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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 ir 
 
 7 L
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 LOKDOV : 
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTI.EY, 
 
 Dorset Street Fleet Street.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "PELHAM," "DEVEREUX/* &c. 
 
 
 • ■ » >s 
 
 * 
 
 - 
 
 Many of your Lordships must recollect what used to take place on the 
 high roads in the neighbourhood of this Metropolis some years ago. Scarcely 
 a carriage could pass without being robbed, and frequently the passengers 
 were obliged to fight with, and give battle to, the highwaymen who infested 
 the roads. — Duke of Wellington's Speech on the Metropolis Police Bill, 
 June 5th. Mirror of Parliament, 1829, page 2050. 
 
 Can any man doubt whether it is better to be a great statesman, or a 
 common thief? — Jonathan Wild. 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, 
 NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1830.
 
 . , .•
 
 
 n 
 
 n DEDICATORY EPISTLE, 
 
 /*\^ 
 
 TO 
 
 * * * * ****** Esq. 
 
 Some years ago, my dear friend, when you and 
 ^ I had more of the poetry of life at our hearts than, I 
 fear, is left to either of us now, I inscribed with your 
 name a certain slender volume of Poems, printed but 
 not published. Of the hundred copies of those boyish 
 X^> indiscretions which, full of all unimaginable errors of 
 \ type and press, owed their origin to a French printer, 
 ^ I have not to this day given away more than two or 
 three- and-twenty. I dedicated to you then a book 
 «* only to be circulated among friends, on the tacit un- 
 
 D2 derstanding that they were to be alike willing to for- 
 
 give and eager to commend. I dedicate to you now 
 i-* a book which, the moment it passes from me, goes 
 
 among readers of whom even the kindly are too luke- 
 warm to praise, the hostile are pre-resolved to cen-
 
 VI DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 sure, and every individual, with a cruel justice, holds 
 it a right to expect merit in an author upon all points, 
 and to extend him indulgence upon none. This is the 
 natural and established bond of publication ; and of 
 course, like all who publish, I am prepared for its con- 
 ditions. But ere I again appear before an audience 
 not the less critical — scarcely the less unfamiliar, tor 
 my having, into her performances, braved its opinion, 
 let me linger a few minutes behind the scenes, and 
 encourage myself with a friendly conference with you. 
 It gives me pain, my dear * * * * * * 5 to think that 
 I may not grace my pages with your name ; for I well 
 know, that when after-years shall open the fitting oppor- 
 tunity to your talents, that name will not be lightly 
 held wherever honesty and truth — a capacity to de- 
 vise what is good, and a courage to execute it, are 
 considered qualities worthy of esteem. But in your 
 present pursuits it can scarcely serve you to be praised 
 by a novelist, and named in the dedication to a no- 
 vel ; and your well-wishers would not be pleased to 
 find you ostentatiously exhibiting a sanction to a book, 
 which they would fain hope you may never obtain the 
 l<i>ure to read. 
 
 Four years have passed since I dedicated to you 
 the Poems 1 refer to — they have not brought to either 
 nf us an inconsiderable change. We are no longer 
 the rovers of the world, setting sail at our caprice, 
 and finding enterprise at our will. We feel, though 
 with a silent conviction, that life has roads harsher
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. vn 
 
 and more barren than we then imagined ; and we look on 
 the ways through which we pass, not with the eager 
 or the wandering glance of the tourist, of pleasure, but 
 with the saturnine and wary eye of the hacknied 
 trafficker of business. You are settled down to tin- 
 labours — honourable, indeed, but somewhat sterile — of 
 the bar ; and I, " a mere spectator of other men's 
 fortunes and adventures,"* am drawing from the 
 bustle of the living world such quiet observation as, 
 after it has lain a little while within my own mind, 
 you perceive re-produced in the pages of certain idle 
 and very indifferent novels. I cling, however, not 
 the less fondly to my old faith, that experience is 
 the only investment which never fails to repay us 
 tenfold what it cost ; and that we cannot find better 
 and surer guides through those mazes of life, which 
 we have not only to pass but to retrace, than the error, 
 or the prejudice, or the regret which, with every in- 
 terval, we leave behind us, as landmarks, on our way. 
 When you receive these three volumes, printed, and 
 labelled, and boarded, in all the uncut coxcombry of 
 the very last new novel, I know exactly the half frown, 
 half smile, with which you will greet them, and the 
 friendly petulance with which you will pish ! and think 
 
 what a pity it is that " should still write nothing else 
 
 but a novel." — Is it, indeed, a pity, my dear friend ? 
 Are you sure that in writing something else I should 
 write something better ? For my part, I often ask 
 
 • Burton.
 
 • • • 
 
 Vlll DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 myself that question ; and, if I could answer it satis- 
 factorily, this work would never have been written. 
 But let us view the matter fairlv ; what else shall 1 
 write ? There is Poetry, in the first place ! — Will you 
 — will any one read epic or sonnet — tale or satire — 
 tragedy or epigram? — Whatever be the variety, do 
 you not except at once to the species ? — and would 
 you not deem it a less fatigue and a greater profit, to 
 skim through three volumes, than to yawn over a 
 single stanza? — A tide of popular opinion has set 
 against poetry ; and in the literary world, as in the 
 natural, the tide and the hour can scarcely be neg- 
 lected, even by the hardiest adventurer. — Putting, then, 
 poetry out of our consideration — and I wish, for I 
 have all the fondness and weakness of first love still 
 clinging about me, that you would even attempt to 
 convince me that I ought not to do so, — shall we 
 turn to Philosophy ? shall I write on the mind, or spe- 
 culate on the senses ? — Alas ! to what end ? we mav 
 judge of the demand for moral philosophy, when we 
 reflect that Hobbes's works* are out of print, and that 
 Mills's Analysis has not been reviewed. I will frankly 
 confess to you, that writing is not with me its own 
 reward ; and that in order to write, I must first have 
 the hope to be read. Politics, Essays, Travels, Bio- 
 graphy, History ; — are these subjects on which one is 
 more likely to obtain a decent, a tolerably durable 
 reputation, than one is by the composition of novels ? 
 * In a collected shape.
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. IX 
 
 I fear not. Let us look around ! What encouragement 
 to any of these subjects is held out to us ? Are not 
 writings of this sort far more the ephemerals of lite* 
 rature than writings of fiction ?* Does the biography, 
 or the essay, or the treatise, last even the year for 
 which a novel endures ? And if it does not exceed 
 the novel in durability, it can scarcely equal it, you 
 
 * Nor is this, as at the first glance it may appear, owing to 
 the fault or the unimportance of the writings themselves. 
 AVhile " The Sketch Book" is found in every young lady's 
 dressing-room ; and " Bracebridge Hall" is still in high request, 
 in every country book-club ; " The Life of Columbus," invalua- 
 ble, if only from the subject so felicitously chosen ; " The Wars 
 of Grenada," scarcely less valuable from the subject so consum- 
 mately adorned, and so stirringly painted ; are, the one slowly 
 passing into forgetfulness, and the other slumbering, with uncut 
 leaves, upon the shelf. Compare the momentary sensation 
 produced by the first appearance of Lord King's " Life of 
 Locke," with the sensation, durable and intense, which, replete 
 as it is with the treasure of Locke's familiar thoughts, it would 
 have produced twenty years ago ! " Godwin's History of the 
 Commonwealth," one of the most manly and impartial records 
 ever written, lives less upon the memory than " Almack's ;" and 
 " Cyril Thornton," produced some four years since, is in more 
 immediate vogue than the admirable history by the same Author 
 
 published but the other day. True, that among a succeeding 
 
 generation, there may possibly be a re-action — lethargic octavos 
 be awakened from their untimely trance, and enlivened quartos 
 " take up their beds and walk !" But now when people think 
 as well as feel, and the present is to tbem that matter of refer- 
 ence and consideration which the future was with their more 
 dreaming forefathers — the fame that is only posthumous, has 
 become to all, but to poets, a very frigid and impotent induce- 
 ment. 
 
 A 5
 
 X DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 will allow, in popularity. The literary idler who re- 
 ceives it from the library, sends it away and waits for 
 the review in the Quarterly ; and the friend, the 
 familiar, to whom you make it a present, shuns you 
 during the rest of your life, lest you should inquire 
 his opinion. You see, my dear ******, I have 
 viewed the matter on a magnificent scale. I might 
 have checked the question at once;— I might, instead 
 of provoking discussion, by pointing out the unfitness 
 of such attempts, have quieted it by a gentle allusion 
 to the inability of the attempter ; — I might have ex- 
 claimed " Poetry ! I am a poetaster, not a poet. 
 Philosophy! lam a student, not a discoverer. Es- 
 says ! I have wearied you already with Essays in 
 ' Devereux,' or the ' Disowned.' Travels ! Where, 
 oh ! where have I travelled ?" But this is not the age in 
 which men are so uninventive in motives as to confess 
 to a want of genius, or a scantiness of knowledge ; and 
 consequently, I beg you to believe that I write novels, 
 not because I cannot write any thing else, but because 
 novels are the best possible things to be written. 
 
 We live in a strange and ominous period for 
 literature. In books as in other manufactures, the 
 great aim seems the abridgement of labour : the idlest 
 work is the most charming. People will only expend 
 their time for immediate returns of knowledge ; and 
 the wholesome and fair profit, slow, but permanent, 
 they call tedious in letters, and speculative in politics. 
 This eager yet slothful habit of mind, now so general,
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. XI 
 
 has brought into notice an emigrant, and motley class 
 of literature, formerly, in this country, little known 
 and less honoured. We throw aside our profound re- 
 searches, and feast upon popular abridgments ; we 
 forsake the old march through elaborate histories, for 
 " a dip" into entertaining memoirs. In this, our im- 
 mediate bias in literature, if any class of writing has 
 benefited more than another in popularity and esti- 
 mation, it is the Novel. Readers now look into fiction 
 for facts ; as Voltaire, in his witty philosophy, looked 
 among facts for fiction. I do not say that the novel 
 has, in increased merit, deserved its increased repu- 
 tation : on the contrary, I think, that though our 
 style may be less prolix than it was in the last cen- 
 tury, our thoughts are more languid and our inven- 
 tion less racy.* However this be, the fashion in 
 literature, of which I speak, has, among the wrecks 
 of much that is great and noble, opened to second- 
 rate ability and mediocre knowledge, paths that were 
 shut to them before. And I, for one, if I have lost 
 as a member of the Public, have gained more than 
 proportionately as an Individual. I feel that I have 
 just sufficient reading, or observation, or reflection, or 
 
 * In whatever I say of the novel, I cannot, of course, be sup- 
 posed to include the fictions of Sir Walter Scott. I must also 
 make two exceptions among the novels of his countrymen ; the 
 quaint and nervous humour of " Lawrie Todd," and the im- 
 passioned boldness of " Adam Blair."
 
 xii DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 talent of any sort, to make it possible that I may 
 stumble in a light fiction upon some amusing, perhaps 
 even some useful truths ; while neither the reading, nor 
 the observation, nor the reflection, nor the talent, are in 
 all probability sufficient to entitle me to a momentary 
 notice in any graver and more presuming composition. 
 Then, too, I fancy at those " post-prandial hours," 
 when a certain self-complacency diffuses its -cheering 
 
 caloric over the mind, 1 fancy that I have also by 
 
 accident stricken out a vein not so wholly hacknied, 
 as that any of my immediate cotemporaries share the 
 possession with myself: for the philosophical novel 
 is at present not only little cultivated in any shape, 
 but those who do break up the unpromising soil, are 
 writers essentially grave and didactic. Such is the 
 graceful and all-accomplished author of "De Vere ;" 
 or the fine creator of " St. Leon" and " Mandeville," 
 to whose style may be applied the simile applied some- 
 what too flatteringly to that of Tertullian — that it 
 is like ebony, at once dark and splendid. The novel, 
 blending chiefly the comic, and occasionally the dra- 
 matic qualities with those of the reflective and ana- 
 lysing, is that which (except in " Devereux") I have 
 sought out as the province of my own attempts ; and 
 in avoiding a competition with the distinguished wri- 
 ters I have just referred to, I aimed originally at pru- 
 dence, and gained perhaps something of novelty. 
 
 You will observe that I have laid a stress on the words 
 immediate cotemporaries, for I do not deceive myself with
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. Xlll 
 
 the idea that I have done any thing the least original ■ 
 I have only endeavoured to revive what had passed a 
 little into neglect ; and if my books have had any suc- 
 cess, it is owing to the goodness of the school, and in 
 spite of the faults of the disciple. The combination of 
 the philosophic novel with the comic has indeed long 
 since, in two great authors, been carried to a perfec- 
 tion, which, I confess, I think is not likely to be at- 
 tained, longo intervaUo, by any succeeding writer. The 
 first, and by far the greater of these, (I speak of Fielding) 
 seems a man, who with an universal fame has never 
 met with a full appreciation. To me, he appears not 
 only incomparable as a Novelist — but also one of the 
 soundest thinkers, and most scientific moralists that 
 ever conferred honour on a country, and instruction 
 on mankind. The second, Dr. Moore, has this re- 
 markable merit ; he has made us forgive in him, two 
 sins that would have been beyond redemption in any 
 other author, — viz. in style an odious affectation of 
 Gallicisms, and in morals a furtive tendency to import 
 the idea ready-made rather than to work out the raw 
 material at home. To these two may be added Miss 
 Ed°-eworth, the most faultless, if not the most brilliant 
 of all novelists, past and present. I do not class her 
 among immediate cotemporaries, partly because she 
 seems to have altogether retired from the field, and 
 partly because the same settled and quiet judgment 
 has been passed upon her charming and useful tales 
 which is in general reserved for the decision of poste-
 
 xiv DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 rity. Though I can only, then, advance a claim to the 
 merit of the renewer, not the creator,— the furbisher of 
 old pictures, not the artist of new, — I am yet very far 
 from certain that I can reach even an equal merit in 
 any other branch of literature ; and thus you perceive 
 a fourth* novel from my pen, where your unreflecting 
 friendship would have wished to see an attempt in 
 political morals or history : — History ! after all, and 
 despite of all discouragement, there is to every stu- 
 dent, every man of closet, or academic, recollections, a 
 wonderful stimulus in that word! and, perhaps, I may 
 already, and in defiance of my own judgment, and the 
 warnings around, have nursed within me some project 
 in that most noble yet least ransacked department of 
 intellectual research, which in after-years I may dis- 
 appoint you and embody. But this is not to be lightly 
 begun, nor even immaturely conceived ; and how many 
 casualties may arise to mar altogether the execution 
 of such a project! how many casualties, even at the 
 best, may procrastinate it to the languor of age, and 
 the energies slackened by long familiarity with the 
 crosses and contests of life ! Often, when through 
 youth and manhood we imagine we are cherishing our 
 concluding triumph, we are only nursing our latest 
 
 • When I speak of my fourth novel, I omit " Falkland" from 
 the number, an early and crude attempt which- I have never 
 hitherto owned —beyond my own small circle of friends ;— and 
 which I should not now speak of, were it not generally known 
 to be mine— at least among all who have ever heard of it !
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. XV 
 
 disappointment. Meanwhile, at present, if I anticipate 
 but little gain, I can meet with but a trifling loss: I 
 do not set my heart on the success of efforts, which, 
 I allow with my enemies, (for to have enemies is the 
 doom of literature, which even the most ordinary 
 writer does not escape,) are petty and unimportant; 
 I am not so elevated by the praise of this man, or so 
 humbled by the blame of that, as to forfeit " the level 
 temperature of the mind," or transgress the small and 
 charmed circle from which Reason — a sorceress when 
 she confines her efforts, an impostor when she enlarges 
 them — banishes the intrusion of others. Nor do I my- 
 self believe that to any one who has formed the habit 
 of application, is the production of books, whatever be 
 their nature, (so long as they are neither in poetry nor 
 abstract science) attended with that utter and absorbing 
 engrossment of time which is usually imagined. Life 
 has hours enough for all but the idle ; and for my 
 own part, if I were not in the common habit of turn- 
 ing to more important subjects, as a study, I should 
 never have had the presumption to write even novels, 
 as a recreation. Do not conceive, however, from 
 what I have said, that I am going to write novels all 
 the rest of my life, — I am excusing what has been, 
 and is, — not prefacing what is to be. 
 
 I have now, my dear friend, said all that I wished 
 to touch upon in excuse for the nature of my produc- 
 tions. I do not make you, nor, through you, my 
 Readers, an apology for my egotism or my prolixity.
 
 xvi DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 To all writers a Dedication is unchallenged and 
 licensed ground : to all Readers is granted a liberty, 
 no less acknowledged — that of passing over it with 
 whatever rapidity they please. I have been holding 
 intercourse with you with as much frankness as if the 
 letters I now write were not presently to be translated 
 into the unfamiliar characters of the press ; and if I 
 have gone a little too largely into general or into indi- 
 vidual topics, I must make amends by touching as 
 briefly as possible on the work now before you. 
 
 For the original idea of Paul Clifford, I am indebted 
 to a gentleman of considerable distinction in litera- 
 ture, and whose kindness to me is one of my most 
 gratifying remembrances. This idea, had the work 
 been shorter, would have pervaded the whole ; as it 
 is, it will be found embodied in those parts which, 1 
 believe, will be the most popular in the book. Such 
 as the scene at Gentleman George's, the sketch of 
 Bachelor Bill, &c. As example is more explanatory 
 than detail, I refer to these passages for the illustration 
 of my friend's suggestion, rather than attempt to un- 
 fold and enlarge on it here. In justice to my friend, 
 I should add, first, that I feel I have given a very inad- 
 equate form to a conception that appears to me pecu- 
 liarly felicitous; and secondly, that as I have made 
 use of his idea rather as an adjunct to my story, than 
 as the principal groundwork of the story itself, all 
 the faults of plot and deficiencies of invention that 
 may be found in the progress and denouement of my
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. XV 
 
 tale, are solely and wholly to be laid to my charge.* 
 It were to be wished that ray friend had found leisure 
 himself, among labours more important, to embody his 
 own idea ; or that, in giving me the canvass, he could 
 have given me also his skill to colour and his talent 
 to create. 
 
 I can scarcely conceive, what, you, who are rather 
 fastidious about the niceties of language, will think 
 of the vulgar graces wherewith the greater part 
 of my first volume is adorned. I must own, that 
 I have on this point steeled myself against censure ; 
 for, independent of any latent application or irony 
 in the dialect t I refer to, I am willing to risk an ex- 
 periment, tried successfully in Scotland and Ireland — 
 though not in the present day attempted in England: 
 
 * I should add, also, that I alone am accountable for the per- 
 sonality of any caricatures in the scenes referred to : all that my 
 friend suggested, was the satirical adaptation of living personages 
 to fictitious characters in the station or profession of life which 
 Old Bags and Long Ned adorn, — for the choice of those per- 
 sonages he is by no means answerable. 1 mention this, because 
 it is but fair that I should take the chances of offence on myself ; — 
 though the broadness, and evident want of malice in the carica- 
 tures referred to, will, I venture to foretell, make those carica- 
 tured, the first — perhaps the only persons — to laugh at the ex- 
 aggerated resemblance. 
 
 t It must be remembered, too, that this dialect is not the cor- 
 ruption of uncouth provincialisms. The language of the thieves, 
 or the low Londoners, (a distinction, 1 fear, without a difference,) 
 is perhaps one of the most expressive — nay, one of the most me- 
 taphysical in the world ! What deep philosophy, for instance, is 
 there in this phrase " the oil of Palms !" — (meaning money !)
 
 .will DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 — of giving descriptive and appropriate dialogue to 
 classes of society, far more capable of yielding interest 
 or amusement to persons of any mental vigour, what- 
 ever be their rank, than trite copies of the languid 
 inanities of a drawing-room, or lifeless portraits of 
 originals, whose very boast it is to be scarcely alive.* 
 
 For any occasional retaliation on critics, enemies, 
 or Scotchmen — (with me, for the most part, they 
 
 * In some inimical, and rather peisonal but clever observations, 
 made on me in a new periodical work, it is implied that peo- 
 ple living in good society cannot write philosophically, or, it 
 would seem, even well. I suppose of course the critic speaks of 
 persons who live only in good society ; and though the remark is 
 not true, as it happens, singularly enough, that the best and 
 most philosophical prose writers, in England especially, have been 
 gentlemen, and lived for the most part, as a matter of course, 
 among their equals, yet I shall content myself with saying, that 
 the remark, true or false, in this case by no means applies to me, 
 who have seen quite as much of the lowest orders as of any other, 
 and who scarcely ever go into what is termed 'the world.' By 
 the way, the Critic alluded to having been pleased in a very 
 pointed manner to consider me the hero as well as author of 
 my own book (Pelhain), I am induced to say a few words on the 
 subject. The year before Pelbam appeared, I published " Falk- 
 land," in which the hero was essentially of the gloomy, rom&ntic, 
 cloud-like order ; in short, Sir Reginald Glanville out-Glanvilled. 
 The matter-of-fact gentry, who say " We," and call themselves 
 Critics, declared that M Falkland" was evidently a personation of 
 the author : next year out came " Pelham," — the moral antipodes 
 of " Falkland,"— and the same gentry said exactly the same 
 tiling of " Pelbam." Will they condescend to reconcile this con- 
 tradiction ? The fact is, that the moment any prominency, any 
 corporeal reality is given to a hero, and the hero (mark this) is 
 not made ostentatiously good, — (nobody said I was like Mor- 
 daunt) — then the hero and the Author are the same person !
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. XIX 
 
 have been found three appellations for the same thing,) 
 for many very hard words, and very smart hits against 
 myself — I offer no excuse : — my retaliation is in the 
 spirit of English warfare — blows at one moment, and 
 good humour the next. — As for Scotchmen, I am not 
 quite sure that they have been yet able to expel from my 
 breast the lurking kindness which it once bore towards 
 them. — It is not an easy matter seriously to dislike, 
 however ingeniously one may rail against, the country 
 that has produced Burns, and Scott, and Campbell — 
 a country too, by the way, with which you claim a 
 connection, and of which the distinguished friend I 
 
 This is one reason why heroes now-a-days are made such poor 
 creatures. Authors, a quiet set of people, rarely like to be person- 
 ally mixed up with their own creations. For my own part, 
 though I might have an especial cause of complaint in this incor- 
 poration, since I have never even drawn two heroes alike, but 
 made each, Falkland, Pelham, Mordaunt, and Devereux, essen- 
 tially different ; yet I am perfectly willing, if it gives the good 
 people the least pleasure, that my Critics should confound me 
 with Pelham. Nay, if Pelham be at all what he was meant to 
 be, viz. a practical satire on the exaggerated, and misanthropical 
 romance of the day — a human being whose real good qualities 
 put to shame the sickly sentimentalism of blue skies and bare 
 throats, sombre coxcombries and interesting villanies ; if he be 
 at all like this, I am extremely proud to be mistaken for him. 
 For though he is certainly a man who bathes and " lives cleanly," 
 (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great 
 Unwashed,) yet he is also brave, generous, just ; a true friend, 
 an active citizen — perfect in accomplishments — unshakeable in 
 principles ! — What, is this my portrait — my fac-simile, Gentle- 
 men? Upon my word, I am extremely obliged to you. Pray 
 
 go on ! — I would not interrupt you for the world !
 
 XX DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 have mentioned in this epistle is a native. — I return, 
 only, gently enough at present, the first blows with 
 which they have assailed me ; I know what to expect 
 in return, and shall scarcely be the one 
 
 " Who first cries ' Hold, enough !' " 
 
 But, speaking dispassionately, our good fellow- 
 subjects on the other side of the Tweed have one 
 little unpleasant foible which makes them less charm- 
 ing than they otherwise might be — they lose their 
 temper the moment an Englishman gains a single ad- 
 vantage — they become preposterously angry if we 
 get ever so small a name, nay ever so small a fortune 
 in our own country ; — they seem to imagine that God 
 Almighty had made them a present of England to do 
 exactly what they please with, and that the English- 
 man who interferes with their monopoly commits the 
 very worst species of blasphemy. — Whenever we rise 
 the least little step in the world, we are, it is true, 
 sure to be abused ; but I fancy, we shall find, on in- 
 quiry, that nine times out of ten, the abuse has been 
 uttered in broad Scotch ! 
 
 It has been made an objection to this book, that 
 the style of the first volume differs from the style of 
 the second and third: this difference was an espe- 
 cial object with me in writing the work. Scenes in 
 society essentially contrasted, appear to require lan- 
 guage suitable to the contrast, and I cannot but think 
 that one of the great and ordinary faults in fiction, is
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. XXI 
 
 the narrating all events, and describing all varieties, 
 with the same monotonous and unmodulating tone. 
 
 The Hero of the story is an attempt to pourtray an 
 individual of a species of which the country is now 
 happily rid, but which seem to me to have possessed 
 as many of the real properties of romance, especially 
 comic and natural romance, as the foreign Carbonari 
 and exotic pirates whom it has pleased English writers, 
 in search of captivating villains, to import to their pages. 
 For my part, I will back an English highwayman, 
 masked, armed, mounted, and trotting over Hounslow 
 Heath, against the prettiest rascal the Continent ever 
 produced. 
 
 In conclusion, let me add that I have endeavoured 
 to take warning from the errors of my preceding 
 works. Perhaps it will be found that, in this the 
 story is better conducted, and the interest more uni- 
 formly upheld, than in my other productions. I 
 have outlived the Recluse's desire to be didascular, 
 and have avoided alike essay-writing and digression ; 
 — in a word, I have studied more than in my two 
 last works to write a tolerably entertaining novel. I 
 have admitted only one episode of importance — the 
 History of Augustus Tomlinson ; and I have only ad- 
 mitted that exception, because the History is no epi- 
 sode in the moral and general design, though it is in 
 the current of narration. 
 
 And now, my dear friend, it is high time that I 
 should end an Epistle already too long, even for your
 
 xxii DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 patience. Whatever be the fate of this book, or of 
 those which have preceded it ; whether they have arisen 
 like the insects kindled from the Sicilian fountain — 
 quickened with one moment, and perishing with the 
 next, — or whether, in spite of a thousand faults which 
 no one can detect easier than myself, something, be- 
 tokening, perhaps, no thoughtless or irreverent inat- 
 tention to the varieties of Nature, and no unkindly 
 disposition towards her offspring, may detain them on 
 the public mind yet a little while beyond the brief sea- 
 son which gave them birth; one gratification I 
 
 have at least secured ! — I have associated this novel, 
 which I incline to hope may not be considered my 
 worst, and which possibly may be my last, with such 
 remembrances as will survive defeat, or endear suc- 
 cess. 
 
 Adieu, my dear * * * * *, 
 Wishing you all health and happiness, 
 Believe me your very 
 
 Affectionate Friend, 
 
 E. L. B. 
 
 Hertford-street, April, 1830.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 One or two Notes on, or allusions to, Moore's 
 Life of Byron, will be found in these pages. Since 
 they were written, the subject has grown a little 
 hacknied, and the remarks they embody have been in 
 some measure forestalled. At the time of composi- 
 tion, they were, however, new, and appeared to me 
 called for.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Say ye opprest l>y some fantastic woes, 
 Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose, 
 Who press the downy couch while slaves advance 
 With timid eye to read the distant glance ; 
 Who with sad prayers the weary doctor teaze 
 To name the nameless ever-new disease ; 
 Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, 
 Which real pain and that alone can cure : 
 How would you bear in real pain to lie 
 Despis'd, neglected, left alone to die ? ■ 
 How would ye bear to draw your latest breath 
 Where all that's wretched paves the way to death ? 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 It was a dark, and stormy night, the rain fell in 
 torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it 
 was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept 
 up the streets (for it is in London that our scene 
 lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 ■1 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that 
 struggled against the darkness. Through one of 
 the obscurest quarters of London, and among 
 haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police, 
 a man evidently of the lowest orders was wend- 
 ing his solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice 
 r»t different shops and houses of a description cor- 
 respondent with the appearance of the quartier in 
 which they were situated, — and tended inquiry 
 for some article or another which did not seem 
 easily to be met with. All the answers he received 
 were couched in the negative ; and as he turned 
 from each door, he muttered to himself, in no very 
 elegant phraseology, his disappointment and dis- 
 content. At length, at one house, the landlord, 
 a sturdy butcher, after rendering the same reply 
 the inquirer had hitherto received, added, — " But 
 if this vill do as veil, Dummie, it is quite at 
 your sarvice!" Pausing reflectively for a mo- 
 ment, Dummie responded, that he thought the 
 thing proffered might do as well ; and thrusting 
 it into his ample pocket he strode away with as 
 rapid a motion as the wind and the rain would 
 allow. He soon came to a nest of low and dingy
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 6 
 
 buildings, at the entrance to which, in half- 
 effaced characters, was written " Thames Court." 
 Halting at the most conspicuous of these build- 
 ings, an inn or ale-house, through the half-closed 
 windows of which blazed out in ruddy comfort 
 the beams of the hospitable hearth, he knocked 
 hastily at the door. He was admitted by a lady 
 of a certain age, and endowed with a comely ro- 
 tundity of face and person. 
 
 " Hast got it, Dummie?" said she quickly, as 
 she closed the door on the guest. 
 
 " Noa, noa ! not exactly — but I thinks as 
 ow " 
 
 " Pish, you fool !" cried the woman interrupt- 
 ing him, peevishly : " Vy, it is no use desav- 
 ing of me. You knows you has only stepped 
 from my boosing ken to another, and you has not 
 been arter the book at all. So, there's the poor 
 cretur a-raving and a-dying, and you n 
 
 " Let I speak !" interrupted Dummie in his 
 turn. " I tells you, I vent first to Mother Buss- 
 blone's, who, I knows, chops the whiners morning 
 and evening to the young ladies, and I axes there 
 for a Bible, and she says, says she, ' I 'as only a 
 
 b2
 
 I PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 " Companion to the Halter I" but you'll get a 
 bible, I thinks, at Master Talkins, — the cobbler — 
 as preaches." 1 So I goes to Master Talkins, and 
 he says, says he, 'I 'as no call for the Bible, 'cause 
 v v, I 'as a call vithout ; but mayhap you '11 be 
 a-getting it at the butcher's hover the vay — • 
 cause vy ? — the butcher '11 be damned V So I goes 
 hover the vay, and the butcher says, says he, ' I 'as 
 not a Bible ; but I 'as a book of plays bound for all 
 thevorld just like 'un, and mayhap the poor cretur 
 mayn't see the difference.' So I takes the plays, 
 Mrs- Margery, and here they be surely ! — And 
 how's poor Judy ?"'' 
 
 " Fearsome ! she'll not be over the night ; 
 I 'm a-thi nking." 
 
 " Yell, I'll track up the dancers !" 
 
 So saying, Dummie ascended a doorless stair- 
 case, across the entrance of which a blanket, 
 stretched angularly from the wall to the chimney, 
 afforded a kind of screen; and presently he stood 
 within a chamber, which the dark and painful 
 genius of ( irabbe might have delighted to portray. 
 The walls were white-washed, and at sundry
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 5 
 
 places strange figures and grotesque characters 
 had been traced by some mirthful inmate in such 
 sable outline as the end of a smoked stick, or the 
 edge of a piece of charcoal is wont to produce. 
 The wan and flickering light afforded by a far- 
 thing candle gave a sort of grimness and menace 
 to these achievements of pictorial art, especially afi 
 they more than f ~\ce received embellishment from 
 portraits of Sat ".a, such as he is accustomed to be 
 drawn. A low fire burned gloomily in the sooty 
 grate ; and on the hob hissed " the still small 
 voice" of an iron kettle. On a round deal-table 
 were two vials, a cracked cup, a broken spoon of 
 some dull metal, and upon two or three mutilated 
 chairs were scattered various articles of female 
 attire. On another table, placed below a high, 
 narrow, shutterless casement, (athwart which, in- 
 stead of a curtain, a checked apron had been 
 loosely hung, and now waved fitfully to and fire 
 in the gusts of wind that made easy ingress 
 through many a chink and cranny,) were a look- 
 ing-glass, sundry appliances of the toilet, a box of 
 coarse rouge, a few ornaments of more show than 
 value; and a watch, the regular and calm clink
 
 O PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of which produced that indescribably painful 
 feeling which, we fear, many of our readers who 
 have heard the sound in a sick chamber can easily 
 recall. A large tester-bed stood opposite to this 
 table, and the looking-glass partially reflected 
 curtains of a faded stripe, and ever and anon, 
 (as the position of the sufferer followed the rest- 
 less emotion of a disordered mimJ ) glimpses of the 
 face of one on whom Death was rf^idly hastening. 
 Beside this bed now stood Dummie, a small, thin 
 man, dressed in a tattered plush jerkin, from which 
 the rain-drops slowly dripped, and with a thin, 
 yellow, cunning physiognomy, grotesquely hide- 
 ous in feature but not positively villainous in ex- 
 pression. On the other side of the bed stood a 
 little boy of about three years old, dressed as if 
 belonging to the better classes, although the garb 
 was somewhat tattered and discoloured. The 
 poor child trembled violently, and evidently 
 looked with a feeling of relief on the entrance of 
 Dummie. And now there slowly, and with many 
 a pthisical sigh, heaved towards the foot of the 
 bed the heavy frame of the woman who had ac- 
 costed Dummie below, and had followed him, 

 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 7 
 
 haud passibus aquis, to the room of the sufferer; 
 she stood with a bottle of medicine in her hand, 
 shaking its contents up and down, and with a 
 kindly yet timid compassion spread over a coun - 
 tenance crimsoned with habitual libations. This 
 made the scene ; save that on a chair by the bed- 
 side lay a profusion of long glossy golden ringlets, 
 which had been cut from the head of the sufferer 
 when the fever had begun to mount upwards ; 
 but which, with a jealousy that portrayed the 
 darling littleness of a vain heart, she had seized 
 and insisted on retaining near her ; and save that, 
 by the fire, perfectly inattentive to the event about 
 to take place within the chamber, and to which 
 we of the biped race attach so awful an import- 
 ance, lay a large grey cat curled in a ball, and 
 dozing with half- shut eyes, and ears that now and 
 then denoted by a gentle inflection, the jar of a 
 louder or nearer sound than usual upon her 
 lethargic senses. The dying woman did not at 
 first attend to the entrance either of Dummie or 
 the female at the foot of the bed ; but she turned 
 herself round towards the child, and grasping his 
 arm fiercely, she drew him towards her, and gazed
 
 8 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 on his terrified features with a look in which ex- 
 haustion and an exceeding wanness of complexion 
 were even horribly contrasted by the glare and 
 energy of delirium. 
 
 " If you are like him" she muttered, " I will 
 strangle you, — I will ! — ay — tremble ! you ought 
 to tremble, when your mother touches you, or 
 when he is mentioned. You have his eyes, — vou 
 have ! Out with them, out ! —the Devil sits laugh- 
 ing in them ! Oh ! you weep, do you, little one ! 
 Well now, be still, my love, — be hushed ! I 
 would not harm thee ! harm — O God, he is my 
 child after all !" — and at these words she clasped 
 the boy passionately to her breast, and burst into 
 tears ! 
 
 " Coom now, coom !" said Dummie soothingly. 
 " Take the stuff, Judith, and then veil talk hover 
 the hurchin !" 
 
 The mother relaxed her grasp of the boy, and 
 turning towards the speaker, gazed at him for 
 Borne moments with a bewildered stare: at length 
 she appeared slowly to remember him, and said, 
 as she raised herself on one hand, and pointed the 
 other towards him with an inquiring gesture —
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 9 
 
 " Thou hast brought the book ?" 
 
 Dummie answered by lifting up the book he had 
 brought from the honest butcher's. 
 
 " Clear the room, then !" said the sufferer, with 
 that air of mock command so common to the 
 insane. " We would be alone !" 
 
 Dummie winked at the good woman at the foot 
 of the bed ; and she (though generally no easv 
 person to order or to persuade) left, without re- 
 luctance, the sick chamber. 
 
 " If she be a-going to pray !" murmured our 
 landlady, (for that office did the good matron hold,) 
 " I may indeed as well take myself off, for it's not 
 werry comfortable like, to those who be old, to 
 hear all that-'ere I 11 
 
 With this pious reflection, the hostess of 
 the " Mug, 11 so was the hostelry called, heavily 
 descended the creaking stairs. 
 
 " Now, man !" said the sufferer sternly, — 
 ■■ -wear that you will never reveal, — &wear, I say ! 
 and by the great God, whose angels are about this 
 night, if ever you break the oath, I will come 
 back and haunt you to your dying day I 11 
 
 Dummies face grew pale, for he was super- 
 is J
 
 10 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 stitiously affected by the vehemence and the lan- 
 guage of the dying woman, and he answered as 
 he kissed the pretended Bible, — that he swore to 
 keep the secret, as much as he knew of it, which, 
 she must be sensible, he said, was very little. As 
 he spoke, the wind swept with a loud and sudden 
 gust down the chimney, and shook the roof above 
 them so violently as to loosen many of the crumb- 
 ling tiles, which fell one after the other, with a 
 crashing noise, on the pavement below. Dummie 
 started in affright ; and perhaps his conscience 
 smote him for the trick he had played with regard 
 to the false Bible. But the woman, whose ex- 
 cited and unstrung nerves led her astray from 
 one subject to another with preternatural celerity, 
 said with an hysterical laugh, " See, Dummie, 
 they come in state for me, — give me the cap — 
 yonder ! and bring the looking-glass !"" 
 
 Dummie obeyed, and the woman, as she in a 
 low tone uttered something about the unbecoming 
 colour of the ribbons, adjusted the cap on her 
 head ; and then saying in a regretful and petu- 
 lant voice, " Why should they have cut off 
 my hair? — such a disfigurement V bade Dummie
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 11 
 
 desire Mrs. Margery once more to ascend to 
 her. 
 
 Left alone with her child, the face of the 
 wretched mother softened as she regarded him, 
 and all the levities and all the vehemences, — if we 
 may use the word, — which, in the turbulent com- 
 motion of her delirium, had been stirred upward 
 to the surface of her mind, gradually now sunk, 
 as death increased upon her, — and a mother's 
 anxiety rose to the natural level from which it 
 had been disturbed and abased. She took the 
 child to her bosom, and clasping him in her arms, 
 which grew weaker with every instant, she 
 soothed him with the sort of chant which nurses 
 sing over their untoward infants ; but the voice was 
 cracked and hollow, and as she felt it was so, the 
 mother's eyes filled with tears. — Mrs. Margery 
 now re-entered ; and, turning towards the hostess 
 with an impressive calmness of manner which 
 astonished and awed the person she addressed, 
 the dying woman pointed to the child, and said — 
 
 " You have been kind to me, very kind, and 
 may God bless you for it ! I have found that 
 those whom the world calls the worst, are often
 
 12 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the most human. But I am not going to thank 
 you as I ought to do, but to ask of you a last and 
 exceeding favour. Protect my child till he grows 
 up, — you have often said you loved him, — you 
 are childless yourself, — and a morsel of bread and 
 a shelter for the night which is all I ask of you 
 to give him, will not impoverish more legitimate 
 claimants !" 
 
 Poor Mrs. Margery fairly sobbing, vowed she 
 would be a mother to the child, and that she 
 would endeavour to rear him honestly, though a 
 public house was not, she confessed, the best place 
 for good examples ! 
 
 " Take him I 1 ' cried the mother hoarsely, as 
 her voice, failing her strength, rattled indistinctly, 
 and almost died within her. " Take him,— rear 
 him as you will, as you can ! — any example, any 
 roof better than — " Here the words were inaudi- 
 ble. —"And oh! may it be a curse, and a! 
 
 Give me the medicine, I am dying. 1 ' 
 
 The hostess, alarmed, hastened to comply, but 
 before she returned to the bedside the sufferer 
 was insensible, — nor did she again recover speech
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 13 
 
 or motion. A low and rare moan only testified 
 continued life, and within two hours that ceased, 
 and the spirit was gone. At that time our good 
 hostess was herself beyond the things of this outer 
 world, having supported her spirits during the 
 vigils of the night with so many little liquid ex- 
 citations, that they finally ended in that torpor 
 which generally succeeds excitement. Taking, 
 perhaps, advantage of the opportunity the insen- 
 sibility of the hostess afforded him, Dummie, by 
 the expiring ray of the candle that burnt in the 
 death chamber, hastily opened a huge box (which 
 was generally concealed under the bed, and con- 
 tained the wardrobe of the deceased,) and turned 
 with irreverent hand over the linens and the silks, 
 until quite at the bottom of the trunk he discovered 
 some packets of letters; — these he seized, and bu- 
 ried in the conveniences of his dress ; he then 
 rising and replacing the box, cast a longing eye 
 to wards the watch on the toilet-table, which was 
 of gold ; but he withdrew his gaze, and with 
 a long, querulous sigh, observed to himself, " The 
 old blone kens o 1 that, od rat her ! but, how-
 
 14 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 somever, 111 take this ; who knows but it may 
 be of sarvice — fannies to-day may be smash to- 
 morrow* ! v and he laid his coarse hand on the 
 golden and silky tresses we have described, — 
 "Tis a rum business, and puzzles I ; but mum's 
 the word, for my own little colquarren.-f*" 
 
 With this brief soliloquy, Dummie descended 
 the stairs, and let himself out of the house. 
 
 * Meaning what is of no value now, may he precious hereafter. 
 ■+ Cohmarren — neck.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. l-> 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Imagination fondly stoops to trace 
 
 The parlour splendours of that festive place. 
 
 Deserted Village. 
 
 There is little to interest in a narrative of 
 early childhood, unless indeed one were writing 
 on education. We shall not therefore linger over 
 the infancy of the motherless boy left to the pro- 
 tection of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, or, as she was 
 sometimes familiarly called, Peggy or Piggy Lob. 
 The good dame, diawing a more than sufficient 
 income from the profits of a house, which, if situa- 
 ted in an obscure locality, enjoyed very general 
 and lucrative repute ; and being a lone widow 
 without kith or kin, had no temptation to break
 
 16 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 her word to the deceased, and she suffered the 
 orphan to wax in strength and understanding 
 until the age of twelve, a period at which we are 
 now about to reintroduce him to our readers. 
 
 The boy evinced great hardihood of temper, 
 and no inconsiderable quickness of intellect. In 
 whatever he attempted, his success was rapid, and 
 a remarkable strength of limb and muscle se- 
 conded well the dictates of an ambition turned, 
 it must be confessed, rather to physical than 
 mental exertion. It is not to be supposed, how- 
 ever, that his boyish life passed in unbroken tran- 
 quillity. Although Mrs. Lobkins was a good 
 woman on the whole, and greatly attached to her 
 protege, she was violent and rude in temper, or, 
 as she herself more flatteringly expressed it, " her 
 feelings were un/h'mmonly strong," and alternate 
 quarrel and reconciliation constituted the chief 
 occupations of the proteges domestic life. As 
 previous to his becoming the ward of Mrs. Lob- 
 kins, he had never received any other appellation 
 than " the child,*' the duty of christening him 
 devolved upon our hostess of "The Mug;" 
 and, after some deliberation, she blest him'with the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 17 
 
 name of Paul, — it was a name of happy omen, for 
 it had belonged to Mrs. Lobkins' grandfather, 
 who had been three times transported, and twice 
 hanged, (at the first occurrence of the latter de- 
 scription, he had been restored by the surgeons, 
 much to the chagrin of a young anatomist who 
 was to have had the honour of cutting him up.) 
 The boy did not seem likely to merit the dis- 
 tinguished appellation -he bore, for he testified no 
 remarkable predisposition to the property of other 
 people. Nay, although he sometimes emptied 
 the pockets of any stray visitor to the coffee-room 
 of Mrs. Lobkins, it appeared an act originating 
 rather in a love of the frolic, than a desire of the 
 profit ; for after the plundered person had been 
 sufficiently tormented by the loss, haply of such 
 utilities as a tobacco-box or a handkerchief ; 
 after he had, to the secret delight of Paul, 
 searched every corner of the apartment, stamped, 
 and fretted, and exposed himself by his petulance 
 to the bitter objurgation of Mrs. Lobkins, our 
 young friend would quietly and suddenly con-* 
 trive, that the article missed should return of its 
 own accord to the pocket from which it had dis-
 
 18 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 appeared. And thus, as our readers have doubt- 
 less experienced, when they have disturbed the 
 peace of a whole household for the loss of some 
 portable treasure which they themselves are after- 
 wards discovered to have mislaid ; the unfortunate 
 victim of Paul's honest ingenuity, exposed to the 
 collected indignation of the spectators, and sink- 
 ing from the accuser into the convicted, secretly 
 cursed the unhappy lot which not only vexed 
 him with the loss of his property, but made it still 
 more annoying to recover it. 
 
 "Whether it was that, on discovering these pranks, 
 Mrs. Lobkins trembled for the future bias of the 
 address they displayed, or whether she thought 
 that the folly of thieving without gain required 
 speedy and perman .it correction, we cannot 
 decide; but the good lady became at last ex- 
 tremely anxious to secure for Paul the blessings 
 of a liberal education. The key of knowledge 
 (the art of reading) she had, indeed, two years prior 
 to the present date, obtained for him, but this far 
 from satisfied her conscience: nay, she felt that, 
 if she could not also obtain for him the discretion 
 to use it, it would have been wise even to have
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 19 
 
 withheld a key, which the boy seemed perversely to 
 apply to all locks but the right one. In a word, 
 she was desirous that he should receive an educa- 
 tion far superior to those whom he saw around 
 him. And attributing, like most ignorant per- 
 sons, too great advantages to learning, she con- 
 ceived that, in order to live as decorously as the 
 parson of the parish, it was only necessary to 
 know as much Latin. 
 
 One evening in particular, as the dame sat by 
 her cheerful fire, this source of anxiety was unu- 
 sually active in her mind, and ever and anon she 
 directed unquiet and restless glances towards 
 Paul, who sat on a form at the opposite corner of 
 the hearth, diligently employed in reading the life 
 and adventures of the celebrated Richard Turpin. 
 The form on which the boy sat was worn to a 
 glassy smoothness, save only in certain places, 
 where some ingenious idler or another had amused 
 himself by carving sundry names, epithets, and 
 epigrammatic niceties of language. It is said, that 
 the organ of carving upon wood is prominently 
 developed on all English skulls ; and the saga- 
 cious Mr. Coombe has placed this organ at the
 
 20 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 back of the head, in juxtaposition to that of 
 destructiveness, which is equally large among 
 our countrymen, as is notably evinced upon all 
 railings, seats, temples, and other things — belong- 
 ing to other people. 
 
 Opposite to the fire-place was a large deal-table, 
 at which Dummie, surnamed Dunnaker, seated 
 near the dame, was quietly ruminating over a glass 
 of hollands and water. Farther on, at another 
 table in the corner of the room, a gentleman with 
 a red wig, very rusty garments, and linen which 
 seemed as if it had been boiled in saffron, smoked 
 his pipe, apart, silent, and apparently plunged in 
 meditation. This gentleman was no other than 
 Mr. Peter Mac Crawler, the editor of a magnifi- 
 cent periodical, entitled the " Asimeum, 1 ' which 
 was written to prove, that whatever is popular is 
 necessarily bad, — a valuable and recondite truth 
 which the Asimeum had satisfactorily demon- 
 strated by ruining three printers, and demolishing 
 a publisher. We need not add, that Mr. Mac 
 Grawlcr was Scotch by birth, since we believe it 
 is pretty well known that all the periodicals of 
 this country have, from lime immemorial, been
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 21 
 
 monopolized by the gentlemen of the land of 
 cakes — we know not how it may be the fashion to 
 eat the said cakes in Scotland ; but here the good 
 emigrators seem to like them carefully buttered 
 on both sides. By the side of the editor stood 
 a large pewter tankard, above him hung an 
 engraving of the " wonderfully fat boar, formerly 
 in the possession of Mr. Fattem, Grazier." To 
 his left rose the dingy form of a thin, upright 
 clock in an oaken case ; beyond the clock, a spit 
 and a musket were fastened in parallels to the 
 wall. Below those twin emblems of war and 
 cookery were four shelves, containing plates of 
 pewter and delf, and terminating, centaur-like, in 
 a sort of dresser. At the other side of these do- 
 mestic conveniences was a picture of Mrs. Lobkins, 
 in a scarlet body, and a hat and plume. At the 
 back of the fair hostess stretched the blanket 
 we have before mentioned. As a relief to the 
 monotonous surface of this simple screen, various 
 ballads and learned legends were pinned to the 
 blanket. There might you read in verses, pathe- 
 tic and unadorned, how, 
 
 " Sally loved a sailor lad 
 
 As fought with famous Shovel ! "
 
 22 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 There might you learn, if of two facts so in- 
 structive you were before unconscious, that 
 
 " Ben the toper loved his hottle — 
 Charley only loved the lasses ! " 
 
 When of these, and various other poetical effu- 
 sions, you were somewhat wearied, the literary 
 fragments, in humbler prose, afforded you equal 
 edification and delight. There might you fully 
 enlighten yourself as to the " Strange and Won- 
 derful News from Kensington, being a most full 
 and true relation, how a Maid there is supposed to 
 have been carried away by an Evil Spirit, on 
 Wednesday, 15th of April last, about Midnight.'" 
 There too, no less interesting and no less veraci- 
 ous, was that uncommon anecdote, touching the 
 chief of many-throned powers, entitled, " The 
 Divell of Mascon ; or the true relation of the 
 Chief Things which an Unclean Spirit did and 
 said at Mascon, in Burgundy, in the house of 
 one Mr. Francis Pereaud, now made English by 
 One that hath a Particular Knowledge of the 
 Truth of the Story."' 1
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 23 
 
 Nor were these materials for Satanic History the 
 only prosaic a.nd faithful chronicles which the 
 bibliothecal blanket afforded : equally wonderful, 
 and equally indisputable, was the account of " a 
 young lady, the daughter of a duke, with three 
 legs, and the face of a porcupine.'' Nor less so, 
 " The Awful Judgment of God upon Swearers, 
 as exemplified in the case of John Stiles, who 
 Dropped down Dead after swearing a Great Oath, 
 and on stripping the unhappy man they found 
 k Swear not at air written on the Tail of his Shirt ! " 
 
 Twice had Mrs. Lobkins heaved a long sigh ; 
 as her eyes turned from Paul to the tranquil coun- 
 tenance of Dummie Dunnaker, and now, resettling 
 herself in her chair, as a motherly anxiety gathered 
 over her visage — 
 
 " Paul, my ben cull," said she, " what gibbe- 
 rish hast got there ? " 
 
 " Turpin, the great highwayman! 1 '' answered 
 the young student, without lifting his eyes from 
 the page, through which he was spelling his in- 
 structive way. 
 
 " Oh ! he be"s a chip of the right block,
 
 24 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 dame \ n said Mr. Dunnaker, as he applied his 
 pipe to an illumined piece of paper " He '11 
 ride a oss foaled by a hacorn yet, I varrants !" 
 
 To this prophecy the dame replied only with a 
 look of indignation, and rocking herself to and 
 fro in her huge chair, she remained for some 
 moments in silent thought. At last she again 
 wistfully eyed the hopeful boy, and calling him to 
 her side, communicated some order, in a dejected 
 whisper. Paul, on receiving it., disappeared behind 
 the blanket, and presently returned with a bottle 
 and a wine-glass. With an abstracted gesture, 
 and an air that betokened continued meditation, 
 the good dame took the inspiring cordial from 
 the hand of her youthful Cupbearer, 
 
 " And ere a man had power to say ' Behold !' 
 The jaws of Lohkins had devoured it up, 
 So quick bright things come to confusion !" 
 
 The nectarean beverage seemed to operate cheer- 
 ily on the matron's system ; and placing her hand 
 on the boy's curling head , she said, (like Andro- 
 mache'' dakruon eelasasa, or, as Scott hath it,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 25 
 
 ' With a smile in her cheek, but a tear in her 
 eye.') 
 
 " Paul, thy heart be good !— thy heart be good ! 
 — Thou didst not spill a drop of the tape ! Tell 
 me, my honey, why didst thou lick Tom Toby- 
 son ? " 
 
 " Because," answered Paul, " he said as how 
 you ought to have been hanged long ago V 
 
 " Tom Tobyson is a-good-for-nought, 11 re- 
 turned the dame, " and deserves to shove the 
 tumbler ; * but, oh my child ! be not too ven- 
 turesome in taking up the sticks for a blowen. 
 It has been the ruin of many a man afore you, 
 and when two men goes to quarrel for a 'oman, 
 they doesn't know the natur of the thing they 
 quarrels about ;— mind thy latter end, Paul, and 
 reverence the old, without axing what they has 
 been before they passed into the wale of years ; — 
 thou may'st get me my pipe, Paul, — it is upstairs, 
 under the pillow. 11 
 
 While Paul was accomplishing this errand, 
 
 * Be whipped at the cart's tail. 
 VOL. I. C
 
 26 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the lady of the Mug, fixing her eyes upon Mr. 
 Dunnaker, said, " Dummie, Dummie, if little 
 Paul should come to be scragged I 11 
 
 " Whish I 11 muttered Dummie, glancing over 
 his shoulder at Mac Grawler, — " Mayhap that 
 Gemman,'" 1 — here his voice became scarcely audible 
 even to Mrs. Lobkins ; but his whisper seemed to 
 imply an insinuation, that the illustrious editor of 
 the Asinaeum might be either an informer, or one 
 of those heroes on whom an informer subsists. 
 
 Mrs. Lobkins 1 answer, couched in the same key, 
 appeared to satisfy Dunnaker, for, with a look of 
 great contempt, he chucked up his head, and said, 
 " Oho '. that be all, be it !" 
 
 Paul here re-appeared with the pipe, and the 
 flame, having filled the tube, leaned forward, and 
 lighted the Virginian weed from the blower of 
 Mr. Dunnaker. As in this interesting occupation 
 the heads of the hostess and the guest approached 
 each other, the glowing light playing cheerily on 
 the countenance of each, there was an honest 
 simplicity in the picture that would have merited 
 the racy and vigorous genius of a Cruikshank. 
 As soon as the Promethean spark hd been fully
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 27 
 
 communicated to the lady's tube, Mrs. Lobkins, 
 still possessed by the gloomy idea she had con- 
 jured up, repeated — 
 
 "Ah, Dummie, if little Paul should be scragg- 
 ed !" Dummie, withdrawing the pipe from his 
 mouth, heaved a sympathizing puff, but re- 
 mained silent ; and Mrs. Lobkins, turning to Paul, 
 who stood with mouth open and ears erect at this 
 boding ejaculation, said — 
 
 " Dost think, Paul, they'd have the heart to 
 hang thee ?" 
 
 " I think they'd have the rope, dame !" returned 
 the youth. 
 
 " But you need not go for to run your neck 
 into the noose !" said the matron ; and then, in- 
 spired by the spirit of moralizing, she turned 
 round to the youth, and gazing upon his atten- 
 tive countenance, accosted him with the following 
 admonitions. 
 
 " Mind thy kittychism, child, and reverence 
 old age. Never steal, 'specially when any one 
 be in the way. Never go snacks with them as 
 be older than you, — 'cause why ? the older a cove 
 be, the more he cares for his self, and the less 
 
 c 2
 
 ■2tt PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 for his partner. At twenty, we diddles the 
 public— at forty, we diddles our cronies! Be 
 modest, Paul, and stick to your sitivation in life. 
 Go not with fine tobymen, who burn out like 
 a candle wot has a thief in it, — all flare, and gone 
 in a whiffy ! Leave liquor to the aged, who can't 
 do without it. Tape often proves a halter, and 
 there be's no ruin like blue ruin ! Read your 
 Bible, and talk like a pious 'un. People goes 
 more by your words than your actions. If you 
 wants what is not your own, try and do without 
 it ; and if you cannot do without it, take it away 
 by insinuation, not bluster. They as swindles, 
 does more and risks less than they as robs; and 
 if you cheats toppingly, you may laugh at the 
 topping cheat ;* and now go play. 1 ' 
 
 Paul seized his hat, but lingered ; and the 
 dame guessing at the signification of the pause, 
 drew forth, and placed in the boy's hand, the sum 
 of five halfpence^and one farthing. " There, boy,"" 
 quoth she, "and she stroked his head fondly 
 when she spoke. " You does right not to play 
 
 * Gallows.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 29 
 
 for nothing, it's loss of time! but play with 
 those as be less than yourself and then you can 
 go for to beat 'em, if they says you go for to 
 cheat !" 
 
 Paul vanished ; and the dame, laying her hand 
 on Dummie's shoulder, said — 
 
 " There be nothing like a friend in need, 
 Dummie ; and somehow or other, I thinks as how 
 you knows more of the horigin of that 'ere lad 
 than any of us !" 
 
 " Me, dame !" exclaimed Dummie, with the 
 broad gaze of astonishment. 
 
 " Ah, you ! you knows as how the mother saw 
 more of you just afore she died, than she did of 
 "ere one of us. Noar, now, — noar now ! tell us 
 all about 'un. Did she steal 'un, think ye ?" 
 
 " Lauk, mother Margery ! dost think I knows ? 
 vot put such a crotchet in your ead ?" 
 
 "Well!" said the dame with a disappointed 
 sigh, " I always thought as how you were more 
 knowing about it than you owns. Dear, dear, I 
 shall never forgit the night when Judith brought 
 the poor cretur here, — you knows she had been 
 some months in my house afore ever I see'd the
 
 30 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 urchin, and when she brought it, she looked so 
 pale and ghostly, that I had not the heart to 
 say a word, so I stared at the brat, and it stretched 
 out its wee little hands to me. And the mother 
 frowned at it, and throwed it into my lap P 1 
 
 " Ah ! she vas a hawful voman, that "ere V said 
 Dummie, shaking his head. " But howsomever, 
 the hurchin fell into good hands; for I be"s sure 
 you "as been a better mother to 'un than the raal 
 
 'un r 
 
 " I was always a fool about childcr," rejoined 
 Mrs. Lobkins, " and I thinks as how little Paul 
 was sent to be a comfort to my latter end ! — fill 
 the glass, Dummie." 
 
 " 1 'as heard as ow Judith was once blowen to 
 a great lord !" said Dummie. 
 
 " Like enough !"" returned Mrs. Lobkins — " like 
 enough ! she was always a favourite of mine, for 
 she had a spuret (spirit) as big as my own ; and 
 she paid her rint like a decent body, for all she 
 was out of her sinses, or nation like it." 11 
 
 " Ay, I knows as how you liked her, — 'cause vy ? 
 'tis not your vay, to let a room to a voman ! you
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 31 
 
 says as ow 'tis not respectable, and you only likes 
 men to wisit the Mug !" 
 
 " And I doesn't like all of them as comes 
 here !" answered the dame: " 'specially for Paul's 
 sake ; but what can a lone 'oman do ? Many's 
 the gentlemen highwaymen wot comes here, whose 
 money is as good as the clerk's of the parish. 
 And when a bob* is in my hand, what does it 
 sinnify whose hand it was in afore ?" 
 
 " That's what I calls being sinsible and prac- 
 tical,"" said Dummie, approvingly. " And arter 
 all, though you 'as a mixture like, I does not 
 know a haleouse, vere a cove is better entertained, 
 nor meets of a Sunday more iligant company, 
 than the Mug!" 
 
 Here the conversation; which the reader must 
 know had been sustained in a key inaudible to ;i 
 third person, received a check from Mr. Peter Mac 
 Grawler, who, having finished his reverie and his 
 tankard, now rose to depart. First, however, ap- 
 proaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he had 
 gone on credit for some days, and demanded the 
 amount of his bill. Glancing towards certain chalk 
 
 * Shilling.
 
 32 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 hieroglyphics inscribed on the wall at the other 
 side of the fireplace, the dame answered, that Mr. 
 Mac Grawler was indebted to her for the sum of 
 one shilling and ninepence three farthings. 
 
 After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat 
 pockets, the critic hunted into one corner a soli- 
 tary half-crown, and having caught it between his 
 finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lobkins, and 
 requested change. 
 
 As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed 
 with what has been called by some ingenious 
 Johnson of St. Giles's " the oil of palms,' 1 her 
 countenance softened into a complacent smile; 
 and when she gave the required change to Mr. 
 Mac Grawler, she graciously hoped as how he 
 would recommend the Mug to the public. 
 
 " That you may be sure of," said the editor of 
 the Asinaeum. " There is not a place where I am 
 BO much at home."" 
 
 With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his 
 coat and went his way. 
 
 " How spiteful the world be !" said Mrs. Lob- 
 kins after a pause, " 'specially if a 'oman keeps 
 a fashionable sort of a public ? When Judith
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 33 
 
 died, Joe, the dog's-meat man said I war all the 
 better for it, and that she left I a treasure to 
 bring up the urchin. One would think a thum- 
 per makes a man richer, — 'cause why ? every man 
 thumps ! I got nothing more than a watch and 
 ten guineas, when Judy died, and sure, that scarce 
 paid for theburrel (burial)." 
 
 " You forgits the two quids,* I giv 1 you for 
 the hold box of rags, — much of a treasure I found 
 there !" said Dummie, with sycophantic archness. 
 
 " Ay, 11 cried the dame laughing, " I fancies you 
 war not pleased with the bargain. I thought you 
 war too old a rag-merchant to be so free with the 
 blunt : howsomever, I supposes it war the tinsel 
 petticoat as took you in !" 
 
 " As it has mony a viser man than the like of 
 I," rejoined Dummie, who to his various secret 
 professions added the ostensible one of a rag- 
 merchant and dealer in broken glass. 
 
 The recollection of her good bargain in the box 
 of rags opened our landlady's heart. 
 
 " Drink, Dummie," said she good-humouredly, 
 — " drink, I scorns to score lush to a friend. 1 " 
 
 * Guineas. 
 
 c 5
 
 34- PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Dummie expressed his gratitude, refilled his 
 glass, and the hospitable matron knocking out 
 from her pipe the dying ashes, thus proceeded— 
 
 " You sees, Dummie, though I often beats the 
 boy, I loves him, as much as if I war his raal 
 mother — I wants to make him an honor to his 
 country and an ixciption to my family !" 
 
 " Who all flashed their ivories at Surgeons' 
 Hall !" added the metaphorical Dummie. 
 
 " True r said the lady,—" they died game, and 
 I ben't ashamed of 'em. But I owes a dutv to 
 Paul's mother, and I wants Paul to have a long 
 life. I would send him to school, but you knows 
 as how the boys only corrupt one another. And 
 so, I should like to meet with some decent man 
 as a tutor, to teach the lad Latin and vartue !" 
 
 "My eyes!" cried Dummie, aghast at the 
 grandeur of this desire. 
 
 " The boy is 'cute enough, and he loves read- 
 ing, 1 ' continued the Dame. " But I does not 
 think the books he gets hold of will teach him 
 the way to grow old." 
 
 " And ow came he to read anyhows?" 
 
 " Ranting Rob, the strolling player, taught 
 him his letters, and said he'd a deal of janius !"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 35 
 
 " And why should not Ranting Rob tache the 
 boy Latin and vartue?" 
 
 " 'Cause Ranting Rob, poor fellow, iv as lagged 
 for doing a panny !"* answered the dame, despon- 
 dently. 
 
 There was a long silence : it was broken by Mr. 
 Dummie : slapping his thigh with the gesticula- 
 tory vehemence of an Ugo Foscolo, that gentleman 
 exclaimed — 
 
 "/'as it — Fas thought of a tutor for leetlePaul \" 
 
 " Who's .that ? you quite frightens me, you 'as 
 no marcy on my narves,"" said the dame fretfully. 
 
 " Vy, it be the gemman vot writes,"" said 
 Dummie, putting his finger to his nose, — " the 
 gemman vot payed you so flashly !" 
 
 " What ! the Scotch gemman !" 
 
 " The werry same !"" returned Dummie. 
 
 The dame turned in her chair, and refilled her 
 pipe. It was evident from her manner that Mr. 
 Dunnaker's suggestion had made an impression on 
 her. But she recognized two doubts as to its 
 feasibility, — one, whether the gentleman proposed 
 would be adequate to the task, — the other, whether 
 he would be willing to undertake it. 
 
 * Transported for burglary.
 
 36 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 In the midst of her meditations on this matter, 
 the dame was interrupted by the entrance of cer- 
 tain claimants on her hospitality ; and Dummie 
 soon after taking his leave, the suspense of Mrs. 
 Lobkkis 1 mind touching the education of little 
 Paul, remained the whole of that day and night 
 utterly unrelieved.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I own that I am envious of the pleasure you will have in find- 
 ing yourself more learned than other boys — even those who are 
 older than yourself ! What honour this will do you ! What 
 distinctions, what applauses will follow wherever you go ! 
 
 Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son. 
 
 Example, my boy — example is worth a thousand precepts. 
 
 Maximilian Soleji> 
 
 jin. 
 
 Tarpeia was crushed beneath the weight of 
 ornaments ! The language of the vulgar is a sort 
 of Tarpeia ! We have therefore relieved it of as 
 many gems as we were able ; and, in the foregoing 
 scene, presented it to the gaze of our readers, sim- 
 plex munditiis. Nevertheless, we could timidly 
 imagine some gentler beings of the softer sex 
 rather displeased with the tone of the dialogue we 
 have given, did we not recollect how delighted 

 
 38 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 they are with the provincial barbarities of the 
 sister kingdom, whenever they meet them poured 
 over the pages of some Scottish story-teller. As, 
 unhappily for mankind, broad Scotch is not yet 
 the universal language of Europe, we suppose our 
 countrywomen will not be much more unac- 
 quainted with the dialect of their own lower 
 orders, than with that which breathes nasal melo- 
 dies over the paradise of the North. 
 
 It was the next day, at the hour of twilight, when 
 Mrs. Margery Lobkins, after a satisfactory tete-a-tete 
 with Mr. Mac Grawler, had the happiness of think- 
 ing that she had provided a tutor for little Paul. 
 The critic having recited to her a considerable por- 
 tion of Propria qua Maribus, the good lady had no 
 longer a doubt of his capacities for teaching ; and, 
 on the other hand, when Mrs. Lobkins entered 
 on the subject of remuneration, the Scotsman 
 professed himself perfectly willing to teach any 
 and every thing that the most exacting guardian 
 could require. It was finally settled that Paul 
 should attend Mr. Mac Grawler two hours a-day ; 
 that Mr. Mac Grawler should be entitled to such
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 39 
 
 animal comforts of meat and drink, as the Mug 
 afforded; and, moreover, to the weekly stipend of 
 two shillings and sixpence, — the shillings for in- 
 struction in the classics, and the sixpence for all 
 other humanities ; or, as Mrs. Lobkins expressed it, 
 " two bobs for the Latin, and a sice for the vartue !" 
 Let not thy mind, gentle reader, censure us for 
 a deviation from probability, in making so excel- 
 lent and learned a gentleman as Mr. Peter Mac 
 Grawler the familiar guest of the lady of the 
 Mug. — First, thou must know that our story is 
 cast in a period antecedent to the present, and one 
 in which the old jokes against the circumstances of 
 author and of critic had their foundation in truth ; 
 — secondly, thou must know, that by some curious 
 concatenation of circumstances, neither bailiff nor 
 bailiff's man was ever seen within the four walls 
 continent of Mrs. Margery Lobkins ; — thirdly, the 
 Mug was nearer than any other house of public 
 resort to the abode of the critic ; — fourthly, it 
 afforded excellent porter; — and fifthly, — O reader, 
 thou dost Mrs. Margery Lobkins a grievous 
 wrong, if thou supposest that her door was only
 
 40 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 open to those mercurial gentry who are afflicted 
 With the morbid curiosity to pry into the myste- 
 ries of their neighbours 1 pockets, — other visitors 
 of fair repute were not unoften partakers of the 
 good matron's hospitality ; although it must be 
 owned that they generally occupied the private 
 room in preference to the public one. And 
 sixthly, sweet reader, (we grieve to be so prolix,) 
 we would just hint to thee, that Mr. Mac Graw- 
 ler was one of those vast-minded sages who, occu- 
 pied in contemplating morals in the great scale, 
 do not fritter down their intellects by a base atten- 
 tion to minute details. So that, if a descendant of 
 Langfanger did sometimes cross the venerable 
 Scot in his visit to the Mug, the apparition did 
 not revolt that benevolent moralist so much as, 
 were it not for the above hint, thy ignorance 
 might lead thee to imagine. 
 
 It is said, that Athenodorus the Stoic contri- 
 buted greatly by his conversation to amend the 
 faults of Augustus, and to effect the change visible 
 in that fortunate man, after his accession to the Ro- 
 man empire. If this be true, it may throw a new
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 41 
 
 light on the character of Augustus, and, instead of 
 being the hypocrite, he was possibly the convert. 
 Certain it is, that there are few vices which can- 
 not be conquered by wisdom : and yet, melancholy 
 to relate, the instructions of Peter Mac Grawler 
 produced but slender amelioration in the habits of 
 the youthful Paul. That ingenious stripling had, 
 we have already seen, under the tuition of Ranting 
 Rob, mastered the art of reading ; nay, he could 
 even construct and link together certain curious 
 pot-hooks, which himself and Mrs. Lobkins were 
 wont graciously to term " writing. 11 So far, then, 
 the way of Mac Grawler was smoothed and pre- 
 pared. 
 
 But, unhappily, all experienced teachers allow 
 that the main difficulty is not to learn, but to un- 
 learn ; and the mind of Paul was already occupied 
 by a vast number of heterogeneous miscellanies, 
 which stoutly resisted the ingress either of Latin 
 or of virtue. Nothing could wean him from an 
 ominous affection for the history of Richard 
 Turpin : it was to him what, it has been said, 
 the Greek authors should be to the Academi-
 
 42 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 cian, — a study by day, and a dream by night. 
 He was docile enough during lessons, and some- 
 times even too quick in conception for the stately 
 march of Mr. Mac Grawler's intellect. But it 
 not unfrequently happened, that when that gen- 
 tleman attempted to rise, he found himself, like 
 the lady in Comus, adhering to 
 
 " A venomed seat 
 Smeared with gums of glutinous heat ;" 
 
 or his legs had been secretly united under the 
 table, and the tie was not to be broken without 
 overthrow to the superior powers; these, and 
 various other little sportive machinations where- 
 with Paul was wont to relieve the monotony of 
 literature, went far to disgust the learned critic 
 with his undertaking. But ' the tape" and the 
 treasury of Mrs. Lobkins re-smoothed, as it 
 were, the irritated bristles of his mind, and he 
 continued his labours with this philosophical re- 
 flection — " Why fret myself? — if a pupil turn out 
 well, it is clearly to the credit of his master ; if 
 not, to the disadvantage of himself. 11 Of course,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 43 
 
 a similar suggestion never forced itself into the 
 mind of Dr. Keate. At Eton, the very soul of 
 the honest head-master is consumed by his zeal 
 for the welfare of little gentlemen in stiff cravats. 
 
 But to Paul, who was predestined to enjoy a 
 certain quantum of knowledge, circumstances 
 happened, in the commencement of the second 
 year of his pupilage, which prodigiously accele- 
 rated the progress of his scholastic career. 
 
 At the apartment of Mac Grawler, Paul one 
 morning encountered Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, a 
 young man of great promise, who pursued the 
 peaceful occupation of making for a leading news- 
 paper, " Horrid Murders," " Enormous Melons, 1 ' 
 and " Remarkable Circumstances.' 1 This gentle- 
 man, having the advantage of some years 1 seniority 
 over Paul, was slow in unbending his dignity ; but 
 observing at last the eager and respectful attention 
 with which the stripling listened to a most vera- 
 cious detail of five men being inhumanly murdered 
 in Canterbury Cathedral by the Reverend Zede- 
 kiah Fooks Barnacle, he was touched by the impres- 
 sion he had created, and shaking Paul graciously
 
 44 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 by the hand, he told him, there was a deal of na- 
 tural shrewdness in his countenance; and that Mr. 
 Augustus Tomlinson did not doubt but that he 
 (Paul) might have the honour to be murdered 
 himself one of these days. — " You understand me !" 
 continued Mr. Augustus,—" I mean murdered in 
 effigy, — assassinated in type, — while you yourself, 
 unconscious of the circumstance, are quietly enjoy- 
 ing what you imagine to be your existence. We 
 never kill common persons : to say truth, our 
 chief spite is against the Church ; — we destroy 
 bishops by wholesale. Sometimes, indeed, we 
 knock off a leading barrister or so ; and express 
 the anguish of the junior counsel at a loss so 
 destructive to their interests. But that is only a 
 stray hit; and the slain barrister often lives to 
 become attorney-general, renounce Whig princi- 
 ples, and prosecute the very press that destroyed 
 him. Bishops are our proper food : we send them 
 to heaven on a sort of flying griffin, of which the 
 back is an apoplexy, and the wings are puffs. 
 
 The Bishop of , whom we dispatched in this 
 
 manner the other day, being rather a facetious
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 45 
 
 personage, wrote to remonstrate with us thereon ; 
 observing, that though heaven was a very good 
 translation for a bishop, yet that, in such cases, he 
 preferred * the original to the translation. 1 As 
 we murder bishops, so is there another class of 
 persons whom we only afflict with letiferous dis- 
 eases. This latter tribe consists of his Majesty 
 and his Majesty's ministers. Whenever we cannot 
 abuse their measures, we always fall foul on their 
 health. Does the King pass any popular law, — 
 we immediately insinuate that his constitution is 
 on its last legs. Does the minister act like a man 
 of sense, — we instantly observe, with great regret, 
 that his complexion is remarkably pale. There is 
 one manifest advantage in diseasing people, in- 
 stead of absolutely destroying them. The public- 
 may flatly contradict us in one case, but it never 
 can in the other: — it is easy to prove that a man 
 is alive ; but utterly impossible to prove that he 
 is in health. What if some opposing newspaper 
 take up the cudgels in his behalf, and assert that 
 the victim of all Pandora's complaints, whom we 
 send tottering to the grave, passes one-half the
 
 46 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 day in knocking up a " distinguished company " 
 at a shooting-party, and the other half in out- 
 doing the same " distinguished company " after 
 dinner ? What if the afflicted individual himself 
 write us word that he never was better in his life, — 
 we have only mysteriously to shake our heads, 
 and observe, that to contradict is not to prove, — 
 that it is little likely that our authority should 
 have been mistaken, and — (we are very fond of 
 an historical comparison) — beg our readers to re- 
 member, that when Cardinal Richelieu was dying, 
 nothing enraged him so much as hinting that he 
 was ill. In short, if Horace is right, we are the 
 very princes of poets; for I dare say, Mr. Mac 
 Grawlcr, that you, — and you, too, my little gen- 
 tleman, perfectly remember the words of the wise 
 old Roman, — 
 
 ' Ille per externum funem mihi posse videtur 
 Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit, 
 Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet.' " 
 
 Having uttered this quotation with considera- 
 ble self-complacency, and thereby entirely com- 
 pleted his conquest over Paul, Mr. Augustus 
 Tomlinson, turning to Mac Grawler, concluded
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 47 
 
 his business with that gentleman, which was of a 
 literary nature, namely, a joint composition against 
 a man who, being under five-and-tvventy, and too 
 poor to give dinners, had had the impudence to 
 write a sacred poem. The critics were exceedingly 
 bitter at this ; and having very little to say 
 against the poem, the Court journals called the 
 author ' a coxcomb, 1 and the liberal ones ' the son 
 of a pantaloon !' 
 
 There was an ease, — a spirit, — a life about Mr. 
 Augustus Tomlinson, which captivated the senses 
 of our young hero : then, too, he was exceedingly 
 smartly attired ; wore red heels and a bag ; had 
 what seemed to Paul quite the air of a ' man of 
 fashion ;' and, above all, he spouted the Latin 
 with a remarkable grace ! 
 
 Some days afterwards, Mac Grawler sent our 
 hero to Mr. TomlinsoiVs lodgings, with his share 
 of the joint abuse upon the poet. 
 
 Doubly was Paul's reverence for Mr. Augustus 
 Tomlinson increased by a sight of his abode. He 
 found him settled in a polite part of the town, in a 
 very spruce parlour, the contents of which manifest- 
 ed the universal genius of the inhabitant. It hath
 
 48 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 been objected unto us by a most discerning critic, 
 that we are addicted to the drawing of ' universal 
 geniuses.' We plead Not Guilty in former in- 
 stances ; we allow the soft impeachment in the 
 instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. Over his 
 fireplace were ranged boxing gloves and fencing 
 foils. On his table lay a cremona and a flageolet. 
 On one side of the wall were shelves containing 
 the Covent Garden Magazine, Burn's Justice, a 
 pocket Horace, a Prayer-book, Excerpta ex Tacito, 
 a volume of Plays, Philosophy made Easy, and 
 a Key to all Knowledge. Furthermore, there 
 were on another table a riding whip, and a driving 
 whip, and a pair of spurs, and three guineas, with 
 a little mountain of loose silver. Mr. Augustus 
 was a tall, fair young man, with a freckled com- 
 plexion ; green eyes and red eyelashes ; a smiling 
 mouth, rather underj awed ; a sharp nose; and a 
 prodigiously large pair of ears. He was robed in 
 a green damask dressing-gown ; and he received 
 the tender Paul most graciously. 
 
 There was something very engaging about our 
 hero. He was not only good-looking, and frank
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 49 
 
 in aspect, but he had that appearance of briskness 
 and intellect which belong to an embryo rogue. 
 Mr. Augustus Tomlinson professed the greatest 
 regard for him, — asked him if he could box, — made 
 him put on a pair of gloves, — and, very condescend- 
 ingly, knocked him down three times successively. 
 Next he played him, both upon his flageolet and 
 his cremona, some of the most modish airs. 
 Moreover, he sang him a little song of his own 
 composing. He then, taking up the driving- whip, 
 flanked a fly from the opposite wall, and throw- 
 ing himself (naturally fatigued with his numerous 
 exertions,) on his sofa, he observed, in a care- 
 less tone, that he and his friend Lord Dunshun- 
 ner were universally esteemed the best whips in 
 the metropolis. " I, 1 ' quoth Mr. Augustus, " am 
 the best on the road — but my Lord is a devil at 
 turning a corner."" 
 
 Paul, who had hitherto lived too unsophisti- 
 cated a life to be aware of the importance of which 
 a lord would naturally be in the eyes of Mr. 
 Augustus Tomlinson, was not so much struck 
 with the grandeur of the connexion as the mur- 
 derer of the journals had expected. He merely 
 
 VOL. 1. D
 
 50 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 observed, by way of compliment, that Mr. Au- 
 gustus and his companion seemed to be "rolling 
 kiddies. 1 ' 
 
 A little displeased with this metaphorical re- 
 mark, — for it may be observed that " rolling kid- 
 dy 11 is, among the learned in such lore, the cus- 
 tomary expression for " a smart thief," — the uni- 
 versal Augustus took that liberty to which, by his 
 age and station, so much superior to those of 
 Paul, he imagined himself entitled, and gently 
 reproved our hero for his indiscriminate use of 
 flash phrases. 
 
 " A lad of your parts, 11 said he, — "for I see you 
 are clever by your eye,— ought to be ashamed of 
 using such vulgar expressions. Have a nobler spi- 
 rit, — a loftier emulation, Paul, than that which 
 distinguishes the little ragamuffins of the street. 
 Know that, in this country, genius and learning 
 carry every thing before them ; and if you behave 
 yourself properly, you may, one day or another, 
 be as high in the world as myself. 11 
 
 At this speech Paul looked wistfully round the 
 spruce parlour, and thought what a fine thing it 
 would be to be lord of such a domain, together
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 51 
 
 with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, box- 
 ing-gloves, books, fly-flanking flagellum, three 
 guineas, with the little mountain of silver, and 
 the reputation — shared only with Lord Dunshun- 
 ner — of being the best whip in London. 
 
 " Yes !" continued Tonilinson, with conscious 
 pride, — " I owe my rise to myself. Learning is 
 better than house and land. ' Doctrina sed vim,'' 
 &c. — You know what old Horace says ? — Why, 
 Sir, you would not believe it ; but I was the man 
 who killed his Majesty the King of Sardinia, in 
 our yesterday's paper. Nothing is too arduous 
 for genius. Fag hard, my boy, and you may 
 rival — for the thing, though difficult, may not be 
 impossible — Augustus Tonilinson !" 
 
 At the conclusion of this harangue, a knock at 
 the door being heard, Paul took his departure, and 
 met in the hall a fine-looking person dressed in the 
 height of the fashion, and wearing a pair of pro- 
 digiously large buckles in his shoes. Paul looked, 
 and his heart swelled. " I may rival," thought 
 he — those were his very words — " I may rival, — 
 for the thing, though difficult, is not impossible 
 — AugustusTomlinson! 11 Absorbed in meditation, 
 
 d 2
 
 52 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 he went silently home. The next day the memoirs 
 of the great Turpin were committed to the flames, 
 and it was noticeable that henceforth Paul observ- 
 ed a choicer propriety of words, — that he assumed 
 ;i more refined air of dignity, and that he paid con- 
 siderably more attention than heretofore to the les- 
 sons of Mr. Peter Mac Grawler. Although it must 
 be allowed, that our young hero's progress in the 
 learned languages was not astonishing, yet an early 
 passion for reading growing stronger and stronger 
 by application, repaid him at last with a tolerable 
 knowledge of the mother-tongue. We must how- 
 ever add, that his more favourite and cherished 
 studies were scarcely of that nature which a pru- 
 dent preceptor would have greatly commended. 
 They lay chiefly among novels, plays, and poetry, 
 which last he affected to that degree that he became 
 somewhat of a poet himself. Nevertheless, these 
 literary avocations, profitless as they seemed, gave a 
 certain refinement to his tastes, which they were not 
 likely otherwise to have acquired at 'The Mug ; fl 
 and while they aroused his ambition to see some- 
 thing of the gay life they depicted, they impart- 
 ed to his temper a tone of enterprise and of
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 53 
 
 thoughtless generosity, which perhaps contributed 
 greatly to counteract those evil influences towards 
 petty vice, to which the examples around him 
 must have exposed his tender youth. But, alas ! 
 a great disappointment to Paul's hope of assist- 
 ance and companionship in his literary labours 
 befel him. Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, one bright 
 morning, disappeared, leaving word with his 
 numerous friends, that he was going to accept 
 a lucrative situation in the North of England. 
 Notwithstanding the shock this occasioned to the 
 affectionate heart and aspiring temper of our friend 
 Paul, it abated not his ardour in that field of 
 science, which it seemed that the distinguished 
 absentee had so successfully cultivated. By little 
 and little, he possessed himself (in addition to the 
 literary stores we have alluded to) of all it was 
 in the power of the wise and profound Peter Mac 
 Grawler to impart unto him ; and at the age of 
 sixteen he began (O the presumption of youth !) 
 to fancy himself more learned than his master.
 
 54 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 He had now become a young man. of extreme fashion, and 
 as much repandu in society as the utmost and most exigent 
 coveter of London celebrity could desire. He was, of course, a 
 member of the clubs, &c. &c. &c. He was, in short, of that oft- 
 described set before whom all minor beaux sink into insignifi- 
 cance, or among whom they eventually obtain a subaltern grade, 
 by a sacrifice of a due portion of their fortune. 
 
 Almacks Revisited. 
 
 By the soul of the great Malebranche,who made 
 " A Search after Truth," and discovered every 
 thing beautiful except that which he searched 
 for ; — by the soul of the great Malebranche, whom 
 Bishop Berkeley found suffering under an inflam- 
 mation in the lungs, and very obligingly talked to 
 death,— an instance of conversational powers wor- 
 thy the envious emulation of all great metaphy- 
 sicians and arguers; — by the soul of that illus- 
 trious man, it is amazing to us what a number of
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 55 
 
 truths there are broken up into little fragments, 
 and scattered here and there through the world. 
 What a magnificent museum a man might make 
 of the precious minerals, if he would but go out 
 with his basket under his arm, and his eyes 
 about him ! We, ourself, picked up, this very 
 day, a certain small piece of truth, with which we 
 propose to explain to thee, fair reader, a sinister 
 turn in the fortunes of Paul. 
 
 " Wherever," says a living sage, " you see dig- 
 nity, you may be sure there is expense requi- 
 site to support it."* So was it with Paul. A 
 young gentleman who was heir-presumptive to 
 the Mug, and who enjoyed a handsome person 
 with a cultivated mind, was necessarily of a 
 certain station in society, and an object of re- 
 spect in the eyes of the manoeuvring mamas in 
 the vicinity of Thames Court. Many were the 
 parties of pleasure to Deptford and Greenwich 
 which Paul found himself compelled to attend ; 
 and we need not refer our readers to novels upon 
 fashionable life, to inform them, that, in good soci- 
 
 * Popular Fallacies.
 
 56 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ety, the gentlemen always pay for the ladies! Nor 
 was this all the expense to which his expectations 
 exposed him. A gentleman could scarcely attend 
 these elegant festivities without devoting some 
 little attention to his dress; and a fashionable 
 tailor plays the deuce with one's yearly allowance ! 
 We, who reside, be it known to you, reader, in 
 Little Brittany, are not very well acquainted with 
 the manners of the better classes in St. James's. 
 But there was one great vice among the fine 
 people about Thames Court, which we make no 
 doubt does not exist anywhere else, viz. these 
 fine people were always in an agony to seem finer 
 than they were ; and the more airs a gentleman or 
 a lady gave him or her — self, the more important 
 they became. Joe, the dog's-meat man, had in- 
 deed got into society, entirely from a knack of 
 saying impertinent things to every body ; and the 
 smartest exclusives of the place, who seldom 
 visited any one where there was not a silver teapot, 
 used to think Joe had a great deal in him because 
 he trundled his cart with his head in the air, and 
 one day gave the very beadle of the parish " the 
 cut direct. - "
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 57 
 
 Now this desire to be so exceedingly fine not only 
 made the society about Thames Court unpleasant, 
 but expensive. Every one vied with his neighbour; 
 and as the spirit of rivalry is particularly strong in 
 youthful bosoms, we can scarcely wonder that it 
 led Paul into many extravagancies. The evil of 
 all circles that profess to be select is high play, 
 — and the reason is obvious: persons who have 
 the power to bestow on another an advantage he 
 covets, would rather sell it than give it; and Paul, 
 gradually increasing in popularity and ton, found 
 himself, despite of his classical education, no 
 match for the finished, or, rather, finishing gen- 
 tlemen with whom he began to associate. His 
 first admittance into the select coterie of these 
 men of the world was formed at the house of 
 Bachelor Bill, a person of great notoriety among 
 that portion of the elite which emphatically entitles 
 itself "Flash !" However, as it is our rigid inten- 
 tion in this work to portray at length no episodi- 
 cal characters whatsoever, we can afford our readers 
 but a slight and rapid sketch of Bachelor Bill. 
 
 This personage was of Devonshire extraction. 
 His mother had kept the pleasantest public-house 
 
 D 5
 
 58 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 in town, and at her death Bill succeeded to her 
 property and popularity. All the young ladies in 
 the neighbourhood of Fidler's Row, where he re- 
 sided, set their caps at him : all the most fashion- 
 able prigs, or tobymen, sought to get him into their 
 set ; and the most crack blowen in London would 
 have given her ears at any time for a loving word 
 from Bachelor Bill. But Bill was a long-headed, 
 prudent fellow, and of a remarkably cautious tem- 
 perament. He avoided marriage and friendship, 
 viz. he was neither plundered nor cornuted. He was 
 a tall, aristocratic cow, of a devilish neat address, 
 and very gallant, in an honest way, to the b/owens. 
 Like most single men, being very much the gentle- 
 man so far as money was concerned, he gave them 
 plenty of " feeds," and from time to time a very 
 agreeable "hop." His "bingo"* was unexception- 
 able; and as for his "stark naked, 11 -!- it was voted the 
 most brilliant thing in nature. In a very short time, 
 by his blows-out and his bachelorship, — for single 
 men always arrive at the apex of haut ton easier 
 than married, — he became the very glass of fashion ; 
 
 • I 'randy. + Gin.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 59 
 
 and many were the tight apprentices, even at the 
 west end of the town, who used to turn back in 
 admiration of Bachelor Bill, when, of a Sunday 
 afternoon, he drove down his varment gig to his 
 snug little box on the borders of Turnham Green. 
 Bill's happiness was not, however, wholly without 
 alloy- The ladies of pleasure are always so ex- 
 cessively angry when a man does not make love to 
 them, that there is nothing they will not say 
 against him ; and the fair matrons in the vicinity 
 of Fidlers Row spread all manner of unfounded 
 reports against poor Bachelor Bill. By degrees, 
 however, — for, as Tacitus has said, doubtless with 
 a prophetic eye to Bachelor Bill, " the truth gains 
 by delay," — these reports began to die insensibly 
 away; and Bill, now waxing near to the confines 
 of middle age, his friends comfortably settled for 
 him, that he would be Bachelor Bill all his life. 
 For the rest, he' was an excellent fellow, — 
 gave his broken victuals to the poor, — professed 
 a liberal turn of thinking, — and in all the 
 quarrels among the blovvens, (your crack blowens 
 are a quarrelsome set !) always took part with 
 the weakest. Although Bill affected to be very
 
 CO PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 select in his company, he was never forgetful 
 of his old friends; and Mrs. Margery Lobkins 
 having been very good to him when he was a 
 little boy in a skeleton jacket, he invariably sent 
 her a card to his soirees. The good lady, how- 
 ever, had not of late years deserted her chimney- 
 corner. Indeed, the racket of fashionable life was 
 too much for her nerves, and the invitation had 
 become a customary form not expected to be acted 
 upon, but not a whit the less regularly used for 
 that reason. As Paul had now attained his six- 
 teenth year, and was a fine, handsome lad, the 
 dame thought he would make an excellent repre- 
 sentative of the Mug's mistress ; and that, for her 
 protege, a ball at Bill's house would be no bad 
 commencement of " Life in London." Accord- 
 ingly, she intimated to the Bachelor a wish to 
 that effect, and Paul received the following invi- 
 tation from Bill. 
 
 " Mr. William Duke gives a hop and feed in 
 a quiet way on Monday next, and hops Mr. Paul 
 Lobkins will be of the party. N.B. Gentlemen 
 is expected to come in pumps." 
 
 When Paul entered, he found Bachelor Bill
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 61 
 
 leading off" the ball, to the tune of " Drops of 
 Brandy,"" with a young lady to whom, — because 
 she had been a strolling player, — the Ladies 
 Patronesses of Fidler's Row had thought proper to 
 behave with a very cavalier civility. The good 
 Bachelor had no notion, as he expressed it, of such 
 tantrums, and he caused it to be circulated among 
 the finest of the blowens, that " he expected 
 all who kicked their heels at his house would 
 behave decent and polite to young Mrs. Dot." 
 This intimation, conveyed to the ladies with all 
 that insinuating polish for which Bachelor Bill 
 was so remarkable, produced a notable effect; and 
 Mrs. Dot, being now led off by the flash Bache- 
 lor, was overpowered with civilities the rest of the 
 evening. 
 
 When the dance was ended, Bill very politely 
 shook hands with Paul, and took an early oppor- 
 tunity of introducing him to some of the most 
 " noted characters 1 ' of the town. Among these 
 was the smart Mr. Allfair — the insinuating Henry 
 Finish — the merry Jack Hookey — the knowing 
 Charles Trywit, and various others equally noted 
 for their skill in living handsomely upon their own
 
 62 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 brains, and the personals of other people. To 
 say truth, Paul, who at that time was an honest 
 lad, was less charmed than he had anticipated by 
 the conversation of these chevaliers of industry. 
 He was more pleased with the clever though self- 
 sufficient remarks of a gentleman with a remark- 
 ably fine head of hair, and whom we would 
 more impressively than the rest introduce to our 
 reader, under the appellation of Mr. Edward 
 Pepper, generally termed Long Ned. As this 
 worthy was destined afterwards to be an intimate 
 associate of Paul, our main reason for attending 
 the hop at Bachelor Bill's is to note, as the im- 
 portance of the event deserves, the epoch of the 
 commencement of their acquaintance. 
 
 Long Ned and Paul happened to sit next to 
 each other at supper, and they conversed together 
 so amicably that Paul, in the hospitality of his 
 heart, expressed a hope that " he should see Mr. 
 Pepper at the Mug !" 
 
 " Mug — Mug," — repeated Pepper, half shut- 
 ting his eyes with the air of a dandy about to be 
 impertinent. "Ah — the name of a chapel — is it
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 63 
 
 not ? There 's a sect called the Muggletonians, I 
 think ?" 
 
 " As to that," said Paul, colouring at this 
 insinuation against the Mug, " Mrs. Lobkins 
 has no more religion than her betters ; but the 
 Mug is a very excellent house, and frequented by 
 the best possible company." 
 
 " Don't doubt it !" said Ned. " Remember now 
 that I was once there, and saw one Dummie Dun- 
 naker — is not that the name? — I recollect some 
 years ago, when I first came out, that Dummie 
 and I had an adventure together; — to tell you 
 the truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do 
 now. But, would you believe it, Mr. Paul ? this 
 pitiful fellow was quite rude to me the only time 
 I ever met him since ; — that is to say, the only 
 time I ever entered the Mug. I have no notion 
 of such airs in a merchant — a merchant of rags ! 
 Those commercial fellows are getting quite in- 
 sufferable !" 
 
 " You surprise me !" said Paul. " Poor Dum- 
 mie is the last man to be rude. — He is as civil a 
 creature as ever lived. 1 '
 
 64 PAUL CLIFFORD. . 
 
 " Or sold a rag !"" said Ned. " Possibly ! — 
 Don't doubt his amiable qualities in the least. 
 « — Pass the bingo, my good fellow. — Stupid stuff, 
 .this dancing!" 11 
 
 " Devilish stupid !" echoed Harry Finish, 
 across the table. " Suppose we adjourn to Fish 
 Lane, and rattle the ivories ! What say you, Mr. 
 Lobkins?" 
 
 Afraid of the " ton's stern laugh, which scarce 
 the proud philosopher can scorn,"''' and not being 
 very partial to dancing, Paul assented to the pro- 
 position ; and a little party, consisting of Harry 
 Finish, Allfair, Long Ned, and Mr. Hookey, ad- 
 journed to Fish Lane, where there was a club 
 celebrated among men who live by their wits, at 
 which " lush" and " baccy" were gratuitously 
 sported in the most magnificent manner. Here 
 the evening passed away very delightfully, and 
 Paul went home without a " brad 1 ' in his pocket. 
 
 From that time, Paul's visits to Fish Lane be- 
 came unfortunately regular, and in a very short 
 period, we grieve to say, Paul became that 
 distinguished character — a gentleman of three 
 outs — " out of pocket, out of elbows, and out of
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 65 
 
 credit.'' 1 The only two persons whom he found 
 willing to accommodate him with a slight loan, as 
 the advertisements signed X. Y. have it, were Mr. 
 Dummie Dunnaker and Mr. Pepper, surnamed 
 the Long. The latter, however, while he obliged 
 the heir to the Mug, never condescended to enter 
 that noted place of resort ; and the former, when- 
 ever he goodnaturedly opened his purse-strings, 
 did it with a hearty caution to shun the acquain- 
 tance of Long Ned. " A parson," said Dummie, 
 " of wery dangerous morals, and not by no man- 
 ner of means a fit sociate for a young gemman of 
 cracter, like leetle Paul !" So earnest was this 
 caution, and so especially pointed at Long Ned, — 
 although the company of Mr. Allfair or Mr. Finish 
 might be said to be no less prejudicial, — that it 
 is probable that stately fastidiousness of manner, 
 which Lord Normanby rightly observes, in one of 
 his excellent novels, makes so many enemies in the 
 world, and which sometimes characterised the be- 
 haviour of Long Ned, especially towards the men 
 of commerce, was a main reason why Dummie 
 was so acutely and peculiarly alive to the immo- 
 ralities of that lengthy gentleman. At the same
 
 66 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 time we must observe, that when Paul, remem- 
 bering what Pepper had said respecting his early 
 adventure with Mr. Dunnaker, repeated it to 
 the merchant, Dummie could not conceal a cer- 
 tain confusion, though he merely remarked,with a 
 sort of laugh, that it was not worth speaking about ; 
 and it appeared evident to Paul that something un- 
 pleasant to the man of rags, which was not shared 
 by the unconscious Pepper, lurked in the reminis- 
 cence of their past acquaintance. Howbeit, the 
 circumstance glided from Paul's attention the 
 moment afterwards; and he paid, we are concerned 
 to say, equally little heed to the cautions against 
 Ned with which Dummie regaled him. 
 
 Perhaps (for we must now direct a glance to- 
 wards his domestic concerns) one great cause 
 which drove Paul to Fish Lane was the uncom- 
 fortable life he led at home. For though Mrs. 
 Lobkins was extremely fond of her protege, yet 
 she was possessed, as her customers emphatically 
 remarked, " of the devil's own temper; 1 ' and her 
 native coarseness never having been softened by 
 those pictures of gay society which had, in many 
 a novel and comic farce, refined the temperament
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 67 
 
 of the romantic Paul, her manner of venting 
 her maternal reproaches was certainly not a little 
 revolting to a lad of some delicacy of feeling. In- 
 deed, it often occurred to him to leave her house 
 altogether, and seek his fortunes alone, after the 
 manner of the ingenious Gil Bias, or the enterpris- 
 ing Roderick Random ; and this idea, though 
 conquered and reconquered, gradually swelled and 
 encreased at his heart, even as swelleth that hairy 
 ball found in the stomach of some suffering heifer 
 after its decease. Among these projects of enter- 
 prise, the reader will hereafter notice, that an early 
 vision of the Green Forest cave, in which Turpin 
 was accustomed, with a friend, a ham, and a wife, 
 to conceal himself, flitted across his mind. At 
 this time he did not, perhaps, incline to the mode 
 of life practised by the hero of the roads ; but he 
 certainly clung not the less fondly to the notion of 
 the cave. 
 
 The melancholy flow of our hero's life was now 
 however about to be diverted by an unexpected 
 turn, and the crude thoughts of boyhood, to 
 burst, " like Ghilan's Giant Palm," into the fruit 
 of a manly resolution.
 
 68 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Among the prominent features of Mrs. Lobkins" 1 
 mind was a sovereign contempt for the unsuccess- 
 ful; — the imprudence and ill-luck of Paul occasion- 
 ed her as much scorn as compassion. And when, for 
 the third time within a week, he stood, with a rueful 
 visage and with vacant pockets, by the dame's 
 great chair, requesting an additional supply, the 
 tides of her wrath swelled into overflow. 
 
 " Look you, my kinchin cove, 11 said she, — and 
 in order to give peculiar dignity to her aspect, she 
 put on, while she spoke, a huge pair of tin specta- 
 cles, — " if so be as how you goes for to think as 
 how I shall go for to supply your wicious neces- 
 sities, you will find yourself planted in Queer 
 Street. Blow me tight, if I gives you another mag. 1 ' 
 
 " But I owe Long Ned a guinea," said Paul, 
 " and Dumniie Dunnaker lent me three crowns. 
 It ill becomes your heir-apparent, my dear dame, 
 to fight shy of his debts of honour." 
 
 " Taradididle, don't think for to wheedle me with 
 your debts and your honour," said the dame in a 
 passion. " Long Ned is as long in the forks (fingers) 
 as he is in the back : may Old Harry fly off with 
 him ! and as for Dummie Dunnaker, I wonders
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 69 
 
 how you, brought up such a swell, and blest with 
 the wery best of hedications, can think of putting 
 up with such wulgar sociates. I tells you what, 
 Paul, you'll please to break with them, smack and 
 at once, or devil a brad you'll ever get from Peg 
 Lobkins !" So saying, the old lady turned round in 
 her chair, and helped herself to a pipe of tobacco. 
 Paul walked twice up and down the apartment, 
 and at last stopped opposite the dame's chair : he 
 was a youth of high spirit, and though he was 
 warm-hearted, and had a love for Mrs. Lobkins, 
 which her care and affection for him well deserved, 
 yet he was rough in temper, and not constantly 
 smooth in speech : it is true that his heart smote 
 him afterwards, whenever he had said anything to 
 annoy Mrs. Lobkins ; and he was always the first 
 to seek a reconciliation ; but warm words produce 
 cold respect, and sorrow for the past is not always 
 efficacious in amending the future. Paul then, 
 puffed up with the vanity of his genteel educa- 
 tion, and the friendship of Long Ned, (who went 
 to Ranelagh, and wore silver-clocked stockings,) 
 stopped opposite to Mrs. Lobkins' chair, and said 
 with great solemnity —
 
 70 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 " Mr. Pepper, madam, says very properly that 
 I must have money to support my self like a gentle- 
 man ; and if you won't give it me, I am deter- 
 mined, with many thanks for your past favours, 
 to throw myself on the world, and seek my for- 
 tune." 
 
 If Paul was of no oily and bland temper, 
 dame Margaret Lobkins, it has been seen, had no 
 advantage on that score : — we dare say the reader 
 has observed, that nothing so enrages persons 
 on whom one depends as any expressed deter- 
 mination of seeking independence. Gazing there- 
 fore for one moment at the open but resolute 
 countenance of Paul, while all the blood of her 
 veins seemed gathering in fire and scarlet to her 
 enlarging cheeks, Dame Lobkins said — 
 
 M Ifeaks, Master Pride-in-duds ! seek your 
 fortune yourself, will you ? This comes of my 
 bringing you up, and letting you eat the bread of 
 idleness and charity, you toad of a thousand ! 
 
 Take that and be d d to you ?" and, suiting 
 
 the action to the word, the tube which she had 
 withdrawn from her mouth, in order to utter her 
 gentle rebuke, whizzed through the air, grazed
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 71 
 
 Paul's cheek, and finished its earthly career by 
 coming in violent contact with the right eye of 
 Dummie Dunnaker, who at that exact moment 
 entered the room. 
 
 Paul had winced for a moment to avoid the 
 missive, — in the next he stood perfectly upright ; 
 his cheeks glowed, his chest swelled ; and the 
 entrance of Dummie Dunnaker, who was thus 
 made the spectator of the affront he had received, 
 stirred his blood into a deeper anger and a more 
 bitter self-humiliation : — all his former resolu- 
 tions of departure — all the hard words, the coarse 
 allusions, the practical insults he had at any time 
 received, rushed upon him at once. He merely 
 cast one look at the old woman, whose rage 
 was now half subsided, and turned slowly and in 
 silence to the door. 
 
 There is often something alarming in an occur- 
 rence, merely because it is that which we least 
 expect : the astute Mrs. Lobkins, remembering 
 the hardy temper and fiery passions of Paul, had 
 expected some burst of rage, some vehement 
 reply ; and when she caught with one wander- 
 ing eye his parting look, and saw him turn so
 
 72 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 passively and mutely to the door, her heart mis- 
 gave her, she raised herself from her chair, and 
 made towards him. Unhappily for her chance of 
 reconciliation, she had that day quaffed more co- 
 piously of the bowl than usual, and the signs of 
 intoxication visible in her uncertain gait, her 
 meaningless eye, her vacant leer, her ruby cheek, 
 all inspired Paul with feelings which, at the mo- 
 ment, converted resentment into something very 
 much like aversion. He sprang from her grasp 
 to the threshold. " Where be you going, you imp 
 of the world ?" cried the dame. " Get in with you, 
 and say no more on the matter; be a bob-cull — 
 drop the bullies, and you shall have the blunt P 
 
 But Paul heeded not this invitation. 
 
 " I will eat the bread of idleness and charity 
 no longer ," said he sullenly. " Good bye, — and if 
 ever I can pay you what I have cost you, I will V 
 
 He turned away as he spoke ; and the dame, 
 kindling with resentment at his unseemly return 
 to her proffered kindness, hallooed after him, and 
 bade that dark-coloured gentleman who keeps the 
 fire-office below, go along with him. 
 
 Swelling with anger, pride, shame, and a half
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 73 
 
 joyous feeling of emancipated independence, Paul 
 walked on he knew not whither, with his head in 
 the air, and his legs marshalling themselves into a 
 military gait of defiance. He had not proceeded 
 far, before he heard his name uttered behind 
 him, — he turned, and saw the rueful face of 
 Dummie Dunnaker. 
 
 Very inoffensively had that respectable person 
 been employed during the last part of the scene 
 Ave have described, in caressing his afflicted eye, 
 and muttering philosophical observations on the 
 danger incurred by all those who are acquainted 
 with ladies of a choleric temperament : when 
 Mrs. Lobkins, turning round after Paul's depar- 
 ture, and seeing the pitiful person of that Dummie 
 Dunnaker, whose name she remembered Paul 
 had mentioned in his opening speech, and whom, 
 therefore, with an illogical confusion of ideas, she 
 considered a party in the late dispute, exhausted 
 upon him all that rage which it was necessary for 
 her comfort that she should unburthen somewhere. 
 
 She seized the little man by the collar — the 
 tenderest of all places in gentlemen similarly 
 circumstanced with regard to the ways of life, 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and giving him a blow, which took effect on his 
 other and hitherto undamaged eye, cried out, 
 " I'll teach you, you blood-sucker, (i. e. parasite) 
 to spunge upon those as has expectations. Ill 
 teach you to cozen the heir of the " Mug," you 
 snivelling, whey-faced ghost of a farthing rush- 
 light. What ! you'll lend my Paul three crowns, 
 will you ? when you knows as how you told me you 
 could not pay me a pitiful tizzy. Oh, you , re 
 a queer one, I warrants ; but you won't queer 
 Margery Lobkins. Out of my ken, you cur 
 of the mange — out of my ken; and if ever I 
 claps my sees on you again, or if ever I knows 
 as how you makes a flat of my Paul, blow me 
 tight, but I'll weave you a hempen collar: I'll 
 hang you, you dog, I will. What ! you will an- 
 swer me, will you? — O you viper, budge, and 
 begone ! " 
 
 It was in vain that Dummie protested his 
 innocence. A violent coup de pied broke off all 
 farther parlance. He made a clear house of the 
 " Mug;" and the landlady thereof, tottering back 
 to her elbow chair, sought out another pipe, and, 
 like all imaginative persons when the world goes
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 75 
 
 wrong with them, consoled herself for the absence 
 of realities by the creations of smoke. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dummie Dnnnaker, muttering and 
 murmuring bitter fancies, overtook Paul, and ac- 
 cused that youth of having been the occasion of 
 the injuries he had just undergone. Paul was not 
 at that moment in the humour best adapted for 
 the patient bearing of accusations, he answered 
 Mr. Dunnaker very shortly ; and that respectable 
 individual still smarting under his bruises, replied 
 with equal tartness. Words grew high, and at 
 length, Paul, desirous of concluding the conference, 
 clenched his fist, and told the redoubted Dummie 
 that he would " knock him down." There is 
 something peculiarly harsh and stunning in those 
 three, hard — wirey — sturdy — stubborn monosyl- 
 lables. Their very sound makes you double your 
 fist — if you are a hero ; or your pace, if you are a 
 peaceable man. They produced an instant effect 
 upon Dummie Dunnaker, aided as they were by 
 the effect of an athletic and youthful figure, al- 
 ready fast approaching to the height of six feet, — - 
 a flushed cheek, and an eye that bespoke both pas- 
 sion and resolution. The rag-merchant's voice 
 
 E 2
 
 76 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 sunk at once, and with the countenance of a 
 wronged Cassius, he whimpered forth — 
 
 " Knock me down! — O leetle Paul, vot vicked 
 vhids are those ! Vot ! Dummie Dunnaker as 
 has dandled you on his knee mony's a time and 
 oft : vy, the cove's art is as ard as junk, and as 
 proud as a gardener's dog vith a nosegay tied to 
 his toil/" This pathetic remonstrance softened 
 Paul's anger. 
 
 " Well, Dummie,'"' said he, laughing, " I did 
 not mean to hurt you, and there's an end of it ; 
 and I am very sorry for the Dame's ill conduct ; 
 and so I wish you a good morning."" 
 
 "Vy, vere be you trotting to, leetle Paul?" said 
 Dummie, grasping him by the tail of the coat. 
 
 " The deuce a bit I know,"''' answered our hero ; 
 " but I think I shall drop a call on Long Ned." 
 
 " Avast there !" said Dummie, speaking under 
 his breath ; " if so be as you von't blab, I'll tell 
 you a bit of a secret. I heered as ow Long Ned 
 started for Hampshire this werry morning on a 
 toby consarn I 11 * 
 
 " Ha !" said Paul, " then hang me if I know 
 
 * Highway Expedition.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 77 
 
 what to do !" As he uttered these words, a more 
 thorough sense of his destitution (if he persevered 
 in leaving the Mug) than he had hitherto felt 
 rushed upon him ; for Paul had designed for a 
 while to throw himself on the hospitality of his 
 Patagonian friend, and now that he found that 
 friend was absent from London, and on so danger- 
 ous an expedition, he was a little puzzled what to 
 do with that treasure of intellect and wisdom 
 which he carried about upon his legs. Already 
 he had acquired sufficient penetration — (for Charles 
 Trywit and Harry Finish were excellent masters 
 for initiating a man into knowledge of the world) — 
 to perceive, that a person, however admirable may 
 be his qualities, does not readily find a welcome 
 without a penny in his pocket. In the neighbour- 
 hood of Thames Court he had, indeed, many 
 acquaintances ; but the fineness of his language, 
 acquired from his education, and the elegance of 
 his air, in which he attempted to blend, in happy 
 association, the gallant effrontery of Mr. Long Ned 
 with the graceful negligence of Mr. Augustus 
 Tomlinson, had made him many enemies among 
 those acquaintances ; and he was not willing, — so
 
 78 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 great was our hero's pride, — to throw himself on 
 the chance of their welcome, or to publish, as it 
 were, his exiled and crest-fallen state. As for 
 those boon companions who had assisted him in 
 making a wilderness of his pockets, he had already 
 found, that that was the only species of assistance 
 which they were willing to render him : in a word, 
 he could not for the life of him conjecture in what 
 quarter lie should find the benefits of bed and 
 board. While he stood with his finger to his lip, 
 undecided and musing, but fully resolved at least 
 on one thing — not to return to the Mug, — little 
 Dummie, who was a good-natured fellow at the 
 bottom, peered up in his face, and said, " Vy,Paul, 
 my kid, you looks down in the chops: cheer up, — 
 care killed a cat ! w 
 
 Observing that tins appropriate and encou- 
 raging fact of natural history did not lessen the 
 cloud upon Paul's brow, the acute Dummie Dun- 
 naker proceeded at once to the grand panacea for 
 all evils, in his own profound estimation : 
 
 " Paul, my ben-cull,*" said he, with a know- 
 ing wink, and nudging the young gentleman 
 in the left side, " vot do you say to a drop o 1
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 79 
 
 blue ruin? or, as you likes to be conish (gen- 
 teel), I doesn't care if I sports you a glass of 
 port V While Dunnaker was uttering this in- 
 vitation, a sudden reminiscence flashed across 
 Paul : he bethought him at once of Mac Grawler ; 
 and he resolved forthwith to repair to the abode 
 of that illustrious sage, and petition at least for 
 accommodation for the approaching night. So 
 soon as he had come to this determination, he 
 shook off the grasp of the amiable Dummie, and 
 refusing, with many thanks, his hospitable invita- 
 tion, requested him to abstract from the Dame's 
 house, and lodge within his own, until called for 
 such articles of linen and clothing as belonged to 
 Paul, and could easily be laid hold of, during one 
 of the matron's evening siestas, by the shrewd 
 Dunnaker. The merchant promised that the com- 
 mission should be speedily executed ; and Paul, 
 shaking hands with him, proceeded to the mansion 
 of Mac Grawler. 
 
 We must now go back somewhat, in the natural 
 course of our narrative, and observe, that among 
 the minor causes which had conspired with the 
 great one of gambling to bring our excellent Paul
 
 80 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 to his present situation, was his intimacy with 
 Mac Grawler; for when Paul's increasing years 
 and roving habits had put an end to the sage's 
 instructions, there was thereby lopped off from the 
 preceptor's finances the weekly sum of two shil- 
 lings and sixpence, as well as the freedom of the 
 Dame's cellar and larder ; and as, in the reaction 
 of feeling, and the perverse course of human 
 affairs, people generally repent the most of those 
 actions once the most ardently incurred ; so poor 
 Mrs. Lobkins, imagining that Paul's irregularities 
 were entirely owing to the knowledge he had 
 acquired from Mac Crawler's instructions, griev- 
 ously upbraided herself for her former folly, in 
 seeking for a superior education for her prolegt ; 
 nay, she even vented upon the sacred head of Mac 
 Grawler himself her dissatisfaction at the results 
 of His instructions. In like manner, when a man 
 who can spell comes to be hanged, the anti-educa- 
 tionists accuse the spelling-book of his murder. 
 High words between the admirer of ignorant inno- 
 cence and the propagator of intellectual science 
 ensued, which ended in Mac Crawler's final expul- 
 sion from the Mug.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 81 
 
 There are some young gentlemen of the present 
 clay addicted to the adoption of Lord Byron's 
 poetry, with the alteration of new rhymes, who 
 are pleased graciously to inform us, that they 
 are born to be the ruin of all those who love them ; 
 an interesting fact, doubtless, but which they 
 might as well keep to themselves. It would seem, 
 by the contents of this Chapter, as if the same 
 misfortune were destined to Paul. The exile of 
 Mac Grawler, — the insults offered to Dummie 
 Dunnaker, — alike occasioned by him, appear to 
 sanction that opinion. Unfortunately, though Paul 
 was a poet, he was not much of a sentimentalist ; 
 and he has never given us the edifying ravings of 
 his remorse on those subjects. But Mac Grawler, 
 like Dunnaker, was resolved that our hero should 
 perceive the curse of his fatality ; and as he still 
 retained some influence over the mind of his quon- 
 dam pupil, his accusations against Paul, as the 
 origin of his banishment, were attended with 
 a greater success than were the complaints of 
 Dummie Dunnaker on a similar calamity. Paul, 
 who, like most people who are good for nothing, 
 had an excellent heart, was exceedingly grieved at 
 
 E 5
 
 82 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Mac Grawler's banishment on his account ; and 
 he endeavoured to atone for it by such pecuniary 
 consolations as he was enabled to offer. These 
 Mac Grawler (purely, we may suppose, from a 
 
 benevolent desire to lessen the boy's remorse*) 
 scrupled not to accept ; and thus, so similar often 
 are the effects of virtue and of vice, the exem- 
 plary Mac Grawler conspired with the unprinci- 
 pled Long Ned and the heartless Henry Finish, 
 in producing that unenviable state of vacuity, 
 which now saddened over the pockets of Paul. 
 
 As our hero was slowly walking towards the 
 Sage's abode, depending on his gratitude and 
 friendship for a temporary shelter, one of those 
 lightning flashes of thought which often illumine 
 the profoundcst abyss of affliction, darted across 
 his mind. Recalling the image of the critic, he 
 remembered that he had seen that ornament of 
 the Asinaeum receive sundry sums for his critical 
 lucubrations. 
 
 " Why, 11 said Paul seizing on that fact, and 
 stopping short in the street — " Why should I 
 not turn critic myself?"" 
 
 The only person to whom one ever puts a ques-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 83 
 
 tion with a tolerable certainty of receiving a satis- 
 factory answer is one's self. The moment Paul 
 started this luminous suggestion, it appeared to 
 him that he had discovered the mines of Potosi. 
 Burning with impatience to discuss with the great 
 Mac Grawler the feasibility of his project, he 
 quickened his pace almost into a run, and in a 
 very few minutes, having only overthrown one 
 chimney-sweeper and two applewomen by the way, 
 he arrived at the Sage's door.
 
 84 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Ye realms yet unrevealed to human sight ! 
 Ye canes athwart the hapless hands that write ! 
 Ye Critic Chiefs — permit me to relate 
 The mystic wonders of your silent state ! 
 
 Virgil /En. B. G. 
 
 Fortune had smiled upon Mr. Mac Grawler 
 since he first undertook the tuition of Mrs. Lob- 
 kins'' protege. He now inhabited a second-floor, 
 and defied the sheriff and his evil spirits. It was 
 at the dusk of evening that Paul found him at 
 home and alone. 
 
 Before the mighty man stood a pot of London 
 porter; a candle, with an unregarded wick, shed 
 its solitary light upon his labours; and an infant
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 85 
 
 cat played sportively at his learned feet, beguiling 
 the weary moments with the remnants of the .. 
 spiral cap wherewith, instead of laurel, the critic 
 had hitherto nightly adorned his brows. 
 
 So soon as Mac Grawler, piercing through the 
 gloomy mist which hung about the chamber, per- 
 ceived the person of the intruder, a frown settled 
 upon his brow. 
 
 " Have I not told you, youngster !'" he growled, 
 "never to enter a gentleman's room without 
 knocking ? I tell you, Sir, that manners are no less 
 essential to human happiness than virtue; where- 
 fore, never disturb a gentleman in his avocations, 
 and sit yourself down without molesting the cat !" 
 
 Paul, who knew that his respected tutor disliked 
 any one to trace the source of the wonderful 
 spirit which he infused into his critical composi- 
 tions, affected not to perceive the pewter Hippo- 
 crene, and with many apologies for his want of 
 preparatory politeness, seated himself as directed. 
 It was then that the following edifying conversa- 
 tion ensued. 
 
 " The antients, 11 quoth Paul, " were very 
 great men, Mr. Mac Grawler. 11
 
 86 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 
 ' They were so, Sir," returned the critic, — 
 
 we make it a rule in our profession to assert 
 that fact !" 
 
 " But, Sir, 11 said Paul, " they were wrong now 
 and then." 
 
 "Never! Ignoramus, never!' 1 
 
 " They praised poverty, Mr. Mac Grawler !" 
 said Paul with a sigh. 
 
 " Hem [ n quoth the critic, a little staggered, 
 but presently recovering his characteristic acu- 
 men, he observed — 
 
 " It is true, Paul ; but that was the poverty of 
 other people." 
 
 There was a slight pause. " Criticism,"" renewed 
 Paul, " must be a most difficult art." 
 
 " A-hem ! — and what art is there, Sir, that is 
 not difficult ? — at least to become master of." 
 
 " True," sighed Paul; " or else " 
 
 " Or else what, boy ?" repeated Mr. Mac Graw- 
 ler, seeing that Paul hesitated either from fear 
 of his superior knowledge, as the critic's vanity 
 suggested, or from (what was equally likely) 
 want of a word to express his meaning. 
 
 " Why, I was thinking, Sir," said Paul, with
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 87 
 
 that desperate courage which gives a distinct and 
 loud intonation to the voice of all who set, or 
 think they set, their fate upon a cast : — "I was 
 thinking that I should like to become a critic 
 myself! 1 ' 
 
 " W — h — e — w !" whistled Mac Grawler, ele- 
 vating his eye-brows. "W — h — e — w! great 
 ends have come of less beginnings !" 
 
 Encouraging as this assertion was, coming as it 
 did from the lips of so great a man and so great a 
 critic, at the very moment too when nothing short 
 of an anathema against arrogance and presump- 
 tion was expected to issue from those portals of 
 wisdom : yet, such is the fallacy of all human 
 hopes, that Paul's of a surety would have been a 
 little less elated, had he, at the same time his ears 
 drank in the balm of these gracious words, been 
 able to have dived into the source whence they 
 emanated. 
 
 " Know thyself !" was a precept the sage Mac 
 Grawler had endeavoured to obey ; consequently 
 the result of his obedience was, that even by him- 
 self he was better known than trusted. What- 
 ever he might appear to others, he had in reality
 
 88 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 no vain faith in the infallibility of his own talents 
 and resources; as well might a butcher deem him- 
 self a perfect anatomist from the frequent amputa- 
 tion of legs of mutton, as the critic of the Asi- 
 nseum have laid " the flattering unction to his 
 soul/' that he was really skilled in the art of criti- 
 cism, or even acquainted with one of its common- 
 est rules, because he could with all speed cut up 
 and disjoint any work, from the smallest to the 
 greatest, from the most superficial to the most 
 superior ; and thus it was that he never had the 
 want of candour to deceive himself as to his own 
 talents. Paul's wish, therefore, was no sooner 
 expressed, than a vague but golden scheme of 
 future profit illumed the brain of Mac Grawler ; 
 in a word, he resolved that Paul should hence- 
 forward share the labour of his critiques; and 
 that he, Mac Grawler, should receive the whole 
 profits in return for the honour thereby conferred 
 on his coadjutor. 
 
 Looking, therefore, at our hero with a benignant 
 air, Mr. Mac Grawler thus continued. 
 
 " Yes, I repeat, — great ends have come from
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 89 
 
 less beginnings ! — Rome was not built in a day, — 
 and I, Paul, I myself was not always the editor 
 of the Asinaeum : you say wisely, criticism is a 
 great science — a very great science, and it may 
 be divided into three branches ; viz. — 'to tickle, 
 to slash, and to plaster. 1 In each of these three, 
 I believe, without vanity, I am a profound adept ! 
 I will initiate you into all. Your labours shall 
 begin this very evening. I have three works on 
 my table, they must be dispatched by to-morrow 
 night ; I will take the most arduous, I abandon to 
 you the others. The three consist of a Romance, 
 an Epic in twelve books, and an Inquiry into the 
 Human Mind, in three volumes ; I, Paul, will 
 tickle the Romance, you this very evening shall 
 plaster the Epic, and slash the Inquiry ! " 
 
 " Heavens, Mr. Mac Grawler !" cried Paul in 
 consternation, "what do you mean? — I should 
 never be even able to read an Epic in twelve books, 
 and I should fall asleep in the first page of the In- 
 quiry. No, no, leave me the Romance, and take 
 the other two under your own protection !" 
 
 Although great genius is always benevolent, 
 Mr. Mac Grawler could not restrain a smile
 
 90 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of ineffable contempt at the simplicity of his 
 pupil. 
 
 " Know, young gentleman,*' 1 said he solemnly, 
 " that the Romance in question must be tickled ; 
 it is not given to raw beginners to conquer that 
 great mystery of our science. 1 '' 
 
 " Before we proceed farther, explain the words 
 of the art," said Paul, impatiently. 
 
 " Listen, then I 11 rejoined Mac Grawler, and 
 as he spoke the candle cast an awful glimmering 
 on his countenance. " To slash, is, speaking 
 grammatically, to employ the accusative, or ac- 
 cusing case ; you must cut up your book right 
 and left, top and bottom, root and branch. To 
 plaster a book, is to employ the dative, or 
 giving case, and you must bestow on the work all 
 the superlatives in the language, you must lay on 
 your praise thick and thin, and not leave a crevice 
 untroweled. But to tickle, Sir, is a comprehensive 
 word, and it comprises all the infinite varieties 
 that fill the interval between slashing and plas- 
 tering. This is the nicety of the art, and you can 
 only acquire it by practice ; a few examples will 
 suffice to give you an idea of its delicacy.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 91 
 
 " We will begin with the encouraging tickle. 
 ' Although this work is full of faults ; though the 
 characters are unnatural, the plot utterly impro- 
 bable, the thoughts hacknied, and the style un- 
 grammatical, yet we would by no means discourage 
 the author from proceeding; and in the mean 
 while we confidently recommend his work to the 
 attention of the reading public.'' 
 
 " Take, now, the advising tickle. 
 
 " ' There is a good deal of merit in these little 
 volumes, although we must regret the evident 
 haste in which they were written. The author 
 might do better — we recommend him a study of 
 the best writers,' — then conclude by a Latin quo- 
 tation, which you may take from one of the mot- 
 toes in the Spectator. 
 
 " Now, young gentleman, for a specimen of the 
 metaphorical tickle. 
 
 " ' We beg this poetical aspirant to remember 
 the fate of Pyrenaeus, who attempting to pursue 
 the Muses, forgot that he had not the wings of 
 the goddesses, flung himself from the loftiest ascent 
 he could reach, and perished.' 
 
 " This you see, Paul, is a loftier and more
 
 92 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 erudite sort of tickle, and may be reserved for 
 one of the Quarterly Reviews. Never throw 
 away a simile unnecessarily. 
 
 " Now for a sample of the facetious tickle. 
 
 " ' Mr. has obtained a considerable re- 
 putation ! Some fine ladies think him a great 
 philosopher, and he has been praised in our hear- 
 ing by some Cambridge Fellows, for his know- 
 ledge of fashionable society.' 
 
 " For this sort of tickle we generally use the 
 dullest of our tribe, and I have selected the fore- 
 going example from the criticisms of a distin- 
 guished writer in the Asina?um, whom we call par 
 excellence, the. Ass. 
 
 " There is a variety of other tickles ; the fami- 
 liar, the vulgar, the polite, the goodnatured, the 
 bitter ; but in general all tickles may be supposed 
 to signify, however disguised, one or the other of 
 these meanings. ' This book would be exceedingly 
 good if it were not exceedingly bad. 1 Or, * This 
 book would be exceedingly bad if it were not 
 exceedingly good.' 
 
 " You have now, Paul, a general idea of the 
 superior art required by the tickler"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 93 
 
 Our hero signified his assent by a sort of hys- 
 terical sound between a laugh and a groan. Mac 
 Grawler continued — 
 
 " There is another grand difficulty attendant 
 on this class of criticism,— it is generally requisite 
 to read a few pages of the work; because we 
 seldom tickle without extracting, and it requires 
 some judgment to make the context agree with 
 the extract ; but it is not often necessary to ex- 
 tract when you slash or when you plaster ; when 
 you slash, it is better in general to conclude 
 with — 
 
 " ' After what we have said, it is unnecessary to 
 add, that we cannot offend the taste of our readers 
 by any quotation from this execrable trash. 1 
 And when you plaster, you may wind up with, 
 ' We regret that our limits will not allow us to 
 o-ive any extracts from this wonderful and un- 
 rivalled work. We must refer our readers to the 
 book itself."' 
 
 " And now, Sir, I think I have given you a suffi- 
 cient outline of the noble science of Scaliger and 
 Mac Grawler. Doubtless you are reconciled to 
 the task I have allotted you ; and while I tickle
 
 94 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the Romance, you will slash the Inquiry and plas- 
 ter the Epic L" 
 
 " I will do my best, Sir !" said Paul, with 
 that modest yet noble simplicity which becomes 
 the virtuously ambitious ; — and Mac Grawler 
 forthwith gave him pen and paper, and set him 
 down to his undertaking;. 
 
 He had the good fortune to please Mac Graw- 
 ler, who, after having made a few corrections in 
 style, declared he evinced a peculiar genius in that 
 branch of composition. And then it was that 
 Paul, made conceited by praise, said, looking con- 
 temptuously in the face of his preceptor, and swing- 
 ing his legs to and fro, — "And what, Sir, shall 
 I receive for the plastered Epic and the slashed 
 Inquiry I 11 As the face of the schoolboy who, 
 when guessing, as he thinks rightly, at the mean- 
 ing of some mysterious word in Cornelius Nepos, 
 receiveth not the sugared epithet of praise, but 
 a sudden stroke across the os humerosve, even 
 so, blank, puzzled, and thunder-stricken, waxed 
 the face of Mr. Mac Grawler, at the abrupt 
 and astounding audacity of Paul. 
 
 " Receive I 11 he repeated, " receive ! — Why you
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 95 
 
 impudent, ungrateful puppy ! Would you steal the 
 bread from your old master ? If I can obtain for 
 your crude articles an admission into the illus- 
 trious pages of the Asinaeum, will you not be suffi- 
 ciently paid, Sir, by the honour ? Answer me that. 
 Another man, young gentleman, would have 
 charged you a premium for his instructions; — and 
 here have I, in one lesson, imparted to you all the 
 mysteries of the science, and for nothing. And 
 you talk to me of 'receive! 1 — 'receive!' Young 
 gentleman, in the words of the immortal bard, ' I 
 would as lief you had talked to me of ratsbane V n 
 
 " In fine, then, Mr. Mac Grawler, I shall get 
 nothing for my trouble," said Paul. 
 
 " To be sure not, Sir ; the very best writer in 
 the Asinaeum only gets three shillings an article !" 
 Almost more than he deserves, the critic might 
 have added ; for he who writes for nobody, 
 should receive nothing ! 
 
 " Then, Sir," quoth the mercenary Paul pro- 
 fanely, and rising, he kicked with one kick, the 
 cat, the epic, and the inquiry, to the other end of 
 the room, — " Then, Sir, you may all go to the 
 devil [ n
 
 96 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 We do not, gentle reader, seek to excuse this 
 hasty anathema : — the habits of childhood will 
 sometimes break forth despite of the after-blessings 
 of education. And we set not up Paul for thine 
 imitation as that model of virtue and of wis- 
 dom, which we design thee to discover in Mac 
 Grawler. 
 
 When that great critic perceived Paul had risen, 
 and was retreating in high dudgeon towards the 
 door, he rose also, and repeating Paul's last 
 words, said — " ' Go to the devil !' Not so 
 quick, young gentleman, — festina lente, — all in 
 good time. What thougli I did, astonished at 
 your premature request, say that you should re- 
 ceive nothing ; — yet my great love for you may 
 induce me to bestir myself on your behalf. The 
 Asinaeum, it is true, only gives three shillings 
 an article in general ; but I am its editor, and will 
 intercede with the proprietors on your behalf. 
 Yes — yes. I will see what is to be done. Stop 
 a bit, my boy." 
 
 Paul, though very irascible, was easily pacified: 
 he reseated himself, and, taking Mac Grawler's 
 hand, said —
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 97 
 
 " Forgive me for my petulance, my dear sir, 
 — but, to tell you the honest truth, I am very low 
 in the world just at present, and must get money 
 in some way or another; in short, I must either 
 pick pockets or write (not gratuitously) for the 
 Asinaeum. 1 ' 
 
 And without farther preliminary, Paul related 
 his present circumstances to the critic ; declared his 
 determination not to return to the Mug ; and re- 
 quested, at least, from the friendship of his old pre- 
 ceptor, the accommodation of shelter for that night. 
 
 Mac Grawler was exceedingly disconcerted at 
 hearing so bad an account of his pupil's finances, 
 as well as prospects ; for he had secretly intended 
 to regale himself that evening with a bowl of 
 punch, for which he purposed that Paul should 
 pay ; but as he knew the quickness of parts 
 possessed by the young gentleman, as also the 
 great affection entertained for him by Mrs. Lob- 
 kins, who, in all probability, would solicit his 
 return the next day, he thought it not unlikely 
 that Paul would enjoy the same good fortune as 
 that presiding over his feline companion, which, 
 though it had just been kicked to the other end 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 PA.UL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of the apartment, was now resuming its former 
 occupation, unhurt, and no less merrily than before. 
 He therefore thought it would be imprudent to 
 discard his quondam pupil, despite of his present 
 poverty ; and moreover, although the first happy 
 project of pocketing all the profits derivable from 
 Paul's industry was now abandoned, he still per- 
 ceived great facility in pocketing a part of the 
 same receipts. He therefore answered Paul very 
 warmly, that he fully sympathized with him 
 in his present melancholy situation; that, so 
 far as he was concerned, he would share his last 
 shilling with his beloved pupil; but, that he re- 
 gretted at that moment he had only eleven-pence 
 halfpenny in his pocket ; that he would, however, 
 exert himself to the utmost in procuring an open- 
 ing for Paul's literary genius; and that, if Paul 
 liked to take the slashing and plastering part of 
 the business on himself, he would willingly sur- 
 render it to him, and give him all the profits, 
 whatever they might be. En attendant, he re- 
 gretted that a violent rheumatism prevented his 
 giving up his own bed to his pupil, but that he 
 might, with all the pleasure imaginable, sleep upon
 
 PAUL CLIFFOR!). 99 
 
 the rug before the fire. Paul was so affected by 
 this kindness in the worthy man, that, though 
 not much addicted to the melting mood, he shed 
 tears of gratitude : he insisted, however, on not 
 receiving the whole reward of his labours ; and at 
 length it was settled, though with a noble reluc- 
 tance on the part of Mac Grawler, that it should 
 be equally shared between the critic and the 
 critic's protege ; the half profits being reasonably 
 awarded to Mac Grawler for his instructions and 
 his recommendation. 
 
 f 2
 
 100 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Bad events peep out o 1 the tail of good purposes. 
 
 Bartholomew Fair. 
 
 It was not long before there was a visible im- 
 provement in the pages of the Asinseum : the 
 slashing part of that incomparable journal was 
 suddenly conceived and carried on with a vigour 
 and spirit which astonished the hallowed few who 
 contributed to its circulation. It was not difficult 
 to see that a new soldier had been enlisted in the 
 service ; there was something so fresh and hearty 
 about the abuse, that it could never have pro- 
 < vi ded from the worn-out acerbity of an old 
 dasher. To be sure, a little ignorance of ordinary
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 101 
 
 facts, and an innovating method of applying 
 words to meanings which they never were meant 
 to denote, were now-and-then distinguishable in 
 the criticisms of the new Achilles : nevertheless, 
 it was easy to attribute these peculiarities to an 
 original turn of thinking; and the rise of the 
 paper, upon the appearance of a series of articles 
 upon Cotemporary Authors, written \r is " emi- 
 nent hand,' 1 was so remarkable, t ...y copies, — 
 a number perfectly unprecedented in the annals 
 of the Asinseum, — were absolutely sold in one 
 week : indeed, remembering the principle on which 
 it was founded, one sturdy old writer declared, 
 that the journal would soon do for itself, and 
 become popular. There was a remarkable pecu- 
 liarity about the literary debutant, who signed 
 himself " Nobilitas." He not only put old words 
 to a new sense, but he used words which had 
 never, among the general run of writers, been used 
 before. This was especially remarkable in the 
 application of hard names to authors. Once, in 
 censuring a popular writer for pleasing the public, 
 and thereby growing rich, the "eminent hand'" 
 ended with — " He who surreptitiously accumulates
 
 102 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 hustle* is in fact nothing better than a buzz- 
 gloakrf 
 
 These enigmatical words and recondite phrases 
 imparted a great air of learning to the style of 
 the new critic ; and, from the unintelligible sub- 
 limity of his diction, it seemed doubtful whether 
 he was a poet from Highgate, or a philosopher 
 from Koningsburgh. At all events, the reviewer 
 preserved his incognito, and while his praises were 
 rung at no less than three tea-tables, even glory 
 appeared to him less delicious than disguise. 
 
 In this incognito, Reader, thou hast already 
 discovered Paul ; and now, we have to delight 
 thee with a piece of unexampled morality in the 
 excellent Mac Grawler. That worthy Mentor, 
 perceiving that there was an inherent turn for 
 dissipation and extravagance in our hero, resolved 
 magnanimously rather to bring upon himself 
 the sins of treachery and mal-appropriation , 
 than suffer his friend and former pupil to incur 
 those of wastefulness and profusion. Contrary, 
 therefore, to the agreement made with Paul, in- 
 stead of giving that youth the half of those 
 
 * Money. -f Pickpocket.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 103 
 
 profits consequent on his brilliant lucubrations, 
 he imparted to him only one-fourth, and with 
 the utmost tenderness for Paul's salvation, ap- 
 plied the other three portions of the same to 
 his own necessities. The best actions are, alas ! 
 often misconstrued in this world ; and we are now 
 about to record a remarkable instance of that 
 melancholy truth. 
 
 One evening, Mac Grawler having " moistened 
 his virtue r> in the same manner that the great 
 Cato is said to have done; in the confusion which 
 such a process sometimes occasions in the best 
 regulated heads, gave Paul what appeared to him 
 the outline of a certain article, which he wished 
 to be slashingly filled up, but what in realitv 
 was the following note from the editor of a monthly 
 periodical. 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 " Understanding that my friend, Mr. . 
 
 proprietor of the Asinaeum, allows the very dis- 
 tinguished writer whom you have introduced 
 to the literary world, and who signs himself 
 ' Nobilitas," only five shillings an article, I beg
 
 104 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 through you, to tender him double that sum : 
 the article required will be of an ordinary length. 
 
 " I am, Sir, &c. 
 
 Now, that very morning, Mac Grawler had in- 
 formed Paul of this offer, altering only, from the 
 amiable motives we have already explained, the 
 sum of ten shillings to that of four; and no 
 sooner did Paul read the communication we 
 have placed before the reader, than, instead of 
 gratitude to Mac Grawler for his consideration 
 of Paul's moral infirmities, he conceived against 
 that gentleman the most bitter resentment. He 
 did not however vent his feelings at once upon 
 the Scotsman, — indeed, at that moment, as the 
 sage was in a deep sleep under the table, it would 
 have been to no purpose had he unbridled his indig- 
 nation. But he resolved without loss of time to 
 quit the abode of the critic. " And, indeed," 
 said he, soliloquizing, " I am heartily tired of 
 this life, and shall be very glad to seek some other 
 employment. Fortunately, I have hoarded up five 
 guineas and four shillings, and with that inde-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 105 
 
 pendence in my possession, since I have forsworn 
 gambling, I cannot easily starve.' 1 
 
 To this soliloquy succeeded a misanthropical 
 reverie upon the faithlessness of friends ; and the 
 meditation ended in Paul's making up a little 
 bundle of such clothes, &c. as Dummie had suc- 
 ceeded in removing from the " Mug," and which 
 Paul had taken from the rag-merchant's abode 
 one morning when Dummie was abroad. 
 
 When this easy task was concluded, Paul wrote 
 a short and upbraiding note to his illustrious 
 preceptor, and left it unsealed on the table. He 
 then, upsetting the ink-bottle on Mac Grawlers 
 sleeping countenance, departed from the house, 
 and strode away he cared not whither. 
 
 The evening was gradually closing as Paul, 
 chewing the cud of his bitter fancies, found him- 
 self on London Bridge. He paused there, and, 
 leaning over the bridge, gazed wistfully on the 
 gloomy waters that rolled onward, caring not a 
 minnow for the numerous charming young ladies 
 who have thought proper to drown themselves 
 in those merciless waves, thereby depriving many 
 a good misti-ess of an excellent housemaid, or an 
 
 f 5
 
 106 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 invaluable cook, and many a treacherous Phaon 
 of letters, beginning with " Parjured Villen,' 1 and 
 ending with " Your affectionot but niolancolly 
 Molly." 
 
 While thus musing, he was suddenly accosted 
 by a gentleman in boots and spurs, having a rid- 
 ing-whip in one hand, and the other hand stuck in 
 the pocket of his inexpressibles. The hat of the 
 gallant was gracefully and carefully put on, so as 
 to derange as little as possible a profusion of dark 
 curls which, steaming with unguents, fell low 
 not only on either side of the face, but on the 
 neck, and even the shoulders of the owner. The 
 face was saturnine and strongly marked, but 
 handsome and striking., There was a mixture of 
 frippery and sternness in its expression ; — some- 
 thing between Madam Vestris and T. P. Cooke, 
 or between " lovely Sally"" and a " Captain bold 
 of Halifax." The stature of this personage was 
 remarkably tall, and his figure was stout, mus- 
 cular, and well-knit. In fine, to complete his 
 portrait, and give our readers of the present day 
 an exact idea of this hero of the past, we shall 
 add that he was altogether that sort of gentle-
 
 PALL CLIFFORD. 107 
 
 man one sees swaggering in the Burlington Ar- 
 cade, with his hair and hat on one side, and a 
 military cloak thrown over his shoulders; — or 
 prowling in Regent Street, towards the evening, 
 whiskered and cigar red. 
 
 Laying his hand on the shoulder of our hero, this 
 gentleman said, with an affected intonation of voice, 
 
 " How dost, my fine fellow ? — long since I saw 
 you ! — dammee, but you look the worse for wear. 
 What hast thou been doing with thyself?" 
 
 V Ha P cried our hero, returning the saluta- 
 tion of the stranger, " and is it Long Ned whom 
 I behold ? I am, indeed, glad to meet you ; 
 and I say, my friend, I hope what I heard of 
 you is not true !" 
 
 " Hist !"" said Long Ned, looking round fear- 
 fully, and sinking his voice, — " never talk of what 
 you hear of gentlemen, except you wish to bring 
 them to their last dying speech and confession. 
 But come with me, my lad, there is a tavern hard 
 by, and we may as well discuss matters over a 
 pint of wine. You look cursed seedy, to be sure, 
 but I can tell Bill the waiter — famous fellow, that 
 Bill ! — that you are one of my tenants, come to
 
 108 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 complain of my steward, who has just distrained 
 you for rent, you dog ! — No wonder you look so 
 worn in the rigging. Come, follow me. I can't 
 walk with thee. It would look toe? like Northum- 
 berland House and the Butcher's abode next door, 
 taking a stroll together. 11 
 
 " Really, Mr. Pepper,' 1 said our hero, colour- 
 ing, and by no means pleased with the ingenious 
 comparison of his friend, " if you are ashamed 
 of my clothes, which I own might be newer, I 
 will not wound you with my " 
 
 " Pooh! my lad — pooh, 11 cried Long Ned, 
 interrupting him, " never take offence. / never 
 do. I never take any thing but money, — except, 
 indeed, watches. I don't mean to hurt your feel- 
 ings; — all of us have been poor once. 'Gad, I 
 remember when I had not a dud to my back, and 
 now, you see me — you see me, Paul ! — But come, 
 "tis only through the streets you need separate from 
 me. Keep a little behind — very little — that will 
 do. — Ay, that will do," repeated Long Ned, mut- 
 teringly to himself, " they '11 take him for a 
 bailiff. It looks handsome now-a-days to be so 
 attended. It shows one had credit once .'"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 109 
 
 Meanwhile Paul, though by no means pleased 
 with the contempt expressed for his personal ap- 
 pearance by his lengthy associate, and impressed 
 with a keener sense than ever of the crimes of his 
 coat and the vices of his other garment — "Obreathe 
 not its name !" — followed doggedly and sullenly v 
 the strutting steps of the coxcombical Mr. Pepper. 
 That personage arrived at last at a small tavern, 
 and arresting a waiter who was running across 
 the passage into the coffee-room with a dish of 
 hung-beef, demanded (no doubt from a pleasing 
 anticipation of a similar pendulous catastrophe), 
 a plate of the same excellent cheer, to be carried, 
 in company with a bottle of port, into a private 
 apartment. No sooner did he find himself alone 
 with Paul, than, bursting into a loud laugh, Mr. 
 Ned surveyed his comrade from head to foot, 
 through an eye-glass which he wore fastened to 
 his button-hole by a piece of blue ribbon. 
 
 " Well — 'gad now," said he, stopping ever and 
 anon, as if to laugh the more heartily — " Stap 
 my vitals, but you are a comical quiz ; I won- 
 der what the women would say, if they saw the 
 dashing Edward Pepper, Esquire, walking arm
 
 no 
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 in arm with thee at Ranelagh or Vauxhall. 
 Nay, man, never be downcast ; if I laugh at 
 thee, it is only to make thee look a little merrier 
 thyself. Why, thou lookest like a book of my 
 grandfather's, called ' Burton's Anatomy of Me- 
 lancholy ;' and faith, a shabbier bound copy of it 
 I never saw.' 1 
 
 " These jests are a little hard,' 1 said Paul, 
 struggling between anger and an attempt to 
 smile ; and then recollecting his late literary occu- 
 pations, and the many extracts he had taken 
 from " Gleanings of the Belles Lettres," in order 
 to impart elegance to his criticisms, he threw out 
 his hand theatrically, and spouted with a solemn 
 face — 
 
 " Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, 
 Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest !" 
 
 " Well now, prithee forgive me," said Long 
 Ned, composing his features ; " and just tell me 
 what you have been doing the last two months. 1 ' 
 
 " Slashing and plastering !" said Paul, with 
 conscious pride ! 
 
 " Slashing and what! the boy's mad, — what 
 do you mean, Paul ?"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. Ill 
 
 " In other words/ 1 said our hero, speaking very 
 slowly, " know, O very Long Ned, that I have 
 been critic to the Asina?um." 
 
 If Paul's comrade laughed at first, he now 
 laughed ten times more merrily than ever. He 
 threw his length of limb upon a neighbouring 
 sofa, and literally rolled with cachinnatory con- 
 vulsions; nor did his risible emotions subside 
 until the entrance of the hung-beef restored him 
 to recollection. Seeing, then, that a cloud lowered 
 over Paul's countenance, he went up to him, with 
 something like gravity ; begged his pardon for 
 his want of politeness ; and desired him to wash 
 away all unkindness in a bumper of port. Paul, 
 whose excellent dispositions we have before had 
 occasion to remark, was not impervious to his 
 friend's apologies. He assured Long Ned, that 
 he quite forgave him for his ridicule of the high 
 situation he (Paul) had enjoyed in the literary 
 world ; that it was the duty of a public censor to 
 bear no malice ; and that he should be very glad 
 to take his share in the interment of the hung- 
 beef. 
 
 The pair now sat down to their repast, and
 
 112 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Paul, who had fared but meagrely in that Temple 
 of Athena over which Mac Grawler presided, did 
 ample justice to the viands before him. By 
 degrees, as he ate and drank, his heart opened to 
 his companion ; and, laying aside that Asinaean 
 dignity which he had at first thought it incumbent 
 on him to assume, he entertained Pepper with all 
 the particulars of the life he had lately passed. He 
 narrated to him his breach with Dame Lobkins ; 
 his agreement with Mac Grawler ; the glory he 
 had acquired, and the wrongs he had sustained ; 
 and he concluded, as now the second bottle made 
 its appearance, by stating his desire of exchanging, 
 for some more active profession, that sedentary 
 career which he had so promisingly begun. 
 
 This last part of Paul's confessions secretly 
 delighted the soul of Long Ned; for that expe- 
 rienced collector of the highways — (Ned was, 
 indeed, of no less noble a profession) — had long 
 fixed an eye upon our hero, as one whom he 
 thought likely to be an honour to that enterprising 
 calling which he espoused, and an useful assistant 
 to himself. He had not, in his earlier acquaint- 
 ance with Paul, when the youth was under the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 113 
 
 roof and the surveillance of the practised and 
 wary Mrs. Lobkins, deemed it prudent to expose 
 the exact nature of his own pursuits, and had 
 contented himself by gradually ripening the mind 
 and the finances of Paul into that state when the 
 proposition of a leap from a hedge would not be 
 likely greatly to revolt the person to whom it was 
 made. He now thought that time near at hand ; 
 and filling our hero's glass up to the brim, thus 
 artfully addressed him : — 
 
 " Courage, my friend! — your narration has 
 given me a sensible pleasure ; for, curse me if it 
 has not strengthened my favourite opinion, — that 
 every thing is for the best. If it had not been 
 for the meanness of that pitiful fellow, Mac 
 Grawler, you might still be inspired with the 
 paltry ambition of earning a few shillings a-week, 
 and vilifying a parcel of poor devils in the what- 
 d'ye-call-it, with a hard name ; whereas now, my 
 good Paul, I trust I shall be able to open to your 
 genius a new career, in which guineas are had for 
 the asking, — in which you may wear fine clothes, 
 and ogle the ladies at Ranelagh ; and when you 
 are tired of glory and liberty, Paul, why you
 
 114 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 have only to make your bow to an heiress, or a 
 widow with a spanking jointure, and quit the hum 
 of men like a Cincinnatus !" 
 
 Though Paul's perception into the abstruser 
 branches of morals was not very acute, — and at that 
 time the port wine had considerably confused the 
 few notions he possessed upon " the beauty of 
 virtue, 1 ' — yet he could not but perceive, that 
 Mr. Pepper's insinuated proposition was far from 
 being one which the bench of bishops, or a synod 
 of moralists, would conscientiously have approved; 
 he consequently remained silent; and Long Ned, 
 after a pause, continued — 
 
 " You know my genealogy, my good fellow ? — 
 I was the son of Lawyer Pepper, a shrewd old 
 dog, but as hot as Calcutta ; and the grandson of 
 Sexton Pepper, a great author, who wrote verses 
 on tombstones, and kept a stall of religious tracts 
 in Carlisle. My grandfather, the sexton, was the 
 best temper of the family ; for all of us are a little 
 inclined to be hot in the mouth. Well, my fine 
 fellow, my father left me his blessing, and this 
 devilish good head of hair. I lived for some years 
 on my own resources. I found it a particularly in-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 115 
 
 convenient mode of life, and of late I have taken 
 to live on the public. My father and grandfather 
 did it before me, though in a different line. Tis 
 the pleasantest plan in the world. Follow my 
 example, and your coat shall be as spruce as my 
 own. — Master Paul, your health !" 
 
 " But, O longest of mortals t* said Paul, re- 
 filling his glass, " though the public may allow 
 you to eat your mutton off their backs for a short 
 time, they will kick up at last, and upset you and 
 your banquet : in other words, — (pardon my 
 metaphor, dear Ned, in remembrance of the part 
 I have lately maintained in the Asina?um, that 
 most magnificent and metaphorical of journals !) — 
 in other words, the police will nab thee at last ; 
 and thou wilt have the distinguished fate, as thou 
 already hast the distinguishing characteristic — of 
 Absalom !" 
 
 " You mean that I shall be hanged," said Long 
 Ned. " That may or may not be ; but he who 
 fears death never enjoys life. Consider, Paul, 
 that though hanging is a bad fate, starving is 
 a worse ; wherefore fill your glass, and let 
 us drink to the health of that great donkey,
 
 116 . PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the people, and may we never want saddles to 
 ride it I" 
 
 " To the great donkey," cried Paul, tossing oft' 
 his bumper, " may your ( y) ears be as long ! 
 But I own to you, my friend, that I cannot enter 
 into your plans. And as a token of my resolution, 
 I shall drink no more, for my eyes already begin 
 to dance in the air ; and if I listen longer to your 
 resistless eloquence, my feet may share the same 
 fate I" 
 
 So saying, Paul rose ; nor could any entreaty, 
 on the part of his entertainer, persuade him to 
 resume his seat. 
 
 " Nay, as you will," said Pepper, affecting a 
 nonchalant tone, and arranging his cravat before 
 the glass. " Nay, as you will. Ned Pepper re- 
 quires no man's companionship against his liking ; 
 and if the noble spark of ambition be not in your 
 bosom, 'tis no use spending my breath in blowing 
 at what only existed in my too flattering opinion 
 of your qualities. So, then, you propose to return 
 to Mac Grawler, (the scurvy old cheat,) and pass 
 the inglorious remainder of your life in the mang- 
 ling of authors, and the murder of grammar? Go,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 117 
 
 my good fellow, go ! scribble again and for ever 
 for Mac Grawler, and let him live upon thy brains, 
 instead of suffering thy brains to " 
 
 " Hold V cried Paul. " Although I may have 
 some scruples which prevent my adoption of that 
 rising line of life you have proposed to me, yet 
 you are very much mistaken if you imagine me 
 so spiritless, as any longer to subject myself to 
 the frauds of that rascal Mac Grawler. No ! My 
 present intention is to pay my old nurse a visit. 
 It appears to me passing strange, that though I 
 have left her so many weeks, she has never re- 
 lented enough to track me out, which one would 
 think would have been no difficult matter : and 
 now you see that I am pretty well off, having five 
 guineas and four shillings, all my own, and she can 
 scarcely think I want her money; my heart melts to 
 her, and I shall go and ask pardon for my haste V 
 
 " Pshaw ! sentimental," cried Long Ned, a little 
 alarmed at the thought of Paul's gliding from 
 those clutches which he thought had now so firm- 
 ly closed upon him. " Why, you surely don't 
 mean, after having once tasted the joys of inde- 
 pendence, to go back to the boozing ken, and
 
 118 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 bear all Mother Lobkins"' drunken tantarums ! 
 Better have stayed with Mac Grawler, of the two !" 
 
 " You mistake me," answered Paul. " I mean 
 solely to make it up with her, and get her per- 
 mission to see the world. My ultimate intention 
 is — to travel." 
 
 " Right !" cried Ned, " on the high-road — and 
 on horseback, I hope !" 
 
 " No, my Colossus of Roads ! No ! I am in 
 doubt whether or not I shall enlist in a marching 
 regiment, — or (give me your advice on it) I fancy 
 I have a great turn for the stage, ever since I 
 saw Garrick in Richard. Shall I turn stroller? — 
 It must be a merry life." 
 
 " O, the devil !" cried Ned. " I myself once did 
 Cassio in a barn, and every one swore I enacted 
 the drunken scene to perfection ; but you have no 
 notion what a lamentable life it is to a man of any 
 susceptibility. No, my friend. No ! There is 
 only one line in all the old plays worthy thy at- 
 tention — 
 
 " Toby or not toby* that is the question." 
 
 " I forget the rest!" 
 
 • The highway.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 119 
 
 " Well !" said our hero, answering in the same 
 jocular vein — " I confess, I have ' the actor's 
 high ambition. 1 It is astonishing how my heart 
 beat, when Richard cried out, ' Come bustle,* 
 bustle P — Yes, Pepper avaunt ! — 
 
 " A thousand hearts are great within my bosom." 
 
 " Well, well," said Long Ned, stretching him- 
 self, " since you are so fond of the play, what 
 say you to an excursion thither to-night ? — Garrick 
 acts r 
 
 " Done r cried Paul. 
 
 " Done !" echoed lazily Long Ned, rising with 
 that blase air which distinguishes the matured 
 man of the world from the enthusiastic tyro. 
 — " Done ! and we will adjourn afterwards to the 
 White Horse." 
 
 " But stay a moment," said Paul, " if you re- 
 member, I owed you a guinea when I last saw 
 you, — here it is !" 
 
 " Nonsense," exclaimed Long Ned, refusing 
 the money, — " nonsense ! you want the money at 
 
 * Money.
 
 120 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 present ; pay me when you are richer. Nay, never 
 be coy about it, — debts of honour are not paid now 
 as they used to be. We lads of the Fish-Lane Club 
 have changed all that. Well, well, if I must." 
 
 And Long Ned, seeing that Paul insisted, 
 pocketed the guinea. When this delicate matter 
 had been arranged, 
 
 " Come," said Pepper — " come, get your hat ; 
 but, bless me ! I have forgotten one thing." 
 
 " What ?" 
 
 " Why, my fine Paul, consider, the play is a 
 bang-up sort of a place, — look at your coat, and 
 your waistcoat, that "s all !" 
 
 Our hero was struck dumb with this argumen- 
 tum ad homuiem. But Long Ned, after enjoying 
 his perplexity, relieved him of it, by telling him 
 that he knew of an honest tradesman who kept a 
 ready-made shop, just by the theatre, and who 
 would fit him out in a moment. 
 
 In fact, Long Ned was as good as his word ; he 
 carried Paul to a tailor, who gave him for the 
 sum of thirty shillings, half ready money, half on 
 credit, a green coat with a tarnished gold lace, a 
 pair of red inexpressibles, and a pepper-and-salt
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 121 
 
 waistcoat, — it is true, they were somewhat of the 
 largest, for they had once belonged to no less a 
 person than Long Ned himself: but Paul did 
 not then regard those niceties of apparel, as he was 
 subsequently taught to do by Gentleman George, 
 (a personage hereafter to be introduced to our 
 reader,) and he went to the theatre, as well satis- 
 fied with himself, as if he had been Mr. T -, 
 
 or the Count de M . 
 
 Our adventurers are now quietly seated in the 
 theatre, and we shall not think it necessary to 
 detail the performances they saw, nor the obser- 
 vations they made. Long Ned was one of those 
 superior beings of the road, who would not for 
 the world have condescended to appear any where 
 but in the boxes, and accordingly the friends 
 procured a couple of places in the dress-tier. In 
 the next box to the one our adventurers adorned, 
 they remarked more especially than the rest of 
 the audience, a gentleman and a young lady 
 seated next each other ; the latter, who was about 
 thirteen years old, was so uncommonly beautiful, 
 that Paul, despite his dramatic enthusiasm, could 
 scarcely divert his eyes from her countenance to 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the stage. Her hair, of a bright and fair auburn, 
 hung in profuse ringlets about her neck, shedding 
 a softer shade upon a complexion in which the 
 roses seemed just budding, as it were, into blush. 
 Her eyes large, blue, and rather languishing than 
 brilliant, were curtained by the darkest lashes ; her 
 mouth seemed literally girt with smiles, so num- 
 berless were the dimples that, every time the full, 
 ripe, dewy lips were parted, rose into sight, and the 
 enchantment of the dimples was aided by two rows 
 of teeth more dazzling than the richest pearls that 
 ever glittered on a bride. But the chief charm of 
 the face was its exceeding and touching air of inno- 
 cence, and girlish softness ; you might have gazed 
 for ever upon that first unspeakable bloom, that all 
 untouched and stainless down, which seemed as if 
 a very breath could mar it. Perhaps the face 
 might have wanted animation; but, perhaps also, it 
 borrowed from that want an attraction ; the repose 
 of the features was so soft and gentle, that the 
 eye wandered there with the same delight, and 
 left it with the same reluctance, which it experi- 
 ences in dwelling on, or in quitting, those hues 
 which are found to harmonize the most with it*
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 123 
 
 vision. But while Paul was feeding his gaze on 
 this young beauty, the keen glances of Long Ned 
 had found an object no less fascinating, in a large 
 gold watch, which the gentleman who accompa- 
 nied the damsel, ever and anon brought to his 
 eye, as if he were waxing a little weary of the 
 length of the pieces or the lingering progression 
 of time. 
 
 " What a beautiful face V whispered Paul. 
 
 " Is the face gold then, as well as the back ?" 
 whispered Long Ned in return. 
 
 Our hero stared, — frowned, and, despite the 
 gigantic stature of his comrade, told him very 
 angrily, to find some other subject for jesting. 
 Ned in his turn stared, but made no reply. 
 
 Meanwhile Paul, though the lady was rather 
 too young to fall in love with, began wander- 
 ing what relationship her companion bore to her. 
 Though the gentleman altogether was hand- 
 some, yet his features, and the whole character 
 of his face, were widely different from those on 
 which Paul gazed with such delight. He was not, 
 seemingly, above five-and-forty, but his forehead 
 was knit into many a line and furrow; and in his 
 
 g 2
 
 124 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 eyes, the light, though searching, was more sober 
 and staid than became his years. A disagreeable 
 expression played about the mouth, and the shape 
 of the face, which was long and thin, considerably 
 detracted from the prepossessing effect of a hand- 
 some aquiline nose, fine teeth, and a dark, manly, 
 though sallow complexion. There was a mingled 
 air of shrewdness and distraction in the expression 
 of his face. lie seemed to pay very little atten- 
 tion to the play, or to any thing about him ; but 
 he testified very considerable alacrity, when the 
 play was over, in putting her cloak around his 
 young companion, and in threading their way 
 through the thick crowd that the boxes were now 
 pouring forth. 
 
 Paul and his companion silently, and each 
 with very different motives from the other, fol- 
 lowed them. They were now at the door of the 
 theatre. 
 
 A servant stepped forward, and informed the 
 gentleman that his carriage was a few paces dis- 
 tant ; but that it might be some time before it 
 could drive up to the theatre. 
 
 " Can you walk to the carriage, my dear ? "
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 125 
 
 said the gentleman to his young charge, and, she- 
 answering in the affirmative, they both left the 
 house, preceded by the servant. 
 
 "Come on!" said Long Ned, hastily, and 
 walking in the same direction which the strangers 
 had taken. Paul readily agreed ; they soon over- 
 took the strangers. — Long Ned walked the nearest 
 to the gentleman, and brushed by him in passing. 
 Presently, a voice cried " Stop thief!" and Long 
 Ned saying to Paul — " Shift for yourself — 
 run ! " darted from our hero's side into the crowd, 
 and vanished in a twinkling. Before Paul could 
 recover his amaze, he found himself suddenly 
 seized by the collar ; he turned abruptly, and saw 
 the dark face of the young lady's companion. 
 
 " Rascal !"" cried the gentleman, " my watch !"" 
 
 " Watch ! " repeated Paul, bewildered ; and 
 only for the sake of the young lady refraining 
 from knocking down his arrester. — " Watch !'" 
 
 " Ay, young man I" cried a fellow in a great 
 coat, who now suddenly appeared on the other 
 side of Paul ; "this gentleman's watch — please 
 your honour, (addressing the complainant) / be 
 a watch too — shall I take up this chap?"
 
 126 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 " By all means," cried the gentleman ; " I 
 would not have lost my watch for twice its value. 
 I can swear I saw this fellow's companion snatch 
 it from my fob. The thief's gone ; but we have at 
 least the accomplice. I give him in strict charge 
 to you, watchman ; take the consequences if you 
 let him escape.' 1 
 
 The watchman answered sullenly, that he did 
 not want to be threatened, and he knew how to 
 discharge his duty. 
 
 " Don't answer me, fellow," said the gentle- 
 man haughtily ; " do as I tell you !" and after a 
 little colloquy, Paul found himself suddenly 
 marched off between two tall fellows who looked 
 prodigiously inclined to eat him. By this time, 
 he had recovered his surprise and dismay ; he 
 did not want the penetration to see that his com- 
 panion had really committed the offence for which 
 he was charged ; and he also foresaw that the cir- 
 cumstance might be attended with disagreeable 
 consequences to himself. Under all the features 
 of the case, he thought that an attempt to escape 
 would not be an imprudent proceeding on his 
 part ; accordingly, after moving a few paces
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 127 
 
 very quietly, and very passively, he watched his 
 opportunity, wrenched himself from the gripe of 
 the gentleman on his left, and brought the hand 
 thus released, against the cheek of the gentleman 
 on his right, with so hearty a good will, as to 
 cause him to relinquish his hold, and retreat 
 several paces towards the areas in a slanting posi- 
 tion. But that round-about sort of blow with 
 the left fist is very unfavourable towards the 
 preservation of a firm balance ; and before Paul had 
 recovered sufficiently to make an effectual " bolt,"" 
 he was prostrated to the earth by a blow from 
 the other and undamaged watchman, which utterly 
 deprived him of his senses ; and when he reco- 
 vered those useful possessions (which a man may 
 reasonably boast of losing, since it is only the 
 minority who have them to lose), he found himself 
 stretched on a bench in the watchhouse.
 
 128 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Begirt with many a gallant slave, 
 Apparelled as becomes the brave, 
 Old Giaffer sat in his Divan ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 ***** 
 Much I misdoubt this wayward boy 
 Will one day work me more annoy. 
 
 Bride of Abydos. 
 
 The learned and ingenious John Schweighaeuser 
 — (a name facile to spell and mellifluous to pro- 
 nounce) — hath been pleased, in that Appendix con- 
 tinens particiilam doctrines de mente humand,wldch 
 closeth the volume of his Opuscula Academica, to 
 observe — (we translate from memory,) — that, " in 
 the infinite variety of things which, in the theatre 
 of the world, occur to a man's survey, or in some 
 manner or another affect his body or his mind, by 
 far the greater part are so contrived as to bring
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 129 
 
 to him rather some sense of pleasure than of pain 
 or discomfort." Assuming; that this holds gene- 
 rally good, in well-constituted frames, we point 
 out a notable example in the case of the incarce- 
 rated Paul ; for, although that youth was in no 
 agreeable situation at the time present, — and 
 although nothing very encouraging smiled upon 
 him from the prospects of the future, yet, as soon 
 as he had recovered his consciousness, and siren 
 himself a rousing shake, he found an immediate 
 source of pleasure in discovering, first, that seve- 
 ral ladies and gentlemen bore him company in his 
 imprisonment; and, secondly, in perceiving a huge 
 jug of water within his reach, which, as his 
 awaking sensation was that of burning thirst, he 
 delightedly emptied at a draught. He then, 
 stretching himself, looked around with a wistful 
 earnestness, and discovered a back turned towards 
 him, and recumbent on the floor, which, at the 
 very first glance, appeared to him familiar. 
 " Surely, 11 thought he, " I know that frieze coat, 
 and the peculiar turn of those narrow shoulders. 1 ' 
 Thus soliloquizing, he raised himself, and, putting 
 out his leg, he gently kicked the reclining form. 
 
 G 5
 
 130 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 " Muttering strange oaths,'" the form turned 
 round, and, raising itself upon that inhospitable 
 part of the body in which the introduction of 
 foreign feet is considered any thing but an honour, 
 it fixed its dull blue eyes upon the face of the 
 disturber of its slumbers, gradually opening them 
 wider and wider, until they seemed to have en- 
 larged themselves into proportions fit for the 
 swallowing of the important truth that burst 
 upon them, and then from the mouth of the 
 creature issued — 
 
 " Queer my glims, if that ben't little Paul! 1 ' 
 
 "Ay, Dummie, here I am! — Not been long 
 without being laid by the heels, you see! — Life is 
 ^hort ; we must make the best use of our time!" 
 
 Upon this, Mr. Dunnaker — (it was no less 
 respectable a person) — scrambled up from the 
 floor, and, seating himself on the bench beside 
 Paul, said, in a pitying tone — 
 
 " Vy, Laus-a-me! if you ben't knocked o 1 the 
 head ! — your poll's as bloody as Murphy's face* 
 ven his throat's cut! 1 ' 
 
 * "Murphy's face," unlearned reader, appeareth, in Irish 
 phrase, to mean "pig's head."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 131 
 
 u 'Tis only the fortune of war, Dummie, and a 
 mere trifle: the heads manufactured at Thames 
 Court are not easily put out of order. — But tell 
 me, how come you here ?" 
 
 " Vy, I had been lushing heavy vet " 
 
 " Till you grew light in the head, eh ? and fell 
 into the kennel." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Mine is a worse business than that, I fear: ' : 
 and therewith Paul, in a lower voice, related to 
 the trusty Dummie the train of accidents which 
 had conducted him to his present asylum. Dum- 
 mie's face elongated as he listened : however, when 
 the narrative was over, he endeavoured such con- 
 solatory palliatives as occurred to him. He repre- 
 sented, first, the possibility that the gentleman 
 might not take the trouble to appear ; secondly, 
 the certainty that no watch was found about 
 Paul's person ; thirdly, the fact that, even by the 
 gentleman's confession, Paul had not been the 
 actual offender ; fourthly, if the worst came to 
 the worst, what were a few weeks 1 or even months' 
 imprisonment ? 
 
 " Blow me tight ! " said Dummie, " if it
 
 132 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ben't as good a vay of passing the time as a 
 cove as is fond of snuggery need desire ! " 
 
 This observation had no comfort for Paul, who 
 recoiled, with all the maiden coyness of one to whom 
 such unions are unfamiliar, from a matrimonial 
 alliance with the snuggery of the House of Cor- 
 rection. He rather trusted to another source for 
 consolation; in a word, he encouraged the flattering 
 belief, that Long Ned, finding that Paul had been 
 caught instead of himself, would have the gene- 
 rosity to come forward and exculpate him from 
 the charge. On hinting this idea to Dummie, 
 that accomplished "man about town" could not 
 for some time believe that any simpleton could be 
 so thoroughly unacquainted with the world, as 
 seriously to entertain so ridiculous a notion ; and, 
 indeed, it is somewhat remarkable that such a 
 hope should ever have told its flattering tale to 
 one brought up in the house of Mrs. Margaret 
 Lobkins. But Paul, we have seen, had formed 
 many of his notions from books ; and he had the 
 same fine theories of your " moral rogue," that 
 possess the minds of young patriots when they 
 first leave college for the House of Commons, and 
 think integrity a prettier thing than office.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 133 
 
 Mr. Dunnaker urged Paul, seriously, to dismiss 
 so vague and childish a fancy from his breast, and 
 rather to think of what line of defence it would be 
 best for him to pursue. This subject being at 
 length exhausted, Paul recurred to Mrs. Lobkins, 
 and inquired whether Dummie had lately honour- 
 ed that lady with a visit. 
 
 Mr. Dunnaker replied that he had, though 
 with much difficulty, appeased her anger against 
 him for his supposed abetment of Paul's excuses, 
 and that of late she had held sundry conversations 
 with Dummie respecting our hero himself. Upon 
 questioning Dummie farther, Paul learnt the good 
 matron's reasons for not evincing that solicitude 
 for his return which our hero had reasonably an- 
 ticipated. The fact was, that she, having no con- 
 fidence whatsoever in his own resources indepen- 
 dent of her, had not been sorry of an opportunity 
 effectually, as she hoped, to humble that pride 
 which had so revolted her ; and she pleased her 
 vanity by anticipating the time when Paul, starved 
 into submission, would gladly, and penitently, 
 re-seek the shelter of her roof, and, tamed as it 
 were by experience, would never again kick
 
 134 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 against the yoke which her matronly prudence 
 thought it fitting to impose upon him. She con- 
 tented herself then with obtaining from Dummie 
 the intelligence, that our hero was under Mac 
 Grawler's roof, and therefore, out of all absolute 
 evil ; and, as she could not foresee the ingenious 
 exertions of intellect by which Paul had converted 
 himself into the * Nobilitas 1 of the Asinaeum, and 
 thereby saved himself from utter penury, she 
 was perfectly convinced, from her knowledge of 
 character, that the illustrious Mac Grawler would 
 not long continue that protection to her rebel- 
 lious protege, which, in her opinion, was his only 
 preservative from picking pockets or famishing. 
 To the former decent alternative she knew Paul's 
 great and jejune aversion, and she consequently 
 had little fear for his morals or his safety, in thus 
 abandoning him for a while to chance. Any anxie- 
 ty too that she might otherwise have keenly expe- 
 rienced was deadened by the habitual intoxication 
 now increasing upon the good lady with age, and 
 which, though at times she could be excited to all 
 her characteristic vehemence, kept her senses for 
 the most part plunged into a lethaean stupor, or,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 135 
 
 to speak more courteously, in a poetical abstrac- 
 tion from the things of the external world. 
 
 " But," said Dummie, as by degrees he im- 
 parted the solution of the Dame's conduct to the 
 listening ear of his companion — " But I opes as 
 ow ven you be out of this ere scrape, leetle Paul, 
 you vill take varning, and drop Meester Pepper's 
 acquaintance, (rich, I must say, I vas alvays a 
 sorry to see you hencourage,) and go home to 
 the Mug, and fam grasp the old mort, for she 
 has not been like the same cretur ever since you 
 vent. She 's a delicate-arted oman, that Piggy 
 
 Lob r 
 
 So appropriate a panegyric on Mrs. Margaret 
 Lobkins might, at another time, have excited 
 Paul's risible muscles; but at that moment he 
 really felt compunction for the unceremonious 
 manner in which he had left her, and the softness 
 of regretful affection imbued in its hallowing 
 colours even the image of Piggy Lob. 
 
 In conversation of this intellectual and domestic 
 description, the night and ensuing morning passed 
 away, till Paul found himself in the awful pre- 
 sence of Justice Burnflat. Several cases were dis-
 
 1.36 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 posed of before his own, and among others Mr. 
 Dummie Dunnaker obtained his release, though 
 not without a severe reprimand for his sin of ine- 
 briety, which no doubt sensibly affected the inge- 
 nuous spirit of that noble character. At length 
 Paul's turn came. He heard, as he took his 
 station, a general buzz. At first he imagined it 
 was at his own interesting appearance, but raising 
 his eyes, he perceived that it was at the entrance 
 of the gentleman who was to become his accuser. 
 
 " Hush, 1 " 1 said some one near him, " 'tis Law- 
 yer Brandon. Ah, he's a 'cute fellow! It will 
 go hard with the person he complains of."" 
 
 There was a happy fund of elasticity of spirit 
 about our hero, and though he had not the good 
 fortune to have " a blighted heart, 1 ' a circum- 
 stance which, by the poets and philosophers of the 
 present day, is supposed to inspire a man with 
 wonderful courage, and make him impervious to 
 all misfortunes ; yet he bore himself up with won- 
 derful courage under his present trying situation, 
 and was far from overwhelmed, though he was 
 certainly a little damped, by the observation he 
 had just heard.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 137 
 
 Mr. Brandon was, indeed, a barrister of con- 
 siderable reputation, and in high esteem in the 
 world, not only for talent, but also for a great 
 austerity of manners, which, though a little mingled 
 with sternness and acerbity for the errors of other 
 men, was naturally thought the more praiseworthy 
 on that account ; there being, as persons of ex- 
 perience are doubtless aware, two divisions in the 
 first class of morality: imprimis, a great hatred 
 for the vices of one's neighbour; secondly, the 
 possession of virtues in one's self. 
 
 Mr. Brandon was received with great courtesy 
 by Justice Burnflat, and as he came, watch in 
 hand, (a borrowed watch) saying that his time 
 was worth five guineas a moment, the Justice pro- 
 ceeded immediately to business. 
 
 Nothing could be clearer, shorter, or more satis- 
 factory, than the evidence of Mr. Brandon. The 
 corroborative testimony of the watchman followed ; 
 and then Paul was called upon for his defence. 
 This was equally brief with the charge; — but, alas ! 
 it was not equally satisfactory. It consisted in a 
 firm declaration of his innocence. His comrade, 
 he confessed, might have stolen the watch, but
 
 138 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 he humbly suggested that that was exactly the 
 very reason why he had not stolen it. 
 
 " How long, fellow," asked Justice Burnflat, 
 " have you known your companion ?" 
 
 " About half a year !" 
 
 " And what is his name and calling ?" 
 
 Paul hesitated, and declined to answer. 
 
 " A sad piece of business !" said the Justice, in 
 a melancholy tone, and shaking his head porten- 
 tously. 
 
 The lawyer acquiesced in the aphorism ; but 
 with great magnanimity observed, that he did not 
 wish to be hard upon the young man. His youth 
 was in his favour, and his offence was probably 
 the consequence of evil company. He suggested, 
 therefore, that as he must be perfectly aware of 
 the address of his friend, he should receive a full 
 pardon, if he would immediately favour the ma- 
 gistrate with that information. He concluded by 
 remarking, with singular philanthropy, that it 
 was not the punishment of the youth, but the re- 
 covery of his watch that he desired. 
 
 Justice Burnflat, having duly impressed upon 
 our hero's mind the disinterested and Christian
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 139 
 
 mercy of the complainant, and the everlasting ob- 
 ligation Paul was under to him for its display, now 
 repeated, with double solemnity, those queries 
 respecting the habitation and name of Long Ned, 
 which our hero had before declined to answer. 
 
 ' Grieved are we to confess, that Paul, ungrateful 
 for, and wholly untouched by, the beautiful be- 
 nignity of Lawyer Brandon, continued firm in his 
 stubborn denial to betray his comrade, and with 
 equal obduracy he continued to insist upon his 
 own innocence and unblemished respectability of 
 character. 
 
 " Your name, young man ?" quoth the Justice. 
 " Your name, you say, is Paul, — Paul what? 
 you have many an alias, 1 11 be bound.' 1 '' 
 
 Here the young gentleman again hesitated : at 
 length he replied — 
 
 " Paul Lobkins, your Worship.'" 
 
 " Lobkins !" repeated the Judge — " Lobkins ! 
 come hither, Saunders — have not we that name 
 down in our black books ?" 
 
 " So please your Worship," quoth a little stout 
 man, very useful in many respects to the Festus 
 of the Police, " there is one Peggy Lobkins.
 
 140 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 who keeps a public-house, a sort of flash ken, 
 called the Mug, in Thames Court, not exactly in 
 our beat, your Worship."" 
 
 " Ho, ho !" said Justice Burnflat, winking at 
 Mr. Brandon, " we must sift this a little. Pray, 
 Mr. Paul Lobkins, what relation is the good 
 landlady of the Mug, in Thames Court, to your- 
 self r 
 
 " None at all, Sir,"' said Paul, hastily, — 
 " she 's only a friend !" 
 
 Upon this there was a laugh in the court. 
 
 " Silence," cried the Justice, " and I dare say, 
 Mr. Paul Lobkins, that this friend of yours will 
 vouch for the respectability of your character, 
 upon which you are pleased to value yourself." 
 
 " I have not a doubt of it, Sir, 1 ' answered Paul ; 
 and there was another laugh. 
 
 " And is there any other equally weighty and 
 praiseworthy friend of yours who will do you the 
 like kindness P" 11 
 
 Paul hesitated ; and at that moment, to the 
 surprise of the court, but above all to the utter 
 and astounding surprise of himself, two gentle- 
 men dressed in the height of the fashion pushed
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 14] 
 
 forward, and, bowing to the Justice, declared them- 
 selves ready to vouch for the thorough respecta- 
 bility, and unimpeachable character of Mr. Paul 
 Lobkins, whom they had known, they said, for 
 many years, and for whom they had the greatest 
 respect. While Paul was surveying the persons 
 of these kind friends, whom he never remembered 
 to have seen before in the course of his life, the 
 lawyer, who was a very sharp fellow, whispered 
 to the magistrate, and that dignitary nodding as 
 in assent, and eyeing the new comers, inquired 
 the names of Mr. Lobkins' witnesses. 
 
 ** Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert, and Mr. William 
 Howard Russell," were the several replies. 
 
 Names so aristocratic produced a general sen- 
 sation. But the impenetrable Justice calling the 
 same Mr. Saunders he had addressed before, 
 asked him to examine well the countenances of 
 Mr. Lobkins 1 friends. 
 
 As the Alguazil eyed the features of the me- 
 morable Don Raphael and the illustrious Ma- 
 nuel Morales, when the former of those accom- 
 plished personages thought it convenient to as- 
 sume the travelling dignity of an Italian Prince,
 
 142 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 son of the Sovereign of the vallies which lie be- 
 tween Switzerland, the Milanese, and Savoy, 
 while the latter was contented with being servant 
 to Monseigtieur h Prince; even so, with far 
 more earnestness than respect, did Mr. Saunders 
 eye the features of those high-born gentlemen, 
 Messrs. Eustace Fitzherbert, and William How- 
 ard Russell ; but, after a long survey, he with- 
 drew his eyes, made an unsatisfactory and unre- 
 cognizing gesture to the magistrate, and said, — 
 " Please your Worship, they are none of my 
 flock ; but Bill Troutling knows more of this sort 
 of genteel chaps than I does. 1 ' 
 
 " Bid Bill Troutling appear !" was the laconic 
 order. 
 
 At that name, a certain modest confusion might 
 have been visible in the faces of Mr. Eustace 
 Fitzherbert and Mr. William Howard Russell, 
 had not the attention of the court been immedi- 
 ately directed to another case. A poor woman 
 had been committed for seven days to the House 
 of Correction on a charge of disrespect ability. Her 
 husband, the person most interested in the matter, 
 now came forward to disprove the charge ; and by 
 help of his neighbours he succeeded.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 143 
 
 " It is all very true," said Justice Burnflat ; 
 " but as your wife, my good fellow, will be out in 
 five days, it will be scarcely worth while to re- 
 lease her now. 11 * 
 
 So judicious a decision could not fail of satis- 
 fying the husband ; and the audience became from 
 that moment enlightened as to a very remarkable 
 truth — viz. ; that five days out of seven bear a 
 peculiarly small proportion to the remaining two ; 
 and that people in England have so prodigious a 
 love for punishment, that though it is not worth 
 while to release an innocent woman from prison 
 five days sooner than one would otherwise have 
 done, it is exceedingly well worth while to com- 
 mit her to prison for seven ! 
 
 When the husband, drawing his rough hand 
 across his eyes, and muttering some vulgar imper- 
 tinence or another, had withdrawn, Mr. Saun- 
 ders said, — 
 
 " Here be Bill Troutling, your Worship I" 
 
 " Oh, well," quoth the Justice, — " and now 
 Mr. Eustace Fitz — Hollo, how 1 s this! where are 
 
 * A fact, occurring in the month of January last, 1830. — Vide 
 the Morning Herald.
 
 144 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Mr. William Howard Russell, and his friend 
 Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert !" 
 
 " Echo, answered, — Where ?" 
 Those noble gentlemen, having a natural dislike 
 to be confronted with so low a person as Mr. 
 Bill Troutling, had, the instant public interest 
 was directed from them, silently disappeared 
 from a scene where their rank in life seemed so 
 little regarded. If, reader, you should be anxious 
 to learn from what part of the world the tran- 
 sitory visitants appeared, know, that they were 
 spirits sent by that inimitable magician, Long 
 Ned, partly to report how matters fared in the 
 court ; for Mr. Pepper, — in pursuance of that old 
 policy which teaches that the nearer the fox is to 
 the hunters, the more chance he has of being over- 
 looked, — had, immediately on his abrupt depar- 
 ture from Paul, dived into a house in the very 
 street where his ingenuity had displayed itself, 
 and in which oysters and ale nightly allured and 
 regaled an assembly that, to speak impartially, 
 was more numerous than select : there had he 
 learnt how a pickpocket had been seized for un- 
 lawful affection to another man's watch, and there,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 145 
 
 while lie quietly seasoned his oysters, had he, with 
 his characteristic acuteness, satisfied his mind, by 
 the conviction that that arrested unfortunate was 
 no other than Paul. Partly therefore as a precau- 
 tion for his own safety, that he might receive early 
 intelligence, should Paul's defence make a change 
 of residence expedient, and partly (out of the 
 friendliness of fellowship) to back his companion 
 with such aid as the favourable testimony of two 
 well-dressed persons, little known " about town," 
 might confer, he had dispatched those celestial 
 beings, who had appeared under the mortal names 
 of Eustace Fitzherbert, and William Howard 
 Russell, to the imperial court of Justice Burn- 
 flat. Having thus accounted for the apparition, 
 (the disapparition requires no commentary) — of 
 Paul's ' friends, 1 we return to Paul himself. 
 
 Despite of the perils with which he was girt, 
 our young hero fought out to the last, but the 
 Justice was not by any means willing to displease 
 Mr. Brandon ; and observing that an incredulous 
 and biting sneer remained stationary on that 
 gentleman's lip, during the whole of Paul's de- 
 fence, he could not but shape his decision accord- 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ing to the well-known acuteness of the celebrated 
 lawyer. Paul was accordingly sentenced to retire 
 for three months to that country-house situated 
 at Bridewell, to which the ungrateful functiona- 
 ries of justice often banish their most active citi- 
 zens. 
 
 As soon as the sentence was passed, Brandon, 
 whose keen eyes saw no hope of recovering his 
 lost treasure, declared that the rascal had per- 
 fectly the Old-Bailey-cut of countenance, and that 
 he did not doubt but, if ever he lived co be a 
 judge, he should also live to pass a very different 
 description of sentence on the offender. 
 
 So saying, he resolved to lose no more time, 
 and very abruptly left the office, without any 
 other comfort than the remembrance that, at all 
 events, he had sent the boy to a place where, let 
 him be ever so innocent at present, he was certain 
 to come out as much inclined to be guilty, as his 
 friends could desire ; joined to such moral reflec- 
 tion as the tragedy of Bombastes Furioso might 
 have afforded to himself in that sententious and 
 terse line — 
 
 " Thy watch is gone,— watches are'made to go!"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 147 
 
 Meanwhile, Paul was conducted in state to his 
 retreat, in company with two other offenders, one 
 a middle-aged man, though a very old i Jile, i who 
 was sentenced for getting money under false pre- 
 tences, and the other a little boy, who had been 
 found guilty of sleeping under a colonnade : it 
 being the especial beauty of the English law, to 
 make no fine-drawn and nonsensical shades of 
 difference between vice and misfortune ; and its 
 peculiar method of protecting the honest being, 
 to make as many rogues as possible in as short a 
 space of time. 
 
 H 2
 
 148 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Common Sense. — What is the end of punishment, as regards 
 the individual punished ? 
 
 Custom. — To make him better ! 
 
 Common Sense. — How do you punish young offenders who 
 arc (from their youth) peculiarly alive to example , and whom it 
 is therefore more easy either to ruin or reform, than the 
 matured ? 
 
 Custom. — We send them to the House of Correction, to asso- 
 ciate with the damnedest rascals in the country ! 
 
 Dialogue between Commox Sexse and Custom. — 
 
 (Very scarce.) 
 
 As it was rather late in the day when Paul 
 made his first entr't at Bridewell, he passed that 
 night in the " receiving- room. 1 ' The next morn- 
 ing, as soon as he had been examined by the sur- 
 geon, and clothed in the customary uniform, he 
 was ushered, according to his classification, among
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 149 
 
 the good company who had been considered guilty 
 of that compendious offence, * a misdemeanor. 1 
 Here a tall gentleman marched up to him, and 
 addressed him in a certain language, which might 
 be called the free-masonry of flash ; and which 
 Paul, though he did not comprehend verbatim, 
 rightly understood to be an inquiry whether he 
 was a thorough rogue and an entire rascal. He 
 answered half in confusion, half in anger — and his 
 reply was so detrimental to any favourable influ- 
 ence he might otherwise have exercised over the 
 interrogator, — that the latter personage, giving 
 him a pinch in the ear, shouted out, " Ramp, 
 ramp!" and, at that significant and awful word, 
 Paul found himself surrounded in a trice by a 
 whole host of ingenious tormentors. One pulled 
 this member, another pinched that ; one cuffed 
 him before, and another thrashed him behind. By 
 way of interlude to this pleasing occupation, they 
 stripped him of the very few things that in his 
 change of dress he had retained. One carried oft' 
 his handkerchief, a second his neckcloth, and a 
 third, luckier than either, possessed himself of a 
 pair of cornelian shirt-buttons, given to Paul as a
 
 1.30 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 gage (Tumour by a young lady who sold oranges 
 near the Tower. Happily, before this initiatory 
 process, technically termed " ramping,'" and exer- 
 cised upon all new comers who seem to have a 
 spark of decency in them, had reduced the bones 
 of Paul, who fought tooth-and-nail in his defence, 
 to the state of magnesia ; a man of a grave 
 aspect, who had hitherto plucked his oakum 
 in quiet, suddenly rose, thrust himself between 
 the victim and the assailants*, and desired the 
 latter, like one having authority, to leave the lad 
 alone, and go and be d d. 
 
 This proposal to resort to another place for 
 amusement, though uttered in a very grave and 
 tranquil manner, produced that instantaneous effect 
 which admonitions from great rogues generally 
 work upon little. Messieurs the " Tampers 11 
 ceased from their amusements, and the ringleader 
 of the gang, thumping Paul heartily on the back, 
 declared he was a capital fellow, and it was only a 
 bit of a spree like, which he hoped had not given 
 him any offence. 
 
 Paul, still clenching his fist, was about to answer 
 in no pacific mood, when a turnkey, who did not
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 151 
 
 care in the least how many men he locked up for 
 an offence, but who did not at all like the trouble 
 of looking after any one of his flock, to see that 
 the offence was not committed, now suddenly ap- 
 peared among the set ; and, after scolding them 
 for the excessive plague they were to him, carried 
 off" two of the poorest of the mob to solitary con- 
 finement. It happened of course that these two 
 had not taken the smallest share in the disturbance. 
 This scene over, the company returned to picking 
 oakum, — the tread-mill, that admirably just in- 
 vention, by which a strong man suffers no fatigue, 
 and a weak one loses his health for life, not hav- 
 ing been then introduced in our excellent establish- 
 ments for correcting crime. Bitterly, and with 
 many dark and wrathful feelings, in which the 
 sense of injustice at punishment alone bore him 
 up against the humiliations to which he was sub- 
 jected — bitterly, and with a swelling heart, in 
 which the thoughts that lead to crime were al- 
 ready forcing their way through a soil suddenly 
 warmed for their growth, did Paul bend over his 
 employment. He felt himself touched on the 
 arm, he turned, and saw that the gentleman who
 
 152 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 had so kindly delivered him from his tormentors, 
 was now sitting next to him. Paul gazed long 
 and earnestly upon his neighbour, struggling with 
 the thought, that he had beheld that sagacious 
 countenance in happier times — although, now, 
 alas ! it was altered, not only by time and vicissi- 
 tude, but by that air of gravity which the cares 
 of mankind spread gradually over the face of the 
 most thoughtless, — until all doubt melted away: 
 and he exclaimed — 
 
 " Is that you, Mr. Tomlinson ? — how glad I 
 am to see you here ! " 
 
 " And I," returned the quondam murderer for 
 the newspapers, with a nasal twang, " should be 
 very glad to see myself any where else ! ,1 
 
 Paul made no answer, and Augustus continued. 
 
 " ' To a wise man, all places are the same,' — so 
 it has been said. I don't believe it, Paul, — I don't 
 believe it. — But a truce to reflection. I remem- 
 bered you the moment I saw you, though you 
 are surprisingly grown. How is my friend Mac 
 Grawler ? — still hard at work for the Asinasum ?" 
 
 " I believe so," said Paul sullenly, and hasten- 
 ing to change the conversation ; " but tell me,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 153 
 
 Mr. Tomlinson, how came you hither ? I heard 
 you had gone down to the North of England to 
 fulfil a lucrative employment. 11 
 
 " Possibly ! the world always misrepresents 
 the actions of those who are constantly before 
 it! 11 
 
 " It is very true," said Paul, "and I have said 
 the same thing myself a hundred times in the 
 Asinaeum, — for we were never too lavish of our 
 truths in that magnificent journal. 1 Tis astonish- 
 ing what a way we made three ideas go. 11 
 
 " You remind me of myself and my news- 
 paper labours, 11 rejoined Augustus Tomlinson : 
 " I am not quite sure that / had so many as 
 three ideas to spare; for, as you say, it is astonish- 
 ing how far that number may go, properly ma- 
 naged. It is with writers as with strolling- players, 
 — the same three ideas that did for Turks in one 
 scene, do for Highlanders in the next : — but you 
 must tell me your history one of these days, and 
 you shall hear mine. 11 
 
 " I should be excessively obliged to you for 
 your confidence, 11 said Paul, " and I doubt not 
 but your life must be excessively entertaining. 
 
 h 5
 
 154 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Mine, as yet, has been but insipid. The lives of 
 literary men are not fraught with adventure ; and I 
 question whether every writer in the Asinaeum has 
 not led pretty nearly the same existence as that 
 which I have sustained myself." 
 
 In conversation of this sort, our newly restored 
 friends passed the remainder of the day, until 
 the hour of half-past four, when the prisoners 
 are to suppose night has begun, and be locked up 
 in their bed-rooms. Tomlinson then, who was 
 glad to re-find a person who had known him in his 
 beaux jours, spoke privately to the turnkey ; and 
 the result of the conversation was the coupling 
 Paul and Augustus in the same chamber, which 
 was a sort of stone box, that generally accom- 
 modated three, and was — for we have measured 
 it, as we would have measured the cell of the pri- 
 soner of Chillon, — just eight feet by six. 
 
 We do not intend, reader, to indicate by 
 broad colours and in long detail, the moral dete- 
 rioration of our hero ; because we have found, by 
 experience, that such pains on our part do little 
 more than make thee blame our stupidity instead 
 of lauding our intention. We shall therefore only
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 155 
 
 work out our moral by subtle hints and brief com- 
 ments; and we shall now content ourselves with 
 reminding thee, that hitherto thou hast seen Paul 
 honest in the teeth of circumstances. Despite the 
 contagion of the Mug, — despite his associates in 
 Fish Lane, — despite his intimacy with Long Ned, 
 thou hast seen him brave temptation, and look 
 forward to some other career than that of robbery 
 or fraud. Nay, even in his destitution, when 
 driven from the abode of his childhood, thou hast 
 observed how, instead of resorting to some more 
 pleasurable or libertine road of life, he betook him- 
 self at once to the dull roof and insipid employ- 
 ments of Mac Grawler, and preferred honestly 
 earning his subsistence by the sweat of his brain, 
 to recurring to any of the numerous ways of living 
 on others with which his experience among the worse 
 part of society must have teemed, and which, to 
 say the least of them, are more alluring to the 
 young and the adventurous, than the barren paths 
 of literary labour. Indeed, to let thee into a se- 
 cret, it had been Paul's daring ambition to raise 
 himself into a worthy member of the community. 
 His present circumstances, it may hereafter be
 
 156 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 seen, made the cause of a great change in his de- 
 sires ; and the conversation he held that night 
 with the ingenious and skilful Augustus, went 
 more towards fitting him for the hero of this work, 
 than all the habits of his childhood, or the scenes 
 of his earlier youth. Young people are apt, 
 erroneously, to believe, that it is a bad thing to be 
 exceedingly wicked. The House of Correction is 
 so called, because it is a place where so ridicu- 
 lous a notion is invariably corrected. 
 
 The next day, Paul was surprised by a visit from 
 Mrs. Lobkins, who had heard of his situation, and 
 its causes, from the friendly Dummie, and. who 
 had managed to obtain from Justice Burnflat, an 
 order of admission. They met, Pyramus and 
 Thisbe like, with a wall, or rather an iron gate, 
 between them : and Mrs. Lobkins, after an eja- 
 culation of despair at the obstacle, burst weeping- 
 ly into the pathetic reproach — 
 
 " O Paul, thou hast brought thy pigs to a fine 
 market !" 
 
 " 'Tis a market proper for pigs, dear Dame," 
 said Paul, who, though with a tear in his eye, did 
 not refuse a joke as bitter as it was inelegant ;
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 157 
 
 " for, of all others, it is the spot where a man 
 learns to take care of his bacon." 
 
 " Hold your tongue I' 1 cried the Dame angrily. 
 " What business has you to gabble on so while 
 you are in limbo ?" 
 
 " Ah, dear Dame," said Paul, " we can't 
 help these rubs and stumbles on our road to pre- 
 ferment !" 
 
 " Road to the scragging-post !" cried the Dame. 
 " I tells you, child, you 11 live to be hanged in 
 spite of all my care and 'tendon to you, though I 
 hedicated you as a scholard, and always hoped as 
 how you would grow up to be an honour to your 
 
 " King and country," interrupted Paul. " We 
 always say honour to king and country, which 
 means getting rich and paying taxes. ' The more 
 taxes a man pays, the greater honour he is to both," 
 as Augustus says. — Well, dear Dame, all in good 
 time." 
 
 " What ! you is merry — is you ? Why does 
 not you weep ? Your heart is as hard as a 
 brickbat. It looks quite unnatural and hyama- 
 like, to be so devil me careish .'" So saying, the
 
 158 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 good Dame's tears gushed forth with the bitter- 
 ness of a despairing Parisina. 
 
 " Nay, nay," said Paul, who, though he suffer- 
 ed far more intensely, bore the suffering far more 
 easily than his patroness, " we cannot mend the 
 matter by crying. Suppose you see what can be 
 done for me. I dare say you may manage to 
 soften the Justice's sentence by a little ' oil of 
 palms ;' and if you can get me out before I am 
 quite corrupted, — a day or two longer in 
 this infernal place will do the business, — I 
 promise you, that I will not only live honestly 
 myself, but with people who live in the same 
 manner." 
 
 " Buss me, Paul,"" said the tender Mrs. Lobkins, 
 " buss me, oh ! but I forgits the gate ! — 1 11 see 
 what can be done. And here, my lad, here's 
 summat for you in the meanwhile. A drop o" the 
 cretur to preach comfort to your poor stomach. 
 — Husli ! smuggle it through, or they '11 see you. 1 ' 
 
 Here the Dame endeavoured to push a stone 
 bottle through the bars of the gate ; but, alas ! 
 though the neck past through, the body refused, 
 and the Dame was forced to retract the "ere-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 159 
 
 tur." Upon this, the kind-hearted woman re- 
 newed her sobbings ; and so absorbed was she in 
 her grief, that, seemingly quite forgetting for what 
 purpose she had brought the bottle, she applied 
 it to her own mouth, and consoled herself with 
 that elixir vita which she had originally designed 
 for Paul. 
 
 This somewhat restored her ; and after a most 
 affecting scene, the Dame reeled off with the vacil- 
 lating steps natural to woe, promising, as she went, 
 that, if love or money could shorten Paul's con- 
 finement, neither should be wanting. We are 
 rather at a loss to know the exact influence which 
 the former of these arguments, urged by the 
 lovely Margaret, might have had with Justice 
 Burnflat. 
 
 When the good Dame had departed, Paul hast- 
 ened to repick his oakum and rejoin his friend. 
 He found the worthy Augustus privately selling 
 little elegant luxuries, such as tobacco, gin, and 
 rations of daintier viands than the prison allowed ; 
 for Augustus, having more money than the rest 
 of his companions, managed, through the friend- 
 ship of the turnkey, to purchase secretly, and to
 
 16*0 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 re-sell at about four hundred per cent., such com- 
 forts as the prisoners especially coveted.* 
 
 " A proof,' 1 '' said Augustus drily to Paul, " that, 
 by prudence and exertion, even in those places 
 where a man cannot turn himself, he may manage 
 to turn a penny !" 
 
 * A very common practice at the Bridewells. The Governor 
 at the Cold -Bath-Fields, seemingly a very intelligent and active 
 man, every way fitted for a most arduous undertaking, inform- 
 ed us, in the only conversation we have had the honour to hold 
 with him, that he thought he had nearly, or quite, destroyed in 
 his jurisdiction this illegal method of commerce, gloriously 
 profitable to the Turnkey ; and therefore, doubtless, (on that 
 excellent principle of the English Constitution, that the more the 
 governors make, the better for the governed,) highly salutary to 
 the public.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 16l 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Relate at large, my godlike guest, she said. 
 The Grecian stratagems, — the town betrayed ! 
 
 Dryden's Virgil, b. ii. vEn. 
 
 Descending thence, they 'scaped ! 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 A great improvement had taken place in the 
 character of Augustus Tomlinson, since Paul had 
 last encountered that illustrious man. Then, 
 Augustus had affected the man of pleasure, — the 
 learned lounger about town, — the all-accomplished 
 Pericles of the Papers — now quoting Horace — now 
 flanking a fly from the leader of Lord Dunshun- 
 ner ; in a word, a sort of human half-way house be- 
 tween Lord Dudley and the Marquis of Worcester.
 
 162 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Now, a graver, yet not a less supercilious air had 
 settled upon his features; the pretence of fashion 
 had given way to the pretence of wisdom; and, from 
 the man of pleasure, Augustus Tomlinson had 
 grown to the philosopher. With this elevation 
 alone, too, he was not content: he united the 
 philosopher with the politician ; and the ingenious 
 rascal was pleased especially to pique himself 
 upon being, — ' A moderate Whig !' — " Paul," he 
 was wont to observe, " believe me, moderate 
 Whiggism is a most excellent creed. It adapts 
 itself to every possible change, — to every con- 
 ceivable variety of circumstance. It is the only 
 politics for us who are the aristocrats of that free 
 body who rebel against tyrannical laws ! for, hang 
 it, I am none of your democrats. Let there be 
 dungeons and turnkeys for the low rascals who 
 whip clothes from the hedge where they hang to 
 dry, or steal down an area in quest of a silver 
 spoon ; but Houses of Correction are not made for 
 men who have received an enlightened education, — 
 who abhor your petty thefts as much as a justice 
 of peace can do, — who ought never to be termed 
 dishonest in their dealings, but, if they are found
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 163 
 
 out, ' unlucky in their speculations I'* A pretty 
 thing, indeed, that there should be distinctions of 
 rank among other members of the community, 
 and none among us ! Where's your boasted 
 British constitution ? I should like to know — 
 where are your privileges of aristocracy, if I, 
 who am a gentleman born, know Latin, and have 
 lived in the best society, should be thrust into 
 this abominable place with a dirty fellow, who 
 was born in a cellar, and could never earn more at 
 a time than would purchase a sausage? — No, no! 
 none of your levelling principles for me ! I am 
 liberal, Paul, and love liberty; but, thank Heaven, 
 I despise your democracies ! n 
 
 Thus, half in earnest, — half veiling a natural 
 turn to sarcasm, would this moderate Whig 
 run on for the hour together, during those long 
 nights, commencing at half-past four, in which he 
 and Paul bore each other company. 
 
 One evening, when Tomlinson was so bitterly 
 disposed to be prolix that Paul felt himself some- 
 what wearied by his eloquence, our hero, desirous 
 
 * A phrase applied to a noted defaulter of the public mo- 
 ney.
 
 164 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 of a change in the conversation, reminded Augus- 
 tus of his promise to communicate his history; and 
 the philosophical Whig, nothing loth to speak of 
 himself, cleared his throat, and began. 
 
 HISTORY OF AUGUSTUS TOMLINSON. 
 
 " Never mind who was my father, nor what 
 was my native place ! My first ancestor was 
 Tommy Linn — (his heir became Tom Linn's 
 son:) — you have heard the ballad made in his 
 praise — 
 
 ' Tommy Linn is a Scotchman born, 
 His head is bald, and his beard is shorn ; 
 He had a cap made of a hare skin, — 
 An elder man is Tommy Linn ! ' &c. * 
 
 " There was a sort of prophecy respecting my 
 ancestor's descendants darkly insinuated in the 
 concluding stanza of this ballad : 
 
 & 
 
 ' Tommy Linn, and his wife, and his wife's mother. 
 They all fell into the fire together ; 
 They that lay undermost got a hot skin ; — 
 ' We are not enough !' said Tommy Linn.' j 
 
 * See Ritson'a North-Country Chorister. 
 f Ibid.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 165 
 
 " You see the prophecy ; it is applicable both 
 to gentlemen rogues and to moderate Whigs ; for 
 both are undermost in the world, and both are 
 perpetually bawling out ' We are not enough P 
 
 " I shall begin my own history by saying, I went 
 to a North country school ; where I was noted for 
 my aptness in learning, and my skill at ' prison- 
 er's base:' — Upon my word I purposed no pun! 
 I was intended for the Church : wishing, betimes, 
 to instruct myself in its ceremonies, I persuaded 
 my schoolmaster's maid -servant to assist me 
 towards promoting a christening. My father did 
 not like this premature love for the sacred rites. 
 He took me home ; and, wishing to give my cleri- 
 cal ardour a different turn, prepared me for 
 writing sermons, by reading me a dozen a day. 
 I grew tired of this, strange as it may seem to 
 you. ' Father, 1 said I, one morning, ' it is no use 
 talking, I will not go into the Church — that's 
 positive. Give me your blessing, and a hundred 
 pounds, and I'll go up to London, and get a 
 living instead of a curacy.' My father stormed, 
 but I got the better at last. I talked of becoming 
 a private tutor ; swore I had heard nothing was so
 
 166 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 easy, — the only things wanted were — pupils; and 
 the only way to get them — was to go to London, 
 and let my learning be known. My poor father ! 
 — well, he's gone, and I am glad of it now ! — 
 (the speaker's voice faltered) — I got the better, 
 I say, and I came to town, where I had a relation 
 a bookseller. Through his interest, I wrote a 
 book of Travels in ^Ethiopia, for an eaiTs son, 
 who wanted to become a lion ; and a Treatise on 
 the Greek Particle, dedicated to the prime minis- 
 ter, for a dean, who wanted to become a bishop, — 
 Greek being, next to interest, the best road to 
 the mitre. These two achievements were liberally 
 paid; so I took a lodging in a first floor, and 
 resolved to make a bold stroke for a wife. What 
 do you think I did ? — nay, never guess, it would 
 be hopeless. First, I went to the best tailor, and 
 had my clothes sewn on my back ; secondly, I 
 got the peerage and its genealogies by heart ; 
 thirdly, I marched one night, with the coolest 
 deliberation possible, into the house of a duchess, 
 who was giving an immense rout ! The news- 
 papers had inspired me with this idea. I had 
 read of the vast crowds which a lady ' at home '
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 167 
 
 sought to win to her house. I had read of stair- 
 cases impassable, and ladies carried out in a fit ; 
 and common sense told me how impossible it was 
 that the fair receiver should be acquainted with 
 the legality of every importation. I therefore 
 resolved to try my chance, and — entered the 
 body of Augustus Tomlinson, as a piece of stolen 
 goods. Faith ! the first night I was shy, — I 
 stuck to the staircase, and ogled an old maid of 
 quality, whom I had heard announced as Lady 
 Margaret Sinclair. Doubtless, she had never been 
 ogled before ; and she was evidently enraptured 
 with my glances. The next night I read of a 
 
 ball at the Countess of . My heart beat as 
 
 if I were going to be whipped ; but I plucked up 
 courage, and repaired to her ladyship's. There I 
 again beheld the divine Lady Margaret; and, 
 observing that she turned yellow, by way of a 
 blush, when she saw me, I profited by the port I 
 had drunk as an encouragement to my entre, and 
 lounging up in the most modish way possible, I 
 reminded her ladyship of an introduction with 
 which / said I had once been honoured at the 
 Duke of DashwelTs, and requested her hand for
 
 168 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the next cotillon. Oh Paul ! fancy my triumph ! 
 the old damsel said with a sigh, ' She remembered 
 me very well,' ha ! ha ! ha ! and I carried her 
 off to the cotillon like another Theseus bearing 
 away a second Ariadne. Not to be prolix on 
 this part of my life, I went night after night to 
 balls and routs, for admission to which half the 
 fine gentlemen in London would have given their 
 ears. And I improved my time so well with 
 Lady Margaret, who was her own mistress, and 
 had five thousand pounds,— a devilish bad portion 
 for some, but not to be laughed at by me, — that 
 I began to think when the happy day should be 
 fixed. Meanwhile, as Lady Margaret introduced 
 me to some of her friends, and my lodgings were 
 in a good situation, I had been honoured with 
 some real invitations. The only two questions I 
 ever was asked were (carelessly), ' Was I the only 
 son T and on my veritable answer ' Yes I 1 * What," 
 (this was more warmly put,) — ' what was my 
 county V — luckily, my county was a wide one, 
 — Yorkshire ; and any of its inhabitants whom the 
 fair interrogators might have questioned about 
 me could only have answered, ' I was not in their 
 part of it."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 169 
 
 " Well, Paul, I grew so bold by success, that 
 the devil one day put it into my head to go to a 
 great dinner-party at the Duke of Dashwell's. — 
 I went, dined, — nothing happened : I came away, 
 and the next morning I read in the papers — 
 
 " ' Mysterious affair, — person lately going about, 
 — first houses — most fashionable parties — nobody 
 knows — Duke of Dash well's yesterday. Duke 
 not like to make disturbance — as — Rojalty 
 present I 1 
 
 " The journal dropped from my hands. At that 
 moment, the girl of the house gave me a note from 
 Lady Margaret,— alluded to the paragraph ; — won- 
 dered who was ■ The Stranger f — hoped to see me 
 
 that night at Lord A 's, to whose party I said 
 
 I had been asked ; — speak then more fully on those 
 matters I had touched on! 1 — in short, dear Paul, a 
 tender epistle ! All great men are fatalists : I am 
 one now : fate made me a madman : in the very face 
 of this ominous paragraph, I mustered up cou- 
 rage, and went that night to Lord A \s. The 
 
 fact is, my affairs were in confusion — I was greatly 
 in debt: I knew it was necessary to finish my con- 
 quest over Lady Margaret as soon as possible ; 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 170 PAUL CLIFFORD 
 
 and Lord A 's seemed the best place for the 
 
 purpose. Nay, I thought delay so dangerous, 
 after the cursed paragraph, that a day might 
 unmask me, and it would be better therefore 
 not to lose an hour in finishing the play of 
 ' The Stranger, 1 with the farce of the ' Honey 
 Moon.' Behold me then at Lord A 's, lead- 
 ing off Lady Margaret to the dance. Behold 
 me whispering the sweetest of things in her ear. 
 Imagine her approving my suit, and gently 
 chiding me for talking of Gretna Green. Con- 
 ceive all this, my dear fellow, and just at the 
 height of my triumph dilate the eyes of your 
 imagination, and behold the stately form of Lord 
 
 A , my noble host, marching up to me, while 
 
 a voice that, though low and quiet as an evening 
 
 breeze, made my heart sink into my shoes, said, 
 
 I believe, Sir, you have received no invitation 
 
 from Lady A T 
 
 " Not a word could I utter, Paul, — not a word. 
 Had it been the high road instead of a ball-room, 
 I could have talked loudly enough, but I was 
 under a spell. ' Ehem !' I faltered at last : — 
 ' E — h — e — m ! Some mis — take, I— I. 1 There
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 171 
 
 I stopped. ' Sir, 1 said the Earl, regarding me 
 with a grave sternness, ' you had better with- 
 draw r 
 
 " ' Bless me ! what "s all this? 1 cried Lady Mar- 
 garet, dropping my palsied arm, and gazing on 
 me as if she expected me to talk like a hero. 
 
 " ' Oh, 1 said I, ' Eh— e— m, eh— e— m, I will 
 exp — lain to-morrow, ehem, e — h — e — m. 1 I 
 made to the door ; all the eyes in the room seemed 
 turned into burning-glasses, and blistered the 
 very skin on my face. I heard a gentle shriek as 
 I left the apartment ; Lady Margaret fainting, I 
 suppose ! There ended my courtship and my ad- 
 ventures in " the best society. 11 I fell melancholy at 
 the ill success of my scheme. You must allow, it 
 was a magnificent project. What moral courage ! 
 I admire myself when I think of it. Without an 
 introduction, without knowing a soul, to become, 
 all by my own resolution, free of the finest houses 
 in London, dancing with Earls 1 daughters, and all 
 but carrying off an EaiTs daughter myself as my 
 wife. If I had, the friends must have done some- 
 thing for me; and Lady ^^kgaret Tomlinson 
 might perhaps have introdt^kl the youthful 
 
 12
 
 172 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 genius of her Augustus to Parliament or the 
 Ministry. Oh what a fall was there ! yet faith, 
 ha ! ha ! ha ! I could not help laughing, despite 
 of my chagrin, when I remembered that for three 
 months I had imposed on these ' delicate ex- 
 clusives, 1 and been literally invited by many of 
 them, who would not have asked the younger 
 sons of their own cousins ; merely because I lived 
 in a good street, avowed myself an only child, 
 and talked of my property in Yorkshire ! Ha, 
 ha ! how bitter the mercenary dupes must have 
 felt, when the discovery was made ! what a pill 
 for the good matrons who had coupled my image 
 with that of some filial Mary or Jane, — ha ! ha ! 
 ha ! the triumph was almost worth the mortifica- 
 tion. However, as I said before, I fell melancholy 
 on it, especially as my duns became menacing. 
 So, I went to consult with my cousin the book- 
 seller ; he recommended me to compose for the 
 journals, and obtained me an offer. I went to 
 work very patiently for a short time, and con- 
 tracted some agreeable friendships with gentlemen 
 whom I met at an ordinary in St. James's. Still, 
 my duns, though I paid them by driblets, were
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 173 
 
 the plague of my life : I confessed as much to 
 one of my new friends. ' Come to Bath with 
 me,' quoth he, ' for a week, and you shall return 
 as rich as a Jew.' I accepted the offer, and went 
 to Bath in my friend's chariot. He took the 
 name of Lord Dunshunner, an Irish peer who 
 had never been out of Galway, and was not there- 
 fore likelv to be known at Bath. He took also a 
 
 J 
 
 house for a year, filled it with wines, books, and a 
 sideboard of plate : as he talked vaguely of setting 
 up (at the next Parliament) for the town, he bought 
 these goods of the townspeople, in order to en- 
 courage their trade : I managed secretly to trans- 
 port them to London and sell them ; and as we 
 disposed of them fifty per cent, under cost price, 
 our customers the pawnbrokers were not very 
 inquisitive. We lived a jolly life at Bath for a 
 couple of months, and departed one night, leav- 
 ing our housekeeper to answer all interrogatories. 
 We had taken the precaution to wear disguises, 
 stuffed ourselves out, and changed the hues of our 
 hair : my noble friend was an adept in these trans- 
 formations, and though the police did not sleep on 
 the business, — they never stumbled on us. I am
 
 174 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 especially glad we were not discovered, for I 
 liked Bath excessively, and I intend to return 
 there some of these days and retire from the 
 world — on an heiress ! 
 
 " Well, Paul, shortly after this adventure, I 
 made your acquaintance. I continued ostensibly 
 my literary profession, but only as a mask for 
 the labours I did not profess. A circumstance 
 obliged me to leave London rather precipitately. 
 Lord Dunshunner joined me in Edinburgh. Damn 
 it, instead of doing any thing there, we were 
 done ! The veriest urchin that ever crept through 
 the High Street is more than a match for the most 
 scientific of Englishmen. With us it is art ; with 
 the Scotch it is nature. They pick your pockets, 
 without using their fingers for it ; and they pre- 
 vent reprisal, by having nothing for you to pick. 
 
 " We left Edinburgh with very long faces, 
 and at Carlisle we found it necessary to sepa- 
 rate. For my part, I went as a valet to a 
 Nobleman who had just lost his last servant 
 at Carlisle by a fever : my friend gave me the 
 best of characters ! My new master was a very 
 clever man. He astonished people at dinner by
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 175 
 
 the impromptus he prepared at breakfast ; — in a 
 word, he was a wit. He soon saw, for he was 
 learned himself, that I had received a classical 
 education, and he employed me in the confiden- 
 tial capacity of finding quotations for him. I 
 classed these alphabetically, and under three 
 heads : ' Parliamentary, Literary, Dining out.'' 
 These were again subdivided, into " Fine, 1 '' — 
 ' Learned 1 and ' Jocular ;' so that my master 
 knew at once where to refer for genius, wisdom, 
 and \* it. He was delighted with my management 
 of his intellects. In compliment to him, I paid 
 more attention to politics than I had done be- 
 fore, for he was a " great Whig," and uncommon- 
 ly liberal in every thing, — but money ! Hence, 
 Paul, the origin of my political principles ; and, I 
 thank Heaven, there is not now a rogue in Eng- 
 land who is a better, that is to say, more of a 
 moderate, Whig than your humble servant! — I 
 continued with him nearly a year. He discharged 
 me for a fault worthy of my genius, — other ser- 
 vants may lose the watch or the coat of their 
 master ; I went at nobler game, and lost him — 
 his private character!
 
 176 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 " How do you mean ?" 
 
 " Why, I was enamoured of a lady who would 
 not have looked at me as Mr. Tomlinson ; so I 
 took my master's clothes, and occasionally his car- 
 riage, and made love to my nymph, as Lord -. 
 
 Her vanity made her indiscreet. The Tory papers 
 got hold of it ; and my master, in a change of 
 Ministers, was declared by George the Third to 
 be ' too gay for a Chancellor of the Exchequer.' 
 An old gentleman who had had fifteen children by 
 a wife like a Gorgon was chosen instead of my 
 master ; and although the new Minister was a fool 
 in his public capacity, the moral public were per- 
 fectly content with him, because of his private 
 virtues ! 
 
 " My master was furious, made the strictest in- 
 quiry, found me out, and turned me out too ! 
 
 " A Whig not in place has an excuse for disliking 
 the Constitution. My distress almost made me a 
 republican ; but, true to my creed, I must con- 
 fess that I would only have levelled upwards. I 
 especially disaffected the inequality of riches : I 
 looked moodily on every carriage that passed : I 
 even frowned like a second Catiline, at the steam
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 177 
 
 of a gentleman's kitchen ! My last situation 
 had not been lucrative ; I had neglected my per- 
 quisites, in my ardour for politics. My master 
 too refused to give me a character: — who would 
 take me without one ? 
 
 " I was asking myself this melancholy question 
 one morning, when I suddenly encountered one 
 of the fine friends I had picked up at my old 
 haunt, the ordinary, in St. James's. His name 
 was Pepper. 
 
 " Pepper ! " cried Paul. 
 
 Without heeding the exclamation, Tomlinson 
 continued. 
 
 " We went to a tavern and drank a bottle toge- 
 ther. Wine made me communicative ; it also 
 opened my comrade's heart. He asked me to take 
 a ride with him that night towards Honnslow: I 
 did so, and found a purse." 
 
 " How fortunate ! Where ?" 
 
 " In a gentleman's pocket. — I was so pleased 
 with my luck, that I went the same road twice a- 
 week, in order to see if I could pick up any more 
 purses. Fate favoured me, and I lived for a long 
 time the life of the blest. Oh, Paul, you know 
 
 i 5
 
 178 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 not — you know not what a glorious life is that of 
 a highwayman ; but you shall taste it one of these 
 days. You shall, on my honour. 
 
 " I now lived with a club of honest fellows : we 
 called ourselves * The Exclusives,' for we were 
 mighty reserved in our associates, and only those 
 who did business on a grand scale were ad- 
 mitted into our set. For my part, with all my 
 love for my profession, I liked ingenuity still bet- 
 ter than force, and preferred what the vulgar 
 called swindling, even to the high-road. On an 
 expedition of this sort, I rode once into a country 
 town, and saw a crowd assembled in one corner, — 
 I joined it, and, — guess my feelings ! beheld my 
 poor friend, Viscount Dunshunner, just about to 
 be hanged ! I rode off as fast as I could, — I thought 
 I saw Jack Ketch at my heels. My horse threw 
 me at a hedge, and I broke my collar-bone. In 
 the confinement that ensued, gloomy ideas floated 
 before me. I did not like to be hanged ; so I 
 reasoned against my errors, and repented. I re- 
 covered slowly, returned to town, and repaired to 
 my cousin the bookseller. To say truth, I had 
 played him a little trick ; collected some debts of
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 179 
 
 his by a mistake — very natural in the confusion 
 incident on my distresses. However, he was ex- 
 tremely unkind about it ; and the mistake, natu- 
 ral as it was, had cost me his acquaintance. 
 
 " I went now to him with the penitential aspect 
 of the prodigal son, and, 'faith, he would not have 
 made a bad representation of the fatted calf about 
 to be killed on my return ; so corpulent looked 
 he, and so dejected ! ' Graceless reprobate V he 
 began ; ' your poor father is dead ! ' I was ex- 
 ceedingly shocked ; but — never fear, Paul, I am 
 not about to be pathetic. My father had divided 
 his fortune among all his children ; my share was 
 500/. The possession of this sum made my peni- 
 tence seem much more sincere in the eyes of my 
 good cousin ; and after a very pathetic scene, he 
 took me once more into favour. I now consulted 
 with him as to the best method of laying out my 
 capital and recovering my character. We could not 
 devise any scheme at the first conference ; but the 
 second time I saw him, my cousin said with a 
 cheerful countenance, ' Cheer up, Augustus, 1 
 have got thee a situation. Mr. Asgrave, the ban- 
 ker, will take thee as a clerk. He is a most wor-
 
 180 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 thy man ; and having a vast deal of learning, he 
 will respect thee for thy acquirements.' The 
 same day I was introduced to Mr. Asgrave, who 
 was a little man with a fine bald benevolent head; 
 and after a long conversation which he was pleased 
 to hold with me, I became one of his quill-drivers. 
 I don't know how it was, but by little and little I 
 rose in my master's good graces : I propitiated him, 
 I fancy, by disposing of my 500/. according to his 
 advice ; he laid it out for me, on what he said was 
 famous security, on a landed estate. Mr. Asgrave 
 was of social habits, — he had a capital house and 
 excellent wines. As he was not very particular in 
 his company, nor ambitious of visiting the great, 
 he often suffered me to make one of his table, and 
 was pleased to hold long arguments with me about 
 the ancients. I soon found out that my master 
 was a great moral philosopher ; and being my- 
 self in weak health, sated of the ordinary pur- 
 suits of the world, in which my experience had 
 forestalled my years, and naturally of a contem- 
 plative temperament, I turned my attention to 
 the moral studies which so fascinated my employer. 
 I read through nine shelves full of metaphysicians, 

 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 181 
 
 and knew exactly the points in which those illus- 
 trious thinkers quarrelled with each other to the 
 great advance of the science. My master and I 
 used to hold many a long; discussion about the 
 nature of good and evil ; and as by help of his 
 benevolent forehead and a clear dogged voice, he 
 always seemed to our audience to be the wiser and 
 better man of the two ; he was very well pleased 
 with our disputes. This gentleman had an only 
 daughter, an awful shrew with a face like a hatchet: 
 but philosophers overcome personal defects : and 
 thinking only of the good her wealth might enable 
 me to do to my fellow- creatures, I secretly made 
 love to her. You will say, that was playing my 
 master but a scurvy trick in return for his kind- 
 ness — not at all, my master himself had convinced 
 me, that there was no such virtue as gratitude. It 
 was an error of vulgar moralists. I yielded to his 
 arguments, and at length privately espoused his 
 daughter. The day after this took place, he sum- 
 moned me to his study. ' So, Augustus," said 
 he very mildly, ' you have married my daughter: 
 nay, never look confused ; I saw a long time ago
 
 182 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 that you were resolved to do so, and I was very 
 glad of it." 1 
 
 " I attempted to falter out something like thanks. 
 ' Never interrupt me I 1 said he. ' I had two rea- 
 sons for being glad : — 1st. Because my daughter 
 was the plague of my life, and I wanted some one 
 to take her off my hands ; — 2ndly, Because I re- 
 quired your assistance on a particular point, and 
 I could not venture to ask it of any one but my 
 son-in-law. In fine, I wish to take you into part- 
 nership ! ! !' 
 
 "• 'Partnership!' cried I, falling on my knees. 
 ' Noble — generous man I 1 
 
 " * Stay a bit, 1 continued my father-in-law. 
 ' What funds do you think requisite for the car- 
 rying on a bank ? You look puzzled ! Not a 
 shilling ! You will put in just as much as I do. 
 You will put in rather more ; for you once put 
 in five hundred pounds, which has been spent long 
 ago. / don't put in a shilling of my own. I live 
 on my clients, and I very willingly offer you half 
 of them V 
 
 " Imagine, dear Paul, my astonishment, my 
 dismay ! I saw myself married to a hideous
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 183 
 
 shrew — son-in-law to a pennyless scoundrel, and 
 cheated out of my whole fortune ! Compare this 
 view of the question with that which had blazed 
 on me when I contemplated being son-in-law to 
 the rich Mr. Asgrave. I stormed at first. Mr. 
 Asgrave took up ' Bacon on the Advancement of 
 Learning, 1 and made no reply till I was cooled 
 by explosion. You will perceive, that when pas- 
 sion subsided, I necessarily saw that nothing was 
 left for me but adopting my father-in-law's pro- 
 posal. Thus, by the fatality which attended me, 
 at the very time I meant to reform I was forced 
 into scoundrelism, and 1 was driven into de- 
 frauding a vast number of persons by the acci- 
 dent of being son-in-law to a great moralist. 
 As Mr. Asgrave was an indolent man, who passed 
 his mornings in speculations on virtue, I was 
 made the active partner. I spent the day at the 
 counting-house ; and when I came home for re- 
 creation, my wife scratched my eyes 0111." 
 
 " But were you never recognized as ' the stran- 
 ger, 1 or ' the adventurer,' in your new capacity ?" 
 
 " No ; for of course I assumed, in all my changes, 
 both Aliases and Disguises. And, to tell you the
 
 184 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 truth, my marriage so altered me, that what with 
 a snuff-coloured coat, and a brown scratch wig, 
 with a pen in my right ear, I looked the very pic- 
 ture of staid respectability. My face grew an inch 
 longer every day. Nothing is so respectable as a 
 long face ! and a subdued expression of counte- 
 nance is the surest sign of commercial prosperity. 
 Well, we went on splendidly enough for about 
 a year. Meanwhile I was wonderfully improved 
 in philosophy. You have no idea how a scolding 
 wife sublimes and rarifies one's intellect. Thun- 
 der clears the air, you know ! At length, unhappily 
 for my fame, (for I contemplated a magnificent 
 moral history of man, which, had she lived a year 
 longer, I should have completed) my wife died 
 in child-bed. My father-in-law and I were talk- 
 ing over the event, and finding fault with civiliza- 
 tion, by the enervating habits of which, women die 
 of their children, instead of bringing them forth 
 without being even conscious of the circumstance ; 
 — when a bit of paper, sealed awry, was given 
 to my partner: he looked over it — finished the 
 discussion, and then told me our Bank had stop- 
 ped payment. ' Now, Augustus, 1 said he, light-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 186 
 
 ing his pipe with the bit of paper, ' yon see the good 
 of having; nothing to lose I 1 
 
 " We did not pay quite sixpence in the pound ; 
 but my partner was thought so unfortunate that 
 the British public raised a subscription for him, 
 and he retired on an annuity, greatly respected 
 and very much compassionated. As I had not 
 been so well known as a moralist, and had not the 
 prepossessing advantage of a bald benevolent head, 
 nothing was done for me, and I was turned once 
 more on the wide world, to moralize on the vicis- 
 situdes of fortune. My cousin the bookseller 
 was no more, and his son cut me. I took a gar- 
 ret in Warwick Court, and with a few books, my 
 only consolation, I endeavoured to nerve my mind 
 to the future. It was at this time, Paul, that my 
 studies really availed me. I meditated much, and 
 I became a true philosopher, viz. a practical one. 
 My actions were henceforth regulated by prin- 
 ciple ; and at some time or other I will convince 
 you, that the road of true morals never avoids the 
 pockets of your neighbour. So soon as my mind 
 had made the grand discovery which Mr. As- 
 grave had made before me, that one should live
 
 186 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 according to a system,— for if you do wrong, it is 
 then your system that errs, not you, — I took to 
 the road, without any of those stings of conscience 
 which had hitherto annoyed me in such adventures. 
 I formed one of a capital knot of ' Free Agents," 1 
 whom I will introduce to you some day or other, 
 and I soon rose to distinction among them. But 
 about six weeks ago, not less than formerly pre- 
 ferring by-ways to highways, I attempted to pos- 
 sess myself of a carriage, and sell it at discount. 
 I was acquitted on the felony ; but sent hither by 
 Justice Burnflat on the misdemeanor. Thus far, 
 my young friend, hath as yet proceeded the life of 
 Augustus Tomlinson." 
 
 The history of this gentleman made a deep im- 
 pression on Paul. The impression was strength- 
 ened by the conversations subsequently holden 
 with Augustus. That worthy was a dangerous 
 and subtle persuader. He had really read a good 
 deal of history, and something of morals ; and he 
 had an ingenious way of defending his rascally 
 practices by syllogisms from the latter, and ex- 
 amples from the former. These theories he clench- 
 ed, as it were, by a reference to the existing politics
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 187 
 
 of the day. Cheaters of the public, on false pre- 
 tences, he was pleased to term " moderate Whigs ;" 
 bullying demanders of your purse were " high 
 Tories ;" and thieving in gangs was " the effect of 
 the spii-it of party? There was this difference 
 between Augustus Tomlinson and Long Ned : 
 Ned was the acting knave ; Augustus, the rea- 
 soning one; and we may see therefore, by a little 
 reflection, that Tomlinson was a far more perilous 
 companion than Pepper, for showy theories are al- 
 ways more seductive to the young and clever than 
 suasive examples, and the vanity of the youth- 
 ful makes them better pleased by being convinced 
 of a thing, than by being enticed to it. 
 
 A day or two after the narrative of Mr. Tom- 
 linson, Paul was again visited by Mrs. Lobkins ; 
 for the regulations against frequent visitors were 
 not then so strictly enforced as we understand 
 them to be now ; and the good Dame came to de- 
 plore the ill success of her interview with Justice 
 Burnflat. 
 
 We spare the tender-hearted reader a detail of 
 the affecting interview that ensued. Indeed, it 
 was but a repetition of the one we have before nar-
 
 188 
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 rated. We shall only say, as a proof of Paul's 
 tenderness of heart, that when he took leave of the 
 good matron, and bade " God bless her," his voice 
 faltered, and the tears stood in his eyes, — just as 
 they were wont to do in the eyes of George the 
 Third, when that excellent monarch was pleased 
 graciously to encore " God save the King !" 
 
 " 1 11 be hanged," soliloquized our hero, as 
 he slowly bent his course towards the subtle Au- 
 gustus,—" I '11 be hanged (humph ! the denun- 
 ciation is prophetic,) if I don't feel as grateful to 
 the old lady for her care of me as if she had never 
 ill-used me. As for my parents, I believe I have 
 little to be gi'ateful for or proud of in that 
 quarter. My poor mother, by all accounts, seems 
 scarcely to have had even the brute virtue of ma- 
 ternal tenderness ; and in all human likelihood I 
 shall never know whether I had one father or fifty. 
 But what matters it ? I rather like the better to 
 be independent; and, after all, what do nine- 
 tenths of us ever get from our parents but an ugly 
 name, and advice which, if we follow, we are 
 wretched, — and if we neglect, we are disinherited? 1 ' 
 
 Comforting himself with these thoughts, which
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 189 
 
 perhaps took their philosophical complexion from 
 the conversations he had lately held with Augus- 
 tus, and which broke off into the muttered air of 
 
 " Why should we quarrel for riches ?" 
 
 Paul repaired to his customary avocations. 
 
 In the third week of our hero's captivity, Tom- 
 linson communicated to him a plan of escape that 
 had occurred to his sagacious brain. In the yard 
 appropriated to the amusements of the gentlemen 
 " misdemeaning," there was a water-pipe that, skirt- 
 ing the wall, passed over a door, through which, 
 every morning, the pious captives passed, in their 
 way to the chapel. By this, Tomlinson proposed 
 to escape ; for to the pipe which reached from the 
 door to the wall, in a slanting and easy direction, 
 there was a sort of skirting-board ; and a dexterous 
 and nimble man might readily, by the help of this 
 board, convey himself along the pipe, until the pro- 
 gress of that useful conductor (which was happily 
 very brief) was stopped by the summit of the wall, 
 where it found a sequel in another pipe, that de- 
 scended to the ground on the opposite side of the 
 wall. Now, on this opposite side was the garden of 
 the prison ; in this garden was a watchman ; and
 
 190 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 this watchman was the hobgoblin of Tomlinson's 
 scheme ; " for, suppose us safe in the garden," 
 said he, " what shall we do with this confounded 
 fellow ?" 
 
 " But that is not all," added Paul, " for even 
 were there no watchman, there is a terrible wall, 
 which I noted especially last week, when we were 
 set to work in the garden, and which has no pipe, 
 save a perpendicular one, that a man must have 
 the legs of a fly to be able to climb ! " 
 
 " Nonsense !" returned Tomlinson : " I will 
 show you how to climb the stubbornest wall in 
 Christendom, if one has but the coast clear : it is 
 the watchman — the watchman, we must " 
 
 " What F" asked Paul, observing his comrade 
 did not conclude the sentence. 
 
 It was some time before the sage Augustus 
 replied; he then said, in a musing tone — 
 
 " I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would 
 be consistent with virtue, and that strict code of 
 morals by which all my actions are regulated, to 
 — slay the watchman !" 
 
 " Good heavens! " cried Paul, horror-stricken. 
 
 " And I have decided," continued Augustus
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 191 
 
 solemnly, without regard to the exclamation, "that 
 the action would be perfectly justifiable!' 1 
 
 "Villain! 11 exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the 
 other end of the stone box — (for it was night) — 
 in which they were cooped. 
 
 " But, 11 pursued Augustus, who seemed solilo- 
 quizing, and whose voice, sounding calm and 
 thoughtful, like Young's in the famous monologue 
 in Hamlet, denoted that he heeded not the uncour- 
 teous interruption — " but opinion does not always 
 influence conduct ; and although it may be virtuous 
 to murder the watchman, I have not the heart to 
 do it. I trust, in my future history I shall not, 
 by discerning moralists, be too severely censured 
 for a weakness, for which my physical tempera- 
 ment is alone to blame! 11 
 
 Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long 
 time before Paul could be reconciled to farther con- 
 versation with Augustus ; and it was only from the 
 belief, that the moralist had leaned to the jesting 
 vein, that he at length resumed the consultation. 
 
 The conspirators did not, however, bring their 
 scheme, that night, to any ultimate decision. The 
 next day, Augustus, Paul, and some others of
 
 192 l'AUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the company, were set to work in the garden ; and 
 Paid then observed that his friend, wheeling- a 
 barrow close by the spot where the watchman 
 stood, overturned its contents. The watchman 
 was good-natured enough to assist him in refilling 
 the barrow; and Tomlinson profited so well by 
 the occasion, that, that night, he informed Paul, 
 that they would have nothing to dread from the 
 watchman'^ vigilance. " He has promised, 1 ' said 
 Augustus, " for certain con-si-de-ra-ti-ons, to 
 allow me to knock him down : he has also pro- 
 mised to be so much hurt, as not to be able 
 to move, until we are over the wall. Our main 
 difficulty now, then, is, the first step, — namely, 
 to climb the pipe unperceived V 
 
 " As to that," said Paul, who developed, through 
 the whole of the scheme, organs of sagacity, bold- 
 ness, and invention, which charmed his friend, 
 and certainly promised well for his future career ; 
 — " as to that, I think we may manage the first 
 ascent with less danger than you imagine: the 
 mornings, of late, have been very foggy ; they are 
 almost dark at the hour we go to chapel. Let 
 you and I close the file: the pipe passes just
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 193 
 
 above the door ; our hands, as we have tried, can 
 reach it ; and a spring of no great agility will 
 enable us to raise ourselves up to a footing on the 
 pipe and the skirting-board. The climbing, then, 
 is easy ; and, what with the dense fog, and our 
 own quickness, I think we shall have little diffi- 
 culty in gaining the garden. The only precautions 
 we need use are, to wait for a very dark morning, 
 and to be sure that we are the last of the file, so 
 that no one behind may give the alarm " 
 
 " Or attempt to follow our example, and spoil 
 the pie by a superfluous plum !" added Augustus. 
 " You counsel admirably ; and one of these days, 
 if you are not hung in the mean while, will, I ven- 
 ture to argue, be a great ]ogician. ,, 
 
 The next morning was clear and frosty ; but 
 the day after was, to use Tomlinson's simile, " as 
 dark as if all the negroes of Africa had been 
 stewed down into air." " You might have cut the 
 fog with a knife," as the proverb says Paul and 
 Augustus could not even see how significantly 
 each looked at the other. 
 
 It was a remarkable trait of the daring tempe- 
 rament of the former, that, young as he was, it 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 was fixed that he should lead the attempt. At 
 the hour, then, for chapel — the prisoners passed as 
 usual through the door. When it came to Paul's 
 turn, he drew himself by his hands to the pipe, 
 and then creeping along its sinuous course, gained 
 the wall before he had even fetched his breath. 
 Rather more clumsily, Augustus followed his 
 friend's example ; once his foot slipped, and he 
 was all but over. He extended his hands invo- 
 luntarily, and caught Paul by the leg. Happily 
 our hero had then gained the wall to which he 
 was clinging, and for once in a way, one rogue 
 raised himself without throwing over another. 
 Behold Tomlinson and Paul now seated for an 
 instant on the wall to recover breath ! the latter 
 then, — the descent to the ground was not very 
 great, — letting his body down by his hands, 
 dropped into the garden. 
 
 " Hurt?" asked the prudent Augustus in a 
 hoarse whisper before he descended from his " bad 
 eminence," being even willing 
 
 " To bear those ills he had ; 
 Than fly to others that he knew not of," 
 
 without taking every previous precaution in his 
 power.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 195 
 
 e * No !" was the answer in the same voice, and 
 Augustus dropped. 
 
 So soon as this latter worthy had recovered the 
 shock of his fall, he lost not a moment in running 
 to the other end of the garden : Paul followed. 
 By the way Tomlinson stopped at a heap of rub- 
 bish, and picked up an immense stone; when they 
 came to the part of the wall they had agreed to 
 scale, they found the watchman, about whom they 
 needed not, by the by, to have concerned them- 
 selves ; for had it not been arranged that he was 
 to have met them, the deep fog would have effec- 
 tually prevented him from seeing them : this 
 faithful guardian Augustus knocked down, not 
 with the stone, but with ten guineas ; he then 
 drew forth from his dress a thickish cord which 
 he had procured some days before of the turnkey, 
 and fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw 
 that end over the wall. Now the wall had (as 
 walls of great strength mostly have) an over- 
 hanging sort of battlement on either side, and the 
 stone, when flung over and drawn to the tether of 
 the cord to which it was attached, necessarily 
 hitched against this projection; and thus the cord 
 
 k 2
 
 196 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 was, as it were, fastened to the wall, and Tomlin- 
 son was enabled by it to draw himself up to the 
 top of the barrier. He performed this feat with 
 gymnastic address, like one who had often prac- 
 tised it ; albeit, the discreet adventurer had not 
 mentioned in his narrative to Paul any previous 
 occasion for the practice. As soon as he had 
 gained the top of the wall, he threw down the cord 
 to his companion, and, in consideration of Paul's 
 inexperience in that manner of climbing, gave the 
 fastening of the rope an additional security by hold- 
 ing it himself. With slowness and labour Paul 
 hoisted himself up; and then, by transferring the 
 stone to the other side of the wall, where it made of 
 course a similar hitch, our two adventurers were 
 enabled successively to slide down, and consum- 
 mate their escape from the House of Correction. 
 
 " Follow me now V said Augustus, as he took 
 to his heels; and Paul pursued him through a 
 labyrinth of alleys and lanes, through which he 
 shot and dodged with a variable and shifting 
 celerity that, had not Paul kept close upon him, 
 would very soon (combined with the fog) have 
 snatched him from the eyes of his young ally.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 197 
 
 Happily the immaturity of the morning, the obscu- 
 rity of the streets passed through, and, above all, 
 the extreme darkness of the atmosphere, prevented 
 that detection and arrest which their prisoners 1 
 garb would otherwise have ensured them. At 
 length, they found themselves in the fields ; and, 
 skulking along hedges, and diligently avoiding the 
 high road, they continued to fly onward, until 
 they had advanced several miles into " the bowels 
 of the land." At that time " the bowels" of 
 Augustus Tomlinson began to remind him of 
 their demands, and he accordingly suggested the 
 desirability of their seizing the first peasant they 
 encountered, and causing him to exchange clothes 
 with one of the fugitives, who would thus be enabled 
 to enter a public-house and provide for their mu- 
 tual necessities. Paul agreed to this proposition, 
 and accordingly they watched their opportunity 
 and caught a ploughman. Augustus stripped 
 him of his frock, hat, and worsted stockings ; and 
 Paul, hardened by necessity and companionship;, 
 helped to tie the poor ploughman to a tree. They 
 then continued their progress for about an hour, 
 and, as the shades of evening fell around them,
 
 198 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 they discovered a public-house. Augustus en- 
 tered, and returned in a few minutes laden with 
 bread and cheese, and a bottle of beer. Prison 
 fare cures a man of daintiness, and the two fugi- 
 tives dined on these unsavoury viands with consi- 
 derable complacency. They then resumed their 
 journey, and at length, wearied with exertion, 
 they arrived at a lonely hay-stack, where they re- 
 solved to repose for an hour or two.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 1<)9 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Unlike the ribald whose licentious jest 
 Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest ; 
 From wealth and grandeur easy to descend, 
 Thou joy'st to lose the master in the friend ; 
 We round thy board the cheerful menials see, 
 Gay with the smile of bland equality ; 
 No social care the gracious lord disdains ; 
 Love prompts to love, and reverence reverence gains. 
 
 Translation of Lucan to Piso, prefixed to 
 the twelfth Paper of The Rambler. 
 
 Coyly shone down the bashful stars upon our 
 adventurers, as, after a short nap behind the hay- 
 stack, they stretched themselves, and looking at 
 each other, burst into an involuntary and hila- 
 rious laugh at the prosperous termination of their 
 exploit. 
 
 Hitherto they had been too occupied, first by 
 their flight, then by hunger, then by fatigue, for
 
 200 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 self-grat ulation ; now they rubbed their hands, 
 and joked like runaway-schoolboys, at their 
 escape. 
 
 By degrees their thoughts turned from the 
 past to the future ; and " Tell, me, my dear fellow,"' 
 said Augustus, " what you intend to do. I trust 
 I have long ago convinced you, that it is no sin 
 ' to serve our friends' and to ' be true to our 
 party ;' and therefore, I suppose, you will decide 
 upon taking to the road !" 
 
 " It is very odd," answered Paul, " that I 
 should have any scruples left after your lectures 
 on the subject ; but I own to you frankly, that, 
 somehow or other, I have doubts whether thieving 
 be really the honestest profession I could follow. 11 
 
 " Listen to me, Paul, 11 answered Augustus ; and 
 his reply is not unworthy of notice. " All crime 
 and all excellence depend upon a good choice of 
 words. — I see you look puzzled, I will explain. If 
 you take money from the public, and say you have 
 robbed, you have indubitably committed a great 
 crime; but if you do the same and say you have been 
 relieving the necessities of the poor, you have done 
 an excellent action : if, in afterwards dividing this
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 201 
 
 money with your companions, you say you have 
 been sharing booty, you have committed an 
 offence against the laws of your country ; but if 
 you observe that you have been sharing with your 
 friends the gains of your industry, you have per- 
 formed one of the noblest actions of humanity. 
 To knock a man on the head is neither virtuous 
 nor guilty, but it depends upon the language 
 applied to the action to make it murder or glory.* 
 Why not say, then, that you have testified ' the 
 courage of a hero,' 1 rather than ' the atrocity of 
 the ruffian V This is perfectly clear, is it not P' 1 
 
 " It seems so," answered Paul. 
 
 " It is so self-evident, that it is the way all 
 governments are carried on. If you want to 
 rectify an abuse, those in power call you disaf- 
 fected. Oppression is ' order,'' extortion is ' reti- 
 
 * We observe in a paragraph from an American paper, copied 
 without comment into the Morning Chronicle of to-day, a singu- 
 lar proof of the truth of Tomlinson's philosophy. " Mr. Rowland 
 Stephenson (so runs the extract), the celebrated English Banker, 
 has just purchased a considerable tract of land, &c." Most 
 philosophical of Paragraphists ! " Celebrated English Banker /" 
 that sentence is a better illustration of verbal fallacies, than all 
 Bentham's treatises put together — " celebrated /" O Mercury, 
 what a dexterous epithet ! 
 
 K 5
 
 202 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 gious establishment,'' and taxes are the ' blessed 
 Constitution." Wherefore, my good Paul, we 
 only do what all other legislators do. We are 
 never rogues so long as we call ourselves honest 
 fellows, and we never commit a crime, so long 
 as we can term it a virtue ! What say you 
 now F 
 
 Paul smiled, and was silent a few moments be- 
 fore he replied: 
 
 " There is very little doubt but that you are 
 wrong ; yet if you are, so are all the rest of the 
 world. It is of no use to be the only white sheep 
 of the flock. Wherefore, my dear Tomlinson, I 
 will in future be an excellent citizen, relieve the 
 necessities of the poor, and share the gains of my 
 industry with my friends." 
 
 " Bravo," cried Tomlinson, " and now that 
 that is settled, the sooner you are inaugurated the 
 better. Since the starlight has shone forth, I see 
 that I am in a place I ought to be very well ac- 
 quainted with ; or, if you like to be suspicious, 
 you may believe that I have brought you pur- 
 posely in this direction ; but first let me ask if 
 you feel any great desire to pass the night by this
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 203 
 
 haystack, or whether you would like a song and 
 the punch-bowl almost as much as the open air, 
 with the chance of being eat up in a pinch of hay 
 by some strolling cow !" 
 
 " You may conceive my choice," answered 
 Paul. 
 
 " Well, then, there is an excellent fellow near 
 here, who keeps a publichouse, and is a firm ally 
 and generous patron of the lads of the cross. At 
 certain periods they hold weekly meetings at his 
 house : this is one of the nights. What say you ? 
 shall I introduce you to the club ?" 
 
 " I shall be very glad, if they will admit 
 me !" returned Paul, whom many and conflicting 
 thoughts rendered laconic. 
 
 " Oh, no fear of that, under my auspices. To 
 tell you the truth, though we are a tolerant sect, 
 we welcome every new proselyte with enthusiasm. 
 — But are you tired ?" 
 
 " A little ; the house is not far, you say ?" 
 " About a mile off," answered Tomlinson. 
 " Lean on me." 
 
 Our wanderers now leaving the haystack, 
 struck across part of Finchley Common, for the
 
 204 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 abode of the worthy publican was felicitously 
 situated, and the scene in which his guests cele- 
 brated their festivities was close by that on which 
 they often performed their exploits. 
 
 As they proceeded, Paul questioned his friend 
 touching the name and character of " mine 
 host ;" and the all-knowing Augustus Tomlinson 
 answered him, Quaker-like, by a question. 
 
 " Have you never heard of Gentleman George ?" 
 
 " What ! the noted head of a flash public-house 
 in the country ? To be sure I have, often ; my 
 poor nurse, Dame Lobkins, used to say he was 
 the best-spoken man in the trade !" 
 
 " Ay so he is still. In his youth, George was a 
 very handsome fellow, but a little too fond of his 
 lass and his bottle to please his father, a very 
 staid old gentleman, who walked about on Sun- 
 days with a bob-wig and a gold-headed cane, and 
 was a much better farmer on week days than 
 he was head of a public-house. George used to 
 be a remarkably smart-dressed fellow, and so he 
 is to this day. He has a great deal of wit, is a 
 very good whist-player, has a capital cellar, and 
 is so fond of seeing his friends drunk, that he
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 205 
 
 bought some time ago a large pewter measure in 
 which six men can stand upright. The girls, or 
 rather the old women, to whom he used to be 
 much more civil of the two, always liked him ; 
 they say, nothing is so fine as his fine speeches, 
 and they give him the title of ' Genlleman 
 George.' He is a nice kind-hearted man in many 
 things. Pray Heaven we shall have no cause to 
 miss him when he departs. But, to tell you the 
 truth, he takes more than his share of our com- 
 mon purse." 
 
 " What ! is he avaricious ?" 
 
 " Quite the reverse; but he's so cursedly fond 
 of building, he invests all his money (and wants 
 us to invest all ours) in houses ; and there's one 
 confounded dog of a bricklayer, who runs him up 
 terrible bills,— a fellow called 'Cunning Nat, 1 who 
 is equally adroit in spoiling ground and improving 
 ground rent.' 1 '' 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " Ah, thereby hangs a tale. But we are near 
 the place now ; you will see a curious set." 
 
 As Tomlinson said this, the pair approached a 
 house standing alone, and seemingly without any
 
 206 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 other abode in the vicinity. It was of curious 
 and grotesque shape, painted white, with a gothic 
 chimney, a Chinese sign post, (on which was de- 
 picted a gentleman fishing, with the words, " The 
 Jolly Angler,"" written beneath,) and a porch that 
 would ha.e been Grecian, if it had not been 
 Dutch. It stood in a little field, with a hedge 
 behind it, and the common in front ! Augustus 
 stopped at the door, and, while he paused, bursts 
 of laughter rang cheerily within. 
 
 " Ah, the merry boys !" he muttered : " I long 
 to be with them !" and then with his clenched fist 
 he knocked four times on the door. There was a 
 sudden silence, which lasted about a minute, and 
 was broken by a voice within, asking who was 
 there. Tomlinson answered by some cabalistic 
 word; the door was opened, and a little boy pre- 
 sented himself. 
 
 " Well, my lad, 11 said Augustus, " and how is 
 your master? stout and hearty, if I may judge by 
 his voice." 
 
 " Ay, Master Tommy, ay, he's boosing away at 
 a fine rate in the back-parlour, with Mr. Pepper 
 and fighting Attie, and half a score more of
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 207 
 
 them. He 11 be woundy glad to see you, I ll be 
 bound." 
 
 " Show this gentleman into the bar, 11 rejoined 
 Augustus, " while I go and pay my respects to 
 honest Geordie !" 
 
 The boy made a sort of a bow, and leading our 
 hero into the bar, consigned him to the care of 
 Sal, a buxom bar-maid, who reflected credit on 
 the taste of the landlord, and who received Paul 
 with marked distinction and a gill of brandy. 
 
 Paul had not long to play the amiable, before 
 Tomlinson rejoined him with the information, that 
 Gentleman George would be most happy to see 
 him in the back-parlour, and that he would there 
 find an old friend in the person of Mr. Pepper. 
 
 " What ! is he here ?" cried Paul, " the sorry 
 knave ! to let me be caged in his stead ! 11 
 
 " Gently, gently, no misapplication of terms, 1 ' 
 said Augustus ; " that was not knaverv, that was 
 prudence, the greatest of all virtues and the rarest. 
 — But come along, and Pepper shall explain to- 
 morrow. 11 
 
 Threading a gallery or passage, Augustus pre- 
 ceded our hero, opened a door, and introduced
 
 208 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 him into a long low apartment, where sat, round 
 a table spread with pipes and liquor, some ten or 
 a dozen men, while at the top of the table, in an 
 arm-chair, presided Gentleman George. That 
 dignitary was a portly and comely gentleman, 
 with a knowing look, and a Welsh wig, worn, as 
 the Morning Chronicle says of his Majesty's hat, 
 " in a degage manner, on one side." Being 
 afflicted with the gout, his left foot reclined on a 
 stool ; and the attitude developed, despite of a 
 lamb's- wool stocking, the remains of an exceed- 
 ingly good leg. 
 
 As Gentleman George was a person of majestic 
 dignity among the Knights of the Cross, we trust 
 we shall not be thought irreverent in applying 
 a few of the words by which the foresaid Morning 
 Chronicle depicted his Majesty, on the day he laid 
 the first stone of his father's monument, to the 
 description of Gentleman George. " He had on a 
 handsome blue coat, and a white waistcoat;" 
 moreover, " he laughed most good-humouredly," 
 as, turning to Augustus Tomlinson, he saluted 
 him with — 
 
 " So, this is the youngster you present to us.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 209 
 
 — Welcome to the ' Jolly Angler !' Give us thy 
 hand, young Sir ; — I shall be happy to blow a 
 cloud with thee. 11 
 
 " With all due submission, 11 said Mr. Tomlin- 
 sin, " I think it may first be as well to introduce 
 my pupil and friend to his future companions. 11 
 
 " You speak like a leary cove, 11 cried Gentleman 
 George, still squeezing our hero's hand; and, 
 turning round in his elbow chair, he pointed to 
 each member, as he severally introduced his guests 
 to Paul — 
 
 "Here," said he, — "here's a fine chap at 
 my right hand — (the person thus designated was 
 a thin military-looking figure, in a shabby riding 
 frock, and with a commanding, bold, aquiline 
 countenance, a little the worse for wear) — here 's 
 a fine chap for you ; Fighting Attie we calls him : 
 he^ a devil on the road. ' Halt — deliver — must 
 and shall — can't and shan't — do as I bid you, or 
 go to the devil, 1 — that's all Fighting Attie's 
 palaver ; and, 'sdeath, it has a wonderful way of 
 
 ■ 
 
 coming to the point ! A famous cull is my friend 
 
 Attie an old soldier has seen the world, 
 
 and knows what is what ; has lots of gumtion, and
 
 210 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 devil a bit of blarney. Howsomever, the high- 
 flyers doesn't like him ; and when he takes peo- 
 ple's money, he need not be quite so cross 
 about it!— Attie, let me introduce a new pal to 
 you." Paul made his bow — 
 
 " Stand at ease, man!'" quoth the veteran, 
 without taking the pipe from his mouth. 
 
 Gentleman George then continued ; and, after 
 pointing out four or five of the company (among 
 whom our hero discovered, to his surprise, his 
 old friends, Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert and Mr. Wil- 
 liam Howard Russell), came, at length, to one 
 with a very red face, and a lusty frame of body. 
 " That gentleman," said he, " is Scarlet Jem ; a 
 dangerous fellow for a press, though he says he 
 likes robbing alone now, for a general press is not 
 half such a good thing as it used to be formerly. 
 You have no idea what a hand at dis£uisino- him- 
 self Scarlet Jem is. He has an old wig which he 
 generally does business in ; and you would not go 
 for to know him again, when he conceals himself 
 under the wig. Oh, he's a precious rogue, is 
 Scarlet Jem !— As for the cove on t'other side, 1 '' 
 continued the host of the Jolly Angler, pointing to
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 211 
 
 Long Ned, " all I can say of him, good, bad, or 
 indifferent, is, that he has an unkimmon fine head 
 of hair: and now, youngster, as you knows him, 
 spose you goes and sits by him, and hell intro- 
 duce you to the rest ; for, split my wig ! — (Gen- 
 tleman George was a bit of a swearer) — if I ben't 
 tired, and so here's to your health ; and if so be as 
 your name's Paul, may you alway rob Peter* in 
 order to pay Paul!" 
 
 This witticism of mine host's being exceedingly 
 well received, Paul went, amidst the general laugh- 
 ter, to take possession of the vacant seat beside 
 Long Ned. That tall gentleman, who had hither- 
 to been cloud-compelling (as Homer calls Jupiter) 
 in profound silence, now turned to Paul with the 
 warmest cordiality, declared himself overjoyed to 
 meet his old friend once more, and congratulated 
 him alike on his escape from Bridewell, and his 
 admission to the councils of Gentleman George. 
 But Paul, mindful of that exertion of "prudence " 
 on the part of Mr. Pepper, by which he had been 
 left to his fate and the mercy of Justice Burnflat, 
 
 * Peter: a portmanteau.
 
 212 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 received his advances very sullenly. This cool- 
 ness so incensed Ned, who was naturally choleric, 
 that he turned his back on our hero, and being of 
 an aristocratic spirit, muttered something about 
 " upstart, and vulgar clyfakers being admitted 
 to the company of swell Toby men. 11 This mur- 
 mur called all Paul's blood into his cheek ; for 
 though he had been punished as a clyfaker, for 
 pickpocket,) nobody knew better than Long Ned 
 whether or not he was innocent ; and a reproach 
 from him came therefore with double injustice 
 and severity. He seized, in his wrath, Mr. Pep- 
 per by the ear, and, telling him he was a shabby 
 scoundrel, challenged him to fight. 
 
 So pleasing an invitation not being announced 
 sotto voce, but in a tone suited to the importance 
 of the proposition, every one around heard it ; 
 and before Long Ned could answer, the full voice 
 of Gentleman George thundered forth — 
 
 " Keep the peace there, you youngster. What! 
 are you just admitted into our merry-makings, 
 and must you be wrangling already ? Harkye, 
 Gem men, I have been plagued enough with your 
 quarrels before now, and the first cove as breaks
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 213 
 
 the present quiet of the ' Jolly Angler," shall be 
 turned out neck and crop — shan't he, Attie ?* 
 
 " Right about, march," said the hero. 
 
 " Ay, that's the word, Attie," said Gentleman 
 George : " and now, Mr. Pepper, if there be 
 any ill blood 'tvvixt you and the lad there, wash it 
 away in a bumper of bingo, and let's hear no 
 more whatsomever about it." 
 
 " I 'm willing," cried long Ned, with the defe- 
 rential air of a courtier, and holding out his hand 
 to Paul. Our hero, being somewhat abashed by 
 the novelty of his situation and the rebuke of 
 Gentleman George, accepted, though with some 
 reluctance, the proffered courtesy. 
 
 Order being thus restored, the conversation of 
 the convivialists began to assume a most fascina- 
 ting bias. They talked with infinite gout of the 
 sums they had levied on the public, and the pecu- 
 lations they had committed for what one called 
 the " good of the community" and another, the 
 
 " established order" meaning themselves. It 
 
 was easy to see in what school the discerning Au- 
 gustus Tomlinson had learnt the value of words. 
 There was something edifying in hearing the
 
 214 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 rascals ! — So nice was their language, and so honest 
 their enthusiasm for their own interests, you might 
 have imagined you were listening to a coterie of 
 cabinet ministers conferring on taxes, or debating 
 on perquisites. 
 
 " Long may the Commons flourish V cried pun- 
 ning Georgie, filling his glass ; " it is by the 
 commons we 're fed, and may they never know 
 cultivation ! 
 
 " Three times three !" shouted Long Ned ; and 
 the toast was drunk as Mr. Pepper proposed. 
 
 "A little, moderate, cultivation of the com- 
 mons, to speak frankly," said Augustus Tom- 
 linson modestly, " might not be amiss ; for it 
 would decoy people into the belief that they might 
 travel safely ; and, after all, a hedge or a barley- 
 field, is as good for us as a barren heath, where 
 we have no shelter if once pursued. 11 
 
 " You talks nonsense, you spooney V cried a 
 robber of note, called Bagshot ; who, being aged, 
 and having been a lawyer's footboy, was sometimes 
 denominated " Old Bags. 11 
 
 " You talks nonsense; these innowating ploughs
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 215 
 
 are the ruin of us. Every blade of corn in a com- 
 mon is an encroachment on the constitution and 
 rights of the Gem men Highwaymen. I "m old 
 and mayn't live to see these things ; but, mark my 
 words, a time will come when a man may go from 
 Lunnun to Johnny Groat's without losing a penny 
 by one of us; when Hounslow will be safe, and 
 Finchley secure. My eyes, what a sad thing for 
 us that 'ill be !" 
 
 The venerable old man became suddenly silent, 
 and the tears started to his eyes. Gentleman 
 George had a great horror of blue devils, and par- 
 ticularly disliked all disagreeable subjects. 
 
 " Thunder and Oons, Old Bags !" quoth mine 
 Host of the Jolly Angler, " this will never do : 
 we 're all met here to be merry, and not to listen 
 to your niullancolly tara tarantarums. I says, 
 Ned Pepper, spose you tips us a song, and I'll beat 
 time with my knuckles.'" 
 
 Long Ned, taking the pipe from his mouth, 
 attempted, like Lady Heron, one or two pretty 
 excuses : these being drowned by an universal shout, 
 the handsome purloiner gave the following song,
 
 216 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 to the tune of " Time has not thinned my flowing 
 hair." 
 
 Itong iHetr f Song* 
 
 i. 
 
 Oil, if my hands adhere to cash, 
 
 My gloves at least are clean, 
 And rarely have the gentry flash 
 
 In sprucer clothes been seen. 
 
 ii. 
 Sweet Public, since your coffers must 
 
 Afford our wants relief, 
 Oh ! soothes it not to yield the dust 
 
 To such a charming thief ? 
 
 III. 
 
 I never robbed a single coach 
 
 But with a lover's air ; 
 And though you might my course reproach, 
 
 You never could my hair. 
 
 IV. 
 
 John Bull, who loves a harmless joke, 
 
 Is apt at me to grin, 
 But why be cross with laughing folk, 
 
 Unless they laugh and win ? 
 
 v. 
 John Bull has money in his box ; 
 And though his wit's divine. 
 
 Yet let me laugh at Johnny's locks 
 
 And John may laugh at mine '
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 217 
 
 "'And John may laugh at mine,' excellent!'' 1 
 cried Gentleman George, lighting his pipe and 
 winking at Attie, " I hears as how you be a 
 famous fellow with the lasses.'" 
 
 Ned smiled and answered, — " No man should 
 boast ; but — " Pepper paused significantly, and 
 then glancing at Attie, said — " Talking of lasses, 
 it is my turn to knock down a gentleman for a 
 song, and I knock down fighting Attie." 
 
 " I never sing," said the warrior. 
 
 " Treason, treason," cried Pepper ; " it is the 
 law, and you must obey the law ; — so begin. 11 
 
 "It is true, Attie," said Gentleman George. 
 
 There was no appeal from the honest publican's 
 fiat ; so, in a quick and laconic manner, it being 
 Attie's favourite dogma, that the least said is the 
 soonest mended, the warrior sung as follows — 
 
 JFigt)tiw attic's Song. 
 
 Air. — " lie was famed for deeds of arms."' 
 
 " Rise at six — dine at two — 
 Rob your man without ado — 
 Such my maxims— if you doubt 
 Their wisdom— to the right about !" 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 (Signing to a sallow gentleman on the 
 same side of the table to send up the 
 brandy bowl.) 
 
 " Pass round the bingo, — of a gun, 
 You musky, dusky, husky son !" 
 
 (The sallow gentleman, in a hoarse 
 voice,) 
 " Attie — the bingo 's now with me, 
 I can't resign it yet, d'ye see !" 
 
 (Attie seizing the bowl,) 
 " Resign, resign it— cease your dust !" 
 
 (Wresting it away, and fiercely re- 
 garding the salloiv gentleman. ) 
 
 You have resign'd it — and you must. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 You have resign'd it, and you must !" 
 
 While the chorus, laughing at the discomfited 
 tippler, yelled forth the emphatic words of the 
 heroic Attie, that personage emptied the brandy 
 at a draught, resumed his pipe, and in as few 
 words as possible, called on Bagshot for a song. 
 The excellent old highwayman, with great diffi- 
 dence, obeyed the request, cleared his throat, and 
 struck off' with a ditty somewhat to the tune of 
 " The Old Woman."
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 219 
 
 <©IH Hag*'* &ong. 
 
 " Are the days then gone, when on Hounslow Heath 
 We flash M our nags? 
 When the stoutest bosoms quail'd beneath 
 
 The voice of Bags ? 
 Ne'er was my work half undone, least 
 
 I should be nabb'd : 
 Slow was old Bags, but he never ceas'd 
 'Till the whole was grabb'd. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 « 'Till the whole was grabb'd." 
 
 " When the slow coach paus'd — and the gemmen storm'd, 
 
 J bore the brunt — 
 And the only sound which my grave lips form'd 
 
 Was ' blunt' — still ' blunt !' 
 Oh ! those jovial days are ne'er forgot ! — 
 
 But the tape lags — 
 When I be 's dead, you '11 drink one pot 
 
 To poor old Bags ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 « To poor old Bags !" 
 
 " Ay, that we will, my dear Bagshot," cried 
 Gentleman George, affectionately ; but, observing 
 a tear in the fine old fellow's eye, he added, 
 " Cheer up. What, ho ! Cheer up ! Times will 
 improve, and Providence may yet send us one 
 good year, when you shall be as well off as ever ! 
 
 l 2
 
 22 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 You shakes your poll. Well, don't be humdur 
 geoned, but knock down a gemman." 
 
 Dashing away the drop of sensibility, the ve- 
 teran knocked down Gentleman George himself. 
 
 " Oh, dang it !" said George, with an air of di g- 
 nitv, " I ought to skip, since I finds the lush ; but 
 howsomever here goes. 
 
 (Knttlentan <&eotgc'& £ong. 
 
 Air « Old King Cole." 
 
 •' I be's the cove — the merry old cove, 
 Of whose max all the Rufflers sing. 
 And a lushing cove, I thinks, by Jove, 
 Is as great as a sober king ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 " Is as great as a sober king. 
 
 " Whatever the noise, as is made by the boys, 
 At the bar as they lush away ; 
 The devil a noise my peace alloys, 
 As long as the rascals pay ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 " As long as the rascals pay ! 
 
 " What it' I sticks, my stones and my bricks 
 With mortar, I takes from the snobbish, 
 All who can feel for the public weal, 
 Likes the public house to be bobbish. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 « Likes the public house to be bobbish.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 221 
 
 " There, gemraen !" said the publican, stopping 
 short, " that's the pith of the maker, and split ni\ 
 wig but I 'in short of breath now. So, send round 
 the brandy, Augustus, — you sly dog — you keeps 
 it all to yourself. 1 ' 
 
 By this time the whole conclave were more 
 
 than half seas over, or, as Augustus Tomlinson 
 
 expressed it, " their more austere qualities were 
 
 relaxed by a pleasing and innocent indulgence.'' 
 
 Paul's eyes reeled, and his tongue ran loose. By 
 
 degrees the room swam round, the faces of his 
 
 comrades altered, the countenance of Old Bags 
 
 assumed an awful and menacing air. He thought 
 
 Long Ned insulted him, and that Old Bags took 
 
 the part of the assailant, doubled his fists, and 
 
 threatened to put the plaintifFs nob into chancery, 
 
 if he disturbed the peace of the meeting. Various 
 
 other imaginary evils beset him. He thought he 
 
 had robbed a mail-coach, in company with Pepper; 
 
 that Tomlinson informed against him, and that 
 
 Gentleman George ordered him to be hanged ; in 
 
 short, he laboured under a temporary delirium, 
 
 occasioned by a sudden reverse of fortune — from 
 
 water to brandy ; and the last thing of which he
 
 222 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 retained any recollection, before he sunk under 
 the table, in company with Long Ned, Scarlet 
 Jem, and Old Bags, was, the bearing his part in 
 the burthen, of what appeared to him a chorus of 
 last dying speeches and confessions, but what, in 
 reality, was a song made in honour of Gentleman 
 George, and sung by his grateful guests as a 
 finale to the festivities. It ran thus — 
 
 " A tumbler of blue ruin, fill, fill for me ! 
 
 Red tape those as likes it may drain, 
 But whatever the lush, it a bumper must be, 
 
 If we ne'er drinks a bumper again ! 
 Now— now in the crib, where a ruffler may lie, 
 
 Without fear that the traps should distress him, 
 With a drop in the mouth, and a drop in the eye, 
 
 Here 's to Gentleman George— God bless him ! 
 God bless him— God bless him ! 
 Here 's to Gentleman George— God bless him ! 
 
 » 'iMong the pals of the Prince, I have heard it 's the go, 
 
 Before they have tippled enough, 
 To smarten their punch with the best curaqoa, 
 
 More conish to render the stuff ! 
 I boast not such lush !— but whoever his glass 
 
 Does not like— I '11 be damn'd if I press him !— 
 Upstanding, my kiddies— round, round let it pass ! 
 
 Here 's to Gentleman George— God bless him ! 
 God bless him — God bless him ! 
 Here 's to Gentleman George— God bless him !
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 223 
 
 " See — see — the fine fellow grows weak on the stumps. 
 Assist him, ye rascals, to stand! 
 Why, ye stir not a peg ! — Are you all in the dumps ? — 
 Fighting Attie, go, lend him a hand ! 
 
 (The robbers crowd around Gentle- 
 man George, each, under pretence 
 of supporting him, pulling him first 
 one way and then another,) 
 ** Come, lean upon me — at your service I am ! 
 Get away from his elbow, you whelp ! — him 
 You '11 only upset ! — them 'ere fellows but sham ! — 
 Here 's to Gentleman George — God help him ! 
 
 God help him — God help him ! 
 
 Here 's to Gentleman George — God help him !"
 
 224< PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 I boast no song in magic wonders rife, 
 
 But yet, Oh, Nature ! is there nought to prize, 
 
 Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life ? 
 
 And dwells in day-light truth's salubrious skies 
 
 No form with which the soul may sympathise ? 
 
 Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild 
 
 The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise, 
 
 An inmate in the home of Albert smiled, 
 
 Or blest his noonday walk — she was his only child. 
 
 Gertrude of Wyoming. 
 
 O Time, thou hast played strange tricks with 
 us ! and we bless the stars that made us a novelist, 
 and permit us now to retaliate. Leaving Paul to 
 the instructions of Augustus Tomlinson, and the 
 festivities of the Jolly Angler, and suffering him, 
 by slow but sure degrees, to acquire the graces 
 and the reputation of the accomplished and perfect 
 appropriator of other men's possessions, we shall 
 pass over the lapse of years with the same heedless 
 rapidity with which they have glided over us, and
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 225 
 
 summon our reader to a very different scene from 
 those which would be likely to greet his eyes, were 
 he following the adventures of our new Telc- 
 machus. Nor wilt thou, dear reader, whom we 
 make the umpire between ourself and those who 
 never read — the critics; — thou who hast, in the 
 true spirit of gentle breeding, gone with us among 
 places where the novelty of the scene has, we fear, 
 scarcely atoned for the coarseness, not giving thy- 
 self the airs of a dainty Abigail; — not prating 
 lackey-like on the low company thou hast met ; — 
 nor wilt thou, dear and friendly reader, have 
 cause to dread that we shall weary thy patience 
 by a " damnable iteration" of the same localities. 
 Pausing for a moment to glance over the divi- 
 sions of our story which lies before us like a ma]), 
 we feel that we may promise in future to conduct 
 thee among aspects of society, more familiar to 
 thy habits ; — where the Unquessed Events flow 
 to their allotted gulf through landscapes of more 
 pleasing variety, and among tribes of a more 
 luxurious civilization. 
 
 Upon the banks of one of fair England's fairest 
 rivers, and about fifty miles 1 distant from London, 
 
 L 5
 
 22G PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 still stands an old-fashioned abode — which we 
 shall here term Warlock Manor-House. It is a 
 building of brick, varied by stone copings, and 
 covered in great part with ivy and jasmine. 
 Around it lie the ruins of the elder part of the 
 fabric, and these are sufficiently numerous in ex- 
 tent, and important in appearance, to testify that 
 the mansion was once not without pretensions to 
 the magnificent. These remains of power, some 
 of which bear date as far back as the reign of 
 Henry the Third, are sanctioned by the cha- 
 racter of the country immediately in the vici- 
 nity of the old manor-house. A vast track of 
 waste land, interspersed with groves of antique 
 pollards, and here and there irregular and sinuous 
 ridges of green mound, betoken to the experienced 
 eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or park, 
 which must originally have been of no common 
 dimensions. On one side of the house, the lawn 
 slopes towards the river, divided from a terrace, 
 which forms the most important embellishment of 
 tfas pleasure grounds, by that fence to which has 
 been given the ingenious and significant name of 
 " ha ! ha !" A few scattered trees of giant growth
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 227 
 
 are the sole obstacles that break the view of the 
 river, which has often seemed to us, at that parti- 
 cular passage of its course, to glide with unusual 
 calmness and serenity. On the opposite side of 
 the stream, there is a range of steep hills, cele- 
 brated for nothing more romantic than their pro- 
 perty of imparting to the flocks that browse upon 
 their short and seemingly stinted herbage, a flavour 
 peculiarly grateful to the lovers of that pastoral 
 animal which changes its name into mutton after 
 its decease. Upon these hills the vestige of hu- 
 man habitation is not visible ; and at times, when 
 no boat defaces the lonely smoothness of the river, 
 and the evening has stilled, as it were, the sounds 
 of labour and of life, we know few scenes so ut- 
 terly tranquil, so steeped in quiet, as that which is 
 presented by the old, quaint-fashioned house and 
 its antique grounds, — the smooth lawn, the silent, 
 and (to speak truly, though disparagingly) the 
 somewhat sluggish river, together with the large 
 hills (to which we know, from simple, though me- 
 taphysical causes, how entire an idea of quiet, 
 and even immovability peculiarly attaches itself,) 
 and the white herds, — those most peaceful of
 
 228 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 God's creatures, — that stud in white and fleecy 
 clusters the ascent. 
 
 In Warlock House, at the time we refer to, 
 lived a gentleman cf the name of Brandon. He 
 was a widower, and had attained his fiftieth year, 
 without casting much regret on the past, or feel- 
 ing much anxiety for the future. In a word, 
 Joseph Brandon was one of those careless, quies- 
 cent, indifferent men, by whom a thought upon 
 any subject is never recurred to without a very 
 urgent necessity. He was good-natured, inoffen- 
 sive, and weak ; and if he was not an incom- 
 parable citizen, he was, at least, an excellent vege- 
 table. He was of a family of high antiquity, and 
 formerly of considerable note. For the last four 
 or five generations, however, the proprietors of 
 Warlock House, gradually losing something alike 
 from their acres and their consequence, had left 
 to their descendant no higher rank than that of a 
 small country squire. One had been a Jacobite, 
 and had drunk out half a dozen farms in honour 
 of Charley over the water; — Charley over the 
 water was no very dangerous person, but Charley 
 over the wine was rather more ruinous; — the
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 229 
 
 next Brandon had been a fox-hunter, and fox- 
 hunters live as largely as patriotic politicians: 
 Pausanias tells us, that the same people who were 
 the most notorious for their love of wine, were also 
 the most notorious for their negligence of affairs. 
 Times are not much altered since Pausanias wrote, 
 and the remark holds as good with the English as it 
 did with the Phio;alei. After this Brandon, came 
 one who, though he did not scorn the sportsman, 
 rather assumed the fine gentleman. He married 
 an heiress, who, of course, assisted to ruin him : 
 wishing no assistance in so pleasing an occupation, 
 he overturned her, (perhaps not on purpose,) in a 
 new sort of carriage which he was learning to 
 drive, and the good lady was killed on the spot. 
 She left the fine gentleman two sons, Joseph Bran- 
 don, the present thane, and a brother, some years 
 younger. The elder, being of a fitting age, was 
 sent to school, and somewhat escaped the conta- 
 gion of the paternal mansion. But the younger 
 Brandon, having only reached his fifth year at 
 the time of his mother's decease, was retained at 
 home. Whether he was handsome, or clever, 
 or impertinent, or like his father about the eyes,
 
 230 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 (that greatest of all merits,) we know not ; but the 
 widower became so fond of him, that it was at a 
 late period, and with great reluctance, that he 
 finally entrusted him to the providence of a 
 school. 
 
 Among harlots, and gamblers, and lords, and 
 sharpers, and gentlemen of the Guards, together 
 with their frequent accompaniments — guards of the 
 gentlemen — viz. bailiffs, William Brandon passed 
 the first stages of his boyhood. He was about 
 thirteen when he was sent to school ; and being a 
 boy of remarkable talents, he recovered lost time 
 so well, that when, at the age of nineteen, he ad- 
 journed to the university, he had scarcely resided 
 there a single term before he had borne off two of 
 the highest prizes awarded to academical merit. 
 From the university he departed on the u grand 
 tour," at that time thought so necessary to com- 
 plete the gentleman ; he went in company with a 
 young nobleman, whose friendship he had won 
 at the university, stayed abroad more than two 
 years, and on his return he settled down to the 
 profession of the law. 
 
 Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 231 
 
 younger brother, being literally next to nothing, 
 and the family estate (for his brother was not 
 unwilling to assist him) being terribly involved, 
 it was believed that he struggled for some years 
 with very embarrassed and penurious circum- 
 stances. During this interval of his life, however, 
 he was absent from London, and by his brother 
 supposed to have returned to the Continent : at 
 length, it seems, he profited by a renewal of his 
 friendship with the young nobleman who had 
 accompanied him abroad, reappeared in town, and 
 obtained, through his noble friend, one or two 
 legal appointments of reputable emolument ; soon 
 afterwards he got a brief on some cause where a 
 Major had been raising a corps to his brother 
 officer, with the better consent of the brother 
 officer's wife than of the brother officer himself. 
 Brandon's abilities here, for the first time in his 
 profession, found an adequate vent ; his reputa- 
 tion seemed made at once, he rose rapidly in his 
 profession, and, at the time we now speak of, he 
 was sailing down the full tide of fame and wealth, 
 the envy and the oracle of all young Templars 
 and barristers, who having been starved them-
 
 23:2 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 selves for ten years, began now to calculate on the 
 possibility of starving their clients. At the very 
 first commencement of his career he had, through 
 the good offices of the nobleman we have men- 
 tioned, obtained a seat in the House of Commons; 
 and though his eloquence was of an orde 1 ' much 
 better suited to the Bar than the Senate, he had 
 nevertheless acquired a very considerable reputa- 
 tion in the latter, and was looked upon by many 
 as likely to win to the same brilliant fortunes as 
 the courtly Mansfield — a great man, whose poli- 
 tical principles and urbane address Brandon was 
 supposed especially to affect as his own model. 
 Of unblemished integrity in public life — for as he 
 supported all things that exist with the most un- 
 bending rigidity, he could not be accused of incon- 
 *istency — William Brandon was (as we have said 
 in a former place of unhappy memory to our 
 hero) esteemed in private life the most honourable, 
 the most moral, even the most austere of men ; 
 and his grave and stern repute on this score, 
 joined to the dazzle of his eloquence and forensic 
 powers, had baffled in great measure the rancour 
 of party hostility, and obtained for him a charac-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 233 
 
 ter for virtues almost as high and as enviable as 
 that which he had acquired for abilities. 
 
 While William was thus treading a noted and 
 an honourable career, his elder brother, who had 
 married into a clergyman's family, and soon lost 
 his consort, had, with his only child, a daughter 
 named Lucy, resided in his paternal mansion in 
 undisturbed obscurity. The discreditable charac- 
 ter and habits of the preceding lords of Warlock, 
 which had sunk their respectability in the coun- 
 ty, as well as curtailed their property, had ren- 
 dered the surrounding gentry little anxious to 
 cultivate the intimacy of the present proprietor ; 
 and the heavy mind and retired manners of 
 Joseph Brandon were not calculated to counter- 
 balance the faults of his forefathers, or to re- 
 instate the name of Brandon in its antient popu- 
 larity and esteem. Though dull and little culti- 
 vated, the squire was not without his " proper 
 pride;" he attempted not to intrude himself 
 where he was unwelcome, avoided county meet- 
 ings and county balls, smoked his pipe with the 
 parson, and not unoften with the surgeon and 
 the solicitor, and suffered his daughter Lucy
 
 234 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 to educate herself, with the help of the parsorTs 
 wife, and to ripen (for Nature was more favour- 
 able to her than Art) into the very prettiest girl 
 that the whole county — we long to say the whole 
 country — at that time could boast of. Never did 
 glass give back a more lovely image than that of 
 Lucy Brandon at the age of nineteen. Her 
 auburn hair fell in the richest luxuriance over a 
 brow never ruffled, and a cheek where the blood 
 never slept ; with every instant the colour varied, 
 and at every variation that smooth, pure, virgin 
 cheek seemed still more lovely than before. She 
 had the most beautiful laugh that one who loved 
 music could imagine, — silvery, low, and yet so full 
 of joy ! all her movements, as the old Parson said, 
 seemed to keep time to that laugh ; for mirth made 
 a great part of her innocent and childish temper ; 
 and yet the mirth was feminine, never loud, nor 
 like that of young ladies who have received the 
 last finish at Highgate seminaries. Every thing 
 joyous affected her, and at once; — air, — flowers, — 
 sunshine,— butterflies. Unlike heroines in general, 
 she very seldom cried, and she saw nothing charm- 
 ing in having the vapours. But she never looked
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 235 
 
 so beautiful as in sleep ! and as the light breath 
 came from her parted lips, and the ivory lids 
 closed over those eyes which only in sleep were 
 silent — and her attitude in her sleep took that in- 
 effable grace belonging solely to childhood, or the 
 fresh youth into which childhood merges, — she 
 was just what you might imagine a sleeping Mar- 
 garet, before that most simple and gentle of all 
 a poet's visions of womanhood had met with Faust, 
 and ruffled her slumbers with a dream of love. 
 
 We cannot say much for Lucy's intellectual 
 acquirements ; she could, thanks to the parson's 
 wife, spell indifferently well, and write a tolerable 
 hand ; she made preserves and sometimes riddles — 
 it was more difficult to question the excellence 
 of the former than to answer the queries of the 
 latter. She worked to the admiration of all who 
 knew her, and we beg leave to say that we deem 
 that " an excellent thing in woman. 11 She made 
 caps for herself and gowns for the poor, and now 
 and then she accomplished the more literary la- 
 bour of a stray novel that had wandered down 
 to the Manor House, or an abridgement of 
 antient history, in which was omitted every thing
 
 236 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 but the proper names. To these attainments she 
 added a certain modicum of skill upon the spinet, 
 and the power of singing old songs with the 
 richest and sweetest voice that ever made one's 
 eyes moisten, or one's heart beat. 
 
 Her moral qualities were more fully developed 
 than her mental. She was the kindest of human 
 beings ; the very dog that had never seen her 
 before, knew that truth at the first glance, and lost 
 no time in making her acquaintance. The good- 
 ness of her heart reposed upon her face like sun- 
 shine, and the old wife at the lodge said poetically 
 and truly of the effect it produced, that " one felt 
 warm when one looked on her." If we could abs- 
 tract from the description a certain chilling trans- 
 parency, the following exquisite verses of a for- 
 gotten poet* might express the purity and lustre 
 of her countenance — 
 
 " Her face was like the milky way i' the sky, 
 A meeting of gentle lights without a name." 
 
 She was surrounded by pets of all kinds, ugly and 
 handsome, from Ralph the raven, to Beauty the 
 pheasant, and from Bob, the sheep-dog without a 
 tail, to Beau, the Blenheim with blue ribbons 
 
 • Suckling.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 237 
 
 round his neck ; all things loved her, and she loved 
 all things. It seemed doubtful at that time whether 
 she would ever have sufficient steadiness and 
 strength of character. Her beauty and her cha- 
 racter appeared alike so essentially sexual, soft, 
 yet lively, buoyant, yet caressing, that you could 
 scarcely place in her that moral dependence, that 
 you might in a character less amiable, but less 
 yieldingly feminine. Time, however, and circum- 
 stance which alters and hardens, were to decide 
 whether the inward nature did not possess some 
 latent, and yet undiscovered properties. Such was 
 
 Lucy Brandon in the year , and in that year, 
 
 on a beautiful autumnal evening, we first intro- 
 duce her personally to our readers. 
 
 She was sitting on a garden-seat by the river 
 side, with her father, who was deliberately conning 
 the evening paper of a former week, and gravely 
 seasoning the antient news with the inspirations of 
 that weed which so bitterly excited the royal in- 
 dignation of our British Solomon. It happens, 
 unfortunately for us — for outward peculiarities are 
 scarcely worthy the dignity to which comedy, 
 whether in the drama or the narrative, aspires, — 
 that Squire Brandon possessed so few distinguish-
 
 238 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ing traits of mind, that he leaves his delineator 
 little whereby to designate him, save a confused 
 and parenthetical habit of speech, by which he 
 very often appeared to those who did not profit by 
 long experience, or close observation, to say ex- 
 actly, and somewhat ludicrously, that which he 
 did not mean to convey. 
 
 " I say, Lucy," observed Mr. Brandon, but 
 without lifting his eyes from the paper ; "I say, 
 corn has fallen — think of that, girl, think of that. 
 These times, in my opinion, (ay, and in the opinion 
 of wiser heads than mine, though I do not mean 
 to say that I have not some experience in these 
 matters, which is more than can be said of all our 
 neighbours,) are very curious and, even danger- 
 ous.' 1 '' 
 
 " Indeed, Papa V* answered Lucy. 
 
 " And I say, Lucy, dear, 11 resumed the Squire 
 after a short pause, w there has been (and very 
 strange it is, too, when one considers the crowded 
 neighbourhood — Bless me ! what times these are !) 
 a shocking murder committed upon (the tobacca- 
 stopper — there it is) — think, you know, girl — just 
 by Kpping ! — an old gentleman !"
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 239 
 
 " Dear, how shocking ! by whom ?" 
 
 " Ay, that's the question ! The Coroner's in- 
 quest has (what a blessing it is to live in a civili- 
 zed country, where a man does not die without 
 knowing the why and the wherefore,) sat on the 
 body, and declared (it is very strange, but they 
 don't seem to have made much discovery ; for 
 why ? we knew as much before,) that the body 
 was found (it was found on the floor, Lucy,) mur- 
 dered ; murderer or murderers (in the bureau, 
 which was broken open, they found the money 
 left quite untouched,) — unknown !" 
 
 Here there was again a slight pause, and passing 
 to another side of the paper, Mr. Brandon re- 
 sumed in a quicker tone, — 
 
 " Ha ! well, now this is odd ! but he 's a deuc- 
 ed clever fellow, Lucy ! (that brother of mine has, 
 and in a very honourable manner too, which I am 
 sure is highly creditable to the family, though he 
 has not taken too much notice of me lately ; — a cir- 
 cumstance which, considering I am his elder bro- 
 ther, I am a little angry at ;) — distinguished him- 
 self in a speech, remarkable, the paper says — for 
 its great legal — (I wonder, by the by, whether
 
 240 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 William could get me that agistment-money ! 'tis 
 a heavy thing to lose ; but going to law, as my 
 poor father used to say, is like fishing for gud- 
 geons [not a bad little fish, we can have some for 
 supper, ~\ with guineas) — knowledge, as well as its 
 splendid and overpowering — (I do love Will for 
 keeping up the family honour ; I am sure it is 
 more than I have done — heigh-ho!) — eloquence!" 
 
 " And on what subject has he been speaking, 
 Papa r 
 
 " Oh, a very fine subject ; what you call a — 
 (it is astonishing that in this country there should 
 be such a wish for taking away people's characters, 
 which, for my part, I don't see is a bit more en- 
 tertaining than what you are always doing — play- 
 ing with those stupid birds) — Libel V' 
 
 " But is not my uncle William coming down to 
 see us ? He promised to do so, and it made you 
 quite happy, Papa, for two days. I hope he will 
 not disappoint you ; and I am sure that it is not 
 his fault if he ever seems to neglect you. He 
 spoke of you to me, when I saw him, in the kindest 
 and most affectionate manner. I do think, my 
 dear father, that he loves you very much.'' 1
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 241 
 
 " Ahem !" said the Squire, evidently flattered, 
 and yet not convinced. " My brother Will is a 
 very acute fellow, and I make no — my dear little 
 girl — question, but that — (when you have seen as 
 much of the world as I have, you will grow sus- 
 picious,) — he thought that any good word said of 
 me to my daughter, would — (you see, Lucy, I am 
 as clear-sighted as my neighbours, though I don't 
 give myself all their airs ; which I very well might 
 do, considering my great great great grandfather 
 Hugo Brandon, had a hand in detecting the Gun- 
 powder plot,) — be told to me again !" 
 
 " Nay, but I am quite sure my uncle never 
 spoke of you to me with that intention.' 1 
 
 " Possibly, my dear child ; but when (the even- 
 ings are much shorter than they were !) did you 
 talk with your uncle about me ?" 
 
 " Oh, when staying with Mrs. Warner, in Lon- 
 don ; to be sure, it is six years ago, but I remem- 
 ber it perfectly. I recollect, in particular, that he 
 spoke of you very handsomely to Lord Mauleverer, 
 who dined with him one evening when I was there, 
 and when my uncle was so kind as to take me to 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 the play. I was afterwards quite sorry that he 
 was so good-natured, as he lost — (you remember 
 I told you the story) — a very valuable watch." 
 
 " Ay, ay, I remember all about that, and so, — 
 how long friendship lasts with some people !— - 
 Lord Mauleverer dined with William. What a 
 fine thing it is for a man — (it is what I never did, 
 indeed, I like being what they call ' Cock of the 
 Walk' — let me see, now I think of it, Pillum 
 comes to-night to play a hit at backgammon) — to 
 make friends with a great man early in (yet 
 Will did not do it very early, poor fellow ! he 
 
 struggled first with a great deal of sorrow 
 
 hardship that is ) life ! It is many years 
 
 now, since Will has been hand-and-glove with 
 my ("'tis a bit of a puppy) Lord Mauleverer, — 
 what did you think of his Lordship ?" 
 
 " Of Lord Mauleverer ? Indeed I scarcely ob- 
 served him, but he seemed a handsome man, and 
 was very polite. Mrs. Warner said he had been 
 a very wicked person when he was young, but he 
 seems good-natured enough now, Papa."" 
 
 " By the by,"" said the Squire, " his Lordship 
 has just been made — (this new Ministry seem very
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 243 
 
 unlike the old ! which rather puzzles me ; for I 
 think it my duty, d'ye see, Lucy, always to vote 
 for his Majesty's Government ; especially seeing 
 that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in detecting 
 the Gunpowder plot ; and it is a little odd, at least, 
 at first, to think that good now, which one has 
 always before been thinking abominable) Lord 
 Lieutenant of the county ." 
 
 " Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant ?" 
 " Yes, child ; and since his Lordship is such a 
 friend of my brother's, I should think, consider- 
 ing especially what an old family in the county 
 we are, — not that I wish to intrude myself where J 
 am not thought as fine as the rest, — that he woula 
 
 be more attentive to vis than Lord was: 
 
 But that, my dear Lucy, puts me in mind of Pil- 
 lum, and so, perhaps, you would like to walk to 
 the Parson's, as it is a fine evening. John shall 
 come for you at nine o'clock toith — (the moon is 
 not up then) — the lantern." 
 
 Leaning on his daughter's willing arm, the good 
 old man then rose and walked homeward ; and so 
 soon as she had wheeled round his easy-chair, 
 placed the backgammon-board on the table, and 
 
 M 2
 
 244 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 wished the old gentleman an easy victory over his 
 expected antagonist the Apothecary, Lucy tied 
 down her bonnet, and took her way to the Rectory. 
 
 When she arrived at the clerical mansion, and 
 entered the drawing-room, she was surprised to 
 find the Parson's wife, a good, homely, lethargic 
 old lady, run up to her, seemingly in a state of 
 great nervous agitation, and crying. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Miss Brandon ! which way did 
 you come ? Did you meet nobody by the road ? 
 Oh, I am so frightened ! Such an accident to 
 poor dear Doctor Slopperton. Stopped in the 
 King's highway — robbed of some tithe-money he 
 had just received from Farmer Slowforth ; if it 
 had not been for that dear angel, good, young 
 man, God only knows whether I might not have 
 been a disconsolate widow by this time. 1 ' 
 
 While the affectionate matron was thus run- 
 ning on, Lucy^ eye glancing round the room, dis- 
 covered in an arm-chair, the round and oily little 
 person of Doctor Slopperton, with a countenance 
 from which all the carnation hues, save in one 
 circular excrescence on the nasal member that 
 was left, like the last rose of summer, blooming
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 245 
 
 alone, were faded into an aspect of miserable 
 pallor : the little man tried to conjure up a smile 
 while his wife was narrating his misfortune, and 
 to mutter forth some syllable of unconcern ; 
 but he looked, for all his bravado, so exceedingly 
 scared, that Lucy would, despite of herself, have 
 laughed outright, had not her eye rested upon 
 the figure of a young man who had been seated 
 beside the reverend gentleman, but who had risen 
 at Lucy's entrance, and who now stood gazing 
 upon her intently, but with an air of great re- 
 spect. Blushing deeply, and involuntarily, she 
 turned her eyes hastily away, and approaching 
 the good Doctor, made her enquiries into the pre- 
 sent state of his nerves, in a graver tone than she 
 had a minute before imagined it possible that she 
 should have been enabled to command. 
 
 " Ah, my good young lady," said the Doctor, 
 squeezing her hand, "I — nay, I may say the 
 Church — for am I not its minister? — was in im- 
 minent danger; — but this excellent gentleman 
 prevented the sacrilege, at least in great mea- 
 sure. I only lost some of my dues — my rightful 
 dues — for which I console myself with thinking
 
 246 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 that the infamous and abandoned villain will 
 suffer hereafter. 1 ' 1 
 
 " There cannot be the least doubt of that,' 1 '' 
 said the young man : " had he only robbed the 
 mail coach, or broken into a gentleman's house, 
 the offence might have been expiable ; — but to 
 rob a clergyman, and a rector, too ! Oh, the sacri- 
 legious dog I 11 
 
 " Your warmth does you honour, Sir," said 
 the Doctor, beginning now to recover, " and I 
 am very proud to have made the acquaintance of 
 a gentleman of such truly religious opinions !" 
 
 " Ah J" cried the stranger, " my foible, Sir — if I 
 may so speak — is a sort of enthusiastic fervour for 
 the Protestant Establishment — Nay, Sir, I never 
 come across the very nave of the church, without 
 feeling an indescribable emotion — a kind of sym- 
 pathy, as it were, — with — with — you understand 
 me, Sir — I fear I express myself ill."" 
 
 " Not at all, not at all !" exclaimed the Doctor : 
 " such sentiments are uncommon in one so 
 young. 1 ' 
 
 " Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend 
 and preceptor of mine, Mr. M'Grawler, and I
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 247 
 
 trust they may continue with me to my dying 
 day/' 
 
 Here the Doctor's servant entered with (we 
 borrow a phrase from the novel of * * * *) " the 
 tea-equipage," and Mrs. Slopperton betaking her- 
 self to its superintendence, enquired with more 
 composure than hitherto had belonged to her 
 demeanour, what sort of a looking creature the 
 ruffian was ? 
 
 " I will tell you, my dear — I will tell you, Mis» 
 Lucy, all about it. I was walking home from 
 Mr. Slowforth's, with his money in my pocket, 
 thinking, my love, of buying you that topaz 
 cross you wished to have." 
 
 " Dear good man V cried Mrs. Slopperton ; 
 " what a fiend it must have been to rob so excel- 
 lent a creature !" 
 
 "And," resumed the Doctor, " it also occurred 
 to me, that the Madeira was nearly out — the Ma- 
 deira, I mean, with the red seal ; and I was think- 
 ing it might not be amiss to devote part of the 
 money to buy six dozen more; and the remainder, 
 my love, which would be about one pound 
 eighteen, I thought I would divide, — ' for he that
 
 248 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord !' — among 
 the thirty poor families on the Common ; that is, 
 if they behaved well, and the apples in the back 
 garden were not feloniously abstracted !" 
 
 " Excellent ! charitable man !" ejaculated Mrs. 
 Slopperton. 
 
 " While I was thus meditating, I lifted my 
 eyes, and saw before me two men ; one of pro- 
 digious height, and with a great profusion of 
 hair about his shoulders; the other was small- 
 er, and wore his hat slouched over his face ; it 
 was a very large hat. My attention was ar- 
 rested by the singularity of the tall person's hair, 
 and while I was smiling at its luxuriance, I heard 
 him say to his companion, — ' Well, Augustus, as 
 you are such a moral dog, he is in your line, 
 not mine, so I leave him to you.' — Little did I 
 think those words related to me. No sooner 
 were they uttered, than the tall rascal leaped 
 over a gate and disappeared ; the other fellow 
 then marching up to me, very smoothly asked me 
 the way to the church, and while I was explaining 
 to him to turn first to the right and then to the 
 left, and so on — for the best way is, you know,
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 249 
 
 exceedingly crooked — the hypocritical scoundrel 
 seized me by the collar, and cried out — * Your 
 money, or your life f — I do assure you, that I 
 never trembled so much ; not, my dear Miss Lucy, 
 so much for my own sake, as for the sake of the 
 thirty poor families on the Common, whose wants 
 it had been my intention to relieve. I gave up 
 the money, finding my prayers and expostulations- 
 were in vain ; and the dog then, brandishing over 
 my head an enormous bludgeon, said — what abo- 
 minable language ! — ' I think, Doctor, I shall put 
 an end to an existence derogatory to yourself 
 and useless to others.'' At that moment the 
 young gentleman beside me sprang over the very 
 gate by which the tall ruffian had disappeared, 
 and cried — ' Hold, villain I 1 On seeing my de- 
 liverer, the coward started back, and plunged into 
 a neighbouring wood. The good young gentle- 
 man pursued him for a few minutes, but then re- 
 turning to my aid, conducted me home ; and, as 
 we used to say at school, 
 
 ' Te rediissc incolumem gaudeo.' 
 
 Which being interpreted, means, — (Sir, excuse a 
 
 M 5
 
 250 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 pun, I am sure so great a friend to the Church un- 
 derstands Latin,) — that I am very glad to get back 
 safe to my tea. He, he ! And now, Miss Lucy, 
 you must thank that young gentleman for having 
 saved the life of your pastoral teacher, which 
 act will no doubt be remembered at the Great 
 Day P 
 
 As Lucy, looking towards the stranger, said 
 something in compliment, she observed a vague, 
 and, as it were, covert smile upon his counte- 
 nance, which immediately, and as if by sympathy, 
 conjured one to her own. The hero of the adven- 
 ture, however, in a very grave tone, replied to 
 her compliment, at the same time bowing pro- 
 foundly 
 
 " Mention it not, Madam ! 1 were unworthy of 
 the name of a Briton, and a man, could I pass the 
 highway without relieving the distresses, or light- 
 ening the burthen, of a fellow-creature. And,*" 
 continued the stranger, after a momentary pause, 
 colouring while he spoke, and concluding, in the 
 high-flown gallantry of the day, — " Methinks it 
 were sufficient reward, had I saved the whole 
 Church, instead of one of its most valuable mem-
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 25l 
 
 bers, to receive the thanks of a lady, whom I 
 might reasonably take for one of those celestial 
 beings, to whom we have been piously taught that 
 the Church is especially the care V 
 
 Though there might have been something really 
 ridiculous in this overstrained compliment, cou- 
 pled as it was with the preservation of Dr. Slop- 
 perton, yet, coming from the mouth of one whom 
 Lucy thought the very handsomest person she had 
 ever seen, it appeared to her any thing but ab- 
 surd ; and, for a very long time afterwards, her 
 heart thrilled with pleasure when she remembered 
 that the cheek of the speaker had glowed, and his 
 voice had trembled, as he spoke it. 
 
 The conversation now turning from robbers in 
 particular, dwelt upon robberies in general. It 
 was edifying to hear the honest indignation with 
 which the stranger spoke of the lawless depreda- 
 tors with whom the country, in that day of 
 Macheaths, was infested. 
 
 " A pack of infamous rascals !" said he, in a 
 glow ; " who attempt to justify their misdeeds by 
 the example of honest men; and who say, that 
 they do no more than is done by lawyers and
 
 252 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 doctors, soldiers, clergymen, and ministers of 
 state. Pitiful delusion, or rather, shameless hy- 
 pocrisy ! w 
 
 k< It all comes of educating the poor," said the 
 Doctor. " The moment they pretend to judge the 
 conduct of their betters — there 's an end of all or- 
 der ! They see nothing sacred in the laws, though 
 we hang the dogs ever so fast ; and the very 
 peers of the land, spiritual and temporal, cease 
 to be venerable in their eyes." 
 
 " Talking of peers," said Mrs. Slopperton, " I 
 hear that Lord Mauleverer is to pass by this 
 road to-night, on his way to Mauleverer Park. 
 Do you know his Lordship, Miss Lucy ? he is 
 very intimate with your uncle. 11 
 
 " I have only seen him once, 11 answered Lucy. 
 
 " Are you sure that his Lordship will come this 
 road ?"" asked the stranger, carelessly : " I heard 
 something of it this morning, but did not know it 
 was settled. 11 
 
 " Oh, quite so !" rejoined Mrs. Slopperton. ;< His 
 Lordship's gentleman wrote for post-horses to 
 meet his Lordship at Wyburn, about three miles 
 on the other side of the village, at ten o'clock
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 253 
 
 to-night. His Lordship is very impatient of 
 delay." 
 
 " Pray," said the Doctor, who had not much 
 heeded this turn in the conversation, and was now 
 ' on hospitable cares intent ;' — " Pray, Sir, if not 
 impertinent, are you visiting, or lodging in the 
 neighbourhood ; or, will you take a bed with us ?" 
 
 " You are extremely kind, my dear Sir, but I 
 fear I must soon wish you good evening. I have 
 to look after a little property I have some miles 
 hence, which, indeed, brought me down into this 
 part of the world." 
 
 " Property — in what direction, Sir, if I may 
 ask ?" quoth the Doctor ; " I know the country 
 for miles." 
 
 " Do you, indeed? — where 's my property, you 
 say ? Why, it is rather difficult to describe it, and 
 it is, after all, a mere trifle ; it is only some com- 
 mon-land near the high-road, and I came down 
 to try the experiment of hedging and draining.' 1 '' 
 
 " 'Tis a good plan, if one has capital, and does 
 not require a speedy return." 
 
 " Yes ; but one likes a good interest for the 
 loss of principle, and a speedy return is always de-
 
 '254: PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 sirable ; although, alas ! it is often attended with 
 
 risk r 
 
 " I hope, Sir, 11 said the Doctor, " if you must 
 leave us so soon, that your property will often 
 bring you into our neighbourhood. 11 
 
 " You overpower me with so much unexpect- 
 ed goodness, 11 answered the stranger. " To tell 
 you the truth, nothing can give me greater plea- 
 sure, than to meet those again who have once 
 obliged me. 11 
 
 '* Whom you have obliged, rather I' 1 cried 
 Mrs. Slopperton, and then added, in a loud whis- 
 per to Lucy — " How modest ! but it is always so 
 with true courage !" 
 
 " I assure you, Madam, 11 returned the benevo- 
 lent stranger, " that I never think twice of the 
 little favours I render my fellow men — my only 
 hope is, that they may be as forgetful as myself. 11 
 
 Charmed with so much unaffected goodness of 
 disposition, the Doctor and Mrs. Slopperton now 
 set up a sort of duet in praise of their guest : 
 after enduring their commendations and compli- 
 ments for some minutes with much grimace of 
 disavowal and diffidence, the stranger's modesty
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 255 
 
 seemed at last to take pain at the excess of their 
 gratitude ; and accordingly, pointing to the clock, 
 which was within a few minutes of nine, he said, 
 
 " I fear, my respected host, and my admired 
 hostess, that I must now leave you ; I have far 
 to go." 
 
 " But are you yourself not afraid of the high- 
 waymen ?" cried Mrs. Slopperton, interrupting 
 him. 
 
 " The highwaymen I" said the stranger, smiling, 
 " No ! I do not fear them ; besides, I have little 
 about me worth robbing. 11 
 
 " Do you superintend your property yourself ?" 
 said the Doctor ; who farmed his own glebe, and 
 who, unwilling to part with so charming a guest, 
 seized him now by the button. 
 
 "Superintend it myself! — why, not exactly. 
 There is a bai/ijf, whose views of things don't 
 agree with mine, and who now and then gives me 
 a good deal of trouble !" 
 
 " Then why don't you discharge him altoge- 
 ther." 
 
 " Ah ! I wish I could : but 'tis a necessary evil. 
 We landed proprietors, my dear Sir, must always
 
 256 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 be plagued with something of the sort. For my 
 part, I have found those cursed bailiffs would take 
 away, if they could, all the little property one has 
 been trying to accumulate. But," 11 abruptly chang- 
 ing his manner into one of great softness-, " could 
 I not proffer my services and my companionship 
 to this young lady ? Would she allow me to con- 
 duct her home, and, indeed, stamp this day upon 
 my memory, as one of the few delightful ones I 
 have ever known ?" 
 
 " Thank you, dear Sir, 11 said Mrs. Slopperton. 
 answering at once for Lucy ; " it is very conside- 
 rate of you ; and I am sure, my love, I could not 
 think of letting you go home alone with old John, 
 after such an adventure to the poor dear Doctor. 11 
 
 Lucy began an excuse which the good lady 
 would not hear. But as the servant whom Mr. 
 Brandon was to send with a lantern to attend 
 his daughter home, had not arrived, and as Mrs. 
 Slopperton, despite her prepossessions in favour of 
 her husband's deliverer, did not for a moment 
 contemplate his accompanying, without any other 
 attendance, her young friend across the fields at
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 257 
 
 that unseasonable hour ; the stranger was forced, 
 for the present, to re-assume his seat ; an open 
 harpsichord at one end of the room, gave him an 
 opportunity to make some remark upon music, 
 and this introducing an eulogium on Lucy's voice, 
 from Mrs. Slopperton, necessarily ended in a re- 
 quest to Miss Brandon to indulge the stranger 
 with a song. Never had Lucy, who was not a 
 shy girl — she was too innocent to be bashful — felt 
 nervous hitherto in singing before a stranger ; but 
 now, she hesitated and faltered, and went through 
 a whole series of little natural affectations before 
 she complied with the request. She chose a song 
 composed somewhat after the old English school, 
 which at that time was reviving into fashion. The 
 song though conveying a sort of conceit, was not, 
 perhaps, altogether without tenderness; — it Avas 
 a favourite with Lucy, she scarcely knew why, 
 and ran thus : — 
 
 Why sleep, ye flowers, ah, why, 
 
 When the sweet eve is falling, 
 And the stars drink the tender sigh 
 
 Ol winds to the fairies calling ?
 
 258 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 Calling with plaining note, 
 
 Most like a ringdove chiding, 
 Or a flute from some distant boat 
 
 O'er the glass of a still sea gliding. 
 
 Why sleep, ye flowers, ah, why, 
 
 What time we most must miss you ? 
 
 Like a bride, see, the loving sky, 
 
 From your churlish sleep would kiss you. 
 
 Soft things, the dew, the breeze, 
 
 All soft things, are about you ; 
 Awake, fair flowers, for scarcely these 
 
 Fill the yearning sense without you ! 
 
 Wake ye not yet ? Alas ! 
 
 The silver time is fleeing ! 
 — Fond idler, cease ! those flowers but glass 
 
 The doom of thy changeless being ! 
 
 Yea, ever when the hours 
 
 As now seem the divinest, 
 Thou callest, I know, on some sleeping flowers. 
 
 And finding no answer — pinest ! 
 
 When Lucy ended, the stranger's praise was 
 less loud than either the Doctor's or his lady's ; 
 but how far more sweet it was ; and for the 
 first time in her life Lucy made the discovery, 
 that eyes can praise as well as lips. For our part, 
 we have often thought that that discovery is an 
 epoch in life.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 259 
 
 It was now that Mrs. Slopperton declared her 
 thorough conviction that the stranger himself 
 could sing — " He had that about him, 11 she said, 
 " which made her sure of it." 
 
 " Indeed, dear Madam, 11 said he, with his usual 
 undefinable, half-frank, half-latent smile, " my 
 voice is but so so, and my memory so indifferent, 
 that even in the easiest passages, I soon come 
 to a stand. My best notes are in the falset- 
 to, and as for my execution — but we won't talk 
 of that:' 
 
 " Nay, nay ; you are so modest," said Mrs. 
 Slopperton ; " I am sure you could oblige us if 
 you would. 11 
 
 " Your command, 1 '' said the stranger, moving 
 to the harpsichord, " is all-sufficient ; and since 
 you, Madam, 11 (turning to Lucy,) " have chosen 
 a song after the old school, may I find pardon if I 
 do the same ? My selection is, to be sure, from a 
 lawless song-book, and is supposed to be a ballad 
 by Robin Hood, or, at least, one of his merry 
 men ; a very different sort of outlaws from the 
 knaves who attacked you, Sir !" 
 
 With this preface, the stranger sung to a wild
 
 260 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 yet jovial air, with a tolerable voice, the following 
 effusion : — 
 
 Cfjr Hoar of our tfroftaston ; or. tfje 
 
 On the stream of the World, the Robber's life 
 
 Is borne on the blithest wave ; 
 Now it bounds into light in a gladsome strife, 
 
 Now it laughs in its hiding cave. 
 
 At his maiden's lattice he stays the rein, 
 
 How still is his courser proud ! 
 (But still as a wind when it hangs o'er the main 
 
 In the breast of the boding cloud J 
 
 With the champed bit and the arched crest, 
 
 And the eye of a listening deer, 
 And the spirit of fire that pines at its rest, 
 
 And the limbs that laugh at fear. 
 
 Fit slave to a Lord whom all else refuse 
 
 To save at his desperate need ; 
 By my troth ! I think one whom the world pursues, 
 
 Hath a right to a gallant steed. 
 
 " Away, my beloved, I hear their feet !" 
 
 " I blow thee a kiss, my fair, 
 And I promise to bring thee, when next we meet, 
 
 A braid for thy bonny hair. 
 
 • Hurra ! for the booty ! — my Steed, hurra ! 
 
 Thorough bush, thorough brake go we ; 
 And the coy Moon smiles on our merry way, 
 Like my own love— timidly."
 
 PALL CLIFFORD. 261 
 
 The Parson he rides with a jingling pouch, 
 
 How it blabs of the rifled poor! 
 The Courtier he lolls in his gilded coach, 
 
 How it smacks of a sinecure ! 
 
 The Lawyer revolves in his whirling chaise 
 
 Sweet thoughts of a mischief done ; 
 And the Lady that knoweth the card she plays 
 
 Is counting her guineas won ! 
 
 " Ho, Lady !— AVhat, hollo, ye sinless men ! 
 
 -My claim ye can scarce refuse ; 
 For when honest folk live on their neighbours, then 
 
 They encroach on the Robber's dues !" 
 
 The Lady changed cheek like a bashful maid, 
 
 The Lawyer talk'd wondrous fair, 
 The Parson blasphemed, and the Courtier pray'd. 
 
 And the Robber bore off his share. 
 
 " Hurra ! for the revel ! my steed, hurra ! 
 
 Thorough bush, thorough brake go we ! 
 It is ever a virtue when others pay 
 
 To ruffle it merrily !" 
 
 Oh ! there never was life like the Robber's so 
 
 Jolly, and bold, and free ; 
 And it's end ? — why, a cheer from the crowd below, 
 
 And a leap from a leafless tree '
 
 262 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 This very moral lay being ended, Mrs. Slop- 
 perton declared it was excellent ; though she con- 
 fessed she thought the sentiments rather loose. 
 Perhaps the gentleman might be induced to 
 favour them with a song of a more refined and 
 modern turn — something sentimental, in short. 
 Glancing tosvards Lucy, the stranger answered, 
 that he only knew one song of the kind Mrs. 
 Slopperton specified, and it was so short, that 
 he should scarcely weary her patience by grant- 
 ing her request. 
 
 At this moment, the river, which was easily 
 descried from the windows of the room, glimmered 
 in the starlight, and directing his looks towards 
 the water, as if the scene had suggested to him 
 the verses he sung, he gave the following stanzas 
 in a very low sweet tone, and with a far purer taste 
 than, perhaps, would have suited the preceding 
 and ruder song. 
 
 3Tf)e Zm&t), 
 
 A s sleeps the dreaming Eve below, 
 Its holiest star keeps ward above, 
 
 And yonder wave begins to glow, 
 
 Like Friendship hright'ning into Love !
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 263 
 
 Ah ! would thy bosom were that stream, 
 Ne'er woo'd save by the virgin air ! 
 
 Ah ! would I were that star, whose beam 
 Looks down and finds its image there ! 
 
 Scarcely was the song ended, before the arrival 
 of Miss Brandon's servant was announced, and her 
 destined escort starting up, gallantly assisted her 
 with her cloak and her hood, happy, no doubt, to 
 escape, in some measure, the overwhelming com- 
 pliments of his entertainers. 
 
 " But," said the Doctor, as he shook hands 
 with his deliverer, " by what name shall I re- 
 member and" — (lifting his reverend eyes) — 
 " pray for the gentleman to whom I am so much 
 indebted ?" 
 
 " You are very kind," said the stranger ; " my 
 name is Clifford. Madam," (turning to Lucy,) 
 '' may I offer my hand down the stairs?" 
 
 Lucy accepted the courtesy, and the stranger 
 was half-way down the staircase, when the Doc- 
 tor, stretching out his little neck, exclaimed, 
 
 " Good evening, Sir ! I do hope we shall meet 
 again."
 
 264 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 " Fear not,"" said Mr. Clifford, laughing gaily, 
 " I am too great a traveller to make that hope a 
 matter of impossibility. — Take care, Madam — 
 one step more." 
 
 The night was calm and tolerably clear, though 
 the moon had not yet risen, as Lucy and her 
 companion passed through the fields, with the ser- 
 vant preceding them at a little distance with the 
 lantern. 
 
 After a pause of some length, Clifford said, with 
 a little hesitation, " Is Miss Brandon related to 
 the celebrated barrister of her name V 
 
 " He is my uncle,' 1 said Lucy ; " do you know 
 him r 
 
 " Only your uncle ?" said Clifford, with viva- 
 city, and evading Lucy's question — " I feared 
 — hem ! — hem ! — that is, I thought he might have 
 been a nearer relation." There was another, but 
 a shorter pause, when Clifford resumed, in a low 
 voice, " Will Miss Brandon think me very pre- 
 sumptuous if I say, that a countenance like her's, 
 once seen, can never be forgotten ; and I believe, 
 some years since, I had the honour to see her in
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 265 
 
 London, at the theatre. It was but a momentary 
 and distant glance that I was then enabled to 
 gain; and yet," he added, significantly, " it 
 sufficed r 
 
 " I was only once at the theatre while in Lon- 
 don, some years ago," said Lucy, a little embar- 
 rassed ; " and, indeed, an unpleasant occurrence 
 which happened to my uncle, with whom I was, 
 is sufficient to make me remember it." 
 
 " Ha ! — and what was it ?" 
 
 " Why, in going out of the playhouse, his 
 watch was stolen by some dexterous pickpocket." 
 
 " Was the rogue caught ?" asked the stranger. 
 
 " Yes; and was sent the next day to Bridewell. 
 My uncle said he was extremely young, and yet 
 quite hardened. I remember that I was foolish 
 enough, when I heard of his sentence, to beg very 
 hard that my uncle would intercede for him ; but 
 in vain." 
 
 " Did you, indeed, intercede for him ?" said the 
 stranger, in so earnest a tone that Lucy coloured 
 for the twentieth time that night, without seeing 
 any necessity for the blush. Clifford continued in 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 •266 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 a gayer tone, " Well, it is surprising how rogues 
 hang together. I should not be greatly surprised 
 if the person who despoiled your uncle, were one 
 of the same gang as the rascal who so terrified 
 your worthy friend the Doctor. But is this 
 handsome old place, your home ?" 
 
 " This is my home," answered Lucy ; " but it 
 is an old-fashioned, strange place ; and few peo- 
 ple, to whom it was not endeared by associations, 
 would think it handsome." 
 
 " Pardon me !" said Lucy's companion, stop- 
 ping, and surveying, with a look of great interest, 
 the quaint and Elizabethan pile, which now stood 
 close before them ; its dark bricks, gable-ends, 
 and ivied walls, tinged by the starry light of the 
 skies, and contrasted by the river, which rolled in 
 silence below. The shutters to the large oriel 
 window of the room, in which the Squire usually 
 sat, were still unclosed, and the steady and warm 
 light of the apartment shone forth, casting a glow, 
 even to the smooth waters of the river : at the 
 same moment, too, the friendly bark of the house- 
 dog was heard, as in welcome ; and was followed 
 by the note of the great bell, announcing the hour
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 267 
 
 for the last meal of the old-fashioned and hospi- 
 table family. 
 
 " There is a pleasure in this V said the stran- 
 ger, unconsciously, and with a half-sigh : " I wish 
 I had a home V 
 
 " And have you not a home ?" said Lucy, with 
 naivete. 
 
 " As much as a bachelor can have, perhaps," 
 answered Clifford, recovering without an effort 
 his gaiety and self-possession. " But you know 
 we wanderers are not allowed the same boast as 
 the more fortunate Benedicts ; we send our hearts 
 in search of a home, and we lose the one without 
 gaining the other. But I keep you in the cold, 
 and we are now at your door." 
 
 " You will come in, of course I 11 said Miss 
 Brandon, " and partake of our evening cheer. 11 
 
 The stranger hesitated for an instant, and then 
 said in a quick tone. 
 
 " No ! many — many thanks ; it is already late. 
 Will Miss Brandon accept my gratitude for her 
 condescension, in permitting the attendance of one 
 unknown to her? 11 As he thus spoke, Clifford 
 bowed profoundly over the hand of his beautiful 
 
 N 2
 
 ■26ti PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 charge ; and Lucy wishing him good-night, has- 
 tened, with a light step, to her father's side. 
 
 Meanwhile, Clifford, after lingering a minute, 
 when the door was closed on him, turned abruptly 
 away ; and muttering to himself, repaired with ra- 
 pid steps, to whatever object he had then in view.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 269 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " Uprouse ye then 
 
 My merry, merry men I" 
 
 Joanna Baillie. 
 
 When the Moon rose that night, there was one 
 spot upon which she palely broke, about ten 
 miles distant from Warlock, which the forewarned 
 traveller would not have been eager to pass, but 
 which might not have afforded a bad study to 
 such artists as have caught from the savage 
 painter of the Apennines a love for the wild and 
 the adventurous. Dark trees scattered far and 
 wide over a broken, but verdant sward made 
 the back ground ; the moon shimmered through 
 the boughs as she came slowly forth from her 
 pavilion of cloud, and poured a broader beam on 
 two figures j ust advanced beyond the trees. More
 
 270 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 plainly brought into light by her rays than his 
 companion, here a horseman, clad in a short 
 cloak that barely covered the crupper of the steed, 
 was looking to the priming of a large pistol which 
 he had just taken from his holster. A slouched 
 hat, and a mask of black crape, conspired with the 
 action, to throw a natural suspicion on the in- 
 tentions of the rider. His horse, a beautiful dark 
 grey, stood quite motionless, with arched neck, 
 and its short ears quickly moving to and fro, de- 
 monstrative of that sagacious and anticipative at- 
 tention which characterizes the noblest of all 
 tamed animals : you would not have perceived 
 the impatience of the steed, but for the white 
 foam that gathered round the bit, and for an occa- 
 sional and unfrequent toss of the head. Behind 
 this horseman, and partially thrown into the 
 dark shadow of the trees, another man, similarly 
 clad, was busied in tightening the girths of a 
 horse, of great strength and size. As he did 
 so, he hummed, with no unmusical murmur, the 
 air of a popular drinking song. 
 
 " 'Sdeath. Ned,' 1 said his comrade, who had for 
 some time been plunged in a silent reverie, —
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 271 
 
 u 
 
 'Sdeath ! why can you not stifle your love for 
 the fine arts, at a moment like this? That hum 
 of thine grows louder every moment, at last I ex- 
 pect it will burst out into a full roar ; recollect we 
 are not at Gentleman George's now !" 
 
 " The more 's the pity, Augustus, 11 answered 
 Ned. " Soho, Little John ! woaho, Sir ! a nice- 
 long night like this, is made on purpose for drink- 
 ing — Will you, Sir ? keep still then !" 
 
 " Man never is, but always to be blest," said 
 the moralising Tomlinson ; " you see you sigh for 
 other scenes even when you have a fine night and 
 the chance of a God-send before you. 1 ' 
 
 " Ay, the night is fine enough," said Ned, who 
 was rather a grumbler, as, having finished his 
 groomlike operation, he now slowly mounted. 
 " Damn it, Oliver* looks o.ut as broadly as if he 
 were going to blab. For my part, I love a dark 
 night with a star here and there winking at us, as 
 much as to say, ' I see you, my boys, but I won't 
 say a word about it, 1 and a small, pattering, driz- 
 zling, mizzling rain that prevents Little John's 
 
 * The moon.
 
 272 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 hoofs being heard, and covers one's retreat, as it 
 were. Besides, when one is a little wet, it is 
 always necessary to drink the more, to keep the 
 cold from one's stomach when one gets home.'" 
 
 " Or in other words," said Augustus, " who 
 loved a maxim from his very heart ; " light wet 
 cherishes heavy wet !" 
 
 " Good !" said Ned, yawning ; " hang it, I wish 
 the captain would come. Do you know Avhat 
 o'clock it is ? — Not far short of eleven, I suppose ?" 
 
 " About that ! — hist, is that a carriage ? — no — 
 it is only a sudden rise in the wind." 
 
 " Very self-sufficient in Mr. Wind to allow 
 himself to be raised without our help !" said Ned ; 
 " by the way, we are of course to go back to the 
 Red Cave." 
 
 " So, Captain Lovett says Tell me, Ned, 
 
 what do you think of the new tenant Lovett has 
 put into the cave." 
 
 " Oh, I have strange doubts there," answered 
 Ned, shaking the hairy honours of his head ; " I 
 don't half like it ; consider, the cave is our strong 
 hold, and ought only to be known M 
 
 "To men of tried virtue," interrupted Tomlinson.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 273 
 
 " I agree with you ; I must try and get Lovett 
 to discard his singular protege, as the French say. 11 
 
 " 'Gad, Augustus, how came you by so much 
 learning ? you know all the Poets by heart, to say 
 nothingr of Latin and French. 1 '' 
 
 " Oh, hang it, I was brought up like the cap- 
 tain, to a literary way of life." 
 
 " That's what makes you so thick with him, 1 
 suppose. He writes (and sings too) a tolerable 
 song, and is certainly a deuced clever fellow. 
 What a rise in the world he has made ! Do you 
 recollect what a poor sort of way he was in when 
 you introduced him at Gentleman George's ? and 
 now he's the Captain Crank of the gang." 
 
 " The gang ! the company you mean. Gang- 
 indeed ! One would think you were speaking of a 
 knot of pickpockets. Yes, Lovett is a clever fel- 
 low ; and, thanks to me, a very decent philo- 
 sopher !" It is impossible to convey to our reader 
 the grave air of importance with which Tomlinson 
 made his concluding laudation. " Yes," said he, 
 after a pause, " he has a bold, plain way of 
 viewing things, and, like Voltaire, he becomes a 
 philosopher, by being a Man of Sense ! Hist ! 
 
 N 5
 
 274- PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 see my horse's ears ! some one is coming, though 
 I don't hear him ! keep watch !"" 
 
 The robbers became silent, the sound of distant 
 hoofs was indistinctly heard, and as it came nearer, 
 there was a crash of boughs, as if a hedge had 
 been ridden through ; presently the moon gleamed 
 picturesquely on the figure of a horseman, ap- 
 proaching through the copse in the rear of the 
 robbers. Now he was half seen among the sinu- 
 osities of his forest-path ; now in full sight, now 
 altogether hid ; then his horse neighed impatiently ; 
 now he again came in sight, and in a moment 
 more, he had joined the pair ! The new comer 
 was of a tall and sinewy frame, and in the first 
 bloom of manhood. A frock of dark green, edged 
 with a narrow silver lace, and buttoned from the 
 throat to the middle, gave due effect to an upright 
 mien, a broad chest, and a slender, but rounded 
 waist, that stood in no need of the compression of 
 the tailor. A short riding-cloak clasped across 
 the throat with a silver buckle, hung picturesquely 
 over one shoulder, Avhile his lower limbs were 
 cased in military boots, which, though they rose 
 above the knee, were evidently neither heavy nor
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 275 
 
 embarrassing to the vigorous sinews of the horse- 
 man. The caparisons of the steed — the bit, the 
 bridle, the saddle, the holster — were according to 
 the most approved fashion of the day ; and the 
 steed itself was in the highest condition, and of re- 
 markable beauty. The horseman's air was erect 
 and bold ; a small but coal-black mustachio 
 heightened the resolute expression of his short, 
 curved lip ; and from beneath the large hat which 
 overhung his brow, his long locks escaped, and 
 waved darkly in the keen night air. Altogether, 
 horseman and horse exhibited a gallant, and even 
 a chivalrous appearance, which the hour and the 
 scene heightened to a dramatic and romantic effect. 
 
 " Ha ! Lovett." 
 
 " How are you, my merry men ?" were the sa- 
 lutations exchanged. 
 
 " What news ?" said Ned. 
 
 " Brave news ! look to it. My lord and his 
 carriage will be by in ten minutes at most. 
 
 " Have you got any thing more out of the par- 
 son I frightened so gloriously ?" asked Augustus. 
 
 " No ; more of that hereafter. Now for our 
 new prey !"
 
 276 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 " Are you sure our noble friend will be so soon 
 at hand ?" said Tomlinson, patting his steed, that 
 now pawed in excited hilarity. 
 
 " Sure ! I saw him change horses ; I was in 
 the stable-yard at the time ; he got out for half an 
 hour, to eat, I fancy ; — be sure that I played him 
 a trick in the mean while. 11 
 
 " What force ?" asked Ned. 
 
 " Self and servant." 
 
 " The post-boys ?" 
 
 " Ay, I forgot them. Never mind, you must 
 frighten them." 
 
 " Forwards !" cried Ned, and his horse sprang 
 from his armed heel. 
 
 " One moment," said Lovett ; " I must put on 
 my mask — soho — Robin, soho ! Now for it — 
 forwards!" 
 
 As the trees rapidly disappeared behind them, 
 the riders entered, at a hand gallop, on a broad 
 track of waste land interspersed with dykes and 
 occasionally fences of hurdles, over which their 
 horses bounded like quadrupeds well accustomed 
 to, such exploits. 
 
 Certainly at that moment, what with the fresh
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 277 
 
 air, the fitful moonlight now breaking broadly 
 out, now lost in a rolling cloud, the excit- 
 ing exercise, and that racy and dancing stir of 
 the blood, which all action, whether evil or noble 
 in its nature, raises in our veins ; what with 
 all this, we cannot but allow the fascination of 
 that lawless life ; — a fascination so great, that one 
 of the most noted gentlemen highwaymen of the 
 day, one too, who had received an excellent edu- 
 cation, and mixed in no inferior society, is re- 
 ported to have said when the rope was about 
 his neck, and the good Ordinary was exhorting 
 him to repent of his ill-spent life, " ///-spent, 
 you dog ! — God ! (smacking his lips,) it was de- 
 licious r 
 
 " Fie ! fie ! Mr. , raise your thoughts to 
 
 Heaven !" 
 
 " But a canter across a common — oh !" mut- 
 tered the criminal ; and his soul cantered off to 
 eternity. 
 
 So briskly leaped the' heart of the leader of the 
 three, that as they now came in view of the main 
 road, and the distant wheel of a carriage whirred 
 on the ear ; he threw up his right hand with a joy-
 
 278 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 ous gesture, and burst into a boyish exclamation 
 of hilarity and delight. 
 
 " Whist, Captain !" said Ned, checking his 
 own spirits with a mock air of gravity, " let us 
 conduct ourselves like gentlemen ; it is only your 
 low fellows -who get into such confoundedly high 
 spirits ; men of the world like us, should do every 
 thing as if their hearts were broken." 
 
 " Melancholy* ever cronies with sublimity, and 
 
 ■ \ maxim which would have pleased Madame de Stael, who 
 thought that philosophy consisted in fine sentiments. In the 
 Life of Lord Byron, just published by Mr. Moore, the dis- 
 tinguished biographer makes a similar assertion to that of the 
 sage Augustus ; kt When did ever a sublime thought spring up 
 in the soul that Melancholy was not to be found, however 
 latent, in its neighbourhood ?" Now, with due deference to Mr. 
 Moore, this is a very sickly piece of nonsense, that has not even 
 an atom of truth to stand on. " God said let there be light, and 
 there was light !" we should like to know where lies the melan- 
 choly of that sublime sentence. " Truth," says Plato, "is the 
 body of God, and Light is his shadow." In the name of com- 
 mon sense, in what possible corner, in the vicinity of that lofty 
 Image, lurks the jaundiced face of this eternal bite noire of Mr. 
 Moore's ? Again, in that sublimest passage in the sublimest of the 
 Latin poets, (Lucretius) which bursts forth in honour of Epi- 
 curus,* is there any thing redolent of sadness ? On the contrary, 
 
 * " Primus Graius homo mortaleis tollere contra &c." 
 To these instances we might especially add the odes of Pindar, 
 Horace, and Campbell.
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 279 
 
 courage is sublime !" said Augustus with the 
 pomp of a maxim-maker. 
 
 " Now for the hedge V cried Lovett, unheed- 
 ing his comrades, and his horse sprang into the 
 road. 
 
 in the three passages we have referred to, especially in the 
 two first quoted, there is something splendidly luminous and 
 cheering. Joy is often a great source of the sublime ; the sud- 
 denness of its ventings would alone suffice to make it so. What 
 can be more sublime than the triumphant Psalms of David, in- 
 toxicated as they are with an almost delirium of transport ? Even 
 in the gloomiest passages of the poets, where we recognize subli- 
 mity, we do not often find melancholy. We are stricken by 
 terror, appalled by awe, but seldom softened into sadness. In 
 fact, Melancholy rather belongs to another class of feelings than 
 those excited by a sublime passage or those which engender its 
 composition. On one hand, in the loftiest flights of Homer, 
 Milton, and Shakspeare, we will challenge a critic to discover 
 this "green sickness" which Mr. Moore would convert into the 
 magnificence of the plague. On the other band, where is the evi- 
 dence that Melancholy made the habitual temperaments of those 
 divine men ? Of Homer we know nothing ; of Shakspeare 
 and Milton, we have reason to believe the ordinary temperament 
 was constitutionally cheerful. The latter boasts of it. A thou- 
 sand instances in contradiction to an assertion it were not worth 
 while to contradict, were it not so generallv popular, so highlv 
 sanctioned, and so eminently pernicious to every thing that is 
 manly and noble in literature, rush to our memory. But we 
 think we have already quoted enough to disprove the sentence, 
 which the illustrious biographer has himself disproved in more 
 than twenty passages which, if he is pleased to forget, we thank
 
 280 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 The three men now were drawn up quite still 
 and motionless by the side of the hedge. The 
 broad road lay before them curving out of sight 
 on either side ; the ground Avas hardening under 
 an early tendency to frost, and the clear ring of 
 approaching hoofs sounded on the ear of the 
 robbers, ominous, haply, of the chinks of " more 
 attractive metal," about, if Hope told no flatter- 
 ing tale, to be their own. 
 
 Heaven, posterity never will. Now we are on the subject of 
 this Life, so excellent in many respects, we cannot but observe 
 that we think the whole scope of its philosophy utterly unworthy 
 of the accomplished mind of the writer ; the philosophy con- 
 sists of an unpardonable distorting of general truths, to suit the 
 peculiarities of an individual, noble indeed, but proverbially 
 morbid, and eccentric. A striking instance of this occurs in the 
 laboured assertion that poets make but sorry domestic characters. 
 What ! because Lord Byron is said to have been a bad husband, 
 was (to go no farther back for examples,) was Walter Scott a bad 
 husband ? or was Campbell ? or is Mr. Moore himself ? Why, 
 in the name of justice, should it be insinuated that Milton was a 
 bad husband, when, as far as any one can judge of the matter, it 
 was Mrs. Milton who was the bad wife? And why, oh! why 
 should we be told by Mr. Moore, a man who, to judge by Cap- 
 tain Rock and the Epicurean, wants neither learning nor dili- 
 gence — why are we to be told, with peculiar emphasis, that Lord 
 Bacon never married, when Lord Bacon not only married, but 
 Lis marriage was so advantageous as to be an absolute epoch in 
 his career ? Really, really one begins to believe that there is not 
 such a thing as a fact in the world !
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 281 
 
 Presently the long-expected vehicle made its 
 appearance at the turn of the road, and it rolled 
 rapidly on behind four fleet post-horses. 
 
 " You, Ned, with your large steed, stop the 
 horses ; you Augustus, bully the post-boys ; 
 leave me to do the rest," said the Captain. 
 
 " As agreed," returned Ned, laconically. " Now, 
 look at me !" and the horse of the vain highway- 
 man sprang from its shelter. So instantaneous 
 were the operations of these experienced tacticians, 
 that Lovett's orders were almost executed in a 
 briefer time than it had cost him to give them. 
 
 The carriage being stopped, and the post-boys 
 white and trembling, with two pistols (levelled 
 by Augustus and Pepper) cocked at their heads, 
 Lovett dismounting, threw open the door of the 
 carriage, and in a very civil tone, and with a very 
 bland address, accosted the inmate. 
 
 " Do not be alarmed, my Lord, you are per- 
 fectly safe ; we only require your watch and 
 purse." 
 
 " Really," answered a voice still softer than that 
 of the robber, while a marked and somewhat 
 French countenance, crowned with a fur cap,
 
 282 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 peered forth at the arrester, — " Really, Sir, your 
 request is so modest, that I were worse than cruel 
 to refuse you. My purse is not very full, and 
 you may as well have it as one of my rascally 
 duns — but my watch, I have a love for — and — " 
 
 " I understand you, my Lord," interrupted the 
 highwayman. " What do you value your watch 
 at ?" 
 
 " Humph — to you it may be worth some 
 twenty guineas." 
 
 " Allow me to see it !" 
 
 " Your curiosity is extremely gratifying," re- 
 turned the nobleman, as with great reluctance he 
 drew forth a gold repeater, set, as was sometimes 
 the fashion of that day, in precious stones. The 
 highwayman looked slightly at the bauble- 
 
 " Your Lordship," said he with great gravity, 
 " was too modest in your calculation — your taste 
 reflects greater credit on you : allow me to assure 
 you, that your watch is worth fifty guineas, to us 
 at the least — to show you that I think so most 
 sincerely, I will either keep it, and we will say 
 no more on the matter ; or I will return it to
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 283 
 
 you upon your word of honour, that you will 
 give me a cheque for fifty guineas payable by your 
 real bankers to ' bearer for self.' Take your 
 choice ; it is quite immaterial to me I 11 
 
 " Upon my honour, Sir," said the traveller 
 with some surprise struggling to his features, 
 " your coolness and self-possession are quite ad- 
 mirable. — I see you know the world. 
 
 " Your Lordship flatters me !" returned Lovett, 
 bowing. " How do you decide ?™ 
 
 " Why, is it possible to write drafts without 
 ink, pen, or paper P 11 
 
 Lovett drew back, and while he was searching in 
 his pockets for writing implements, which he al- 
 ways carried about him, the traveller seized the 
 opportunity, and suddenly snatching a pistol from 
 the pocket of the carriage, levelled it full at the 
 head of the robber. The traveller was an excellent 
 and practised shot — he was almost within arm's- 
 length of his intended victim — his pistols were 
 the envy of all his Irish friends. He pulled the 
 trigger — the powder flashed in the pan, and the 
 highwayman, not even changing countenance,
 
 284 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 drew forth a small ink-bottle, and placing a steel 
 pen in it, handed it to the nobleman, saying, with 
 incomparable sangfroid, " Would you like, my 
 Lord, to try the other pistol ? if so, oblige me by 
 a quick aim, as you must see the necessity of des- 
 patch. If not, here is the back of a letter, on 
 which you can write the draft." 
 
 The traveller was not a man apt to become em- 
 barrassed in any thing — save his circumstances ; 
 but he certainly felt a little discomposed and con- 
 fused, as he took the paper, and uttering some 
 broken words, wrote the cheque. The highway- 
 man glanced over it, saw it was writ according to 
 form, and then with a bow of cool respect, return- 
 ed the watch, and shut the door of the carriage. 
 
 Meanwhile the servant had been shivering in 
 front — boxed up in that solitary convenience 
 termed, not euphoniously, a dickey. Him the 
 robber now briefly accosted. 
 
 " What have you got about you belonging to 
 your master ?" 
 
 " Only his pills, your Honour ! which I forgot 
 to put in the — "
 
 PAUL CLIFFORD. 285 
 
 " Pills ! — throw them down to me P The 
 valet tremblingly extracted from his side-pocket a 
 little box, which he threw down and Lovett 
 caught in his hand. 
 
 He opened the box, counted the pills — 
 
 " One, — two, — four, — twelve, — Aha !" He re- 
 opened the carriage door. 
 
 "Are these your pills, my Lord P 11 
 
 The wondering peer, who had begun to re- 
 settle himself in the corner of his carriage, an- 
 swered, * that they were !' 
 
 " My Lord, I see you are in a high state of 
 fever ; you were a little delirious just now when 
 you snapped a pistol in your friend's face. Per- 
 mit me to recommend you a prescription — swallow 
 off' all these pills!" 
 
 " My God !" cried the traveller, startled into 
 earnestness : " What do you mean ? — twelve of 
 those pills would kill a man." 
 
 " Hear him !" said the robber, appealing to his 
 comrades who roared with laughter, " What, my 
 Lord, would you rebel against your doctor ? — Fie, 
 fie ! be persuaded."
 
 286 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 And with a soothing gesture he stretched the 
 pill-box towards the recoiling nose of the travel- 
 ler. But, though a man who could as well as any 
 one make the best of a bad condition, the traveller 
 was especially careful of his health, and so obsti- 
 nate was he where that was concerned, that he 
 would rather have submitted to the effectual ope- 
 ration of a bullet, than incurred the chance opera- 
 tion of an extra-pill. He, therefore, with great 
 indignation, as the box was still extended towards 
 him, snatched it from the hand of the robber, and 
 flinging it across the road, said, with dignity — 
 
 " Do your worst, rascals ! But if you leave 
 me alive, you shall repent the outrage you have 
 offered to one of his Majesty's Household I" 
 Then, as if becoming sensible of the ridicule of 
 affecting too much in his present situation, he 
 added in an altered tone : " And now, for God's 
 sake, shut the door ! and if you must kill some- 
 body, there 's my servant on the box — he's paid 
 for it." 
 
 This speech made the robbers laugh more than 
 ever ; and Lovett, who liked a joke even better
 
 FAUL CLIFFORD. 287 
 
 than a purse, immediately closed the carriage- 
 door, saying — 
 
 " Adieu ! my Lord ; and let me give you a 
 piece of advice : whenever you get out at a 
 country-inn, and stay half-an-hour while your 
 horses are changing, take your pistols with you, 
 or you may chance to have the charge drawn." 
 
 With this admonition the robber withdrew; 
 and seeing that the valet held out to him a long 
 green purse, he said, gently shaking his head. 
 
 " Rogues should not prey on each other, my 
 good fellow. You rob your master — so do we- — 
 let each keep what he has got. 11 
 
 Long Ned and Tomlinson then backing their 
 horses, the carriage was freed ; and away started 
 the post-boys at a pace which seemed to show less 
 regard for life than the robbers themselves had 
 evinced. 
 
 Meanwhile the Captain remounted his steed, 
 and the three confederates bounding in gallant 
 style over the hedge through which they had 
 previously gained the road, galloped off in the 
 same direction they had come, the moon, ever 
 
 1
 
 288 PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 and anon, bringing into light their flying 
 figures, and the sound of many a joyous peal 
 of laughter, ringing through the distance along 
 the frosty air. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, 
 Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
 
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