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Though the world is but little concerned to know, in what situation the author of any performance that is offered to its perusal may be, yet I believe it is generally solicitous to learn some circumstances relating to him: for my own part, I have always experienced this desire in myself; and read the advertisement at the beginning, and the postscript at the end of a book, if they contain any information of that sort, with a kind of melancholy inquietude about the fate of him, in whose company, as it were, I have passed some harmless hours, and whose sentiments have been unbosomed to me with the openness of a friend.
The life of him who has had an opportunity of presenting to the eye of the public the following tale, though sufficiently chequered with vicissitude, has been spent in a state of obscurity, the recital of which could but little excite admiration, or gratify curiosity: the manner of his procuring the story contained in the following sheets, is all he thinks himself entitled to relate.
After some wanderings at that time of life which is most subject to wandering, I had found an opportunity of revisiting the scenes of my earlier attachments, and returned to my native spot with that tender emotion, which the heart that can be moved at all, will naturally feel on approaching it. The remembrance of my infant days, like the fancied vibration of pleasant sounds in the ear, was still alive in my mind; and I flew to find out the marks by which even inanimate things were to be known, as the friends of my youth, not forgotten, though long unseen, nor lessened, in my estimation, from the pride of refinement, or the comparison of experience.
In the shade of an ancient tree, that centered a circle of elms, at the end of the village where I was born, I found my old acquaintance, Jack Ryland: he was gathering moss with one hand, while the other held a flannel-bag, containing earth-worms, to be used as bait in angling. On seeing me, Ryland dropped his moss on the ground, and ran with all the warmth of friendship to embrace me. "My dear Tom, said he, how happy I am to see you! you have travelled no doubt a woundy long way since we parted. —You find me in the old way here. —I believe they have but a sorry notion of sport in Italy. —While I think on't, look on this me now; I'll be hang'd if the sharpest-ey'd trout in the river can know it from the natural. It was but yesterday now— You remember the cross-tree pool, just below the parsonage—there I hook'd him, play'd him half an hour by the clock, and landed him at last as far down as the church-way ford. As for his size—Lord! how unlucky it is that I have not my landing-net here; for now I recollect that I mark'd his length on the outside of the pole; but you shall see it some other time."
Let not my reader be impatient at my friend Ryland's harangue. I give it him, because I would have characters develop themselves. To throw, however, some farther light upon Ryland's:
He was first-cousin to a gentleman who possessed a considerable estate in our county, born to no fortune, and not much formed by nature for acquiring one; he found pretty early that he should never be rich, but that he might possibly be happy; and happiness to him was obtained without effort, because it was drawn from sources which it required little exertion to supply: trifles were the boundaries of his desire, and their attainment the goal of his felicity. A certain neatness at all those little arts in which the soul has no share, an immoderate love of sport, and a still more immoderate love of reciting its progress, with the addition of one faculty, which has some small connexion with letters, to wit, a remarkable memory for puzzles and enigmas, made up his character; and he enjoyed a privilege uncommon to the happy, that no one envied the means by which he attained what every one pursues.
I interrupted his narrative by some enquiries about my former acquaintance in the village; for Ryland was the recorder of the place, and could have told the names, families, relations, and inter-marriages of the parish, with much more accuracy than the register.
"Alackaday! said Jack, there have been many changes among us since you left this: here have died the old gauger, Wilson, as good a cricket-player as ever handled a bat; Rooke, at the Salutation, is gone too; and his wife has left the parish and settled in London, where I'm told she keeps a gin-shop in some street they call Southwark; and the poor parson, whom you were so intimate with, the worthy old Annesly!" —He looked piteously towards the church-yard, and a tear trickled down his cheek. —"I understand you, said I, the good man is dead!" — "Ah! there is more than you think about his death, answered Jack; he died of a broken heart!" I could make no reply but by an ejaculation, and Ryland accompanied it with another tear; for, though he commonly looked but on the surface of things, yet Ryland had a heart to feel.
"In the middle of yon clump of alders, said he, you may remember a small house, that was once farmer Higgins's; it is now occupied by a gentlewoman of the name of Wistanly, who was formerly a sort of servant-companion to sir Thomas Sindall's mother, the widow of sir William; her mistress, who died some years ago, left her an annuity, and that house for life, where she has lived ever since. I am told that she knows more of Annesly's affairs than any other body; but she is so silent and shy, that I could never get a word from her on the subject: she is reckon'd a wonderful scholar by the folks of the village; and you, who are a man of reading, might perhaps be a greater favorite with her; if you chuse it, I shall introduce you to her immediately." I accepted his offer, and we went to her house together.
We found her sitting in a little parlour, fitted up in a taste much superior to what might have been expected from the appearance of the house, with some shelves, on which I observed several of the most classical English and French authors. She rose to receive us with something in her manner greatly above her seeming rank; Jack introduced me as an acquaintance of her deceased friend, Mr. Annesly. "Then, Sir, said she, you knew a man who had few fellows!" lifting her eyes gently upwards. The tender solemnity of her look answered the very movement which the remembrance had awaked in my soul, and I made no other reply than by a tear. She seemed to take it in good part, and we met on that ground, like old friends, who had much to ask, and much to be answered.
When we were going away, she begged to have a moment's conversation with me alone; Ryland left us together.
"If I am not deceived, Sir, said she, in the opinion I have formed of you, your feelings are very different from those of Mr. Ryland, and indeed of most of my neighbours in the village; you seem to have had a peculiar interest in the fate of that worthiest of men, Mr. Annesly. The history of that life of purity which he led, of that calamity by which it was shortened, might not be an unpleasing, though a melancholy-recital to you; but in this box which stands on the table by me, is contained a series of letters and papers, which, if you will take the trouble of reading them, will save me the task of recounting his sufferings. You will find many passages which do not indeed relate to it; but, as they are often the entertainment of my leisure hours, I have marked the most interesting parts on the margin. This deposit, Sir, though its general importance be small, my affection for my departed friend makes me consider as a compliment, and I commit it to you, as to one in whose favor I have conceived a prepossession from that very cause."
Those letters and papers were the basis of what I now offer to the public: had it been my intention to make a Book, I might have published them entire; and I am persuaded, notwithstanding Mrs. Wistanly's remark, that no part of them would have been found more foreign to the general drift of these volumes, than many that have got admittance into similar collections: but I have chosen rather to throw them into the form of a narrative, and contented myself with transcribing such reflexions as naturally arise from the events, and such sentiments as the situations alone appear to have excited. There are indeed many suppletory facts, which could not have been found in this collection of Mrs. Wistanly's; these I was at some pains to procure through other channels: how I was enabled to procure them the reader may conceive, if his patience can hold out to the end of the story; to account for that now, would delay its commencement, and anticipate its conclusion, for both which effects this introductory chapter may have already been subject to reprehension.
In which are some particulars previous to the commencement of the main story.
Richard annesly was the only child of a wealthy tradesman in London, who, from the experience of that profit which his business afforded himself, was anxious to have it descend to his son. Unfortunately the young man had acquired a certain train of ideas which were totally averse to that line of life his father had marked out for him. There is a degree of sentiment, which, in the bosom of a man destined to the drudgery of the world, is the source of endless disgust: of this young Annesly was unluckily possessed; and as he foresaw, or thought he foresaw, that it would not only endanger his success, but take from the enjoyment of prosperity, supposing it attained, he declined following that road which his father had smoothed for his progress, and at the risk of those temporal advantages which the old gentleman's displeasure, on this occasion, might deny him, entered into the service of the church, and retired to the country on one of the smallest endowments she has to bestow.
That feeling which prevents the acquisition of wealth, is formed for the support of poverty; the contentment of the poor, I had almost said their pride, buoys up the spirit against the depression of adversity, and gives to our very wants the appearance of enjoyment.
Annesly looked on happiness as confined to the sphere of sequestered life. The pomp of greatness, the pleasures of the affluent, he considered as only productive of turbulence, disquiet, and remorse; and thanked heaven for having placed him in his own little shed, which, in his opinion, was the residence of pure and lasting felicity.
With this view of things his father's ideas did by no means coincide: his anger against his son continued till his death; and, when that event happened, with the preposterous revenge of many a parent, he consigned him to misery, as he thought, because he would not be unhappy in that way which he had insisted on his following, and cut him off from the inheritance of his birth, because he had chosen a profession which kept him in poverty without it.
Though Annesly could support the fear of poverty, he could not easily bear the thought of a dying father's displeasure. On receiving intelligence of his being in a dangerous situation, he hasted to London, with the purpose of wringing from him his forgiveness for the only offence with which his son had ever been chargeable; but he arrived too late: his father had breathed his last on the evening of the day preceding that on which he reached the metropolis, and his house was already in the possession of a nephew, to whom his son understood he had left every shilling of his fortune. This man had been bred a haberdasher, at the express desire of old Annesly, and had all that patient dulness which qualifies for getting rich, which, therefore, in the eyes of his uncle, was the most estimable of all qualities. He had seldom seen Richard Annesly before, for indeed this last was not very solicitous of his acquaintance; he recollected his face however, and, desiring him to sit down, informed him particularly of the settlement which his relentless father had made. "It was unlucky, said the haberdasher, that you should have made choice of such a profession; but a parson, of all trades in the world, he could never endure. It is possible you may be low in cash at this time: if you want a small matter to buy mournings or so, I shall not scruple to advance you the needful; and I wish you would take them of neighbour Bullock, the woollen-draper, who is as honest a man as any of the trade, and would not impose on a child." Annesly's eyes had been hitherto fixed on the ground; nor was there wanting a tear in each for his unnatural father: he turned them on this cousin with as contemptuous a look as his nature allowed them to assume, and walked out of the house without uttering a word.
He was now thrown upon the world with the sentence of perpetual poverty for his inheritance. He found himself in the middle of a crouded street in London, surrounded by the buzzing sons of industry, and shrunk back at the sense of his own insignificance. In the faces of those he met, he saw no acknowledgment of connexion, and felt himself, like Cain after his brother's murder, an unsheltered, unfriended outcast. He looked back to his father's door; but his spirit was too mild for reproach—a tear dropped from his look!
There was in London one person, whose gentle nature he knew would feel for his misfortunes; yet to that one, of all others, his pride forbade him to resort.
Harriet Wilkins was the daughter of a neighbour of his father's, who had for some time given up business, and lived on the interest of 4000 l. which he had saved in the course of it. From this circumstance, his acquaintance, old Annesly, entertained no very high opinion of his understanding; and did not cultivate much friendship with a man whom he considered as a drone in the hive of society: but in this opinion, as in many others, his son had the misfortune to differ from him; he used frequently to steal into Wilkins's house of an evening, to enjoy the conversation of one who had passed through life with observation, and had known the labor of business without that contraction of soul which it often occasions. Harriet was commonly of the party, listening with Annesly to her father's discourse, and with Annesly offering her remarks on it. She was not handsome enough to attract notice; but her look was of that complacent sort which gains on the beholder, and pleases from the acknowledgment that it is beneath admiration.
Nor was her mind ill suited to this "Index of the soul." Without that brilliancy which excites the general applause, it possessed those inferior sweetnesses which acquire the general esteem; sincere, benevolent, inoffensive, and unassuming. Nobody talked of the sayings of Miss Wilkins; but every one heard her with pleasure, and her smile was the signal of universal complacency.
Annesly found himself insensibly attached to her by a chain, which had been imposed without art, and suffered without consciousness. During his acquaintance with Harriet, he had come to that period of life, when men are most apt to be impressed with appearances; in fact, he had looked on many a beauty with a rapture which he thought sincere till it was interrupted by the reflexion that she was not Harriet Wilkins; there was a certain indefinable attraction which linked him every day closer to her, and artlessness of manner had the effect (which I presume, from their practice, few young ladies believe it to have) of securing the conquest she had gained.
From the wealth which old Annesly was known to possess, his son was, doubtless, in the phrase of the world, a very advantageous match for Miss Wilkins; but when her father discovered the young man to be serious in his attachment to her, he frequently took occasion to suggest, how unequal the small fortune he could leave his daughter, was to the expectations of the son of a man worth 30,000l. and with a frankness peculiar to himself, gave the father to understand, that his son's visits were rather more frequent than was consistent with that track of prudence which the old gentleman would probably mark out for him. The father, however, took little notice of this intelligence; the truth was, that, judging by himself, he gave very little credit to it; because it came from one, who, according to his conception of things, should, of all others, have concealed it from his knowlege.
But though his son had the most sincere attachment to Miss Wilkins, his present circumstances rendered it, in the language of prudence, impossible for them to marry. They contented themselves therefore with the assurance of each other's constancy, and waited for some favorable change of condition which might allow them to be happy.
The first idea which struck Annesly's mind on the disappointment he suffered from his father's settlement was the effect it would have on his situation with regard to Harriet. There is perhaps nothing more bitter in the lot of poverty, than the distance to which it throws a man from the woman he loves; that pride I have before taken notice of, which in every other circumstance tends to his support, serves but to wound him the deeper in this. That feeling now turned Annesly's feet from his Harriet's door; yet it was now that his Harriet seemed the more worthy of his love, in proportion as his circumstances rendered it hopeless. A train of soft reflexions at length banished this rugged guest from his heart—"'Tis but taking a last farewel!" said he to himself, and trod back the steps which he had made.
He entered the room where Harriet was sitting by her father, with a sort of diffidence of his reception that he was not able to hide; but Wilkins welcomed him in such a manner, as soon dissipated the restraint under which the thoughts of his poverty had laid him. "This visit, my dear Annesly, said he, flatters me, because it shows you leaning on my friendship. I am not ignorant of your present situation, and I know the effect which prudent men will say it should have on myself; that I differ from them, may be the consequence of spleen, perhaps rather than generosity: for I have been at war with the world from a boy. Come hither, Harriet; this is Richard Annesly: his father, it is true, has left him 30,000l. poorer than it was once expected he would; but he is Richard Annesly still! you will therefore look upon him as you did before. I am not stoic enough to deny, that riches afford numberless comforts and conveniences which are denied to the poor; but that riches are not essential to happiness I know, because I have never yet found myself unhappy; —nor shall I now sleep unsound from the consciousness of having added to the pressure of affliction, or wounded merit afresh, because fortune had already wounded it."
Liberal minds will delight in extending the empire of virtue; for my own part, I am happy to believe, that it is possible for an attorney to be honest, and a tradesman to think like Wilkins.
More introductory matter.
Wilkins having thus overlooked the want of fortune in his young friend, the lovers found but little hindrance to the completion of their wishes: Harriet became the wife of a poor man, who returned the obligation he owed to her and her father's generosity, by a tenderness and affection rarely found in wedlock, because there are few minds from whom in reason they can be expected.
His father-in-law, to whom indeed the sacrifice was but trifling, could not resist the joint request of his daughter and her husband, to leave the town and make one of their family in the country. In somewhat less than a year he was the grandfather of a boy, and, nearly at the same distance of time after, of a girl, both of whom in his opinion, were cherubs; but even the gossips around them owned they had never seen more promising children. The felicity of their little circle was now perhaps as perfect as the lot of humanity admits; nor would it have been easy to have found a groop, whose minds were better formed to deserve or attain it. Health, innocence, and good-humour were of their household; and many an honest neighbour, who never troubled himself to account for it, talked of the goodness of Annesly's ale, and the chearfulness of his fire-side. I have been often admitted of the party, though I was too young for a companion to the seniors, and too old for a playfellow to the children; but no age, and often indeed no condition, excluded from a participation of their happiness; and I have seen little Billy, before he could speak to be well understood, lead in a long-bearded beggar, to sing his song in its turn, and be rewarded with a cup of that excellent liquor I mentioned.
Their felicity was too perfect to be lasting. —Such is the proverbial opinion of mankind: the days of joy, however, are not more winged in their course than the days of sorrow; but we count not the moments of their duration with so scrupulous an exactness.
Three years after the birth of her first daughter, Mrs. Annesly was delivered of another; but the birth of the last was fatal to her mother, who did not many days survive it. Annesly's grief on this occasion was immoderate; nor could all the endeavours of his father-in-law, whose mind was able to preserve more composure, prevail upon him, for some days, to remember the common offices of life, or leave the room in which his Harriet had expired. Wilkins's grief, however, though of a more silent sort, was not less deep in its effects; and when the turbulence of the other's sorrow had yielded to the soothings of time, the old man retained all that tender regret, so due to the death of a child, an only child, whose filial duty had led him down the slope of life without suffering him to perceive the descent. The infant she had left behind her was now doubly endeared to its father and him, from being considered as the last memorial of its dying mother; but of this melancholy kind of comfort they were also deprived in a few months by the small-pox. Wilkins seemed by this second blow to be loosened from the little hold he had struggled to keep of the world, and his resignation was now built upon the hopes, not of overcoming his affliction, but of escaping from its pressure. The serenity which such an idea confers, possesses of all others the greatest dignity, because it possesses of all others the best-assured confidence, leaning on a basis that is fixed above the rotation of sublunary things. An old man, who has lived in the exercise of virtue, looking back, without a blush, on the tenor of his past days, and pointing to that better state, where alone he can be perfectly rewarded, is a figure the most venerable that can well be imagined: such did Wilkins now exhibit.
"My son, said he to Annesly, I feel that I shall not be with you long; yet I leave not the world with that peevish disgust, which is sometimes mistaken for the courage that overcomes the dread of death: I lay down my being, with gratitude, for having so long possessed it, without having disgraced it, by any great violation of the laws of him, by whom it was bestowed. There is something we cannot help feeling, on the fall of those hopes we had been vainly diligent to rear; I had looked forward to some happy days, amidst a race of my Harriet's and yours; but to the good, there can be no reasonable regret from the disappointment of such expectations, because the futurity, they trust in after death, must far exceed any enjoyment which a longer life here could have afforded. It is otherwise with the prospect of duty to be done; these two little ones, I leave to your tenderness and care; you will value life, as it gives you an opportunity of forming them to virtue —Lay me beside my Harriet!"
The old man's prediction was but too well verified; he did not long survive this pathetic declaration. His son-in-law was now exposed, alone and unassisted, to the cares of the world, increased by the charge of his boy and girl; but the mind will support much, when called into exertion by the necessity of things. His sorrow yielded by degrees to the thoughts of that active duty he owed his children; in time his fire-side was again cheared by their sports around it; and though he sometimes looked upon them with a tear, at the recollection of the past, yet would he as often wipe it from his eye, in silent gratitude to heaven, for the enjoyment of the present, and the anticipation of the future.
The openings of two characters, with which the reader may afterwards be better acquainted.
His son had a warmth of temper, which the father often observed with mingled pleasure and regret; with pleasure, from considering the generosity and nobleness of sentiment it bespoke; with regret, from a foreboding of the many inconveniences to which its youthful possession might naturally be exposed.
But Harriet was softness itself. The sprightliness of her gayest moments would: be checked by the recital of the distress of a fellow-creature, and she would often weep all night from some tale which her maid had told of fictitious disaster. Her brother felt the representation of worth ill-treated, or virtue oppressed, with indignation against the oppressor, and whished to be a man, that he might, like Jack the giant-killer, gird on his sword of sharpness, and revenge the wrongs of the sufferer; while his sister pressed his hand in hers, and trembled for the danger to which she imagined him exposed; nay, she has been afterwards heard to cry out in her sleep in a hurried voice, "You shall not go, my Billy, papa and I will die if you do."
A trifling incident, of which I find an account in one of their father's letters, will discriminate their characters better than a train of the most laboured expression.
At the bottom of his garden ran a little rivulet, which was there dammed up to furnish water for a mill below. On the bank was a linnet's nest, which Harriet had discovered in her rambles, and often visited with uncommon anxiety for the callow brood it contained. One day her brother and she were at play on the green at a little distance, attended by a servant of their father's, when a favorite terrier of Billy's happened to wander amongst the bushes where this nest was sheltered: Harriet, afraid or the consequences, begged the servant to run, and prevent his doing mischief to the birds. Just as the fellow came up, the dog had lighted on the bush, and surprised the dam, but was prevented from doing her much harm by the servant, who laid hold of him by the neck, and snatched his prey out of his mouth: the dog, resenting this rough usage, bit the man's finger till it bled, who, in return, bestowed a hearty drubbing upon him, without regarding the entreaties or the threats of his little master. Billy, enraged at the sufferings of his favorite, resolved to wreak his vengeance where it was in his power, and running up to the nest, threw it down, with all its unfledged inhabitants, to the ground. "Cruel Billy!" cried his sister, while the tears ran down her cheeks. He turned sullenly from her, and walked up to the house, while she, with the man's assistance, gathered up the little flutterers, and having fastened the nest as well as she could, replaced them safely within it.
When she saw her brother again, he pouted, and would not speak to her; she endeavoured to regain his favour by kindness, but he refused her caresses; she sought out the dog, who had suffered on her linnet's account, and stroaking him on the head, fed him with some cold meat, from her own hand: when her brother saw it, he called him away. She looked after Billy till he was gone, and then burst into tears.
Next day they were down at the rivulet again. Still was Harriet endeavouring to be reconciled, and still was her brother averse to a reconciliation: he sat biting his thumb, and looking angrily to the spot where his favorite had been punished.
At that instant the linnet, in whose cause the quarrel had begun, was bringing out her younglings to their first imperfect flight, and two of them, unfortunately taking a wrong direction, fell short into the middle of the pool. Billy started from the ground, and, without considering the depth, rushed into the water, where he was over head and ears the second step that he made. His sister's screams alarmed the servant, who ran to his assistance; but before he got to the place, the boy had reached a shallower part of the pool, and, though staggering from his first plunge, had saved both the linnets, which he held carefully above the water, and landed safely on the opposite bank. He returned to his sister by a ford below, and, presenting her the birds, flung his arms round her neck, and, blubbering, asked her, if she would now forgive his unkindness.
Such were the minds which Annesly's tuition was to form. To repress the warmth of temerity, without extinguishing the generous principles from which it arose, and to give firmness to sensibility where it bordered on weakness, without searing its feelings where they led to virtue, was the task he had marked out for his industry to accomplish. He owned that his plan was frequently interrupted on both sides by the tenderness of paternal affection; but he accustomed himself to remember, that, for his children he was accountable to God and their country. Nor was the situation I have described without difficulties, from the delicacy of preventing inclinations in the extreme, which were laudable in degree; "but here also, said Annesly, it is to be remembered, that no evil is so pernicious as that which grows in the soil from which good should have sprung."
A very brief account of their education.
Annesly was not only the superintendant of his children's manners, but their master in the several branches of education. Reading, writing, arithmetic, the elements of mathematics and geography, with a competent knowlege of the French and Italian languages, they learned together; and while Billy was employed with his father in reading Latin and Greek, his sister received instruction in the female accomplishments, from a better sort of servant, whom Annesly kept for that purpose, whose station had once been superior to servitude, and whom he still treated more as a companion than a domestic. This instructress indeed she lost when about ten years old; but the want was more than supplied by the assistance of another, to wit, Mrs. Wistanly; who devoted many of her leisure hours to the daughter of Annesly, whom she had then got acquainted with, and whom reciprocal worth had attached to her with the sincerest friendship and regard. The dancing-master of a neighbouring town paid them a weekly visit for their instruction in the science he professed; at which time also were held their family-concerts, where Annesly, who was esteemed in his youth a first-rate player on the violin, used to preside. Billy was an excellent second; Mrs. Wistanly or her pupil undertook for the harpsicord, and the dancing-master played base as well as he could. He was not a very capital performer, but he was always very willing; and found as much pleasure in his own performance as the best of them. Jack Ryland too would sometimes join in a catch, though indeed he had but two, Christ-church bells, and Jack, thou'rt a toper; and Annesly alledged that he was often out in the last, but Jack would never allow it.
Besides these, there were certain evenings appropriated to exercises of the mind. "It is not enough, said Annesly, to put weapons into those hands which never have been taught the use of them; the reading we recommend to youth will store their minds with intelligence, if they attend to it properly; but to go a little farther, we must accustom them to apply it, we must teach them the art of comparing the ideas with which it has furnished them." In this view it was the practice, at those stated times I have mentioned, for Billy, or his sister, to read a select passage of some classical author, on whose relations they delivered opinions, or on whose sentiments they offered a comment. Never was seen more satisfaction on a countenance, than used to enlighten their father's, at the delivery of those observations, which his little philosophers were accustomed to make: indeed, there could scarcely, even to a stranger, be a more pleasing exhibition; their very errors were delightful, because they were the errors of benevolence, generosity, and virtue.
As punishments are necessary in all societies, Annesly was obliged to invent some for the regulation of his: they consisted only of certain modifications of disgrace. One of them I shall mention, because it was exactly opposite to the practice of most of our schools; while there, offences are punished by doubling the task of the scholar; with Annesly, the getting of a lesson or performing of an exercise was a privilege, of which a forfeiture was incurred by misbehaviour; to teach his children, that he offered them instruction as a favor, instead of pressing it as a hardship.
Billy had a small part of his father's garden allotted him for his peculiar property, in which he wrought himself, being furnished with no other assistance from the gardener than directions how to manage it, and parcels of the seeds which they enabled him to sow. When he had brought these to maturity, his father purchased the produce; Billy, with part of the purchase-money, was to lay in the stores necessary for his future industry, and the overplus he had the liberty of bestowing on charitable uses in the village. The same institution prevailed as to his sister's needle-work or embroidery. "For it is necessary, said Annesly, to give an idea of property, but let it not be separated from the idea of beneficence."
Sometimes, when these sums were traced to their disbursement, it was found, that Harriet's money did not always reach the village, but was intercepted by the piteous recital of a wandering beggar by the way; and that Billy used to appropriate part of his to purposes not purely eleemosynary; as, when he once parted with two thirds of his revenue, to reward a little boy for beating a big one, who had killed his tame sparrow; or another time, when he went the blamable length of comforting with a shilling a lad, who had been ducked in a horse-pond, for robbing the orchard of a miser.
It was chiefly in this manner of instilling sentiments, (as in the case of the charitable establishment I have mentioned) by leading insensibly to the practice of virtue, rather than by downright precept, that Annesly proceeded with his children; for it was his maxim, that the heart must feel, as well as the judgment be convinced, before the principles we mean to teach can be of habitual service; and that the mind will always be more strongly impressed with ideas which it is led to form of itself, than with those which it passively receives from another. When, at any time, he delivered instructions, they were always clothed in the garb rather of advices from a friend, than lectures from a father; and were listened to with the warmth of friendship, as well as the humility of veneration. It is in truth somewhat surprising, how little intimacy subsists between parents and their children, especially of our sex; a circumstance, which must operate in conjunction with their natural partiality, to keep the former in ignorance of the genius and disposition of the latter.
Besides all this, his children had the general advantage of a father's example: they saw the virtues he inculcated attended by all the consequences in himself, which he had promised them as their reward: piety in him was recompensed by peace of mind, benevolence by self-satisfaction, and integrity by the blessings of a good conscience.
But the time at last arrived, when his son was to leave those instructions and that example, for the walks of more public life: as he was intended, or, more properly speaking, seemed to have an inclination, for a learned profession, his father sent him, in his twentieth year, to receive the finishings of education necessary for that purpose, at one of the universities. Yet he had not, I have heard him say, the most favourable opinion of the general course of education there; but he knew, that a young man might there have an opportunity of acquiring much knowlege, if he were inclined to it; and that good principles might preserve him uncorrupted, even amidst the dangers of some surrounding dissipation: besides, he had an additional inducement to this plan, from the repeated request of a distant relation, who filled an office of some consequence at Oxford, and had expressed a very earnest desire to have his young kinsman sent thither, and placed under his own immediate inspection.
Before he set out for that place, Annesly, though he had a sufficient confidence in his son, yet thought it not improper to mark out to him some of those errors, to which the unexperienced are liable: he was not wont, as I have before observed, to press instruction upon his children; but the young man himself seemed to expect it, with the solicitude of one who ventured, not without anxiety, to leave that road, where the hand of a parent and friend had hitherto guided him in happiness and safety. The substance of what he delivered to his son and daughter (for she too was an auditor of his discourses) I have endeavoured to collect from some of the papers Mrs. Wistanly put into my hands; and to arrange, as far as it seemed arrangeable, in the two following chapters.
It will not, however, after all, have a perfectly-connected appearance; because, I imagine, it was delivered at different times, as occasion invited, or leisure allowed him; but its tendency appeared to be such, that, even under these disadvantages, I could not forbear inserting it.
Paternal instructions.—Of suspicion and confidence. —Ridicule.—Religion.—True pleasure.—Caution to the female sex.
You are now leaving us, my son, said Annesly, to make your entrance into the world: for, though from the pale of a college, the bustle of ambition, the plodding of business, and the tinsel of gaiety, are supposed to be excluded; yet as it is the place where the persons that are to perform in those several characters often put on the dresses of each, there will not be wanting, even there, those qualities that distinguish in all. I will not shock your imagination with the picture which some men, retired from its influence, have drawn of the world; nor warn you against enormities, into which, I should equally affront your understanding and your feelings, did I suppose you capable of falling. Neither would I arm you with that suspicious caution, which young men are sometimes advised to put on: they who always suspect will often be mistaken, and never be happy. Yet there is a wide distinction between the confidence which becomes a man, and the simplicity that disgraces a simpleton: he who never trusts is a niggard of his soul, who starves himself, and by whom no other is enriched; but he who gives every one his confidence, and every one his praise, squanders the fund that should serve for the encouragement of integrity, and the reward of excellence.
In the circles of the world your notice may be frequently attracted by objects glaring, not useful; and your attachment won to characters, whose surfaces are showy, without intrinsic value: in such circumstances be careful not always to impute knowlege to the appearance of acuteness, or give credit to opinions according to the confidence with which they are urged. In the more important articles of belief or conviction, let not the flow of ridicule be mistaken for the force of argument. Nothing is so easy as to excite a laugh, at that time of life, when seriousness is held to be an incapacity of enjoying it; and no wit so futile, or so dangerous, as that which is drawn from the perverted attitudes of what is in itself momentous. There are in most societies a set of self-important young men, who borrow consequence from singularity, and take precedency in wisdom from the unfeeling use of the Iudicrous; this is at best a shallow quality; in objects of eternal moment, it is poisonous to society. I will not now, nor could you then, stand forth armed at all points to repel the attacks which they may make on the great principles of your belief; but let one suggestion suffice, exclusive of all internal evidence, or extrinsic proof of revelation. He that would undermine those foundations upon which the fabric of our future hope is reared, seeks to beat down that column, which supports the feebleness of humanity;—let him but think a moment, and his heart will arrest the cruelty of his purpose;—would he pluck its little treasure from the bosom of poverty? would he wrest its crutch from the hand of age, and remove from the eye of affliction the only solace of its woe? The way we tread is rugged at best; we tread it, however, lighter by the prospect of that better country to which we trust it will lead; tell us not that it will end in the gulph of eternal dissolution, or break off in some wild, which fancy may fill up as she pleases, but reason is unable to delineate; quench not that beam, which, amidst the night of this evil world, has cheared the despondency of ill-requited worth, and illumined the darkness of suffering virtue.
The two great movements of the soul, which the molder of our frames has placed in them for the incitement of virtue and the prevention of vice, are the desire of honour, and the fear of shame: but the perversion of these qualities, which the refinement of society is peculiarly unhappy in making, has drawn their influence from the standard of morality, to the banners of its opposite; into the first step on which a young man ventures, in those paths which the cautions of wisdom have warned him to avoid, he is commonly pushed by the fear of that ridicule which he has seen levelled at simplicity, and the desire of that applause which the spirit of the profligate has enabled him to acquire.
Pleasure is in truth subservient to virtue. When the first is pursued without those restraints which the last would impose, every infringement we make on them lessens the enjoyment we mean to attain; and nature is thus wise in our construction, that, when we would be blessed beyond the pale of reason, we are blessed imperfectly. It is not by the roar of riot, or the shout of the bacchanal, that we are to measure the degree of pleasure which he feels; the grossness of the sense he gratifies is equally insusceptible of the enjoyment, as it is deaf to the voice of reason; and, obdurated by the repetition of debauch, is incapable of that delight which the finer sensations produce, which thrills in the bosom of delicacy and virtue.
Libertines have said, my Harriet, that the smiles of your sex attend them: and that the pride of conquest, where conquest is difficult, overcomes the fear of disgrace and defeat. I hope there is less truth in this remark than is generally imagined; let it be my Harriet's belief that it cannot be true for the honour of her sex; let it be her care that, for her own honour, it may be false as to her. Look on those men, my child, even in their gayest and most alluring garb, as creatures dangerous to the peace, and destructive of the welfare of society; look on them as you would on a beautiful serpent, whose mischief we may not forget while we admire the beauties of its skin. I marvel indeed how the pride of the fair can allow them to show a partiality to him, who regards them as beings merely subservient to his pleasure, in whose opinion they have lost all that dignity which excites reverence, and that excellence which creates esteem.
Be accustomed, my love, to think respectfully of yourself; it is the error of the gay world to place your sex in a station somewhat unworthy of a reasonable creature; and the individuals of ours who address themselves to you, think it a necessary ingredient in their discourse, that it should want every solid property with which sense and understanding would invest it. The character of a female pedant is undoubtedly disgusting; but it is much less common than that of a trifling or an ignorant woman: the intercourse of the sexes is, in this respect, advantageous, that each has a desire to please, mingled with a certain deference for the other; let not this purpose be lost on one side, by its being supposed, that, to please yours, we must speak something, in which fashion has sanctified folly, and ease lent her garb to insignificance. In general it should never be forgotten, that, though life has its venial trifles, yet they cease to be innocent when they encroach upon its important concerns; the mind that is often employed about little things, will be rendered unfit for any serious exertion; and, though temporary relaxations may recruit its strength, habitual vacancy will destroy it.
In continuation.—Of knowlege.—Knowlege of the world.—Politeness.—Honour.— Another rule of action suggested.
As the mind may be weakened by the pursuits of trivial matters, so its strength may be misled in deeper investigations.
It is a capital error in the pursuit of knowlege, to suppose that we are never to believe what we cannot account for. There is no reason why we should not attempt to understand every thing; but to own in some instances our limited knowlege, is a piece of modesty in which lies the truest wisdom.
Let it be our care that our effort in its tendency is useful, and our effort need not be repressed; for he that attempts the impossible, will often atchieve the extremely difficult; but the pride of knowlege often labours to gain what if gained would be useless, and wastes exertion upon objects that have been left unattained from their futility. Men possessed of this desire, you may perhaps find, my son, in that seat of science whither you are going: but remember, that what claims our wonder, does not always merit our regard; and in knowlege and philosophy be careful to distinguish, that the purpose of research should ever be fixed on making simple what is abstruse, not abstruse what is simple; and that difficulty in acquisition will no more sanctify its inexpediency, than the art of tumblers, who have learned to stand on their heads, will prove that to be the proper posture for man.
There is a pedantry in being master of paradoxes contrary to the common opinions of mankind, which is equally disgusting to the illiterate and the learned. The peasant who enjoys the beauty of the tulip, is equally delighted with the philosopher, though he knows not the powers of the rays from which its colours are derived; and the boy who strikes a ball with his racket, is as certain whither it will be driven by the blow, as if he were perfectly versant in the dispute about matter and motion. Vanity of our knowlege is generally found in the first stages of its acquirement, because we are then looking back to that rank we have left, of such as know nothing at all. Greater advances cure us of this, by pointing our view to those above us; and when we reach the summit, we begin to discover, that human knowlege is so imperfect, as not to warrant any vanity upon it. In particular arts beware of that affectation of speaking technically, by which ignorance is often disguised, and knowlege disgraced. They who are really skilful in the principles of science, will acquire the veneration only of shallow minds by talking scientifically; for, to simplify expression, is always the effect of the deepest knowlege, and of the clearest discernment. On the other hand, there may be many who possess taste, though they have not attained skill; who, if they will be contented with the expression of their own feelings, without labouring to keep up the borrowed phrase of erudition, will have their opinions respected by all whose suffrages are worthy of being gained. The music, the painting, the poetry of the passions, is the property of every one who has a heart to be moved; and though there may be particular modes of excellence which national or temporary fashions create, yet that standard will ever remain which alone is common to all.
The ostentation of learning is indeed always disgusting in the intercourse of society; for even the benefit of instruction received cannot allay the consciousness of inferiority, and remarkable parts more frequently attract admiration than procure esteem. To bring forth knowlege agreeably, as well as usefully, is perhaps very difficult for those, who have attained it in the secluded walks of study and speculation, and is an art seldom found but in men who have likewise acquired some knowlege of the world.
I would however distinguish between that knowlege of the world that fits us for intercourse with the better part of mankind, and that which we gain by associating with the worst.
But there is a certain learned rust which men as well as metals acquire; it is, simply speaking, a blemish in both; the social feelings grow callous from disuse, and lose that pliancy of little affection, which sweetens the cup of life as we drink it.
Even the ceremonial of the world, shallow as it may appear, is not without its use; it may indeed take from the warmth of friendship, but it covers the coldness of indifference; and if it has repressed the genuine overflowings of kindness, it has smothered the turbulence of passion and animosity.
Politeness taught as an art is ridiculous; as the expression of liberal sentiment and courteous manners, it is truly valuable. There is a politeness of the heart which is confined to no rank, and dependent upon no education: the desire of obliging, which a man possessed of this quality will universally show, seldom fails of pleasing, though his stile may differ from that of modern refinement. I knew a man in London, of the gentlest manners, and of the most winning deportment; whose eye was ever brightened with the smiles of good-humour, and whose voice was mellowed with the tones of complacency;—and this man was bred a blacksmith!
The falsehood of politeness is often pleaded for, as unavoidable in the commerce of mankind; yet I would have it as little indulged as possible. There is a frankness without rusticity, an openness of manner, prompted by good-humour, but guided by delicacy, which some are happy enough to possess, that engages every worthy man, and gives not offence even to those, whose good opinion, though of little estimation, it is the business of prudence not wantonly to lose.
The circles of the gay, my children, would smile to hear me talk of qualities which my retired manner of life has allowed me so little opportunity of observing; but true good-breeding is not confined within those bounds to which their pedantry (if I may use the expression) would restrict it: true good-breeding is the sister of philanthropy, with feelings perhaps not so serious or tender, but equally inspired by a fineness of soul, and open to the impressions of social affection.
As politeness is the rule of the world's manners, so has it erected Honour the standard of its morality; but its dictates too frequently depart from wisdom with respect to ourselves, from justice and humanity with respect to others. Genuine honour is undoubtedly the offspring of both; but there has arisen a counterfeit, who, as he is more boastful and showy, has more attracted the notice of gaiety and grandeur. Generosity and courage are the virtues he boasts of possessing; but his generosity is a fool, and his courage a murderer.
The punctilio's indeed on which he depends, for his own peace, and the peace of society, are so ridiculous in the eye of reason, that it is not a little surprising, how so many millions of reasonable beings should have sanctified them with their mutual consent and acquiescence; that they should have agreed to surround the seats of friendship, and the table of festivity, with so many thorns of inquietude, and snares of destruction.
You will probably hear, my son, very frequent applause bestowed on men of nice and jealous honour, who suffer not the smallest affront to pass unquestioned or unrevenged; but do not imagine that the character which is most sacredly guarded, is always the most unsullied in reality, nor allow yourself to envy a reputation for that sort of valour which supports it. Think how uneasily that man must pass his time, who sits, like a spider in the midst of his feeling web, ready to catch the minutest occasion for quarrel and resentment. There is often more real pusillanimity in the mind that starts into opposition where none is necessary, than in him who overlooks the wanderings of some unguarded act or expression, as not of consequence enough to challenge indignation or revenge. I am aware, that the young and high-spirited will say, that men can only judge of actions, and that they will hold as cowardice, the blindness I would recommend to affront or provocation; but there is a steady coolness and possession of one's self, which this principle will commonly bestow, equally remote from the weakness of fear, and the discomposure of anger, which gives to its possessor a station that seldom fails of commanding respect, even from the ferocious votaries of sanguinary Honour.
But some principle is required to draw a line of action, above the mere precepts of moral equity,
"Beyond the fixt and settled rules;"and for this purpose is instituted the motive of Honour :—there is another at hand, which the substitution of this phantom too often destroys—it is Conscience —whose voice, were it not stifled (sometimes by this very false and spurious Honour) would lead directly to that liberal construction of the rules of morality which is here contended for. Let my children never suffer this monitor to speak unheeded, nor drown its whispers, amidst the din of pleasure, or the bustle of life. Consider it as the representative of that Power who spake the soul into being, and in whose disposal existence is! To listen therefore to his unwritten law which he promulgates by its voice, has every sanction which his authority can give. It were enough to say that we are mortal; —but the argument is irresistible, when we remember our Immortality.
Introducing a new and capital Character.
It was thus the good man instructed his children.
But, behold! the enemy came in the night and sowed tares!
Such an enemy had the harmless family of which Annesly was the head. It is ever to be regretted, that mischief is seldom so weak but that worth may be stung by it; in the present instance, however, it was supported by talents misapplied and ingenuity perverted.
Sir Thomas Sindall enjoyed an estate of 5000l. a year in Annesly's parish. His father left him, when but a child, possessed of an estate to the amount we have just mentioned and of a very large sum of money besides, which his economy had saved him from its produce. His mother, though a very good woman, was a very bad parent; she loved her son, as too many mothers do, with that instinctive affection which nature has bestowed on the lowest rank of creatures. She loved him as her son, though he inherited none of her virtues, and because she happened to have no other child, she reared this in such a manner, as was most likely to prevent the comfort he might have afforded herself, and the usefulness of which he might have been to society. In short, he did what he liked, at first because his spirit should not be confined too early, and afterwards he did what he liked, because it was past being confined at all.
But his temper was not altogether of that fiery kind, which some young men, so circumstanced, and so educated, are possessed of. There was a degree of prudence which grew up with him from a boy, that tempered the sallies of passion to make its object more sure in the acquisition. When at school, he was always the conductor of mischief, though he did not often participate in its execution; and his carriage to his master was such, that he was a favourite without any abilities as a scholar, and acquired a character for regularity, while his associates were daily flogged for transgressions, which he had guided in their progress, and enjoyed the fruits of in their completion. There sometimes arose suspicions of the reality; but even those who discovered them mingled a certain degree of praise with their censure, and prophesied, that he would be A Man of the World.
As he advanced in life, he fashioned his behaviour to the different humours of the gentlemen in the neighbourhood; he hunted with the fox-hunters through the day, and drank with them in the evening. With these he diverted himself at the expence of the sober prigs, as he termed them, that looked after the improvement of their estates when it was fair, and read a book within doors when it rained; and to-morrow he talked on farming with this latter class, and ridiculed the hunting phrases, and boisterous mirth of his yesterday's companions. They were very well pleased to laugh at one another, while he laughed in his sleeve at both. This was sometimes discovered, and people were going to be angry—but somebody said in excuse that Sindall was A Man of the World.
While the Oxford-terms lasted, (to which place he had gone in the course of modern education) there were frequent reports in the country of the dissipated life he led; it was even said that he had disappeared from college for six weeks togegether, during which time he was suspected of having taken a trip to London with another man's wife; this was only mentioned in a whisper; it was loudly denied; people doubted at first, and shortly forgot it. Some little extravagances they said he might have been guilty of. It was impossible for a man of two and twenty to seclude himself altogether from company; and you could not look for the temperance of a hermit in a young baronet of 5000 l. a year. It is indispensable for such a man to come forth into life a little; with 5000l. a year, one must be A Man of the World.
His first tutor, whose learning was as extensive, as his manners were pure, left him in disgust; sober people wondered at this; but he was soon provided with another with whom he had got acquainted at Oxford: One whom every body declared to be much fitter for the tuition of young Sindall, being like his pupil, A Man of the World.
But though his extravagance in squandering money, under the tuition of this gentleman, was frequently complained of, yet it was found that he was not altogether thoughtless of its acquisition. Upon the sale of an estate in his neighbourhood, it was discovered that a very advantageous mortgage, which had stood in the name of another, had been really transacted for the benefit of young Sindall. His prudent friends plumed themselves upon this intelligence; and according to their use of the phrase, began to hope, that, after sowing his wild oats, sir Thomas would turn out A Man of the World.
The Footing on which he stood with Annesly and his Family.
Though such a man as we have described might be reckoned a valuable acquaintance by many, he was otherwise reckoned by Annesly; he had heard enough (though he had heard but part) of his character, to consider him as a dangerous neighbour; but it was impossible to avoid sometimes seeing him, from whose father he had got the living which he now occupied. There is no tax so heavy on a little man, as an acquaintance with a great one. Annesly had found this in the life-time of Sir William Sindall. He was one of those whom the general voice pronounces to be a good sort of man, under which denomination I never look for much sense, or much delicacy. In fact the baronet possessed but little of either; he lived hospitably for his own sake, as well as that of his guests, because he liked a good dinner and a bottle of wine after it; and in one part of hospitality he excelled, which was, the faculty of making every body drunk that had not uncommon fortitude to withstand his attacks. Annesly's cloth protected him from this last inconvenience; but it often drew from Sir William a set of jests, which his memory had enabled him to retain, and had passed through the heirs of his family, like their estate, down from the days of that monarch of facetious memory, Charles the Second.
Though to a man of Annesly's delicacy all this could not but be highly disagreeable, yet gratitude made him Sir William's guest oft enough to show that he had not forgot that attention which his past favours demanded; and Sir William recollected them from another motive, to wit, that they gave a sanction to those liberties he sometimes used with him who had received them. This might have been held sufficient to have cancelled the obligation; but Annesly was not wont to be directed by the easiest rules of virtue; the impression still remained, and it even descended to the son after the death of the father.
Sindall therefore was a frequent guest at his house; and, though it might have been imagined, that the dissipated mind of a young man of his fortune would have found but little delight in Annesly's humble shed, yet he seemed to enjoy its simplicity with the highest relish; he possessed indeed that pliancy of disposition that could wonderfully accommodate itself to the humour of every one around him; and he so managed matters in his visits to Annesly, that this last began to imagine the reports he had heard concerning him, to be either entirely false, or at least aggravated much beyond truth.
From what motive soever Sindall began these visits, he soon discovered a very strong inducement to continue them. Harriet Annesly was now arrived at the size, if not the age, of womanhood; and possessed an uncommon degree of beauty and elegance of form. In her face joined to the most perfect symmetry of features was a melting expression, suited to that sensibility of soul we have mentioned her to be endowed with. In her person, rather above the common size, she exhibited a degree of ease and gracefulness which nature alone had given, and art was not allowed to diminish. Upon such a woman Sindall could not look with indifference; and according to his principles of libertinism, he had marked her as a prey, which his situation gave him opportunities of pursuing, and which one day he could not fail to possess.
In the course of his acquaintance he began to discover, that the softness of her soul was distant from simplicity, and that much art would be necessary to overcome a virtue, which the hand of a parent had carefully fortified. He assumed therefore the semblance of those tender feelings, which were most likely to gain the esteem of the daughter, while he talked with that appearance of candour and principle, which he thought necessary to procure him the confidence of the father. He would frequently confess, with a sigh, that his youth had been sometimes unwarily drawn into error; then grasp Annesly's hand, and looking earnestly in his face, beg him to strengthen by his counsel the good resolutions which he thanked heaven he had been enabled to make. Upon the whole, he continued to gain such a degree of estimation with the family, that the young folks spoke of his seeming good qualities with pleasure, and their father mentioned his supposed foibles with regret.
Young Annesly goes to Oxford—The Friendship of Sindall—It's Consequences.
Upon its being determined that young Annesly should go to Oxford, Sir Thomas showed him remarkable kindness and attention. He conducted him thither in his own carriage; and as his kinsman, to whose charge he was committed, happened accidentally to be for some time unable to assign him an apartment in his house, Sindall quitted his own lodging to accommodate him. To a young man newly lanched into life, removed from the only society he had ever known, to another composed of strangers, such assiduity of notice could not but be highly pleasing; and in his letters to his father he did not fail to set forth, in the strongest manner, the obligations he had to sir Thomas. His father, whom years had taught wisdom, but whose warmth of gratitude they had not diminished, felt the favour as acutely as his son; nor did the foresight of meaner souls arise in his breast to abate its acknowledgment.
The hopes which he had formed of his Billy were not disappointed. He very soon distinguished himself in the university for learning and genius; and in the correspondence of his kinsman were recited daily instances of the notice which his parts attracted. But his praise was cold in comparison with Sindall's; he wrote to Annesly of his young friend's acquirement and abilities, in a strain of enthusiastic encomium; and seemed to speak the language of his own enjoyment, at the applause of others which he recited. It was on this side that Annesly's soul was accessible, for on this side lay that pride which is the weakness of all. On this side did Sindall overcome it.
From those very qualities also which he applauded in the son, he derived the temptation with which he meant to seduce him; for such was the plan of exquisite mischief he had formed; besides the common desire of depravity to make proselytes from innocence, he considered the virtue of the brother as that structure on the ruin of which he was to accomplish the conquest of the sister's. He introduced him therefore into the company of some of the most artful of his own associates, who loudly echoed the praises he lavished on his friend, and showed, or pretended to show, that value for his acquaintance, which was the strongest recommendation possible of their own. The diffidence which Annesly's youth and inexperience had at first laid upon his mind, they removed by the encouragement which their approbation of his opinions bestowed; and he found himself endebted to them both for an ease of delivering his sentiments, and the reputation which their suffrages conferred upon them.
For all this, however, they expected a return; and Annesly had not fortitude to deny it—an indulgence for some trivial irregularities which they now and then permitted to appear in their conversation. At first their new acquaintance took no notice of them at all; he found that he could not approve, and it would have hurt him to condemn. By degrees he began to allow them his laugh, though his soul was little at ease under the gaiety which his features assumed—once or twice when the majority against him appeared to be small, he ventured to argue, though with a caution of giving offence, against some of the sentiments he heard. Upon these occasions Sindall artfully joined him in the argument; but they were always overcome. He had to deal with men who were skilled, by a mere act of the memory, in all the sophisms which voluptuaries have framed to justify the unbounded pursuit of pleasure; and those who had not learning enough to argue, had assurance to laugh. Yet Annesly's conviction was not changed; but the edge of his abhorrence to vice was blunted; and though his virtue kept her post, she found herself gall'd in maintaining it.
It was not till some time after, that they ventured to solicit his participation of their pleasures; and it was not till after many solicitations that his innocence was overcome. But the progress of their victories was rapid after his first defeat. And he shortly attained the station of experienced vice, and began to assume a superiority from the undauntedness with which he practised it.
But it was necessary, the while, to deceive that relation under whose inspection his father had placed him; in truth it was no very hard matter to deceive him. He was a man of that abstracted disposition, that is seldom conversant with any thing around it. Simplicity of manners was, in him, the effect of an apathy in his constitution (encreased by constant study) that was proof against all violence of passion or desire; and he thought, if he thought of the matter at all, that all men were like himself, whose indolence could never be overcome by the pleasure of pursuit, or the joys of attainment. Besides all this, Mr. Lumley, that tutor of Sindall's whom we have formerly mentioned, was a man the best calculated in the world for lulling his suspicions asleep, if his nature had ever allowed them to arise. This man, whose parts were of that pliable kind that easily acquire a superficial knowledge of every thing, possessed the talent of hypocrisy as deeply as the desire of pleasure; and while in reality he was the most profligate of men, he had that command of passion, which never suffered it to intrude where he could wish it concealed; he preserved in the opinion of Mr. Jephson, the gravity of a studious and contemplative character which was so congenial to his own: and he would often rise from a metaphysical discussion with the old gentleman, leaving him in admiration of the depth of his reading, and the acuteness of his parts, to join the debauch of Sindall and his dissolute companions.
By his assistance therefore Annesly's dissipation was effectually screened from the notice of his kinsman; Jephson was even prevailed on by false suggestions to write to the country continued encomiums on his sobriety and application to study; and the father, who was happy in believing him, enquired no farther.
A very gross attempt is made in Annesly's honour.
Sindall having brought the mind of his proselyte to that conformity of sentiment to which he had thus laboured to reduce it, ventured to discover to him the passion he had conceived for his sister. The occasion, however, on which he discovered it, was such a one as he imagined gave him some title to be listened to.
Annesly had an allowance settled on him by his father, rather in truth above what his circumstances might warrant with propriety; but as the feelings of the good man's heart were, in every virtuous purpose, somewhat beyond the limitations of his fortune, he inclined rather to pinch himself, than to stop any channel through which advantage might flow to his son; and meant his education and his manners to be in every respect liberal and accomplished.
But this allowance ill sufficed to gratify the extravagance which his late connexion had taught him; he began very soon to know a want which he had never hitherto experienced: at first this not only limited his pleasures, but began to check the desire of them, and in some measure served to awaken that sense of contrition, which their rotation had before overcome. But Sindall took care that he should not be thus left to reflexion; and as soon as he guessed the cause, prevented its continuance by an immediate supply, offered, and indeed urged, with all the open warmth of disinterested friendship. From being accustomed to receive, Annesly at last overcame the shame of asking, and applied repeatedly for sums, under the denomination of loans, for the payment of which he could only draw upon contingency. His necessities were the more frequent, as, amongst other arts of pleasure which he had lately acquired, that of gaming had not been omitted.
Having one night lost a sum, considerably above what he was able to pay, to a member of their society with whom he was in no degree of intimacy, he gave him his note payable the next morning (for this was the regulated limitation of their credit) though he knew that to-morrow would find him as poor as to-night. On these particular occasions, when his hours would have been so highly irregular, that they could not escape the censure of Mr. Jephson, or his family, he used to pretend, that, for the sake of disentangling some point of study with Sindall and his tutor, he had passed the night with them at their lodgings, and what small portion of it was allowed for sleep he did actually spend there. After this loss therefore, he accompanied Sindall home, and could not, it may well be supposed, conceal from him the shagreen it occasioned. His friend as usual advanced him money for discharging the debt. Annesly, who never had had occasion to borrow so much from him before, expressed his sorrow at the necessity which his honour laid him under, of accepting so large a sum. Poh! answered Sindall, 'tis but a trifle, and what a man must now and then lose to be thought genteelly of. "Yes, if his fortune can afford it," said the other gloomily. Ay, there's the rub, returned his friend; that fortune should have constituted an inequality where nature made none. How just is the complaint of Jaffier,
Tell me why, good heav'n! Thou mad'st me what I am, with all the spirit Aspiring thoughts and elegant desires, That fill the happiest man?"That such should be the lot of my friend, I can regret—thanks to my better stars, I can more than regret it. What is the value of this dross (holding a handful of gold) but to make the situation of merit level with its deservings? Yet, believe me, there are wants which riches cannot remove, desires which sometimes they cannot satisfy; even at this moment, your seeming-happy Sindall, in whose lap fortune has poured her blessings, has his cares, my Annesly, has his inquietudes, which need the hand of friendship to comfort and to sooth."
Annesly, with all the warmth of his nature, insisted on partaking his uneasiness, that if he could not alleviate, he might at least condole with his distress.
Sindall embraced him; "I know your friendship, said he, and I will put it to the proof. You have a sister, the lovely, the adorable Harriet; she has robb'd me of that peace which the smile of fortune cannot restore, as her frown had been unable to take away! did you know the burnings of this bosom! but I speak unthinkingly what perhaps my delicacy should not have whispered, even in the ear of friendship. Pardon me—the ardor of a love like mine may be forgiven some extravagance."
Annesly's eyes sufficiently testified his inward satisfaction at this discovery, but he recollected the dignity which his situation required, and replied calmly, "that he pretended no guidance of his sister's inclinations; that his own gratitude for sir Thomas's favours he had ever loudly declared; and that he knew his sister felt enough on his account, to make the introduction of her brother's friend a more than usually favourable one."
"But my situation, returned Sindall, is extremely particular; you have heard my opinions on the score of love often declared; and trust me, they are the genuine sentiments of my heart. The trammels of form, which the unfeeling custom of the world has thrown upon the freedom of mutual affection, are insupportable to that fineness of soul, to which restraint and happiness are terms of opposition. Let my mistress be my mistress still, with all the privileges of a wife, without a wife's indifference or a wife's disquiet. —My fortune the property of her and her friends, but that liberty alone reserved, which is the strongest bond of the affection she should wish to possess from me." —He look'd stedfastly in Annesly's face, which by this time began to assume every mark of resentment and indignation. He eyed him ascant with an affected smile: —"You smile, sir," said Annesly, whose breath was stifled by the swelling of his heart—Sindall laugh'd aloud: "I am a wretched hypocrite, said he, and could contain myself no longer." "So you were but in jest, it seems," replied the other, settling his features into a dry composure. "My dear Annesly, returned he, had you but seen the countenance this trial of mine gave you; it would have made a picture worthy of the gallery of Florence. I wanted to have a perfect idea of surprize, indignation, struggling friendship, and swelling honour, and I think I succeeded. —But I keep you from your rest —Good night—and he walked out of the room."
Annesly had felt too much to be able to resign himself speedily to rest; he could not but think this joke of his friend rather a serious one; yet he had seen him sometimes carry this species of wit to a very extraordinary length; but the indelicacy of the present instance was not to be easily accounted for—he doubted, believed, was angry, and pacified by turns; the remembrance of his favours arose; they arose at first in a form that added to the malignity of the offence; then the series in which they had been bestowed, seem'd to plead on the other side. At last, when worn by the fighting of contrary emotions, he look'd forward to the consequences of a rupture with Sindall; the pleasures of that society of which he was the leader, the habitual tie which it had got on Annesly's soul, prevail'd; for he had by this time lost that satisfaction which was wont to flow from himself. He shut his mind against the suggestions of any further suspicion, and, with that winking cowardice, which many mistake for resolution, was resolved to trust him for his friend, whom it would have hurt him to consider as an enemy.
Sindall, on the other hand, discovered that the youth was not so entirely at his disposal as he had imagined him; and that though he was proselyte enough to be wicked, he must be led a little farther to be useful.
Annesly gives farther proofs of depravity of manners. The effect it has on his father, and the consequences with regard to his connexion with Sindall.
To continue that train of dissipation, in which their pupil had been initiated, was the business of Sindall and his associates. Though they contrived, as we have before mentioned, to escape the immediate notice of Mr. Jephson, yet the eyes of others could not be so easily blinded; the behaviour of Annesly began to be talk'd of for its irregularity, and the more so, for the change which it had undergone from that simplicity of manners which he had brought with him to Oxford. And some one, whether from regard to him, or what other motive I know not, informed his kinsman of what every one but his kinsman suspected.
Upon this information he gave the young man a lecture in the usual terms of admonition; but an effort was always painful to him, even where the office was more agreeable than that of reproof. He had recourse therefore to the assistance of his fellow-philosopher Mr. Lumley, whom he informed of the accounts he had received of Annesly's imprudence, and entreated to take the proper measures, from his influence with the young gentleman, to make him sensible of the impropriety of his past conduct, and to prevent its continuance for the future.
Lumley expressed his surprize at this intelligence, with unparallel'd command of features; regretted the too prevailing dissipation of youth, affected to doubt the truth of the accusation, but promised at the same time, to make the proper enquiries into the fact, and take the most prudent method of preventing a consequence so dangerous, as that of drawing from the road of his duty, one whom he believed to be possessed of so many good qualities as Mr. Annesly.
Whether Mr. Lumley employed his talents towards his reformation or degeneracy, it is certain that Annesly's conduct betrayed many marks of the latter; at last, in an hour of intoxication, having engaged in a quarrel with one of his companions, it produced consequences so notorious, that the proctor could not fail to take notice of it; and that officer of the university having interposed his authority, in a manner which the humour of Annesly, inflammable as it then was, could not brook, he broke forth into some extravagances so personally offensive, that when the matter came to be canvassed, nothing short of expulsion was talk'd of as a punishment for the offence.
It was then that Mr. Jephson first informed his father of those irregularities which his son had been guilty of. His father indeed, from the discontinuance of that gentleman's correspondence much beyond the usual time, had begun to make some unfavorable conjectures; but he accounted for this neglect from many different causes; and when once his ingenuity had taken that side of the argument, it quickly found means to convince him that his kinsman's silence could not be imputed to any fault of his son.
It was at the close of one of their solitary meals that this account of Jephson's happened to reach Annesly and his daughter. Harriet never forgot her Billy's health, and she had now filled her father's glass to the accustomed pledge, when the servant brought them a letter with the Oxford mark on it. Read it, my love, said Annesly, with a smile, while he began to blame his suspicions at the silence of his kinsman. Harriet began reading accordingly, but she had scarce got through the first sentence, when the matter it contained rendered her voice inarticulate. Her father took the letter out of her hand, and after perusing it, he put it in his pocket, keeping up a look of composure amidst the anguish with which his heart was wrung. "Alas! said Harriet, what has my brother done?" he press'd her involuntarily to his bosom, and it was then that he could not restrain his tears— "Your brother, my love, has forgotten us; he has forgotten the purity which here is happiness, and I fear has ill exchang'd it for what the world calls pleasure; but this is the first of his wanderings, and we will endeavour to call him back into the path he has left. Reach me the pen, ink, and paper, my love." — "I will go, said she, sobbing, and pray for him the while." Annesly sat down to write—"My dearest boy!"—'twas a movement grown mechanical to his pen —he dasht through the words, and a tear fell on the place;—ye know not, ye who revel in the wantonness of dissipation, and scoff at the solicitude of parental affection! ye know not the agony of such a tear; else—ye are men, and it were beyond the depravity of nature.
It was not till after more than one blotted scrawl, that he was able to write, what the man might claim, and the parent should approve. The letter which he at last determined to send was of the following tenor:
"My son, "With anguish I write what I trust will be read with contrition. I am not skilled in the language of rebuke, and it was once my pride to have such a son that I needed not to acquire it. If he has not lost the feelings by which the silent sorrows of a father's heart are understood, I shall have no need of words to recal him from that conduct by which they are caused. In the midst of what he will now term pleasure, he may have forgotten the father and the friend; let this tear, with which my paper is blotted, awaken his remembrance; it is not the first I have shed; but it is the first which flowed from my affliction mingled with disgrace. Had I been only weeping for my son, I should have found some melancholy comfort to support me; while I blush for him, I have no consolation.
"But the future is yet left to him and to me; let the reparation be immediate, as the wrong was great; that the tongue which speaks of your shame maybe stopt with the information of your amendment."
He had just finished this letter when Harriet entered the room: "Will my dear papa forgive me, said she, if I inclose a few lines under this cover." — "Forgive you, my dear! it cannot offend me." She laid her hand on his letter, and look'd as if she would have said something more; he press'd her hand in his; a tear which had just budded in her eye, now dropp'd to the ground. "You have not been harsh to my Billy:" she blush'd as she spoke; and her father kiss'd her cheek as it blush'd. —She inclosed the following note to her brother:
"Did my dearest Billy but know the sorrow which he has given the most indulgent of fathers, he could not less than his Harriet regret the occasion of it.
"But things may be represented worse than they really are—I am busy at framing excuses; but I will say nothing more on a subject, which, by this time, my brother must have thought enough on.
"Alas! that you should leave this seat of innocent delight; but men were made for bustle and society: yet we might have been happy here together; there are in other hearts, wishes which they call ambition; mine shrinks at the thought, and would shelter for ever amidst the sweets of this humble spot. Would that its partner were here to taste them! the shrub-walk, you mark'd out through the little grove, I have been careful to trim in your absence—'tis wild, melancholy, and thoughtful. It is there that I think most of my Billy.
"But at this time, besides his absence, there is another cause to allay the pleasure which the beauties of nature should bestow. My dear papa is far from being well. He has no fix'd complaint; but he looks thin and pale, and his appetite is almost entirely gone; yet he will not let me say that he ails: oh! my brother! I dare not think more that way. Would you were here to comfort me! in the mean time remember your ever affectionate
"Harriet."
Annesly was just about to dispatch these letters when he received one expressed in the most sympathizing terms from sir Thomas Sindall. That young gentleman, after touching, in the tenderest manner, on the pain which a father must feel from the errors of his children, administered the only comfort that was left to administer, by representing, that young Annesly's fault had been exaggerated much beyond the truth, and that it was entirely owing to the effects of a warm temper, accidentally inflamed with liquor, and provoked by some degree of insolence in the officer to whom the outrage had been offer'd; he particularly regretted that his present disposition towards sobriety, had prevented himself from being present at that meeting, in which case, he said, he was pretty certain this unlucky affair had never happened; that, as it was, the only thing left for his friendship to do, was to amend what it had not lain within his power to prevent; and he begg'd, as a testimony of the old gentleman's regard, that he might honour him so far as to commit to him the care of setting matters to rights with regard to the character of his son, which he hoped to be soon able effectually to restore.
The earliest consolation which a man receives after any calamity is hallowed for ever in his regard, as a benighted traveller caresses the dog whose barking first announced him to be near the habitations of men. It was so with Annesly; his unsuspecting heart overflowed with gratitude towards this friend of his son, and he now grew lavish of his confidence towards him, in proportion as he recollected having once (in his present opinion unjustly) denied it.
He returned therefore an answer to sir Thomas, with all those genuine expressions of acknowledgment, which the honest emotions of his soul could dictate; he accepted, as the greatest obligation, that concern which he took in the welfare of his son, and chearfully reposed on his care the trust which his friendship desired; and as a proof of it, he inclosed to him the letter he had wrote to William, to be delivered at what time, and enforced in what manner, his prudence should suggest.
The plan which Sindall forms for obliterating the stain which the character of his friend had suffered.
Sir Thomas did accordingly deliver this letter of Annesly's to his son; and as the penitence which the young man there felt for his recent offence, made the assumption of a character of sobriety proper, he accompanied this paternal remonstrance with advices of his own, dictated alike by friendship and prudence.
They were at this time, indeed, but little necessary; in the interval between the paroxysms of pleasure and dissipation, the genuine feelings of his nature had time to arise; and, awakened as they now were by the letters of his father and sister, their voice was irresistible: he kiss'd the signature of their names a thousand times, and, weeping on Sindall's neck, imprecated the wrath of heaven on his own head, that could thus heap affliction on the age of the best of parents.
He express'd at the same time his intention of leaving Oxford, and returning home, as an immediate instance of his desire of reformation. Sir Thomas, though he gave all the praise to this purpose which its filial piety deserved, yet doubted the propriety of putting it in execution; he said that in the little circles of the country, Annesly's penitence would not so immediately blot out his offence, but that the weak and the illiberal would shun the contagion, as it were, of his company, and that he would meet every day with affronts and neglects, which the sincerity of his repentance ill deserved, and his consciousness of that sincerity might not easily brook. He told him, that a young gentleman, a friend of his, who was just going to set out on a tour abroad, had but a few days before written to him, desiring his recommendation of some body, with the manners and education of a gentleman, to accompany him on his travels, and that he believed he could easily procure that station for his friend; which would have the double advantage, of removing him from the obloquy to which the late accident had subjected him, and of improving him in every respect, by the opportunity it would give, of observing the laws, customs, and polity of our neighbours on the continent.
While the depression produced by Annesly's consciousness of his offences remained strong upon his mind, this proposal met with no very warm reception; but, in proportion as the comfort and encouragement of his friend prevailed, the ambition, which a man of his age naturally feels to see something of the world, began to speak in its behalf; he mentioned however the consent of his father as an indispensable preliminary. This sir Thomas allowed to be just, and showing him that confidential letter which the old gentleman had written him, undertook to mention this scheme for his approbation in the answer he intended making to it. In this too was enclosed his young friend's return to the letters of his father and sister, which were contained in the preceding chapter; full of that contrition which, at the time, he really felt, and of those good resolutions which, at the time, he sincerely formed. As to the matter of his going abroad, he only touch'd on it as a plan of sir Thomas Sindall's, whose friendship had dictated the proposal, and whose judgment of its expediency his own words were to contain.
His father received it, not without those pangs, which the thought of separation from a son, on whom the peace of his soul rested, must cause; but he examined it with that impartiality which his wisdom suggested in every thing that concerned his children: "My own satisfaction, he would often say, has for its object only the few years of a waning life; the situation of my children, my hopes would extend to the importance of a much longer period." He held the balance therefore in an even hand; the arguments of Sindall had much of the specious, as his inducement to use them had much of the friendly. The young gentleman, whom Billy was to accompany, had connexions of such weight in the state, that the fairest prospects seemed to open from their patronage; nor could the force of that argument be denied, which supposed conveniency in the change of place to Annesly at the present, and improvement for the future. There were not however wanting some considerations of reason to side with a parent's tears against the journey; but Sindall had answers for them all; and at last he wrung from him his slow leave, on condition that William should return home, for a single day, to bid the last farewel to his father and his Harriet.
Mean time the punishment of Annesly's late offence in the university was mitigated by the interest of Sindall, and the intercession of Mr. Jephson. Expulsion, which had before been insisted on, was changed into a sentence of less indignity, to wit, that of being publicly reprimanded by the head of the college to which he belonged; after submitting to which, he set out, accompanied by sir Thomas, to bid adieu to his father's house, preparatory to his going abroad.
His father at meeting touch'd on his late irregularities with that delicacy, of which a good mind cannot divest itself, even amidst the purposed severity of reproof: and, having thus far sacrificed to justice and parental authority, he opened his soul to all that warmth of affection which his Billy had always experienced; nor was the mind of his son yet so perverted by his former course of dissipation, as to be insensible to that sympathy of feelings which this indulgence should produce. The tear which he offered to it was the sacrifice of his heart; wrung by the recollection of the past, and swelling with the purpose of the future.
When the morning of his departure arrived, he stole softly into his father's chamber, meaning to take leave of him without being seen by his sister, whose tenderness of soul could not easily bear the pangs of a solemn farewel. He found his father on his knees. —The good man, rising with that serene dignity of aspect which those sacred duties ever conferred on him, turned to his son: "You go, my boy, said he, to a distant land, far from the guidance and protection of your earthly parent; I was recommending you to the care of him who is at all times present with you: though I am not superstitious, yet I confess, I feel something about me as if I should never see you more; if these are my last words, let them be treasur'd in your remembrance—Live as becomes a man, and a christian; live as becomes him who is to live for ever!"
As he spoke, his daughter entered the room. "Ah! my Billy, said she, could you have been so cruel as to go without seeing your Harriet? it would have broken my heart! oh! I have much to say and many farewels to take; yet now methinks I can say nothing, and scarce dare bid you farewel!" —"My children, interrupted her father, in this cabinet is a present I have always intended for each of you; and this, which is perhaps the last time we shall meet together, I think the fittest to bestow them. Here, my Harriet, is a miniature of that angel your mother; imitate her virtues, and be happy. —Here, my Billy, is its counterpart, a picture of your father; whatever he is, heaven knows his affection to you; let that endear the memorial, and recommend that conduct to his son which will make his father's grey hairs go down to the grave in peace!" Tears were the only answer that either could give. Annesly embraced his son and bless'd him. Harriet blubber'd on his neck! Twice he offered to go, and twice the agony of his sister pulled him back; at last she flung herself into the arms of her father, who beckoning to sir Thomas Sindall, just then arrived to carry off his companion, that young gentleman, who was himself not a little affected with the scene, took his friend by the hand, and led him to the carriage that waited them.
He reaches London, where he remains longer than was expected. The effects of his stay there.
In a few days Annesly and his friend the baronet arrived in the metropolis. His father had been informed, that the gentleman whom he was to accompany in his travels was to meet him in that city, where they proposed to remain only a week or two; for the purpose of seeing any thing curious in town, and of settling some points of accommodation on their rout through the countries they meant to visit: an intelligence he confessed very agreeable to him, because he knew the temptations to which a young man is exposed by a life of idleness in London.
But, in truth, the intention of sir Thomas Sindall never was, that his present pupil (if we may so call him) should travel any farther. The young gentleman, for whose companion he had pretended to engage Annesly, was indeed to set out very soon after on the tour of Europe; but he had already been provided with a travelling governor, who was to meet him upon his arrival at Calais (for the air of England agreed so ill with this gentleman's constitution, that he never cross'd the channel) and who had made the same journey, several times before, with some English young men of great fortunes, whom he had the honour of returning to their native country, with the same sovereign contempt for it that he himself entertained. The purpose of Sindall was merely to remove the son to a still greater distance from his father, and to a scene where his own plan, of entire conversion, should meet with every aid, which the society of the idle and the profligate could give it.
For some time, however, he found the disposition of Annesly averse to his designs. The figure of his father venerable in virtue, of his sister lovely in innocence, were imprinted on his mind; and the variety of public places of entertainment, to which sir Thomas conducted him, could not immediately efface the impression.
But as their novelty at first delighted, their frequency at last subdued him; his mind began to accustom itself to the hurry of thoughtless amusement, and to feel a painful vacancy, when the bustle of the scene was at any time changed for solitude. The unrestrained warmth and energy of his temper, yielded up his understanding to the company of fools, and his resolutions of reformation to the society of the dissolute, because it caught the fervor of the present moment, before reason could pause on the disposal of the next; and, by the industry of Sindall, he found, every day, a set of friends, among whom the most engaging were always the most licentious, and joined to every thing which the good detest, every thing which the unthinking admire. I have often indeed been tempted to imagine, that there is something unfortunate, if not blamable, in that harshness and austerity, which virtue too often assumes; and have seen, with regret, some excellent men, the authority of whose understanding, and the attraction of whose wit, might have kept many a deserter under the banners of goodness, lose all that power of service, by the unbending distance which they kept from the little pleasantries and sweetnesses of life. This conduct may be safe, but there is something ungenerous and cowardly in it; to keep their forces, like an over-cautious commander, in fastnesses, and fortified towns, while they suffer the enemy to waste and ravage the country. Praise is indeed due to him, who can any way preserve his integrity; but surely the heart that can retain it, even while it opens to all the warmth of social feeling, will be an offering more acceptable in the eye of heaven.
Annesly was distant from any counsel or example, that might counterbalance the contagious influence of the dissolute society, with which his time was now engross'd; but his seduction was not complete, till the better principles, which his soul still retained, were made accessary to its accomplishment.
Sindall procured a woman infamous enough for his purpose, the cast mistress of one of his former companions, whom he tutored to invent a plausible story of distress and misfortune, which he contrived, in a manner seemingly accidental, to have communicated to Annesly. His native compassion, and his native warmth, were interested in her sufferings, and her wrongs; and he applauded himself for the protection which he afforded her, while she was the abandoned instrument of his undoing. After having retained, for some time, the purity of her guardian and protector, in an hour of intoxication he ventured to approach her on a looser footing; and she had afterwards the address to make him believe, that the weakness of her gratitude had granted to him, what to any other her virtue would have refused; and during the criminal intercourse in which he lived with her, she continued to maintain a character of affection and tenderness, which might excuse the guilt of her own conduct, and account for the infatuation of his.
In this fatal connexion every remembrance of that weeping home which he had so lately left, with the resolutions of penitence and reformation, was erased from his mind; or, if at times it intruded, it came not that gentle guest, at whose approach his bosom used to be thrilled with reverence and love, but approached in the form of some ungracious monitor, whose business was to banish pleasure and awaken remorse; and, therefore, the next amusement, folly, or vice, was called in to his aid to banish and expel it. As it was sometimes necessary to write to his father, he fell upon an expedient, even to save himself the pain of thinking so long, as that purpose required, on a subject now grown so irksome to him, and employed that woman, in whose toils he was thus shamefully entangled, to read the letters he received, and dictate such answers as her cunning could suggest, to mislead the judgment of his unsuspecting parent.
All this while Sindall artfully kept so much aloof, as to preserve, even with the son, something of that character which he had acquired with the father; he was often absent from parties of remarkable irregularity, and sometimes ventured a gentle censure on his friend for having been led into them. But while he seemed to check their continuance under this cloak of prudence, he encouraged it in the report he made of the voice of others; for while the scale of character, for temperance, sobriety, and morals, sinks on one side, there is a balance of fame in the mouths of part of the world rising on the other—Annesly could bear to be told of his spirit, his generosity, and his honour.
He feels the distresses of poverty. He is put on a method of relieving them. An account of its success.
The manner of life which Annesly now pursued without restraint, was necessarily productive of such expence as he could very ill afford. But the craft of his female associate was not much at a loss for pretences, to make frequent demands on the generosity of his father. The same excuses which served to account for his stay in London, in some measure apologized for the largeness of the sums he drew for; if it was necessary for him to remain there, expence, if not unavoidable, was at least difficult to be avoided; and for the causes of his stay in that city he had only to repeat the accounts, which he daily received from Sindall, of various accidents which obliged his young friend to postpone his intended tour.
Though in the country there was little opportunity of knowing the town-irregularities of Annesly, yet there were not wanting surmises of it among some, of which it is likely his father might have heard enough to alarm him, had he not been at this time in such a state of health as prevented him from much society with his neighbours; a slow aguish disorder, which followed those symptoms his daughter's letter to her brother had described, having confined him to his chamber almost constantly from the time of his son's departure.
Annesly had still some blushes left, and when he had push'd his father's indulgence, in the article of supply, as far as shame would allow him, he look'd round for some other source whence present relief might be drawn, without daring to consider how the arrearages of the future should be cancelled. Sindall for some time answered his exigences without reluctance; but at last he informed him, as he said with regret, that he could not from particular circumstances afford him, at that immediate juncture, any greater assistance than a small sum, which he then put into Annesly's hands, and which the very next day was squandered by the prodigality of his mistress.
The next morning he rose without knowing how the wants of the day were to be provided for, and strolling out into one of his accustomed walks, gave himself up to all the pangs, which the retrospect of the past, and the idea of the present, suggested. But he felt not that contrition which results from ingenuous sorrow for our offences; his soul was ruled by that gloomy demon, who looks only to the anguish of their punishment, and accuses the hand of providence, for calamity which himself has occasioned.
In this situation he was met by one of his new-acquired friends, who was walking off the oppression of last night's riot. The melancholy of his countenance was so easily observable, that it could not escape the notice of his companion, who rallied him on the seriousness of his aspect, in the cant-phrase of those brutes of our species, who are professed enemies to the faculty of thinking. Though Annesly's pride for a while kept him silent, it was at last overcome by the other's importunity, and he confessed the desperation of his circumstances to be the cause of his present depression. His companion, whose purse, as himself informed Annesly, had been flushed by the success of the preceding night, animated by the liberality which attends sudden good fortune, freely offered him the use of twenty pieces till better times should enable him to repay them. "But, said he gaily, it is a shame for a fellow of your parts to want money, when fortune has provided so many rich fools for the harvest of the wise and the industrious. If you'll allow me to be your conductor this evening, I will show you where, by the traffic of your wits, in a very short time you may convert these twenty guineas into fifty." "At play," replied Annesly coolly. "Ay at play, returned the other, and fair play too: 'tis the only profession left for a man of spirit and honour to pursue: to cheat as a merchant, to quibble as a lawyer, or to cant as a churchman, is confined to fellows who have no fire in their composition. Give me but a bold set, and a fair throw for it, and then for the life of a lord, or the death of a gentleman." "I have had but little experience in the profession, said Annesly, and should but throw away your money." "Never fear, replied the other; do but mark me, and I will ensure you; I will show you our men; pigeons, mere pigeons, by Jupiter."
It was not for a man in Annesly's situation to balk the promise of such a golden opportunity; they dined together, and afterwards repaired to a gaming house, where Annesly's companion introduced him, as a friend of his, just arrived from the country, to several young gentlemen who seemed to be waiting his arrival. — "I promised you your revenge, said he, my dears, and you shall have it; some of my friend's Lady-day rents too have accompanied him to London; if you win, you shall wear them. To business, to business."
In the course of their play, Annesly, though but moderately skilled in the game, discovered that the company, to whom he had been introduced, were in reality such bubbles as his companion had represented them; after being heated by some small success in the beginning, they began to bet extravagantly against every calculation of chances; and in an hour or two, his associate and he had stripped them of a very considerable sum, of which his own share, though much the smaller, was upwards of threescore guineas. When they left the house, he offered his conductor the sum he had lent him, with a profusion of thanks both for the use and the improvement of it. "No, my boy, said he, not now; your note is sufficient: I will rather call for it, when I am at a pinch; you see now the road to wealth and independance; you will meet me here to-morrow." He promised to meet him accordingly.
They had been but a few minutes in the room this second night, when a gentleman entered, whom the company saluted with the appellation of squire: the greater part of them seem'd to be charmed with his presence; but the countenance of Annesly's companion fell at his approach; "damn him, said he, in a whisper to Annesly, he's a knowing one."
In some degree indeed he deserved the title: for he had attained, from pretty long experience, assisted by natural quickness of parts, a considerable knowlege in the science; and in strokes of genius, at games where genius was required, was excelled by few. But after all, he was far from being successful in the profession; nature intended him for something better; and as he spoiled a wit, an orator, and perhaps a poet, by turning gambler; so he often spoiled a gambler by the ambition, which was not yet entirely quenched, of shining occasionally in all those characters, And as a companion, he was too pleasing, and too well pleas'd, to keep that cool indifference, which is the characteristic of him, who should be always possess'd of himself, and consider every other man only as the spunge from whom he is to squeeze advantage.
To the present party, however, he was unquestionably superior; and of course in a short time began to levy large contributions, not only on the more inexperienced, whom Annesly and his conductor had mark'd for their own booty, but likewise on these two gentlemen themselves, whose winnings of the former evening, were now fast diminishing before the superior skill of this new antagonist.
But, in the midst of his success, he was interrupted by the arrival of another gentleman, who seem'd also to be a well-known character in this temple of fortune, being saluted by the familiar name of Black-beard. This man possessed an unmoved equality both of temper and aspect; and though in reality he was of no very superior abilities, yet had acquired the reputation both of depth and acuteness, from being always accustomed to think on his own interest, and pursuing with the most sedulous attention every object which led to it, unseduced by one single spark of those feelings which the world terms Weakness.
In the article of gaming, which he had early pitch'd on as the means of advancement, he had availed himself of that industry, and saturnine complexion, to acquire the most consummate knowlege of its principles, which indeed he had attained to a very remarkable degree of perfection.
Opposed to this man, even the skill of the hitherto-successful squire was unavailing; and consequently he not only stripp'd that gentleman of the gains he had made, but gleaned whatever he had left in the purses of the inferior members of the party, amongst whom Annesly and his associates were reduced to their last guinea.
This they agreed to spend together at a tavern in the neighbourhood, where they cursed fortune, their spoiler, and themselves, in all the bitterness of rage and disappointment. Annesly did not seek to account for their losses otherwise than in the real way, to wit, from the superior skill of their adversary; but his companion, who often boasted of his own, threw out some insinuations of foul play and connivance.
"If I thought that,"—said Annesly, laying his hand on his sword, while his cheeks burnt with indignation. —"Poh! replied the other, 'tis in vain to be angry; here's damnation to him in a bumper."
The other did not fail his pledge; and by a liberal application to the bottle, they so far overcame their losses, that Annesly reel'd home, singing a catch, forgetful of the past, and regardless of to-morrow.
Another attempt to retrieve his circumstances, the consequences of which are still more fatal.
Though the arrival of to-morrow might be overlook'd, it could not be prevented. It rose on Annesly one of the most wretched of mankind. Poverty, embittered by disgrace, was now approaching him, who knew of no friend to ward off the blow, and had no consolation in himself by which it might be lightened: if any thing could add to his present distress; it was encreased by the absence of Sindall, who was then in the country, and the upbraidings of his female companion, who now exclaimed against the folly which herself had caused, and the extravagance herself had participated.
About mid-day, his last night's fellow-sufferer paid him a visit; their mutual shagreen at meeting, from the recollection of misfortune which it produced, was evident in their countenances; but it was not a little encreased, when the other told Annesly he came to put him in mind of the sum he had advanced him two days before, for which he had now very particular occasion. Annesly answered, that he had frankly told him the state of his finances at the time of the loan, and accepted it on no condition of speedy payment; that he had, that same evening, offered to repay him when it was in his power, and that he could not but think the demand ungentlemanlike, at a time when he must know his utter inability to comply with it.
"Ungentlemanlike! said the other; I don't understand what you mean sir, by such a phrase; will you pay me my money or not?" —"I cannot." —"Then, sir, you must expect me to employ some gentleman for the recovery of it, who will speak to you, perhaps, in a more ungentlemanlike stile than I do." And, so saying, he flung out of the room.
"Infamous wretch!" exclaimed Annesly, and walk'd about with a hurried step, gnawing his lip, and muttering curses on him, and on himself. —There was another gentleman wanted to see him below stairs. —'Twas a mercer who came to demand payment of some fineries his lady, as he termed her, had purchased; he was, with difficulty, dismissed. —In a quarter of an hour there was another call —'Twas a dun of a taylor for cloaths to himself—he would take no excuse— "Come, said Annesly, with a look of desperation, to-morrow morning, and I will pay you."—
But how?—he stared wildly on the ground, then knocked his head against the wall, and acted all the extravagances of a madman. At last, with a more settled horror in his eye, he put on his sword, and without knowing whither he should go, sallied into the street.
He happened to meet in his way some of those boon companions, with whom his nights of jollity had been spent; but their terms of salutation were so cold and forbidding, as obviously to show that the account of his circumstances had already reached them; and, with them, he who had every thing to ask, and nothing to bestow, could possess no quality attractive of regard. After santering from street to street, and from square to square, he found himself towards the close of the day within a few paces of that very gaming-house where he had been so unfortunate the evening before. A sort of malicious curiosity, and some hope of he knew not what, tempted him to reenter it. He found much the same company he had seen the preceding night, with the exception, however, of his former associate, and one or two of the younger members of their party whom the same cause prevented from attending.
Strolling into another room, he found an inferior set of gamesters, whose stakes were lower, though their vociferation was infinitely more loud. In the far corner sat a man, who preserved a composure of countenance, undisturbed by the clamour and confusion that surrounded him. After a little observation, Annesly discovered that he was a money-lender, who advanced certain sums at a very exorbitant premium to the persons engaged in the play. Some of those he saw, who could offer no other security satisfying to this usurer, procure a few guineas from him, on pawning a watch, a ring, or some other appendage of former finery. Of such he had before divested himself for urgent demands, and had nothing superfluous about him but his sword, which he had kept the latest, and which he now deposited in the hands of the old gentleman in the corner, who furnished him with a couple of pieces upon it, that with them he might once more try his fortune at the table.
The success exceeded his expectation; it was so rapid that in less than an hour he had encreased his two guineas to forty, with which he determined to retire contented; but when he would have redeemed his sword, he was informed that the keeper of it had just gone into the other room, where, as he entered to demand it, he unfortunately overheard the same gentleman who had gained his money the former night, offering a bet, to the amount of the sum Annesly then possessed, on a cast where he imagined the chance to be much against it. Stimulated with the desire of doubling his gain, and the sudden provocation, as it were, of the offer, he accepted it; and, in one moment, lost all the fruits of his former good-fortune. —The transport of his passion could not express itself in words; but taking up one of the dice, with the seeming coolness of exquisite anguish, he fairly bit it in two, and casting a look of frenzy on his sword, which he was now unable to ransom, he rush'd out of the house, uncovered as he was, his hat hanging on a peg in the other apartment.
The agitation of his mind was such as denied all attention to common things; and, instead of taking the direct road to his lodgings, he wandered off the street into an obscure alley, where he had not advanced far, till he was accosted by a fellow, who, in a very peremptory tone, desired him to deliver his money, or he would instantly blow out his brains, presenting a pistol at less than half a yard's distance. —"I can give you nothing, said Annesly, because I have nothing to give." —"Damn you, return'd the other, do you think I'll be fobb'd off so; your money, and be damn'd to you, or I'll send you to hell in a twinkling"—advancing his pistol, at the same time, within a hand's-breadth of his face. Annesly, at that instant, struck up the muzzle with his arm, and laying hold of the barrel, by a sudden wrench, forced the weapon out of the hands of the villain, who, not chusing to risk any farther combat, made the best of his way down the alley, and left Annesly master of his arms. He stood for a moment entranc'd in thought. — "Whoever thou art, said he, I thank thee; by heaven, thou instructest and armest me; this may provide for to-morrow, or make its provision unnecessary." He now hied him back with hurried pace to the mouth of the alley, where in the shade of a jutting wall he could mark unperceived the objects on the street. He had stood there but a few seconds, and began already to waver in his purpose, when he saw come out of the gaming-house, which he had left, the very man who had plundered him of his all. The richness of the prize, with immediate revenge, awakened together in his mind; and the suspicion of foul play, which his companion had hinted the night before, gave them a sanction of something like justice: he waited till the chair, in which the gamester was conveyed, came opposite to the place where he stood; then covering his face with one hand, and assuming a tone different from his natural, he pulled out his pistol, and commanded the leading chairman to stop. This effected, he went up to the chair, and the gentleman within having let down one of the glasses to know the reason of its stop, the stopper clapp'd the pistol to his breast, and threatened him with instant death, if he did not deliver his money. The other, after some little hesitation, during which Annesly repeated his threats, with the most horrible oaths, drew a purse of gold from his pocket, which Annesly snatcht out of his hand, and running down the alley, made his escape at the other end; and, after turning through several streets, in different directions, so as to elude pursuit, arrived safely at home with the booty he had taken.
Meantime the gamester returned to the house he had just quitted, with the account of his disaster. The whole fraternity, who could make no allowance for a robber of this sort, were alarmed at the accident; every one was busied in enquiry, and a thousand questions were asked about his appearance, his behaviour, and the rout he had taken. The chairmen, who had been somewhat more possessed of themselves, at the time of the robbery, than their master, had remarked the circumstance of the robber's wanting his hat: this was no sooner mentioned, than a buz ran through the company, that the young gentleman, who had gone off a little while before, had been observed to be uncovered when he left the house; and, upon search made, his hat was actually found with his name mark'd on the inside. This was a ground of suspicion too strong to be overlooked: messengers were dispatched in quest of the friend who had introduced him there the preceding night; upon his being found, and acquainting them of Annesly's lo