pain to do you a pleasure, my brother. Here the Honourable Mr. Clinton began his story as for- merly recited, and that night sent his auditors weeping to bed. On the following morning, when he came to that part of his narrative where Lady Maitland broke away, he proceeded as folio weth : 286 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. Having travelled through several parts of France and Italy, I took Germany in my tour. I stayed some time at Spa, where I drank the waters, and within the year arrived in perfect health at Rotterdam. On a visit to Mr. De Wit, at his villa near the city, he told me, over our bottle, that he had at that time in his house and in his guardianship, one of the most extraordi- nary women in the universe. Though she is now, says he, advancing towards the decline of life, she is by far the most finished female I ever beheld, while all she says and all she does give a grace to her person that is quite indescribable. She hath a youth, too, her son, with her, who is nearly as great a rarity as herself; and were it not that his com- plexion is sallow, and that he is something short of a leg and blind of one eye, he would positively be the most lovely of all the human species. You put me in mind, said I laughing, of the Baratarian wench who was commended to governor Sancho as the most accomplished beauty within a league ; with this exception only, that one eye was blind, and that the other ran with brimstone and vermilion. But pray, who are these wonders? That, said he, I either cannot or must not declare. They are evidently people of the first fashion ; and must have some uncommon reasons for their present conduct, as they live quite retired, and admit of no company. I protest, said I, you have raised my curiosity in earnest ; is there no managing so as to procure me a short tSte-d-tete with them ? I wish there was, says he, for I long to know how far your sentiments agree with mine in this matter. Yesterday the lady told me that she intended to go and reside some time in England, and that I would oblige her by getting a person duly qualified to initiate her and her son in the language of the country. And now, if such a fine gentleman could condescend to undress himself, you might THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 287 come to-morrow as a person who wanted hire, and I might introduce you to an interview by way of treating, provided you are upon honour not to reveal any thing concerning them or their place of abode. The next morning I waited on Mr. De Wit, under the appearance of a reduced gentleman, a character that excites a mixture of contempt and compassion. The lady received and spoke to me with that dignified complacence which awes while it engages, and while it attracts, forbids an irreverent familiarity. She was indeed every thing that my friend had boasted of her ; for though her person was all majesty, her manner was all grace. Will you answer for the discretion of this young man, Mr. De Wit ? I will, madam, said he. I bowed to them both. On turning, I perceived that her son eyed me with much attention, and I, on my part, surveyed him with the utmost astonishment. He laboured, indeed, apparently under all the disadvantages that my friend described; but enchantment lurked in his accents and in the dimpling of his lips ; and when he smiled, heaven itself was infused through the fine roundings of his olive-coloured countenance. In short, I felt such a sudden attachment to these extraor- dinary personages, that I resolved to keep on the deception, at least for a few days, and accordingly engaged with them at a stated salary. I entered on my province. My young pupil especially began to improve apace ; and, as I was particularly cautious in observing the distant respect that suited my station, I grew into great favour with both mother and son. How long, Mr. De Wit would say, do you propose to carry on this farce ? Till I can prevail upon them, I an- swered, to accompany me to England ; for I feel my affection so tied to them, that I cannot think of parting On a day as I sat with my pupil in his apartment, he 288 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. happened to let his book fall ; and as I stooped to take it up, the picture of my Matilda, that was richly enamelled, and set with brilliants to a great value, suddenly loosed from its riband, and dropped through the bosom of my shirt upon the floor. I stood concerned and greatly abashed by this accident ; but my pupil, still more alarmed, started up, and, catching at it, gazod upon it intensely. Ha, my friend ! said he, I doubt you are an impostor. The proprietor of this jewel would never set himself out to hire without some sinister design. Who, sir, and what are you ? I own, said I, my sweet fellow, that I am not what I seem. I am of noble descent, and of riches sufficient to purchase a principality. And what then could induce you to impose upon us as you have done ? Curiosity at first, and then the strong inclination which I took both to you and your mother at our first interview ; neither did I pro- pose to reveal myself till we should reach my native country, where all sorts of honours and affluence attend you. Tell me then, said he, whose picture is this, a very lovely one, indeed ? Is this the face, sir, of your mistress or your wife ? (looking very inquisitively at me). Ah! said I, she was once mistress of thousands of hearts ; nobles waited before her drawing-room, and dukes near her toilet. She was once also my wife ; but the dear saint is now eternally blessed in a more suitable Bridegroom. Will you indulge me, sir, said he, with the story of your loves ; it may atone in a great measure for your late decep- tion, which, however, well meant, was very alarming. Here I related to him the short pathetic history that I told you of my Matilda, with which he was so affected, and in such agitation, that I was quite affrighted for him, and stopped several times ; but he insisted on my proceeding. Ah! said he, when I concluded, should I ever be com- THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 289 forted in the manner that you and your Matty were, how blessed I shall think myself! I have, said I, a little cousin in England, and perhaps the loveliest child in the world, and if you will marry her, when you both come to proper years, I will settle ten million of French money upon you. Mean- time, I beseech you to say nothing to your mamma of what has passed. I will not, said he, unless I see a discretionary necessity for it. That night I went to the city to settle the affairs of my household. On my return next morning, I met Mr. De Wit at the gate of his court. Ah, my friend ! said he, our amiable guests are departed. Gone ! I cried. Gone ! which way ? where to, I pray you ? That also is a secret, said he, which I am not permitted to tell you. Late in the evening there arrived a retinue of about twenty servants, strongly armed and mounted, with a flying chaise and six horses, and a packet of letters. The lady did not go to bed, but ordered all things to be in readi- ness for their departure against the rising of the moon. When they were near setting out, and going to bid me adieu Have you no commands, madam, said I, for the good young man, your tutor ? Not a penny, says she ; I cannot afford to pay wages equivalent to servants of his quality. How, madam, said I, is my friend then detected? But it was a very innocent and friendly fraud, I assure you ; I should not have imposed upon your ladyship, did I not know you to be safer in his honourable hands than those of any other. I then gave them an account of your family, your vast for- tune, nor was I quite silent as to your merits, my dear Harry ; and I added, that I was sensible you would be deeply afflicted at the departure of persons to whom you were so strongly attached. There is no help for it, replied the lady ; we have reasons of the utmost import for not disclosing ourselves to him. Tell him, however, that we esteem him highly, affect VOL. II. 13 290 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. him tenderly, shall think of him, shall pray for him, and, lastly, that you saw us drop a grateful tear to his remem- brance. As I could extort no further intelligence from my friend Mr. De Wit, I parted in a half kind of chagrin, and prepared to pursue my fugitives, though I knew not what road to take, nor where to turn me for the purpose. At all adven- tures, however, I set out on the way to France; as they appeared to be of that country, as well by the elegance of their manners as by their fluency in the language. I was attended by eleven of as brave and faithful fellows as ever thrust themselves between their master and danger. On the fifth or sixth day, as we got on the borders of French Flanders, in an open and desolate way, with a forest far on the left, a man rode towards us on the spur, and, approaching, cried out Help, gentlemen, for heaven's sake ! Help to rescue my dear ladies, who are plundered and carried away by the banditti! They have already killed twenty of my companions, and I alone am left to cry out for relief. I bid him lead, and we followed. In a few minutes we came where we saw a great number of the dead and dying covering the sand and thin herbage ; but our leader cried out Stop not here, my noble friends ! Yonder they are! yonder they are! They have but just taken away all our horses, luggage; and coach, and are now at the plunder. I am weak through loss of blood, but will help you the best I may. Here he spurred again towards the enemy, but his horse would not answer his courage. I then looked about to observe if any advantage could be taken for I perceived that the ruffians were still very numerous about thirty who had survived the late combat j,. but seeing that the country was quite open, and that we had nothing but resolu- tion and our God to help us, I commended myself to Him in THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 291 so good a cause, and, putting my horse to speed, I rode full at the foe, confident of being well and gallantly seconded. When the banditti perceived us, they instantly quitted the plunder, and, gathering into a group, they prepared their carabines, and discharged them full at us as we drew near. As I happened to be /oremost, I received the greatest damage. One of their balls gave me this mark in my neck; another passed through the flesh of my left shoulder ; and another through my hat, and left this scar in my head. But when we came in upon them, as the Romans say, cominus ense, hand to hand, had they doubled their numbers they would have been as nothing to us. My faithful Irish- man levelled half a score of them with his own hand, and in less than three minutes we had no opponent in the field. I then rode up to the coach, and perceived two ladies in it, pale as death, and sunk senseless to the bottom. Immediately I ordered James, my surgeon's mate, to take a little blood from them, and, on their recovery, to follow me, with all my people, and all the horses, baggage, etc., to the nearest inn. Then, feeling my wounds begin to smart, I took my surgeon with me, and galloped away. In about a league we came to a large house of entertain- ment, and finding myself sick and qualmish, through the great effusion of blood, I had my wounds directly dressed, and, taking a draught of wine whey, got into a warm bed. After a night of uneasy slumbers, the curtain of my bed was gently drawn aside, and awaking, I heard a voice say, in soft music Ah, my dear mamma, it is he ! it is he him- self! On lifting my feeble eyes, I perceived a vision at my side of a female appearance, but more wonderful and more lovely than any thing I had ever conceived of the inhabitants in 292 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. bliss. Her eyes swam in glory, and her whole form seemed a condensing, or substantiation, of harmony and light. While I gazed in silent astonishment, I heard another voice say Don't you know us, my son, my dear Mr. Clin- ton ? Don't you remember your pupils ? Don't you remem- ber your blind, lame, and tawny Lewis ? He is now turned into that passable girl there, whose honour and whose life you yesterday preserved, at the great peril of your own. Here, seizing her hand, I pressed it to my lips and cried Am I then so blessed, my honoured madam, as to have done some service to the two dearest objects of my heart's fixed affections ? Soft, says she ; none of these transports : your surgeon tells us that repose is necessary for you. Meantime, we will go and prepare the best regimen that the place can afford for your nourishment, and after that I will send a des- patch to my lord, and let him know how far, how very deeply, he and we, and all his house, are indebted to you. For that day, and" the following week, as my fever grew something high, I saw no more of the daughter ; and the mother stayed no longer than to administer something to me, or barely to inquire how I was. At length I got a cool, and began to recover, when the former vision descended upon my ravished senses ; the vision of that Louisa, the sight of whom never failed to bring cheer to the eyes, and delight to the hearts, of all beholders. They sat down by my side, and my lady, taking my hand and looking tenderly at me what would you think, said she, smiling, of my Louy for a wife ? Ah, madam ! I exclaimed, she would be too much of bliss, too precious, too glorious, too overpowering for the heart and senses of any mortal ! Don't tell me, cries my lady ; in my eyes, my Harry, you are full as amiable for a husband as she can be for a wife. Beside, you have earned her, my son ; she is your own dear purchase by a service of infinite value, and at the price of your pre- THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 293 cious blood. She has told me the story of your first love, and the recollection of it never fails to bring tears from my eyes. But I must, hereafter, hear the whole from your own mouth, with all your other adventures ; the smallest incident will be very interesting to me, I assure you. O my dear, my sweet fellow ! you are to a hair the very man I wish for my Louisa the brave, the tender, gentle, and generous heart ; just the thing I would have wished for myself when I was at the age of my Louy. But, my dearest, my honoured madam, loved and hon- oured next to heaven, you have not yet told me how your Louisa is inclined. Whereupon the bewitching creature, archly smiling and blushing, and reaching forth a polished hand of living alabaster Here, she cried, I present you with this trifle in token that I do not hate you very much. Mr. Clinton, said my lady, I have sent off my favourite servant Gerard with my despatches to my lord. He is the only one that remains of all my retinue. Your surgeon has dressed his wound, and pronounced it so slight as not to incommode him in his journey. I chose him more particu- larly for the carrier of my purposes as he was the witness of your valour as he can testify to my lord with what intre- pidity you rushed foremost into the thick of the assassins, and with what unexampled bravery you defeated, in a short time, a body of four or five times your number. These things, I trust, will have their due weight ; for, though my my lord is of a lofty and inflexible nature, he is yet alive to the feelings of honour and justice, so that our affairs have a hopeful and auspicious aspect. But you are a little flushed, my child ; we will not encroach further upon you till to- morrow. During the three following weeks, though confined to my bed, I was permitted to sit up, and my wounds, though not skinned, were healing apace. What happiness did I enjoy 294 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. during that ecstatic interval ! The maternal and filial angels scarce ever left my side. One morning, when I just awoke from a terrifying dream, they both entered with peace, and comfort, and healing in their countenances. "What is the matter, my Harry ? said my lady ; your face does not seem composed to that fortitude and complacence which is seated in your heart. Ah, madam ! I cried, I have been all night tormented with the most alarming and horri- ble visions I ever had in my life. Three times I dreamed successively that my Louisa and I were walking hand in hand through the fields of Elysium, or on the banks of Meander, or in the gardens of Alcinous, gazing and drinking in large draughts of love from each other ; when at one time a huge and tremendous dragon, at another a sudden earthquake, and at another an impetuous hurricane came, and caught and severed us far asunder. But my visions, my honest friend, said the heavenly smiling Louisa, have been of a very different nature. I dreamed that, while we were standing on the bank of a frightful precipice together, your Matilda descended, all celestial, and a thousand times more lovely than she appears in the lovely portrait that you carry about you. At first I feared that she came to reclaim you to herself; but instead of that she smiled upon me, and began to caress me, and, taking my right hand she put it into yours. Then, ascend- ing in her brightness, she hovered a while on high, and cast- ing down upon me a look of fixed love, she gave me a beck with her hand, as it were to follow, and was immediately lost in glory. O, my dear children ! cried the marchioness (for such she was), might I but once see you united, how I should lift my head ! or, rather, how satisfied I should be to lay it down in peace, having nothing further to care for on this side of eternity ! THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 295 That night I slept sounder than usual, and did not awake till the day was something advanced. On opening the cur- tain I saw James seated in a moody posture by the side of my bed. How are the ladies, James ? said I. Gone, sir. Gone, gone ! I cried out. Yes, sir, gone indeed ; but with very heavy hearts, and both of them drowned in tears. Here has been a large body of the gens d'armes sent for them, so that there was no resisting. Poor Gerard went on his knees to his lady to beg permission to throw himself at your honoured feet, as he said, and to bid you adieu, but she would not allow him. Meantime she charged me with this watch and ring, and this letter for your honour. I catched at the letter, and tearing it open, read over and over, a thousand times, what will for ever be engraven in my memory and on my heart. "We leave you we leave you, most beloved of men, and we are miserable in so doing ; but, alas ! we are not our own mistresses. My lord, for this time, has proved unjust and ungrateful ; and refuses your Louisa, as well to my prayers as to your infinite merits. He has affianced her, as it seems, to a prince of the blood, and his ambition has blinded him to all other considerations. Be not yet in despair, we shall exert our very utmost to get this injurious sentence re- versed ; and, if your Louisa inherits my blood or spirit, not all the engines in France will ever compel her to give her hand to another. In the meantime, follow us not ; come not near us, we beseech you. Should you be discovered, you will inevitably be assassinated, and we also should perish in your loss, my son. We are distracted by our fears for you, and it is this fear that has prevented us from disclosing our- selves fully to you. Keep up your correspondence, however, with our friend De Wit, and through him you shall learn the first favourable turn that happens in our affairs. I leave 296 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. you my ring, in token of your being the wedded of our heart ; and Louisa leaves you her watch, to remind you of time past, and to look upon when at leisure, and think of "Your ELOISA DE "Your LOUISA DE " Yes I cried, ye precious relics, ye delicious memorandums, to my lips, to my heart ! Be ye the companions of my soli- tude, the consolers of my affliction ! Sooner shall this arm be torn off, and time itself pass away, than one or the other shall be divided from my custody. Ah, how useless are admonitions to the impatience of a lover ! Fervent love can know no fears. I was no sooner able to sit my horse than I set off directly for Paris, with this precaution only, that my people were to call me by my mother's maiden name of Goodall. As we knew not the names or titles of those after whom we were in search, our eyes became our only inquisitors ; and we daily ranged the town, peering into every carriage of distinction for a sight of the mother or daughter ; and even prying among the lackeys and liveries for the face of our friend Gerard. On a day, as my valiant Tirlah and I rode abroad, recon- noitring the suburbs, we heard a noise and shout of distress that issued from a distant farm-house ; and as we hastened up the tumult grew louder, and the cry of Help ! and Mur- der ! was several times repeated. We instantly knocked at the door, but were refused admittance, when Tirlah alighted, ran against it, and break- ing through bars and all with his foot, threw the door off its hinges. On entering, we saw a man with four others about him, who were going to slit his nose, and to use him very barba- rously. Stay your hnnrls, I cried ; I will shoot the first THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 297 man through the head who shall dare to proceed in this business. Why, sir, said a young fellow, this man wanted to be gra- cious with my pretty young wife ; I caught him in the very attempt ; and so I think it but fair and honest to spoil his beauty for such sport for time to come. Ay, but, said I, you might murder him, and I cannot suffer that. Come, my friend, no harm, appears to be done as yet ; and if he pays a handsome penance for the wickedness of his intention, I would advise you to pass matters over for the present. Say, how much do you demand ? Five hundred louis-d'ors, said the fellow ; if he pays that he shall be quit for this turn. Five hundred louis-d'ors ! I exclaimed ; why, all the clothes on his back are not worth the hundredth part of the sum. True, master, said the peasant, winking, but his pockets may happen to be richer than his clothes. Well, said I, if he secures you in half the sum I think you may be satisfied. Why, master, since you have said it, I will not go back. Whereupon the astonished prisoner was permitted to rise. What do you say, you very bad man ? Are you willing to pay this fellow the sum I agreed for, in compensation of the injury you attempted to do him ? I am, sir, said he ; with many thanks for your mediation. Then, hastily put- ting his hand to his pocket, he took out a note on the cus- toms, which, with some small matter of cash, made up the money, and we departed the house together. As I was just going to mount, he came up and accosted me with elegance and dignity. Sir, said he, you have made me your debtor beyond expression, beyond the power of princes to pay. Be pleased, however, to accept the little I have about me ; here are five thousand louis in this little note-book. Not a penny, sir, indeed ; I am by no means in want. Yon must not refuse, said he, some token of my 13* 298 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. acknowledgment ; here is a stone, valued at double the sura I offered you. Then, taking from a pocket the diamond but- ton of his hat, he presented it to me. You must excuse me, sir, said I ; I can accept of no consideration for doing an act of humanity ; and I rejoice to have preserved a person of your distinction and generosity. I then turned my horse, and, though he called after me, I rode away, being neither desirous of knowing or being known. My researches hitherto being altogether fruitless, I imagined I might with better likelihood meet my beloved in the public walks, public theatres, or rooms of distinguished resort. One night, as I sat alone in a side-box at the opera, intently gazing and hungering around for some similitude of my Louisa, there entered one of the loveliest young fellows I ever beheld. He carelessly threw himself beside me, looked around, withdrew his eyes, and then looked at me with such a long and piercing inquisition as alarmed me, and gave me cause to think I was discovered. Though the French seldom hesitate, he seemed at once backward and desirous of accosting me. At length he entered upon converse touching the drama and the music, and spoke with judgment and elegance superior to the mat- ter ; while I answered him with due complacence, but in a manner that partook of that regardlessness for trifles which then sat at my heart. Between the acts he turned, and cast his eye suddenly on me. Sir, says he, do you believe that there is such a thing as sympathy ? Occasionally, sir, I think it may have its effects ; though I cannot credit all the wonders that are reported of it. I am sorry for that, said he, as I ardently wish that your feelings were the same as mine at this instant. I never saw you before, sir ; I have no knowledge of you ; and yet I declare that, were I to choose an advocate in love, a second THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 299 in combat, or a friend in extremity, you you are the very man upon whom I would pitch. I answered not, but seized his hand, and pressed it to my bosom. I conceive, sir, continued he, notwithstanding your fluency in the language, that you are not a native. My name is D'Aubigny ; I live at such a place ; and if you will do me the pleasure of a single visit, all the honours, respects, and services that our house can confer, shall be yours without reserve. Sir, said I, I am of England ; my name is Goodall ; and, as soon as a certain affair aUows me to admit of any acquaintance in Paris, you shall be the first elected of my arms and my heart. In a few nights after, as Tirlah and I were turning a cor- ner of the Rue de St. Jacques, we saw three men with their backs to the wall, attacked by nearly three times their num- ber. We did not hesitate a moment what part to take. At the first pass I ran one of the assassins through the body ; Tirlah levelled two more with his oaken staff, and the rest took to flight. Gentlemen, said one of the three, I thank you for this brave and seasonable assistance. Roche, run for a surgeon ; I am wounded, I doubt dangerously. Pierre, lend me your arm. Come, gentlemen, we have but a little way to my house. Though the night was too dark for examining features, I thought that the voice was not quite unknown to me. Within a few minutes we arrived at a palace that retired inward from the houses that were ranged on either hand. On pulling the hanger of a bell, the great door opened upon a sumptuous hall, which led to a parlour enlightened by a silver sconce that hung from the vaulting. As we entered, the master turned short upon me, and looking full in my face, and starting and lifting his hands in surprise Great ruler of events ! he cried ; the very man I 300 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. wished my brother and companion through life ! and this is the very man you have sent to my rescue. Just then the surgeon arrived, and I heard him hastily ask- ing where the marquis was. On entering, he said I am sorry for your misfortune, my lord; but matters may be better than we apprehend ; and immediately he took out his case of instruments. One of the ruffians, said the marquis, before I was aware, came behind, and run me through the back. The surgeon then ripped open his lordship's waistcoat, and changed colour on seeing his shirt drenched in blood. But getting him quickly undressed, and having probed his wound, he struck his hands together, and cried Courage, my friends ! it is only a flesh business ; the weapon has passed clear of the ribs and vitals. As soon as the marquis's w^ound was dressed, and that we had got him to bed I fancy, sir, said I to the surgeon, I may have some small occasion for a cast of your office ; I feel a little smart in my sword-arm. On stripping he found that a chance thrust had entered about half an inch into the muscle above my elbow, and had ripped up some of the skin. -But he quickly applied the pro- per dressing, and I was preparing to take my leave, when the marquis cried out You must not think of parting, my dear friend ; you are the master of the master here, and lord of this house, and of all that is in it. The surgeon then ordered his lordship to compose himself as soon as possible ; and, having wished him a good-night, I sent Tirlah to my lodgings to let my people know that I was well, and in friendly hands. I was then conducted by the domestics to a superb apartment, where a bed was prepared, and where a small supper of elegancies lay fuming on the sideboard. Having swallowed a few bits, with a glass or two of wine, THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 301 I rose and sauntered through the room, musing on my Louisa, heavily sighing, and nearly despairing of being ever able to find her. Some time after, I sat down to undress and get to bed, when a number of the officers of justice silently entered my chamber, seized my sword that I had put off, and, coming whisperingly to me, commanded me to accompany them, without making any noise. I saw that it was madness to resist ; and, as I went with them, I observed that two of the family-liveries had joined themselves to the officers. It then instantly occurred that I was in the house of my rival ; that the marquis was the very person to whom my Louisa had been destined ; that I was somehow discovered ; and they were conducting me to the Bastile, of which I had heard as many affrighting stories as are usually told of the Inquisition. Ah, traitor ! said I to myself, is it thus you serve the man Avho but now saved your life at the expense of his own blood ? Let no one hereafter trust to the bleating of the lamb, or the courting of the turtle ; the roaring of the lion, and the pounces of the vulture, may thus deceitfully lurk under the one or the other. After passing some streets, they took me to a large house, where dwelt one of their chief magistrates, being also a member of their parliament. Having knocked respectfully at the gate, and waited some tune, at length we were ad- mitted, and they took me to a kind of lobby, where we stayed, while one of the posse went to advise the justiciary of my attendance. At length he returned, and, accosting me in a tone of surly and discouraging authority Friend, says he, my lord is engaged, and not at leisure to-night ; to-morrow, perhaps, he may hear what you have to plead in your own defence. So saying, he and his fellows thrust me into a waste room, and locked and chained the door upon 302 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. me ; and, laughing, bid me to warm or cool my heels at pleasure. Fool, fool that I was ! said I, to quit the side of my brave and faithful companions ; how quickly should we have dis- comfited this magistrate and all his host ! But I must be a knight-adventurer forsooth, and draw my sword in defence of every scoundrel who goes the street. I then went and felt the windows, to try if I could force a passage for making my escape ; but finding that all were grated with strong and impassable bars of iron Oh ! I cried, that this marquis, this ungrateful D'Aubigny, were now in his fullest strength, and opposed to me point to point, that I might reclaim from him in an instant the life I have given ! I then traversed the room with an inconsistent pace, now rashly resolving on furious events, and again more sedately deliberating on what I had to do, till, having ruminated thus for the remainder of the night, I at last became more at ease, and resigned myself to the dispensations of all-dis- posing Providence, though, I confess, with a gloomy and reluctant kind of content. When the day appeared, and was something advanced, I heard my door unlocking, and the chain taken away, and I concluded that they can^e to summon me to my trial. But, instead of the officers of justice, I saw near twenty men in the marquis's livery, who silently bowed down before me, and respectfully showed me with their hands the way out of my prison. I followed them also in silence, and, getting into the street, I wished to know if I was really free, and turned from them down the way that led to my lodgings ; where- upon they cast themselves before me, and in a supplicating posture besought me to go with them. Finding then that I was still their prisoner, I gave a long- ing look-out for my valiant fellows ; but, as they did not THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 303 appear, I suffered myself to be reconducted to the marquis's palace, and followed my obsequious commanders into the proud apartment to which they had led me the preceding night, and where, bowing to the ground, they all left me and retired. As I had been much fatigued in body and mind, I threw myself on the bed, leaving events to their issues, and fell into a kind of starting and intermitting slumber, whe*n I heard a voice at my side shout out in once-loved accents Oh, my dearest mamma, it is he ! indeed it is he ! it is he himself ! On this, I awoke and roused myself, and lifting my languid eyes, and fixing them on the object that stood before me And are you then, I cried, are you also, Louisa, in the con- federacy against me ? Say nothing, you are not the Louisa I once knew. I will arise, I will go forth ; not all your gates and bars and bolts shall hold me ; I will tear my body, and my soul too, if possible, from you for ever ! Go to your betrothed, to your beloved ! and leave me to perish ; it is a matter of no import. I am yet pleased that I saved your chosen, as it may one day serve to reproach you with the merits of the man whom he has so unworthily treated ! I could no more. A long silence on all sides ensued, save the language that was uttered by heavings and sobbings, when the marchioness, coming and casting herself on her knees by my bed You have reason, sir ! she exclaimed you have reason to reproach and to detest every branch of our ungrateful family for ever ! You saved myself, you saved my daughter ; and yet the father and the husband proved averse to your deservings, and turned your benefits into poison.. You have now saved our son, the only one who can convey our name to posterity ; and yet, from the begin- ning, you have received nothing in return save wounds, pains, and sickness, losses, damages, and disappointments, 304 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. and at this very day the most ignominious usage, where you merited endless thanks and everlasting renown. Blame my Louisa, then, and me ; but blame not my son, sir, for these unworthy events. He is shocked and distracted by them ; he is quite innocent of them ; he respects and loves you more than ever Jonathan loved the son of Jesse ; but he will not, he dare not see you, till we have in some measure made his peace. How, madam ! I cried but no more of that posture ; it pains me past bearing. Is it a fact, can it be possible, that the Marquis d'Aubigny should be your son ? Is he not of the blood-royal, the very rival whom your letter rendered so formidable to me ? and was it not by his order that I was disgracefully confined in a dungeon all night ? No, no ! said my lady ; he would have suffered the rack first ! He is in despair, quite inconsolable on that account. Let us go, my dearest Harry ; let us go and carry comfort to him of whom you are the beloved. Ah, no, my mamma ! cried out Louisa ; let us put no con- straint on Mr. Clinton, I pray you ! There has been enough of confinement ; we leave him now to his liberty ; let him go, even where and to whom he likes best. Once, indeed, we could have tied this all-conquering champion with the spin- ning of a silkworm ; but now he tells us that neither gates, bars, nor bolts shall hold him to us. Here I threw myself precipitately at her feet Pardon, pardon, my Louisa ! I cried ; O pardon the misdeeming transports of your lover, and pardon the faults that love alone could commit ! My enemies are foreign to me ; they and their injuries affect me not ; but you are regent within, my Louisa ! you sit throned in my heart, and the presump- tion of an offence from you makes strange uproar in my soul ! Well, says she, reaching her hand, and smiling through tears, since it -is so, poor soul, here is the golden eceptre for you ; I think I must take you to mercy. THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 305 I caught her hand, and impressed my very spirit on the wax ; and my lady, casting her arms about us, and kissing us both in turns, requested that we should go and carry some consolation to her dear, repining Lewis. As we entered his chamber, the marchioness cried out Here he comes, my son! we have brought your beloved to you ; yet not your Mr. Goodall, as you thought, but one who is at once both your good angel and our good angel, even our own Harry Clinton, the betrothed of our souls ! I took my seat on the side of the marquis's bed, and, look- ing fondly upon him, would have inquired of his health, but my speech for the time was overpowered by my affections. Then taking my hand in his The power of this hand, says he, I have found to be great ; but has your heart the power to pardon the insults and outrage you have received in the house of him who is so deeply your debtor ? My lord, said I, I have already drank largely of Lethe on that head ; nothing but my diffidence of your regard can offend me. You know not, said my lady you know not yet, my dear Harry, how this provoking business came about. I will ex- plain it in a few words : On our return to Paris, and on our remonstrances to my late lord, of the inestimable services you had rendered to his family, he inquired your character among the English ; and, notwithstanding the report of the nobility of your birth, and your yet nobler qualities, hearing also that you had acquired part of your fortune in trade, he conceived an utter contempt for you, and took an utter aversion to yon. Some time after, as he took notice that Louisa and I wanted our watch and our ring, I dreaded his displeasure, and gave him room to think that the robbers had taken 306 THE FOOL OF QUALITY. them from us in Flanders, and this report became current among our domestics. In the mean time, my lord became importunate with our Louisa respecting her marriage with the Prince of C , who was then with the army; and her prayers and tears hitherto had been the only artillery which she had used in her defence. But when the couriers brought word that the prince was on his return, my lord sent for Louisa, and gave her instant and absolute orders to prepare for her nuptials ; but she full as positively and peremptorily replied, that her soul was already wedded ; that she would never prostitute her body where her heart was an alien ; and that all the tortures of the Inquisition should not change her resolution. Her father thereupon rose to such ungovernable fury, that with one blow of his hand he struck her senseless to his feet ; but when he saw my lamb, my darling, all pale, and as dead before him, the tide of nature returned, and the- conflict of his passions became so violent that an imposthume broke in his stomach, and falling, he was suffocated, and expired on the spot. Soon after the prince arrived. He had never seen my daughter ; but his ambition to possess a beauty, of whom the grand monarch himself was said to have been ena- moured, had caused him to demand her in marriage : for that purpose he also did us the honour of a visit. Louisa refused to appear ; and I told his highness, with the best grace I could, that she happened to be pre-engaged. In a few days after he met my son on the Tuileries, and accosted him to the same intent ; but my son had been previously prejudiced in your favour, my Harry, and answered the prince with so cold or so haughty an air, that further words ensued, they both drew, and his highness was slightly wounded ; but, as company interposed, the affair was hushed THE FOOL OF QUALITY. 307 up, and, shortly after, the prince was killed in a night broil upon the Pont-Neuf. We then wrote to our friend, De Wit, to advertise you of these matters, and to hasten you hither ; but you arrived, my child you arrived before there could be any expectation of an answer. Two days ago, as I observed that my lamb's spirits were something dejected, I prevailed upon h . ^g f^v.^ I 1 ^ | ^ iNVHflll AV^ i i ^OF-CAll F(% ^E-UNI VER% 53t\E-UKIVER$/A ^UIBRARYtf/ 1 s s i ^KMIIVD-JO^ %OJ!1V3-JO^ %B3W$M^ AOF-CAIIF(% A-OF-CAllFOfcfc, ^MMIVHSfc. ^ * ^fc / N,t ^^ /^\t ^ .^P2 ^