P3 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 091 302 053 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924091302053 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2001 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2001 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME ■'' FROM TIJE ",* '■■ , -'-'-- SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF ^ . X891 ■JiL-Hl.^-.5.^ ■ ■■13|.:S.|Ag.- fe FRONTISPIECE. Paul Clifford, vol. i. p. 273, Cf)e HorU EBtton iStiition. PAUL CLIFFORD BT SIR EDWARD BULWER LTTTON, BART. OOMPIiETE EST ONE VOLUME P H I L A D B L P H I A : J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 18 88. f \ ''Many of yonr lordships mnst recollect wbat nsed to take place on the hi^h-roads fn the Doighborhood of this metropolis some years ago. Scarcely a carrihge could paas without being robbed; and freqnently the passeiigcvB were obliged to fight with, and give battle to, the high- waj'inon who infested the roa-ls." — Duke of Wellington'' s Speech on Vie Metropolis Police Bill, June bth. Mirror of r^arliament, 1S29, p, 2050. " Can any man doubt whether it is better to be a great statesman or a common thief?" — JonaUian Wild, (It) ALBANY FONBLAi^QUE, WHOSE ACUTENESS OF WIT IS ACKNOWLEDGED BT THOSE WHO OPPOSE HIS OPINIONS, WHOSE INTEGRITY OF PURPOSE IS YET MORE EESPKCTED BI IHOSE WHO APPRECIATE HIS FRIENDSHIP, ®fttSI 'W0X% IS INSCRIBED. 1* ») PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840. Tins Novel so far differs from the other fictions by the same author, that it seeks to draw its interest rather from practical than ideal sources. Out of some twelve Novels or Romances, embracing, however inadequately, a great variety of scene and character, — from "Pelham" to the "Pilgrims of the Pthine,"— from "Rienzi" to the "Last Days of Pompeii," — "Paul Clifford" is the only one iu which a robber has been made the hero, or the peculiar phases of life which he illustrates have been brought into any prominent description. Without pausing to inquire what realm of manners, or what order of crime and sorrow are open to art, and capable of administering to the proper ends of fiction, I may be permitted to observe, that the present subject was selected, and the Novel written, with a twofold object: First, to draw attention to two errors in our penal in- stitutions, viz., a vicious Prison-discipline and a sanguinary Criminal Code, — the habit of corrupting the boy by the very punishment that ought to redeem him, and then hanging the man, at the first occasion, as the easiest way of getting rid of our own blunders. Between the example (ix) X PEEFACE TO THE EDITION OP 1840. I of crime which the tyro learns from the felons in the pris- y on-yard, and the horrible levity with which the mob gather round the drop at Newgate, there is a connection which a writer may be pardoned for quitting loftier regions of imagination to trace and to detect. So far this book is less a picture of the king's highway than the law's royal road to the gallows, — a satire on the short-cut established '^' between the House of Correction and the Condemned Cell. A second and a lighter object in the Novel of " Paul Clifford" (and hence the introduction of a semi-burlesque or travesty in the earlier chapters), was to show that there is nothing essentially different between vulgar vice and V fashionable vice, — and that the slang of the one circle is but an easy paraphrase pfthe cant of the other. The Supplementary Essays, entitled " Tomlinsoniana," which contain the corollaries to various problems sug- gested in the Novel, have been restored to the present edition. CuFioN, Julj) 25, 1840. PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. Most men, who, with some earnestness of mind, examine into the mysteries of our social state — will, perhaps, pass through that stage of self-education, in which this Novel was composed. The contrast between conventional frauds, received as component parts of the great system of civil- ization, and the less deceptive invasions of the laws which discriminate the meum from the tuum, is tempting to a sat- ire that is not without its justice. The tragic truths which lie hid, in what I may call the Philosophy of Circumstcnce . — strike through our philanthropy upon our imagination. We see masses of our fellow- creatures — the victims of cir- cumstances over which they had no control — contaminated in infancy by the example of parents — their intelligence either extinguished, or turned against them, accordin;j as the conscience is stifled in ignorance, or perverted to apologies for vice. A child who is cradled in ignominy; whose schoolmaster is the felon ; whose academy is the House of Correction; who breathes an atmosphere in (xi) S.U PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. which virtue is poisoned, to which religion does not pierce, — becomes less a responsible and reasoning human being than a wild beast which we suffer to range in the wilder- ness — till it prowls near our homes, and we kill it in self- defense. In this respect, the Novel of "Paul Clifford" is a loud cry to society to amend the circumstance — to redeem the victim. It is an appeal from Humanity to Law. And, in this, if it could not pretend to influence, or guide the temper of the times, it was at least a foresign of a coming change. Between the literature of imagination and the practical interests of a people there is a harmony as com- plete as it is mysterious. The heart of an author is the mirror of his age. The shadow of the sun is cast on the still surface of literature long before the light penetrates to law. But it is ever from the sun that the shadow falls, and the moment we see the shadow, we may be certain of the light. Since this work was written, society is bu^y with the evils in which is was then silently acquiescent. The true movement of the last fifteen years has been the progress ol one idea — Social Reform. There, it advances with steady and noiseless march behind every louder question of con- stitutional change. Let us do justice to our time. There have been periods of more brilliant action on the destinies PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. xiii of States — but there is no time visible in History in which there was so earnest and general a desire to improve the condition of the great body of the people. In every circle of the community that healthful desire is astir ; it unites in one object men of parties the most opposed — it affords the most attractive nucleus for public meetings — it has cleansed the statute-book from blood ; it is ridding the world of the hangman. It animates the clergy of all sects in the remotest districts; it sets the squire on improving cottages and parceling out allotments. Schools rise in every village; — in 'books the lightest, the Grand Idea colors the page, and bequeathes the moral. The Govern- ment alone (despite the professions on which the present Ministry was founded) remains unpenetrated by the com- mon genius of the age. But on that question, with all the subtleties it involves, and the experiments it demands (not indeed according to the dreams of an insane philoso- phy, but according to the immutable laws which propor- tion the rewards of labor to the respect for property) a Government must be formed at last. - There is in this work a subtler question suggested, but not solved. That question which perplexes us in the gen- erous ardor of our early youth — which, unsatisfactory as all metaphysics, we rather escape from than decide as we advance in years — viz., make what laws we please, the man VOL. I. — 2 i» ZIV PEEFACE TO THE EDITION OP 1848. who lives within the pale can be as bad as the man with* out. Compare the Paul Clifford of the fiction with the William Brandon ; the hunted son and the honored father^ the outcast of the law, the dispenser of the law — the felon, and the judge ; and, as at the last, they front each other, one on the seat of justice, the other at the convict's bar, who can lay his hand on his heart and say that the Paul Clifford is a worse man than the William Brandon ? There is no immorality in a truth that enforces this question ; for it is precisely those offenses which society cannot interfere with, that society requires fiction to ex- pose. Society is right, though youth is reluctant to ac- knowledge it. Society can form only certain regulations necessary for its self-defense — the fewer the better-:-punish those who invade, leave unquestioned those who respect them. But fiction follows truth into all the strongholds of convention ; strikes through the disguise, lifts the mask, bares the heart, and leaves a moral wherever it brands a falsehood. Out of this range of ideas, the mind of the Author has, perhaps, emerged. into an atmosphere which he believes to be more congenial to Art. But he can no more regret that he has passed through it, than he can regret that while he dwelt there, his heart, like his years, was young. Sympathy with the suffering that seems most actual— PREFACE TO THE EDITION OP 1848. XT indignation at the frauds which seem most received aa virtues — are the natural emotions of youth, if earnest. More sensible afterward of the prerogatives, as of the elements, of Art, the author at least seeks to escape where the man may not, and look on the practical world through the serener one of the ideal. With the completion of this work closed an era in the writer's self-education. From "Pelham" to "Paul Clif- ford " (four fictions, all written at a very early age), the author rather observes than imagines ; rather deals with the ordinary surface of human life, than attempts, however humbly, to soar above it or to dive beneath. Prom de- jsicting in "Paul Clififord" the errors of society, it was almost the natural progress of reflection to pass to those which swell to crime in the solitary human heart, — from the bold and open evils that spring from ignorance and example, to track those that lie coiled in the entangle- ments of refining knowledge and speculative pride. Look- ing back at this distance of Jears, I can see, as clearly as if mapped before me, the paths which led across the boundary of invention from "Paul Clifford" to "Eugene Aram." And, that last work done, no less clearly can I see where the first gleams from a fairer fancy broke upon my way, and rested on those more ideal images, which I sought, with a feeble hand, to transfer to the " Pilgrims XVI PREFACE TO THE EDITION OP 184=8. of the Khine," and the "Last Days of Pompeii." We authors, like the Children in the Fable, track our journey through the maze by the pebbles which we strew along the path. From others who wander after ns, they may attract no notice, or, if noticed, seem to them but scat- tered by the caprice of chance. But we, when our memory would retrace our steps, review, in the humble stones, the witnesses of our progress — the landmarks of our way. Emibwobie, 184S. PAUL CLIFFORD. CHAPTER I. **Say, ye opproBt by Bome fantastic woee, Some janing ncrvo that bafflcB your repose. Who press the downy couch while slaves adranoft With timid eye to read the distaut glance; W!io with sad prayers the weary doctor teaso To name the nameless ever-new disease; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure. Which real pain and that alone can cure: How would you bear in r^al pain to lie Despised, neglected, left alone to die? How would ye bear to draw your latest breath Where all that's wretched paves the way to death I" Ceabbe. ^ It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents —except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house- tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Through one of the , obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts lifctlo loved by the gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice at different shops and houses of a description correspondent with the appearance iif.^thft quartierm which they were situated — and tended iLquiry 2* B (17) 18 PAUL CLIFFORD. foi some article or another which did not seem easily to be met with. All the answers he received were couched in the negative ; and as he turned from each door he mut- tered to himself, in no very elegant phraseology, his dis- appointment and discontent. At length, at one house, the landlord, a sturdy butcher, after rendering the same reply the inquirer had hitherto received, added, — " But if this vill do as veil, Dummie, it is quite at your sarvice 1" Paus- ing reflectively for a moment, Dummie responded, that he thought the thing proffered might do as well ; and thrust- ing it into his ample pocket he strode away with as rapid a motion as the wind and the rain would allow. He soon came to a nest of low and dingy buildings, at the en- trance to which, in half-effaced characters, was written "Thames Court." Halting at the most conspicuous of these buildings, an inn or alehouse, through the half-closed windows of which blazed out in ruddy comfort the beams of the hospitable hearth, he knocked hastily at the door. He was admitted by a lady of a certain age, and endowed with a comely rotundity of face and person. " Hast got it, Dummie ?" said she quickly, as she closed the door on the guest. "Noa, noa! not exactly — but I thinks as ow " "Pish, you fool!" cried the woman, interrupting him peevishly. " Vy, it is no use desaving me. You knows you has only stepped from my boosing ken to another, and you has not been arter the book at all. So there's the poor cretur a-raving and a-dying, and you " " Let I speak I" interrupted Dummie in his turn. " I tells PAUL CLIFFORD. 19 yon, I vent first to Mother Bussblone's, who, I knows, chops the whiners morning and evening to the young ladies, and I axes there for a Bible, and she says, says she, 'I 'as only a "Companion to the Salter 1" but you'll get a Bible, I thinks, at Master Talkins, — the cobbler, as preaches.' So I goes to Master Talkins, and he says, says he, ' I 'as no call for the Bible — 'cause vy ? — I 'as a call vithout ; but mayhap you'll be a-getting it at the butcher's hover the vay, — cause vy ? — the butcher'll be damned I' So I goes hover the vay, and the butcher says, say he, ' I 'as not a Bible ; but I 'as a book of plays bound for all the vorld just like 'un, and mayhap the poor cretur mayn't see the difference.' So I takes the plays, Mrs. Margery, and here they be surely! — And how's poor Judy?" "Fearsome ! she'll not be over the night, I'm a-thinkiug." " Veil, I'll track up the dancers I" So saying, Dummie ascended a doorless staircase, across the entrance of which a blanket, stretched angularly from the wall to the chimney, afforded a kind of screen ; and presently he stood within a chamber which the_dark_aiid painful genius of Crabbe might have delighted to portray. The walls were white-washed, and at sundry places strange figures and grotesque characters had been traced by some mirthful inmate, in such sable outline as the end of a smoked stick or the edge of a piece of charcoal is wont to produce. The wan and flickering light afforded by a farthing candle gave a sort of grimness and menace to these achievements of pictorial art, especially as they more than once received embellishment from portraits of Satan, 20 " PAUL CLIFFORD. 6nch as he is accustomed to be drawn. A low fire burned gloomily in the sooty grate; and on the hob hissed "the Btill small voice " of an iron kettle. On a round deal table were two vials, a cracked cup, a broken spoon of some dull metal, and upon two or three mutilated chairs were scat- tered various articles of female attire. On another table, placed below a high, narrow, shutterless casement (athwart which, instead of a curtain, a checked apron had been loosely hung, and now waved fitfully to and fro in the gusts of wind that made easy ingress through many a chink and cranny), were a looking-glass, sundry appliances of the toilet, a box of coarse rouge, a few ornaments of more show than value ; and a watch, the regular and calm click of which produced that indescribably painful feeling which, we fear, many of our readers who have heard the sound in a sick-chamber can easily recall. A large tester- bed stood opposite to this table, and the looking-glass partially reflected curtains of a faded stripe, and ever and anon (as the position of the sufferer followed the restless emotion of a disordered mind), glimpses of the face of one on whom Death was rapidly hastening. Beside this bed now stood Dumraie, a small, thin man, dressed in a tattered plush jerkin, from which the rain-drops slowly dripped, and with a thin, yellow, cunning physiognomy, grotesquely hideous in feature but not positively villainous in expres- sion. On the other side of the bed stood a little boy of about three years old, dressed as if belonging to the better classes, although the garb was somewhat tattered and dis- colored. The poor child trembled violently, and evidently PATJL OLIFFOED. 21 looked with a feeling of relief on the entrance ofDnmmie. And now there slowly, and with many a phthisical sigh, heaved toward the foot of the bed the heavy frame of the woman who had accosted Dummie below, and had fol- lowed him, havKJ pqf^nhv.f ^q>n^, t" the room of the suf- ferer; she stood with a bottle of medicine in her hand, shaking its contents up and down, and with a kindly yet timid compassion spread over a countenance crimsoned with habitual libations. This made the scene ; save that on a chair by the bedside lay a profusion of long glossy golden ringlets, which had been cut from the head of the sufferer when the fever had begun to mount upward ; but which, with a jealousy that portrayed the darling littleness of a vain heart, she had seized and insisted on retaining near her ; and save that, by the fire, perfectly inattentive to the event about to take place within the chamber, and to which we of the biped race attach so awful an import- ance, lay a large gray cat, curled in a ball, and dozing with half-shut eyes, and ears that now and then denoted, by a gentle inflection, the jar of a louder or nearer sound than usual upon her lethargic senses. The dying woman^v did not at first attend to the entrance either of Dummie or the female at the foot of the bed ; but she turned herself round toward the child, and grasping his arm fiercely, she drew him toward her, and gazed on his terrified features with a look in which exhaustion and an exceeding wan- ness of complexion were even horribly contrasted by the glare and energy of delirium. " If you are like Am," she muttered, " I will strangle 22 PAUL CLIPfOKD. you, — I will 1 — ay — tremble 1 you ought to tremble whec your mother touches you, or when he is mentioned. Yon have his eyes, — you havel Out with them, out I — the devil sits laughing in them 1 Oh 1 you weep, do yon, little one 1 Well now, be still, my love, — be hushed 1 I would not harm thee I harm — God, he is my child after all 1" — And at these words she clasped the boy passionately to her breast and burst into tears 1 " Coom now, coom 1" said Dummie, soothingly. " Take the stu£f, Judith, and then ve'll talk over the huVchin 1" The mother relaxed her grasp of the boy, and turning toward the speaker, gazed at him for some moments with a bewildered stare : at length she appeared slowly to re- member him, and said, as she raised herself on one hand and pointed the other toward him with an inquiring gesture : " Thou hast brought the book ?" Dummie answered by lifting up the book he had brought from the honest butcher's. " Clear the room, then 1" said the sufferer, with that air of mock command so common to the insane. " We would be alone 1" Dummie winked at the good woman at the foot of the bed ; and she (though generally no easy person to order or to persuade) left, without reluctance, the sick-chamber. "If she be a-going to pray I" murmured our landlady (for that office did the good matron hold), "I may indeed as well take myself off, for it's not werry comfortable like to those who be old to hear all that 'ere I " PAUL CLIFFORD. 23 With this pious reflection, the hostess of t he Mng ^ so was the hostelry called, heavily descended the creaking stairs. "Now, man!" said the sufferer, sternly: "swear that you will never reveal, — swear, I say 1 and by the great God, whose angels are about this night, if ever you break Ihe oath, I will come back and haunt you to your dying day I" Dummie's face grew pale, for he was superstitiously af- fected by the vehemence and the language of the dying woman, and he answered as he kissed the pretended Bible, — that he swore to keep the secret, as much as he knew of it, which, she must be sensible, he said, was very little. As he spoke, the wind swept with a loud and sudden gust down the chimney, and shook the roof above them so violently as to loosen many of the crumbling tiles, which fell one after the other, with a crashing noise, on the pave- ment below. Dummie started in affright; and perhaps his conscience smote him for the trick he had played with regard to the false Bible. But the woman, whose ex- cited and unstrung nerves led her astray from one sub- ject to another with preternatural celerity, said, with an hysterical laugh, " See, Dummie, they come in state for me; give me the cap — yonder 1 and bring the looking- glass I" Dummie obeyed, and the woman, as she in a low tone uttered something about the unbecoming color of the rib- bons, adjusted the cap on her head ; and then saying in a regretful and petulant voice, " Why should they have cut ^4 PAUL CLlfFORD. off my hair ? — such a disfigurement 1" bade Dummie desira Mrs. Margery once more to ascend to her. Left alone with her child, the face of the wretched mother softened as she regarded him, and all the levities and all the vehemences — if we may use the word — which, in the turbulent commotion of her delirium, had been stirred upward to the surface of her mind, gradually now sunk as death increased upon her, — and a mother's anxiety rose to the natural level from which it had been disturbed and abased. She took the child to her bosom, and clasp- ing him in her arms, which grew weaker with every instant, she soothed him with the sort of chant which nurses sing over their untoward infants ; but the voice was cracked and hollow, and as she felt it was so, the mother's eyes filled with tears. — Mrs. Margery now re-entered ; and, turning toward the hostess with an impressive calmness of manner which astonished and awed the person she s'-''.dressed, the dying woman pointed to the child, and said : " You have been kind to me, very kind, pnd may God bless you for it I I have found that those whcTi the world calls the worst are often the most human. But I am not going to thank you as I ought to do, but to ask of you a last and exceeding favor. Protect my child till he grows up : you have often said you loved him, — you are childless yourself,. — and a morsel of bread and a shelter for the night, which is all I ask of you to give him, will not im- poverish more legitimate claimants I" Poor Mrs. Margery, fairly sobbing, vowed she would be ' a mother to the child, and that she would endeavor to rear PAUL CLIFFOUD. 25 him fionestly, though a public-house was not, she confessed, the best plu^e for good examples 1 "Take him 1" cried the mother hoarsely, as her voice, failing her strength, rattled indistinctly, and almost died within hen " Take him, — rear him as you will, as you can I — any example, any roof better than ." Here the words were inaudible. "And oh ! may it be a curae, and a Give me the medicine, I am dying.'' The hostess, alarmed, hastened to comply, but before she returned to the bedside the sufferer was insensible, — nor did she again recover speech or motion. A low and rare moan only testified continued life, and within two hours that ceased, and the spirit was gone. At that time our good hostess was herself beyond the things of this outer world, having supported her spirits during the vigils of the night with so many little liquid stimulants, that they finally sunk into that torpor which generally succeeds excitement. Taking, perhaps, advantage of the oppor- fanity which the insensibility of the hostess afforded him, Dumraie, by the expiring ray of the candle that burnt in the death-chamber, hastily opened a huge box (which was generally concealed under the bed and contained the ward- robe of the deceased), and turned with irreverent hand over the linens and the silks, until quite at the bottom of the trunk he_discoxere.d. some packets of.letters^rTTi^these he se|zed-and buried. in .the con veniences of his dress. He then, rising and replacing the box, cast a longing eye to- ward the watch on the toilet table, which was of gold ; but he withdrew his gaze, and with a querulous sigh, observed to 26 PAUL CLIFFORD. himseir, "The old blowen kens o' that, od rat her 1 but, howsomever, I'll take this ; who knows but it may be of sarviee — tanniea.±0zshijJiia^J)3-.smash to-morrow !"* and he laid his coarse hand on the golden and silky tresses we have described. " 'Tis a rum business, and puzzles I ! but mum's the word, for my own little colquarren."f With this brief soliloquy, Dummie descended the stairs and let himself out of the house. CHAPTER II. ** Imagination fondly Btoops to trace Tlie parlor epleudorfl of that festiye place." Degerted YiCiagt, TnEiiE is little to interest in a narrative of early child- hood, unless indeed one were writing on education. We shall not, therjefore, linger over the infancx of the mother- less boy left to the protection of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, or, as she was sometimes familiarly called, Peggy or Piggy Ix)b. The good dame, drawing a more than sufficient income from the profits of a house which, if situated in an obscure locality, enjoyed very general and lucrative repute ; and being a lone widow without kith or kin, had no temptation to break her word to the deceased, and she * Meaning, what is of no value now may be precious hereafter. \ Colquarren — neok. PATJI/ CLIFFORD. 27 suffered the orphan to wax in strength and understanding until the ag e of t WBlifir ^ period at which we are now about to reintroduce him to our readers. The boy evinced great hardihood of temper, and no inconsiderable quiclcness of intellect. In whatever he at- tempted his success was rapid, and a remarkable strength ■ of limb and muscle seconded well the dictates of an ambi- tion turned, it must be confessed, rather to physical than mental exertion. It is not to be supposed, however, that his boyish life passed in unbroken tranquillity. Although TVIrs. Lobkins was a good woman on the whole, and greatly , attached to her protege, she was violent and rude in tem- per, or, as she herself more flatteringly expressed it, " her feelings were unkiramonly strong," and alternate quarrel and reconciliation, constituted thechief occupations of the jaroiegrj^sjiomesticjifk. As, previous to his becoming the ward of Mrs. Lobkins, hejiad^_never-received any other ajpejlatiojLJhaa-Jit'l^-^Jhild/' so, the duty of christening him devolved upon our hostess of the Mug ; and, afte r some de]ibejraJj.an,.-sbeJ)lessed_-himjvitL the .name of Paul, . — it was. a name of. happy omen, for it had belonged to..., Mrs. Lobkins' grandfather, who had been threq.limes- transported, and twice hanged (at the. first occurrence of the latter description, he had been restored by the sur- geons, much to the chagrin of a young anatomist, who was to have had the honor of cutting him up). The boy did not seem likely to merit the distinguished appellation he bore, for he testified no rejnarkable ..predisposition to the property of other._peoplfi. Nay, although he sometimes 28 PAUL OLIFFOED. emptied the pockets of any stray visitor to the cofifee-room of Mrs. Lobkius, it appeared an act originating rather io a love of the frolic than a desire of the profit ; for aftet the plundered person had been sufficiently tormented by the loss, haply of such utilities as a tobacco-bos, or a handkerchief; after he had, to the secret delight of Paul, searched every corner of the apartment, stamped, and fretted, and exposed himself by his petulance to the bitter objurgation of Mrs. Lobkins, our young friend v^ould quietly and suddenly contrive that the article missed should return of its own accord to the pocket from which it had disappeared. And thus, as our readers have doubt- less experienced, when they have disturbed the peace of a whole household for the loss of some portable treasure which they themselves are afterward discovered to have mislaid, the unfortunate victim of Paul's honest ingenuity, exposed to the collected indignation of the spectators, and sinking from the accuser into the convicted, secretly cursed the unhappy lot which not only vexed him with the loss of his property, but made it still more annoying to recover it. Whether it was that, on discovering these pranks, Mrs. Lobkins trembled for the future bias of the address they displayed, or whether she thought that the folly of thieving without gain required speedy and permanent correction, we cannot decide ; but the good lady became at last ex- tremely anxious to secure for Paul the blessings of a liberal education. The key of knowledge (the art of reading) she had, indeed, two years prior to the present PAUL CLIFFORD. 29 date, obtained for him, but this far from satisfied her con- science : nay, she felt that, if she could not also obtain for him the discretion to use it, it would have been wise even to have withheld a key which the boy seemed perversely to apply to all locks but the right one. In a word, she was desirous that he should receive an education far supe- rior to those whom he saw around him. And attributing, like most ignorant persons, too great advantages to learn- ing, she conceived that, in order to live as decorously as the parson of the parish, it was only necessary to know as j much Latin. One evening in particular, as the dame sat by her cheer- ful fire, this source of anxiety was unusually active in her mind, and ever and anon she directed unquiet and restless glances toward Paul, who sat on a form at the opposite corner of the hearth, diligently employed in reading the life and adventures of the celebrated Richard Turpin. The form on which the boy sat was worn to a glassy smoothness, save only in certain places, where some in- genious idler or another had amused himself by carving sundry names, epithets, and epigrammatic niceties of lan- guage. It is said that the organ of carving upon wood is prominently developed on all English skulls ; and the sagacious Mr. Combe has placed this organ at the back of the head, in juxtaposition to that of destructiveness, which is equally large among our countrymen, as is notably evinced upon all railings, seats, temples, and other tLings ■ — belonging to other people. Opposite to the fire-place was a large deal table, at 3* 30 PATJL CLIFFORD. which Dummie, snrnamed Dunnaker, seated near the dame, was quietly ruminating over a glass of hollands and water. Farther on, at another table in the corner of the room, a gentleman with a red wig, very rusty garments, and linen which seemed as if it had been boiled in saffron, smoked his pipe, apart, silent, and apparently plunged in medita- tion. This gentleman was no other than Mr. Peter Mac Grawler, the editor of a magnificent periodical, entitled " The Asinaeum," which was written to prove that what- ever is popular is necessarily bad, — a valuable and re- condite truth, which " The Asinaeum'' had satisfactorily demonstrated by ruining three printers and demolishing a publisher. We need not add that Mr. Mac Grawler was Scotch by birth, since we believe it is pretty well known that all periodicals of this country have, from time im- memorial, been monopolized by the gentlemen of the land of Cake*:' we know not how it may be the fashion to eat the said cakes in Scotland, but here the good emigrators seem to like them carefully buttered on both sides. By the side of the editor stood a large pewter tankard, above him hung an engraving of the " wonderfully fat boar, formerly in the possession of Mr. Fattem, grazier." To his left rose the dingy form of a thin, upright clock in an oaken case ; beyond the clock, a spit and a musket were fastened in parallels to the wall. Below those twin em- blems of war and cookery were four shelves, containing plates of pewter and delf, and terminating, centaur-like in a sort of dresser. At the other side of these domestic conveniences was a picture of Mrs. Lobkins, in a scarlet PAUL CLIi'i'ORD. 31 body, and a hat and plume. At the back of the fair hostesa Btretch'ed the blanket we have before mentioned. As a relief to the monotonous surface of this simple screen, various ballads and learned legends were pinned to the blanket. There might you read in verses, pathetic and unadorned, how " Sally loved a sailor lad As fought with famous Shovel!" There might you learn, if of two facts so instructive you were before unconscious, that " Ben the toper loved his bottle- Charley only loved the lasses !" When of these, and various other poetical effusions, you were somewhat wearied, the literary fragments, in humbler prose, afforded you equal edification and delight. There rai^ht you fully enlighten yourself as to the " Strange and Wonderful News from Kensington, being a most full and true Relation how a Maid there is supposed to have been carried away by an Evil Spirit, on Wednesday, 15th of April last, about Midnight." There, too, no less interest- ing and no less veracious, was that uncommon anecdote, Touching the chief of many-throned powers, entitled " The Divell of Mascon ; or the true Relation of the Chief Tilings which an Unclean Spirit did and said at Mascon, in Bur- gundy, in the house of one Mr. Francis Pereaud : now made English by One that hath a Particular Knowledge of the Truth of the Story." 32 PAUL CLIFFORD. Nor were these materials for Satanic history the only prosaic and faithful chronicles which the bibliothecal blanket afforded : equally wonderful, and equally indis- putable, was the account of " a young lady, the daughter of a duke, with three legs, and the face of a porcupine." Nor less so, "The Awful Judgment of God upon Swear- ers, as exemplified in the case of John Stiles, who Dropped down Dead after swearing a Great Oath, and on stripping the unhappy man they found ' Swear not at all' written on the tail of his shirt I" Twice had Mrs. Lobkins heaved a long sigh, as her eyes turned from Paul to the tranquil countenance of Dummie Dunnaker, and now, resettling herself in her chair, as a motherly anxiety gathered over her visage ; " Paul, my ben cull," said she, " what gibberish hast got there ?" " Turpin, iJie great highwayman 1" answered the young student, without lifting his eyes from the page, through which he was spelling his instructive way. " Oh 1 he he's a chip of the right block, dame !" said Mr. Dunnaker, as he applied his pipe to an illumined piece of paper. " He'll ride a oss foaled by a hacorn yet, I varrants I" To this prophecy the dame replied only with a look of indignation, and rocking herself to ^nd fro in her huge chair, she remained for some moments in silent thought. At last she again wistfully eyed the hopeful boy, and calling him to her side, communicated some order, in a dejected whisper. Paul, on receiving it, disappeared be- PAUL CLIFFOBD. 33 hind the blanket, and presently returned with a bottle and a wineglass. With an abstracted gesture, and an air that betokened continued meditation, the good dame took the inspiring cordial from the hand of her youthful cup- bearer, " And ere a man had power to say ' Behold I' The jaws of Lobkins had devoured it up: So quick bright things come to confusion !" The nect arean^gxgraSS. seemed to operate cheerily on the matron's system ; and placing her hand on the boy's curl- ing head, she said (like Andromache, dakr uon g elasasa, or, as Scott hath it, "]S\[ith a smile _in her_.cheek,_hut a. tear in her_eje 'i} : " Paul, thy heart be good 1 — thy heart be good I — Thou didst not spill a drop of the iapet Tell me, my honey, why didst thou lick Tom Tobyson ?" " Because," answered Paul, " he said as how you ought to have been hanged long ago !" " Tom Tobyson is a good-for-naught," returned the dame, " and de serve sJg_^hQveJheJur!ibler.;* but, oh my child I be not too venturesome in taking up the sticks for a blowen. It has been the ruin of many a man afore you, and when two men goes to quarrel for a 'oman, they doesn't know the natur of the thing they quarrels about; mind thy latter end, Paul, and reverence the old, with- out axing what they has been before they passed into the * Be_whi^£eda^the cart's tail.. 34 PAUL CLIFFORD. wale of years ; — thon may'st get me my pipe, Pan], — it is up stairs, under the pillow." While Paul was accomplishing this errand, the lady of the Mug, fixing her eyes upon Mr. Dunnaker, said, "Dummie, Dummie, if little Paul should come to be scragged 1" " Whish 1" muttered Dummie, glancing over his shoul- der at Mac Grawler, — " mayhap that gemraan," — here his voice became scarcely audible even to Mrs. Lobkins ; but his whisper seemed to imply an insinuation that the illus- trious editor of " The Asinseum " might be either an in- former, or one of those heroes on whom an informer subsists. Mrs. Lobkins' answer, couched in the same key, appeared to satisfy Dunnaker, for, with a look of great contempt, he chucked up his head, and said, " Oho 1 that be all, be itl" ^ Paul here reappeared with the pipe, and the dame, having filled the tube, leaned forward, and lighted the Virginian weed from the blower of Mr. Dunnaker. As in this interesting occupation the heads of the hostess and the guest approached each other, the glowing light playing cheerily on the countenance of each, there was an honest simplicity in the picture that would have merited the racy and vigorous genius of a Cruikshank. As soon as theJProinethean_spark had been fully communicated to the lady's tube, Mrs. Lobkins, still possessed by the gloomy idea she had conjured up, repeated : "Ah, Dummie, if little Paul should be scragged !" Dum- PAUL CLIPFOED. 35 mie, withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, heaved a sym- pathizing paff, but remained silent; and Mrs. Lobliins, turning to Paul, who stood with mouth open and ears erect at this boding ejaculation, said : "Dost think, Paul, they'd have the heart to hang thee ?" " I think they'd have the rope, dame !" returned the youth. " But yon need not go for to run your neck into the noose!" said the matron; and then, inspired by the spirit of moralizing, she turned round to the youth, and gazing upon his attentive countenance, accosted him with the fol- lowing admonitions : "Mind thy kittycbism, child, and reverence old age. Never steal, 'specially when jiny.one.be in the way. Never go snacks with them as be older than you, — 'cause why ? the older a cove be, the more he cares for his self, and the less for his partner. At twenty, we diddles the public; at forty, we diddles our cronies 1 Be modest, Paul, and stick to your sitivation in life. Go not with fine tobymen, who burn out like a candle wot has a thief in it,- — all flare and gone in a whiffy ! Leave liquor to the aged, who can't do without it. Tape often proves a halter, and there he's no ruin like blue ruin ! Read your Bible, and talk like a pious 'un. People goes more by your words than your actions. If you wants what is not your own, try and do without it; and if you cannot do without it, take it away by insiuivation, not bluster. They as swindles, does more and risks less than they as robs ; and if you cheats top- 36 PAUL CLIFFOKD. pingly, you may laugh at the topping cheat* And now go play."y^ Paul seized his hat, but lingered ; and the dame, guess- ing at the signification of the pause, drew forth and placed in the boy's hand the sum of five halfpence and one far- thing. " There, boy," quoth she, and she stroked his head fondly, when she spoke ; "you does right not to play for nothing, it's loss of time 1 but play with those as be less than yonrsel', and then you can go for to beat 'em if they says you go for to cheat I" Paul vanished ; and the dame, laying her hand on Dum- mie's shoulder, said : " There be nothing like a friend in need, Dummie ; and somehow or other, I thinks as how you knows more of the horrigin of that 'ere lad than any of ns 1" "Me, dame I" exclaimed Dummie, with a broad gaze of astonishment. "Ah, you I you knows as how the mother saw more of you just afore she died, than she did of 'ere one of ns. Noar, now — noar, now I tell ns all about 'nn. Did she steal 'un, think ye ?" " Lauk, mother Margery I dost think I knows ? Vot put such a crotchet in your 'ead ?" " Well 1" said the dame with a disappointed sigh, " I always thought as how you were more knowing about it than you owns. Dear, dear, I shall never forgit the night when Judith brought the poor cretur here, — you knows » Gallows. PAUL CLIFFOKD. 31 she bad been some months in my house afore ever I see'd the urchin, and when she brought it, she looked so pale and ghostly, that I had not the heart to say a v/ord, so I stared at the brat, and it stretched out its wee little hands to me. And the mother frowned at it, and throwed it into my lap 1" "Ah 1 she was a hawful voman, that 'ere !" said Dum- mie, shaking his head. " But howsomever, the hurchiu fell into good hands ; for I be's sure you 'as been a better mother to 'un than the raal 'un 1" "I was always a fool about childer," rejoined Mrs. Lob- kins ; " and I thinks as how little Paul was sent to be a comfort to my latter end ! — fill the glass, Dummie." " I 'as heard as ow Judith was once blowen to a great lord 1" said Dummie. " Like enough 1" returned Mrs. Lobkins — "like enough 1 She was always a favorite of mine, for she had a spuret (spirit) as big as my own ; and she paid her rint like a decent body, for all she was out of her sinses, or natiou like it." "Ay, I knows as how you liked her, — 'cause vy ? — 'tia not your vay, to let a room to a voman 1 You says as how 'tis not respectable, and you only likes men to wisit the Mug !" "And I doesn't like all of them as comes here 1" an- swered the dame : " 'specially for Paul's sake ; but what can a lone 'oman do ? Many's the gentleman highwayman wot comes here, whose money is as good as the clerk's of 38 PAUL CLIFFORD. / the parish. And when a bob*^is in my hand, what doea it sinnify whose hand it was in afore ?" " That's what I call being sinsible and practical,'" said Dummie, approvingly. "And arter all, though you 'as a mixture liiie, I does not know a halehouse where a cove i better entertained, nor meets of a Sunday more illegant company, than the Mug!" Here the conversation, which the reader must know had been sustained in a key inaudible to a third person, re- ceived a check from Mr. Peter Mac Grawler, who, having finished his reverie and his tankard, now rose to depart. First, however, approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he had gone on credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill. Glancing toward certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the wall at the other side of the fire-place, the dame answered that Mr. Mac Grawler was indebted to her for the sum of one shilling and ninepence three farthings. After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pockets, the critic hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and having caught it between his finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lobkins, and requested change. As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed with what has been called by some ingenious Johnson of St. Giles's "the oil of palms," her countenance softened into a com- placent smile ; and when she gave the required change to Mr. Mac Grawler, she graciously hoped as how he would recommend the Mug to the public. y* ShilUng. PAUL CLIFFORD. 39 " That yon may be sure of," said the editor of " The Asinaeum," " There is not a place where I am so much at home." With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his coat and went his way. " How spiteful the world be 1" said Mrs. Lobkins after a pause, " 'specially if a 'oman keeps a fashionable sort of a public 1 When Judith died, Joe, the dog's-meat man, said I war all the better for it, and that she left I a treasure to bring up the urchin. One would think a thumper makes a man richer, — 'cause why? — every man thumps! I got nothing more than a watch and ten guineas when Judy died, and sure that scarce paid for the burrel (burial)." "Yon forgits the two gui'ds*^! giv' you for the hold V box of rags, — much of a treasure I found there 1" said Dummie, with sycophantic archness. "Ay," cried the dame, laughing, " I fancies you war not pleased with the bargain. I thought you war too old a rag-merchant to be so free with the blnnt : howsomever, I supposes it war the tinsel petticoat as took you in !" "As it has mony a viser man than the like of I," re- joined Dummie, who to his various secret professions added the ostensible one of a rag-merchant and dealer in broken glass. The recollection of her good bargain in the box of rags opened our landlady's heart. "Drink, Dummie," said she good-humoredly, — "drink, I scorns to score lush to a friend." V* Guineas. 40 PAUL CLIFFORD. Dummie expressed his gratitude, refilled his glass, and the hospitable matron knocking out from her pipe the dying ashes, thus proceeded : "You sees, Dummie, though 1 often beats the boy, I loves him as much as if I war his raal mother — I wants to make him an honor to his country and an ixciption to my family I" ' Who all flashed their ivories at Surgeon's Hall!" added the metaphorical Dummie. " True !" said the lady, — " they died game, and I ben't ashamed of 'em. But I owes a duty to Paul's mother, and I wants Paul to have a long life. I would send him to school, but you knows as how the boys only corrupt one another. And so, I should like to meet with some decent man as a tutor, to teach the lad Latin and vartue !" " My eyes 1" cried Dummie, aghast at the grandeur of this desire. " The boy is 'cute enough, and he loves reading," con- tinned the dame. " But I does not think the books he gets hold of will teach him the way to grow old." "And ow came he to read anyhows?" "Ranting Rob, the strolling player, taaght him his letters, and said he'd a deal of janius 1" "And why should not Banting Rob tache the boy Latin and vartue ?" I " 'Cause Banting Rob, poor fellow, was lagged for \doing apanny!"* answered the dame, despondently. * Transported for burglary. PAUL CLIFFORD. 41 There was a long silence : it was broken by Mr. Dum- mie: slapping his thigh with the gesticulatorj^ vehenj.ence of ao^Ugo JFoscolo, that gentleman exclaimed : "I 'as it — I 'as thought of a tutor for leetle Paul 1" " Who's that ? — you quite frightens me ; you 'as no marcy on my narves," said the dame, fretfully. " Vy it be the gemman vot writes," said Dummie, put- ting his finger to his nose, — " the gemman Tot payed you BO flashly 1" " What I the Scotch gemman ?" " The werry same 1" returned Dummie. The dame turned in her chair and refilled her pipe. It was evident from her manner that Mr. Dunnaker's sugges- tion had made an impression on her. But she recognized two doubts as to its feasibility : one, whether the gentle- man proposed would be adequate to the task; the other, whether he would be willing to undertake it. In the midst of her meditations on this matter, the dame was interrupted by the entrance of certain claimants on her hospitality ; and Dummie soon after taking his leave, the suspense of Mrs. Lobkins' mind touching the educa- tion of little Paul remained the whole of that day and night utterly unrelieved. 4« 42 PAUL CLIFFORD. CHAPTER III. " I own that I am envious of the pleasure you will hare in finding your- self more learned than other boys — even those who are older than yourselfl What houor this will do you! What distinctions, wh Let not tliy mind, gentle reader, censure ns for a devia- tion from probability, in making so excellent and learned a gentleman as Mr. Peter Mac Grawler the familiar ,guest of the lady of the Mug. First, thou must know that our story is cast in a period antecedent to the present, and one ia which the old jokes against the circumstances of author and of critic had their foundation in truth ; secondly, thou must know that, by some curious concat- enation of circumstances, neither bailiff nor bailiff's man was ever seen within the four walls continent of Mrs. Margery Lobkins ; thirdly, the Mug was nearer than any other house of public resort to the abode of the critic ; fourthly, it afforded excellent porter ; and fifthly — reader, thou dost Mrs. Margery Lobkins a grievous wrong, if thou 4i PAUL CLIFFORD. supposest that her door was only open to those mercurial gentry who are afflicted with the morbid curiosity to pry into the mysteries of their neighbors' pocisets: — other visitors of fair repute were not unoften partakers of the good matron's hospitality ; although it must be owned that they generally occupied the private room in prefer- ence to the public one. And sixthly, sweet reader (we grieve to be so prolix), we would just hint to thee that Mr. Mac Grawler was one of those vast-minded sages who, occupied in contemplating morals in the great scale, do not fritter down their intellects by a base attention to minute details. So that, if a descendant of Langfanger did sometimes cross the venerable Scot in his visit to the Mug, the apparition did not revolt that benevolent moral- ist so much as, were it not for the above hint, thy ignorance might lead thee to imagine. It is said, that Athenodorus the Stoic contributed greatly by his conversation to amend the faults of Augus- tus, and to effect the change visible in that fortunate man, after his accession to the Roman empire. If this be true, it may throw a new light on the character of Augustus, and, instead of being the hypocrite, he was possibly the convert. Certain it is, that there are few vices which cannot be conquered by wisdom : and yet, melancholy to relate, the instructions of Peter Mac Grawler produced but slender amelioration in the habits of the youthful Paul. That ingenious stripling had, we have already seen, under the tuition of Ranting Rob, mastered the art of reading • nay, he could even construct and link together certain PAUL CLIFFORD. 45 curious pot-hooks, which himself and Mrs. Lobkins were wont graciously to terra " writing." So far, then, the way of Mac Grawler was smoothed and prepared. But, unhappily, all experienced teachers allow- that the main difficulty is not to learn, but to unlearn ; and the mind of Paul was already occupied by a vast number of heterogeneous miscellanies, which stoutly resisted the in- gress either of Latin or of virtue. Nothing could wean him from an ominous affection for the history of Richard Turpin : it was to him what, it has been said, the Greek authors should be to the Academician, — a study by day, and a dream by night. He was docile enough during les- sons, and sometimes even too quick in conception for the stately march of Mr. Mac Crawler's intellect. But it not nnfrequently happened, that when that gentleman at- tempted to rise, he found himself, like the lady in Comns, adhering to "A venomed seat Smeared with gums of glutinous heat;'' or thS; legs had been secretly united under the table, and the tie was not to be broken without overthrow to the superior powers; these, and various other little sportive machinations wherewith Paul was wont to relieve the monotony of literature, went far to disgust the learned critic with his undertaking. But "the tape" and the treasury of Mrs. Lobkins resraoothed, as it were, the irri- tated bristles of his mind, and he continued his labors with this philosophical reflection: "Why fret myself? — if a pupil turn out well, it is clearly to the credit of hia 46 PAUL CLIFFORD. master; if not, to the disadvantage of himself." Of course, a similar suggestion never forced itself into the miud of Dr. Keate.* At Eton, the very soul of the honest head-magter is consumed by his zeal for the welfare ol little gentlemen in stiff cravats. But to Paul, who was predestined to enjoy a certain quantum of knowledge, circumstances happened, in the commencement of the second year of his pupilage, which prodigiously accelerated the progress of his scholastic career. y" At the apartment of Mac Grawler Taul one morning encountered Mr. Augustus Toralinson, a young man of great promise, who pursued the peaceful occupation of chronicling, in a leading newspaper, " Horrid Murders," " " Enormous Melons," and " Remarkable Circumstances." This gentleman, having the advantage of some years' seniority over Paul, was slow in unbending his dignity ; but observing at last the eager and respectful attention ' with which the stripling listened to a most veracious de- tail of five men being inhumanly murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by the Reverend Zedekiah Fooks Barnacle, he was touched by the impression he had created, and shak- ing Paul graciously by the hand, he told him there was a deal of natural shrewdness in his countenance ; and that Mr. Augustus Tomlinson did not doubt but that he (Paul) might have the honor to be murdered himself one of these I days.— ^' You understand me 1" continued Mr. Augustas, * A celebrated Principal of Eton PAUL CLirroRD. 47 — " I mean murdered in effigy, — assassinated in type, — while you yourself, unconscious of the circumstance, are quietly enjoying what you imagine to be your existence. We never kill common persons : to say truth, onr chief spite is against the Church; — we destroy bishops by wholesale. Sometimes, indeed, we knock off a leading barrister or so ; and express the anguish of the junior counsel at a loss so destructive to their interests. But that is only a stray hit; and the slain barrister often lives to become attorney-general, renounce Whig principles, and prosecute the very press that destroyed him. Bishops are oar proper food : we send them to heaven on a sort of fly- ing griffin, of which the back is an apoplexy and the wings are puffs. The Bishop of , whom we dispatched in this manner the other day, being rather a facetious per- sonage, wrote to remonstrate with us thereon ; observing, that though heaven was a very good translation for a bishop, yet that, in such cases, he preferred ' the original to the translation.' As we murder bishops, so is there another class of persons whom we only afflict with lethif- erous diseases. This latter tribe consists of his iVTajesty and his Majesty's ministers. Whenever we cannot abuse their measures, we always fall foul on their health. Does the king pass any popular law, — we immediately insinuate that his constitution is on its last legs. Does the minister act like a man of sense, — we instantly observe, with great regret, that his complexion is remarkably pale. There is one manifest advantage in diseasing people, instead of absolutely destroying them. The public may flatly con- 48 PAUL CLIFFORD. tradict us in one case, but it never can in the other: — it is easy to prove that a man is alive : but utterly impossi- ble to prove that he is in health./' What if some opposing newspaper take up the cudgels in his behalf, and assert that the victim of all Pandora's complaints, whom we send tottering to the grave, passes one-half the day in knock- ing up a 'distinguished company' at a shooting-party, and the other half in outdoing the same 'distinguished com- pany ' after dinner ? What if the afflicted individual him- self write us word that he never was better in his life? — we have only mysteriously to shake our heads and observe, that to contradict is not to prove, — that it is little likely that our authority should have been mistaken, and — (we are very fond of an historical comparison) — beg our readers to remember that when Cardinal Richelieu was dying, nothing enraged him so much as hinting that he was jlj. In short, if Horace is right, we are the very princes of poets ; for I dare say, Mr. Mac Grawler, that yon, — and you, too, my little gentleman, perfectly remem- ber the words of the wise old Roman, — ' Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur Ire poeta, meura qui pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implct.' "* Having uttered this quotation with considerable self- complacency, and thereby entirely completed his conquest ♦ "He appears to me to be, to the fullest extent, a poet, who airily torments my breast, irritates, soothes, and fills it with un- real terrors." PAUL ClilFFOHD. 49 over Paul, Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, turning to Max; Grawler, concluded his business with that gentleman, which was of a literary nature, namely a joint composi- tion against a man who, being under five and twenty, and too poor to give dinners, had had the impudence to write a sacred poem. The critics were exceedingly bitter at this ; and having very little to say against the poem, the Court journals called the author a " coxcomb," and the liberal ones " the son of a pantaloon 1" There was an ease, — a spirit, — a life about Mr. Augus- tus Tomlinsou, which captivated the senses of our young hero : then, too, he was exceedingly smartly attired : wore red heels and a bag ; had what seemed to Paul quite the air of a " man of fashion ;" and, above all, he spouted the Latin with a remarkable grace 1 Some days afterward, Mac Grawler sent our hero to Mr. Tomlinsou's lodgings, with his share of the joint abuse upon the poet. Doubly was Paul's reverence for Mr. Augustus Tom- linson increased by a sight of his abode. He found him settled in a polite part of the town, in a very spruce par- lor, the contents of which manifested the universal geuius of the inhabitant. It hath been objected unto us by a most discerning critic, that we are addicted to the draw- ing of "universal geniuses." We plead Not Guilty in former instances ; we allow the soft impeachment in the instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. Over his fire-place were arranged boxing gloves and fencing foils. On his table lay a cremona and a flageolet. On one side of the VOL. I. — 5 D 50 PAUL CLIFFORD. wall were shelves containing the Covent Gfarden Maga zine, Burn's Justice, a pocket Horace, a Prayer-book, JExcerpta ex Tacito, a volume of Plays, Philosophy made Easy, and a Key to all Knowledge. Furthermore, there were on another table a riding-whip, and a driving-whip, and a pair of spurs, and three guineas, with a little monnt- Pain of loose silver. Mr. Augustus was a tall, fair young man, with a freckled complexion ; green eyes and red eye- lids ; a smiling mouth, rather under-jawed ; a sharp nose ; and a prodigiously large pair of ears. He was robed in a green damask dressing-gown ; and he received the tender Paul most graciously. •^ There was something very engaging about our hero. He was not only good-looking, and frank in aspect, but he had that appearance of briskness and intellect which belongs to an embryo rogue. Mr. Augustus Tomlinson professed the greatest regard for him, — asked him if he could box — made him put on a pair of gloves — and, very condescendingly, knocked him down three times succes- sively. jS'Cxt he played him, both upon his flageolet and his cremona, some of the most modish airs. Moreover, he sang him a little song of his own composing. He then, taking up the driving-whip, flanked a fly from the opposite wall, and throwing himself (naturally fatigued with his numerous exertions) on his sofa, he observed in a careless tone, that he and his friend Lord Dunshunner were universally esteemed the best whips in the metrop- olis. "I," quoth Mr. Augustus, "am the best on thf road ; but my lord is a devil at turning a corner." PAUL CLIFFORD. 51 Paul, who had hitherto lived too unsophisticated a life to be aware of the importance of which a lord would naturally be in the eyes of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, was not so much struck with the grandeur of the connection as the murderer of the journals had expected. He merejy observed, by way of compliment, that Mr. Augustus and his companion seemed to be "rolling kiddies." A little displeased with, this metaphorical remark — for it may be observed that "rolling kiddy" is, among the learned in such lore, the customary expression for "a smart thief" — the universal Augustus took that liberty to which, by his age and station, so much superior to those of Paul, he imagined himself entitled, and gently reproved our hero for his indiscriminate use of flash phrases. "A lad of your parts," said he, — "for I see yon are clever by your eye, — ought to be ashamed of using such vulgar expressions. Have a nobler spirit — a loftier emula- tion, Paul, than that which distinguishes the little rag- amuffins of the street. Know that, in this country, genius and learning carry everything before them ; and if you behave yourself properly, you may, one day or another, be as high in the world as myself." At this speech Paul looked wistfully round the spruce parlor, and thought what a fine thing it would be to be lord of such a domain, together with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, boxing gloves, books, fly-flanking flagellum, three guineas, with the little mountain of silver, and the reputation — shared only with Lord Duushunner— t of being the best whip in London. 52 PAUL OLIFFOKJ> " Yes 1" continued Tomlinson, with conscious pride, "I owe my rise to myself. Learning is better than house and land. ' Doclrina sed vim,' etc. You linow what old Horace says ? Why, sir, you would not believe it ; but 1 was the man who killed his majesty the King of Sardinia in our yesterday's paper. Nothing is too arduous for genius. Pag hard, my boy, and you may rival — for the thing, though difficult, may not be impossible — Augustus Tomlinson I" At the conclusion of this harangue, a knock at the door being heard, Paul took his departure, and met in the hall a fine-looking person dressed in the height of the fashion, and wearing a pair of prodigiously large buckles in his shoes. Paul looked, and his heart swelled. " I may rival," thought he — those were his very words — "I may rival — for the thing, though difficult, is not impossible — Augustus Tomlinson I" Absorbed in meditation, he went silently home. The next day the memoirs of the great Turpin were committed to the flames, and it was notice- able that henceforth Paul observed a choicer propriety of words, — that he assumed a more refined air of dignity, and that he paid considerably more attention than hereto- \ — ■ fore to the lessons of Mr. Peter Mac Grawler. Although itjnust be allowed that our young hero's progress in_the learned .languages was not astonishing, yet an early jjas- siou for reading growing stronger and. stronger byjappli- catiQo, repaid him atlast .with,.a_tQlerable- knowledg^_of |_the....nip,thjerr-tonguec-> We^_must,Juiweyer,_add thai_liis more favorite and cherished studies were scarcely of^that PAUL CLIFFORD. 63 ^ature_which a jjrudent preceptor would- have greatly commended. . They lay chiefly among n.o,Yels, playSj. and poetry, which last he affec.ted to that d.egree.that_Jie be^, came, somewhat of a pofit JiimseJf, Nevertheless, these literary avocations, profitless as they seemed, gave a cer> tain refinement to his tastes, which they were not likely otherwise to have acquired at the Mug; and while they aroused his ambition to see something of the gay life they depicted, they imparted to his temper a tone of enterprise and of thoughtless generosity, which perhaps contributed greatly to counteract those evil influences toward petty vice to which the examples around him must have exposed his tender youth. But, alas I a great disappointment to Paul's hope of assistance and companionship in his literary labors befell him. i\Ir. Augustus Tomlinson, one bright morning, disappeared, leaving word with his numerous friends that he was going to accept a lucrative situation in the North of England. Notwithstanding the shock this occasioned to the affectionate heart and aspiring temper of our friend Paul, it abated not his ardor in that field of science which it seemed that the distinguished absentee had so successfully cultivated. By little and lit- tle he possessed himself (in addition to the literary stores we have alluded to) of all it was in the power of the wise and profound Peter Mac Grawler to impart unto him ; and at the age of sixteen he began (0 the presumption ol youth I) to fancy himself more learned than his master. 6* 54 jfAUXi CLIFFORD. CHAPTER IV. "Ho bad now become a young man of extreme fasbion, and aj? mucli rfr pandu in society as the utmost and most exigent coveter of London celebrity could desire. He was, of course, a member of the clubs, etc. etc. etc. Ke was, in short, of that oft-deacribed set before whom all minor beaux sink into insignificance, or among whom tliey eventually obtain a subalteJn grade, by a sacrifice of a due portion of their fortune." — Alrdodis Jievisited. By the soul of the great Malebranche, who mode "A Si arch after Truth," and discovered everything beautiful ex lept that which he searched for ; — by the soul of the gn-at Malebranche, whom Bishop, Berkeley, found suffering under an inflammation In the lungs, and very obligingly talked to death, — an instance of conversational powers wMthy the envious emulation of all great metaphysicians acd arguers ; — by the soul of that illustrious man, it is amazing to us what a number of truths there are broken up into little fragments, and scattered here and there through the world. What a magnificent museum a man might make of the precious minerals, if he would but go out with his basket under his arm, and his eyes about him 1 We, ourselves, picked up, this very day, a certain small piece of truth, with which we propose to explain to thee, fair reader, a sinister turii in the fortunes of Paul. "Wherever," says a living sage, "you see dignity, you may be sure there is expense requisite to support it."* * " Popular Fallacies." Paul olifford. J>5 So was it with Pain. A young gentleman who was heir- presumptive to the Mug, and who eujoyed a handsome person with a oaltivated mind, was necessarily of a certain station of society, and an object of respect in the eyes of the manoeurTiug mammas of the vicinity of Thames Court. Many weie the parties of pleasure to Deptford and Green- wich wuich Paul found himself compelled to attend; and we need not refer our readers to novels upon fashionable life to inform them that, in good society, the gentlemen always pay for the ladies! Nor was this all the ex- pense to which his expectations exposed him. A gentle- man could scarcely attend these elegant festivities without devoting some little attention to his dress; and a fashion- able tailor plays the deuce with one's yearly allowance ! We, who reside, be it known to you, reader, in Little Brittany, are not very well acquainted with the manners of the better classes in St. James's. But there was one great vice among the fine people about Thames Court which we make uo doubt does not exist anywhere else, viz., these fine people were always in an agony to seem finer than they were ; and the more airs a gentleman or a lady gave liim or herself, the more important they became. Joe, the dog's-meat man, had indeed got into society entirely from a knack of saying impertinent things to everybody ; and the smartest cxclusives of the place, who seldom visited any one where there was not a silver teapot, used to think Joe had a great deal in him because he trundled his cart with his head in the air, and one day gave the very beadle of the parish "the cut direct." 56 PAUL CLIFFORD. Now this desire to be so exceedingly fine not only made the society about Thames Court unpleasant, but expensive. Every one vied with his neighbor ; and as the spirit of rivalry is particularly strong in youthful bosoms, we can scarcely wonder that it led Paul into many extravagances. The evil of all circles that profess to be select is high play, — and the reason is obvious : persons who have the power to bestow on another an advantage he covets, would rather sell it than give it ; and Paul, gradually increasing in pop- ularity and ton, found himself, in spite of his classical edu- cation, no match for the finished, or, rather, finishing gentlemen with whom he began to associate. His first admittance into the select coterie of these men of the world was formed at the house of Bachelor Bill, a person of great notoriety among that portion of the Slite which em- phatically entitles itself " Flash 1" However, as it is our rigid intention in this vvork to portray at length no epi- sodical characters whatsoever, we can afford our readers but a slight and rapid sketch of Bachelor Bill. This personage was of Devonshire extraction. His mother had kept the pleasantest public-house in town, and at her death Bill succeeded to her property and pop- ularity. All the young ladies in the neighborhood of Fid- dler's Row, where he resided, set their caps at him : all the most fashionable prigs, or tobymen, sought to get him into their set; and the most crack blowen in London would have given her ears at any time for a loving word from Bachelor Bill. But Bill was a long-headed, prudent fellow, and of a remarkably jautious temperament. He PAUL CLIFFORD. 51 avoided marriage and friendship, viz., he was neithei plundered nor cornuted. He was a tall, aristocratic cove, of a devilish neat address, and very gallant, in an honest way, to the hlowens. Like most single men, being very much the gentleman so far as money was concerned, he gave them plenty of "feeds," and from time to time a very agreeable "hop." His "bingo"* was unexceptionable; and as for his " stark-naked, "f it was voted the most bril- liant thing in nature. In a very short time, by his blows- out and his bachelorship, — for single men always arrive at the apex of haul ion more easily than married, — he be- came the very glass of fashion ; and many were the tight apprentices, even at the west end of the town, who used to turn back in admiration of Bachelor Bill, when, of a Sunday afternoon, he drove down his varment gig to his snug little box on the borders of Turnham Green. Bill's happiness was not, however, wholly without alloy. The ladies of pleasure are always so excessively angry when a man does not make love to them, that there is nothing they will not say against him ; and the fair matrons in the vicinity of Fiddler's Row spread all manner of unfounded reports against poor Bachelor Bill. By degrees, however, for, as Tacitus has said, doubtless with a prophetic eye to Bachelor Bill, "the truth gains by delay," — these re- ports began to die insensibly away ; and Bill, now waxing near to the confines of middle age, his friends comfortably settled for him that he would be Bachelor Bill all his life. * Brandy, \ Gin 58 PAUL CLIFFORD. For the rest, he was an excellent fellow, — gave his broken victuals to the poor — professed a liberal turn of thinking, and in all the quarrels among the blowens (your crack blowens, are a quarrelsome set I) always took part with the weakest. Although Bill affected to be very select in his company, he was never forgetful of his old friends ; and Mrs. Margery Lobkins having been very good to him when he was a little boy in a skeleton jacket, he invari- ably sent her a card to his soirees. The good lady, how- ever, had not of late years deserted her chimney corner. Indeed, the racket of fashionable life was too much for her nerves, and the invitation had become a customary form not expected to be acted upon, but not a whit the less regularly used for that reason. As Paul had now attained his sixteenth year, and was a fine, handsome lad, the dame thought he would make an excellent representative of the Mug's mistress ; and that, for her prol&g&, a ball at Bill's house would be no bad commencement of " Life in Lon- don." Accordingly, she intimated to the Bachelor a wish to that effect, and Paul received the following invitation from Bill : "Mr. William Duke gives a hop and feed in a quiet way on Monday next, and hops Mr. Paul Lobkins will bo of the party. N. B. Gentlemen is expected to come in pumps." When Paul entered, he found Bachelor Bill leading off the ball to the tune of "Drops of Brandy," with a young la/ly to whom — because she had been a strolling player- — PAUL CLIFrORD. 03 the Ladies Patronesses of Fiddler's Row had thought proper to behave with a very cavalier civility. The good bachelor had no notion, as he expressed it, of such tan- trums, and he caused it to be circulated among the finest of the blowens, that "he expected all who kicked their heels at his house would behave decent and polite to young Mrs. Dot." This intimation, conveyed to the ladies with all that insinuating polish for which Bachelor Bill was so remarkable, produced a notable effect; and Mrs. Dot, being now led off by the flash Bachelor, was overpowered with civilities the rest of the evening. When the dance was ended. Bill very politely shook hands with Paul, and took an early opportunity of intro- ducing him to 'some of the most "noted characters" of the town. Among these was the smart Mr. Allfair, the in- sinuating Henry Finish, the merry Jack Hookey, the knowing Charles Trywit, and various others equally noted for their skill in living handsomely upon their own brains and the personals of other people. To say truth, Paul, who at that time was an honest lad, was less charmed than ie had anticipated by the conversation of these chevaliers of industry. He was more pleased with the clever, though self-sufficient remarks of a gentleman with a remarkably fine head of hair, and whom we would more impressively than the rest introduce to our reader, under the appella- tion of Mr. Edward Pepper, generally termed Long Ned. As this -worthy was destined afterward to be an intimate as- sociate of Paul, our main reason for attending the hop at Bachelor Bill's is to note, as th( importance of the event 60 PAUL CLIFFORD. deserves, the epoch of. the commencement of their acqnsuat- ance. Long Ned and Paul happened to sit next to each other at supper, and they conversed together so amicably that Paul, in the hospitality of his heart, expressed a hope that "he should see Mr. Pepper at the Mug!" " Mug — Mug !" repeated Pepper, half shutting his eyes with the air of a dandy about to be impertinent ; "Ah — the name of a chapel — is it not ? There's a sect called the Muggletonians, I think ?" "As to that," said Paul, coloring at this insinuation against the Mug, "Mrs. Lobkins has no more religion than her betters; but the Mug is a very excellent house, and frequented by the best possible company." "Don't doubt itl" said Ned. "Remember now that I was once there, and saw one Dummy Dunnaker — is not that the name ? I recollect some years ago, when I first came out, that Dammie and I had an adventure together; — to tell yon the truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do now. But, would you believe it, Mr. Paul ? this pitiful fellow was quite rude to me the only time I ever met him since ; — that is to say, the only time I ever entered the Mug. I have no notion of such airs in a merchant — a merchant of rags 1 Those commercial fellows are getting quite insufferable!" " You surprise me I" said Paul. " Poor Dummie is the last man to be rude. He is as civil a creature as ever lived." " Or sold a rag !" said Ned. " Possibly 1 Don't doubt PAUL CLIFFORD. 61 his amiable qualities in the least. Pass the bingo, my good fellow. Stnpid stuff, this dancing 1" "Devilish stupid!" echoed Harry Finish, across the table. " Suppose we adjourn to Fish Lane, and rattle the ivories I Wliat say you, Mr. Lobkins?" Afraid of the "ton's stern laugh, which scarce the proud philosopher can scorn," and not being very partial to danc- ing, Paul assented to the proposition; and a little party, consisting of Harry Finish, Allfair, Long Ned, and Mr. Hookey, adjourned to Fish Lane, where there was a club, celebrated among men who lived by their wits, at which "lush" and "baccy" were gratuitously sported in the most magnificent manner. Here the evening passed away very delightfully, and Paul went home without a "brad" in his pocket. From that time, Paul's visits to Fish Lane became un- fortunately regular ; and in a very short period, we grieve to say, Paul became that distinguished character — a gen- tleman of three outs — "out of pocket, out of elbows, and out of credit." The only two persons whom he found willing to accommodate him. with a slight loan, as the advertise- ments signed X. Y. have it, were Mr. Dummie Dunnaker, and Mr. Pepper, surnamed the Long. The latter, how- ever, while he obliged the heir to the Mug, never con- descended to enter that noted place of resort; and the former, whenever he good-naturedly opened his purse- strings, did it with a hearty caution to shun the acquaint- ance of Long Ned. "A parson," said Dummie, "of wery dangerous morals, and not by no manner of means a fit VOL. I. 6 62 PAUL CLIFFOKD. sociate for a young gemman of cracter like leetle Paul 1" So earnest was this caution, and so especially pointed at Long Ned, — although the company of Mr. AUfair or Mr. Finish naight be said to be no less prejudicial, — that iLia. ^rabahletbat state^ljfasMiousness of manner, which Lord Normanby rj^ghtly observes, m one of his excellent novels, makes so many enemies.in the world, _and which sometimes characterized the behavior of Long Ned, especially toward the men of commerce, was a main, reason why Dummie was so acutely and peculiarly alive to the immoralities of that lengthy gentleman. At the same time we must observe, that when Paul, remembering what Pepper had said re- specting his early adventure with Mr. Dunnaker, repeated it to the merchant, Dummie could not conceal a certain confusion, though he merely remarked, with a sort of laugh, that it was not worth speaking about ; and it ap- peared evident to Paul that something unpleasant to the man of rags, which was not shared by the unconscious Pepper, lurked in the reminiscence of their past acquaint- ance. Howbeit, the circumstance glided from Paul's at- tention the moment afterward ; and he paid, we are con- cerned to say, equally little heed to the cautions against Ned with which Dummie regaled him. Perhaps (for we must now direct a glance toward liia domestic concerns) one great cause which drove Paul to Fish Lane was the uncomfortable life he led at home. For though Mrs. Lobkins was extremely fond of her proiegS, yet she was possessed, as her customers emphatically re- marked, "of the devil's own temper;" and her native PAUL CLIPFORD. 63 coarseness never having been softened by those pictures of gay society which had, in many a novel and comic farce, refined the temperament of the romantic Paul, her manner of venting her maternal reproaches was certainly not a little revolting to a lad of some delicacy of feeling. Indeed, it often occurred to him to leave her house alto- gether, and seek his fortunes alone, after the manner of the ingenious Gil Bias, or the enterprising Roderick. ilaa-, dg,m.^ and this_idea^though conquered and reconquered, gradually, swelled and increased at _his heaxt, .even as sweljetji that Ji.airy_ball-,fQ.undJa,the stomach of some suf- ferin^.h,ei£!er-after.«,ita^decease^. Among these projects of enterprise, the reader will hereafter notice that an early vision of the Green Forest Cave, in which Turpin was accustomed, with a friend, a ham, and a wife, to conceal himself, flitted across his mind. At this time he did not, perhaps, incline to the mode of life practiced by the hero of the roads ; but he certainly clung not the less fondly to the notion of the cave. The melancholy flow of our hero's life was now, how- ever, about to be diverted by an unexpected turn, and the crude thoughts of boyhood to burst, " like Ghilan's Giant Palm," into the fruit of a manly resolution. Among the prominent features of Mrs. Lobkins' mind was a sovereign contempt for the unsuccessful ; — the im- prudence and ill-luck of Paul occasioned her as much Bcorn as compassion. And when, for the third time within a week, he stood, with a rueful visage and with vacant pockets, by the dame's great chair, requesting an 64 PAUL CLIFFORD, additional supply, the tides of her wratn swelled into overflow. " Look you, my kinchin cove," said she, — and in order to give peculiar dignity to her aspect, she put .on while she spoke a huge pair of tin spectacles, — "if so be as how you goes for to think as how I shall go for to supply your wicious necessities, you will find yourself planted in Queer Street. Blow me tight, if I gives yon another mag." "But I owe Long Ned a guinea," said Paul; "and Dummie Dunnaker lent me three crowns. It ill becomes your heir apparent, my dear dame, to fight shy of his debts of honor.'' " Taradididdle, don't think for to wheedle me with yoar debts and your honor," said the dame in a passion. "Long Ned is as long in the forks (fingers) as he is in the back : may Old Harry fly off with him 1 And as for Dummie Dunnaker, I wonders how you, brought up such a swell, and blest with the wery best of hedications, can think of putting up with such wnlgar sociates ! I tells you what, Paul, you'll please to break with them, smack and at once, or devil a brad you'll ever get from Peg Lobkins." So saying, the old lady turned round in her chair and helped herself to a pipe of tobacco. Paul walked twice up and down the apartment, and at last stopped opposite the dame's chair : he was a yonth of high spirit, and though he was warm-hearted, and had a love for Mrs. Lobkins, which her care and affection for him well deserved, yet he was rough in temper, and not PAUL CLIFFORD. 65 constantly smooth in speech : it is true that his hesrt smote him afterward, whenever he had said anything to annoy Mrs. Lobkins : and he was always the first to seek a reconciliation ; but warm words produce cold respect, and sorrow for the past is not always efficacious in amend- ing the future. Paul then, puffed up with the vanity of iiis genteel education, and the friendship of Long Ned (who went to Ranelagh, and wore silver clocked stock- ings), stopped opposite to Mrs. Lobkins' chair, and said with great solemnity : "Mr. Pepper, madam, says very properly that I must have money to support myself like a gentleman ; and as you won't give it me, I am determined, with many thanks for your past favors, to throw myself on the world and seek my fortune." If Paul was of no oily and bland temper, da'je Mar- garet Lobkins, it has been seen, had no advantag > on that score : — we dare say the reader has observed tha j noth.ng so enrages persons on whom one depends as any 'ixpressed determination of seeking independence. Gaziiig, there- fore, for one moment at the open but resolute conntenance of Paul, while all the blood of her veins seemed gathering in fire and scarlet to her enlarging cheeks, Daue Lobkins said : " Ifeaks, Master Pride-in-duds ! seek your fortune your- self, will you ? This comes of my bringinf you up and letting you eat the bread of idleness and chr.,ity, you toad of a thousand 1 Take that and be d d to you 1" and, su'ting the action to the word, the tube v/hich she had 66 PAUL CLIFFOED. withdrawn from her month, in order to utter her gentle rebuke, whizzed through the air, grazed Paul's cheek, and finished its earthly career by coming in violent contact with the right eye of Dummie Dunnaker, who at that exact moment entered the room. Paul had winced for a moment to avoid the missive, — in the next he stood perfectly upright ; his cheeks glowed, his chest swelled ; and the entrance of Dummie Dunnaker, who was thus made the spectator of the affront he had received, stirred his blood into a deeper anger and a more bitter self-humiliation : — all his former resolutions of de- parture — all the hard words, the coarse allusions, the practical insults he had at any time received, rushed upon him at once. He merely cast one look at the old woman, whose rage was now half subsided, and turned slowly and in silence to the door. There is often something alarming in an occurrence, merely because it is that which we least expect: the astute Mrs. Lobkins, remembering the hardy temper and fiery passions of Paul, had expected some burst of rage, some Tehement reply ; and when she caught with one wander- ing eye his parting look, and saw him turn so passively and mutely to the door, her heart misgave her, she raised herself from her chair and made toward him. Unhappily for her chance of reconciliation, she had that day quaffed more copiously of the bowl than usual, and the signs of intoxication visible in her uncertain gait, her meaningless eye, her vacant leer, her ruby cheek, all inspired Paul with feelings which, at the moment, converted resentment PAUL CLIFFORD. 67 into something very much like aversion. He sprang from her grasp to the threshold. " Where be you going, you imp of the world ?" cried the dame. "Get in with you, and say no more on the matter ; be a bob-cull — drop the bullies, and you shall have the blunt I" But Paul heeded not this invitation. " I will eat the bread of idleness and charity no longer," said he, sullenly. " Good-by, — and if ever I can pay yoa what I have cost you, I will 1" He ^turned away as he spoke ; and the dame, kindling with resentment at his unseemly return to her proffered kindness, hallooed after him, and bade that dark-colored gentleman who keeps the fire-office below, go along with him. Swelling with anger, pride, shame, and a half-joyous feeling of emancipated independence, Paul walked on he knew not whither, with his head in the air and hia legs marshaling themselves into a military gait of defiance. He had not proceeded far, before he heard his name uttered behind him, — he turned, and saw the rueful face of Dummie Dunnaker. Very inoffensively had that respectable person been employed during the last part of the scene we have de scribed, in caressing his afiiicted eye, and muttering phi- losophical observations on the danger incurred by all those who are acquainted with ladies of a choleric tem- perament : when Mrs. Lobkins, turning round after Paul's departure, and seeing the pitiful person of that Dummie Dunnaker. whose name she remembered Paul had men- 68 PAUL OLIFTORD. tioned in his opening speech, and whom, therefore, with an illogical confusion of ideas, she considered a party in the late dispute, exhausted upon him all that rage which it was necessary for her comfort that she should unburden somewhere. She seized the little man by the collar — the tenderest of all places in gentlemen similarly circumstanced with re- gard to the ways of life, and giving him a blow, which took effect on his other and hitherto undamaged eye, cried out, "I'll teach you, you blood-sucker (i.e parasite), to spunge upon those as has expectations 1 I'll teach yon to cozen the heir of the Mug, you sniveling, whey-faced ghost of a farthing rushlight! What! you'll lend my Paul three crowns, will you ; when yon knows as how you told me you could not pay me a pitiful tizzy ? Oh, yo I're a queer one I warrants ; but you won't queer Marf.;cry Lobkins. Out of ray ken, you cur of the mange I — out of my ken ; and if ever I claps my sees on you ag'tin, or if ever I knows as how you makes a flat of mj Paul, blow me tight, but I'll weave you a hempen colla^' : I'll hang you, yon dog, I will. What 1 you will ar.sw er me, will you ? — you viper, budge, and begone I" It was in vain that Dummie protested his jun-jcence. A violent coup de pied broke off all further 'jarlance. He made a clear house of the Mug ; and th'i landlady thereof, tottering back to her elbow-chair, tought out another pipe, and, like all imaginative personn when the world goes wrong with them, consoled herself foi the absence of rea:lities by the creations of smoke. / PAUL CLIFFOKD. 69 Meanwhile, Dnmmie Dunnaker, mattering and murmur- ing bitter fancies, overtooli Paul, and accused that youth of having been the occasion of the injuries he had just undergone. Paul was not at that moment in the humor best adapted for the patient bearing of accusations ; he answered Mr. Dunnaker very shortly ; and that respect- able individual, still smarting under his bruises, replied with equal tartness. Words grew high, and at length, Paul, desirous of concluding the conference, clinched his fist and told the redoubted Dummie that he would "knock him down." There is something peculiarly harsh and stunning in those three hard, wiry, sturdy, stubborn mon- osyllables. Their very sound makes you double your fist — if you are a hero ; or your pace — if you are a peace- able man. They produced an instant efi'ect upon Dum- mie Dunnaker, aided as they were by the effect of an athletic and youthful figure, already fast approaching to the height of six feet, — a flushed cheek, and an eye that bespoke both passion and resolution. The rag-merchant's voice sunk at once, and with the countenance of a wronged Cassius he whimpered forth : " Knock me down 1 — leetle Paul, vot vicked vhids are those 1 Vot ! Dummie Dunnaker as has dandled you on his knee mouy's a time and oft I Vy, the cove's art is as ard as junk, and as proud as a gardener's dog with a nosegay tied to his tail." This pathetic remonstrance softened Paul's anger. "Well, Dummie," said he, laughing, "I did not mean to hui 1 you, and there's an end of it ; and I am very 70 PAUL CLIFFORD. sorry for the dame's ill condnct ; and so I wish you a good morning." "Vy, vere be you trotting to, leetle Panl ?" said Dum- mie, grasping him by the tail of the coat. " The deuce a bit I know," answered our hero ; "but I think I shall drop a call on Long Ned." "Avast there I" said Dummie, speaking under his breath ; if so be as you von't blab, I'll tell you a bit of a secret. I heered as ow Long Ned started for Hampshire this werry morning on a toby consarn !"* "Hal" said Paul, "then hang me if I know what to do 1" As he uttered these words, a more thorough sense of his destitution (if he persevered in leaving the Mug) than he had hitherto felt rushed upon him ; for Paul had designed for awhile to throw himself on the hospitality of his Patagonian friend, and now that he found that friend was absent from London, and on so dangerous an expedition, he was a little puzzled what to do with that treasure of intellect and wisdom which he carried about upon his legs. Already he had acquired sufficient pene- tration (for Charles Trywit and Harry Finish were excel- lent masters for initiating a man into the knowledge of the world) to perceive that a person, however admirable may be his qualities, does not readily find a welcome with- out a penny in his pocket. In the neighborhood of Thames Court he had, indeed, many acquaintances ; bat the fine- ness of his language, acquired from his education, and the * Highway expedition. PAUL OLIFFOED. 11 elegance of his air, in which he attempted to blend, in happy association, the gallant effrontery of Mr. Long Ned with the graceful negligence of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, had made hiji many enemies among those acquaintances ; and he was not willing — so great was our hero's pride — to throw himself on the chance of their welcome, or to publish, as it were, his exiled and crest-fallen state. As for those boon companions who had assisted him in making a wilderness of his pockets, he had already found that that was the only species of assistance which they were willing to render him : in a word, he could not for the life of him conjecture in what quarter he should find the bene- fits of bed and board. While he stood with his finger to his lip, undecided and musing, but fully resolved at least on one thing — not to return to the Mug, — little Dummie, who was a good-natured fellow at the bottom, peered up in his face and said, " Vy, Paul, my kid, yon looks down in the chops : cheer up, care killed a cat I" Observing that this appropriate and encouraging fact of natural history did not lessen the cloud upon Paul's brow, the acute Dammie Dunnaker proceeded at once to the grand panacea for all evils, in his own profound estimation. "Paul, my ben cull," said he, with a knowing wink, and nudging the young gentleman in the left side, "votdo you say to a drop o' blue ruin ? or, as you likes to be conish (genteel), I doesn't care if I sports you a glass of port 1" While Dunnaker was uttering this invitation, a sudden reminiscence flashed across Paul : he bethought him at 72 PAUL CLiyrOED. once of Mac Grawler; and he resolved forthwith to repair to the abode of that illustrious sage, and petition at least for accommodation for the approaching night. So soon as he had come to this determination, he shook ofif the grasp of the amiable Dummie, and refusing, with many thanks, his hospitable invitation, requested him to abstract from the dame's house, and lodge within his own, until called for, such articles of linen and clothing as belonged to Paul, and could easily be laid hold of, during one of the matron's evening siestas, by the shrewd Dunnaker. The merchant promised that the commission should be speedily executed ; and Paul, shaking hands with him, proceeded to the mansion of Mac Grawler. We must now go back somewhat in the natural course of our narrative, and observe, that among the minor causes which had conspired with the great one of gambling to bring our excellent Paul to his present situation, was his intimacy with Mac Grawler ; for when Paul's increasing years and roving habits had put an end to the sage's in- structions, there was thereby lopped off from the preceptor's finances the weekly sum of two shillings and sixpence, as well as the freedom of the dame's cellar and larder ; and as, in the reaction of feeling, and the perverse course of human affairs, people generally repent the most of those actions once the most ardently incurred; so poor Mrs. Lobkins, imagining that Paul's irregularities were entirely owing to the knowledge he had acquired from Mr. Mac Crawler's instructions, grievously upbraided herself for her former folly, in seeking for a superior education for her PATTL CLIFFORD. 13 proiSgS, nay, she even vented upon the sacred head of Mac Grawler himself her dissatisfaction at the results of his instructions. In like manner, when a man who can spell comes to be hanged, the anti-educationists accuse the spelling-book of his murder. High words between the admirer of ignorant innocence and the propagator of in- tellectual science ensued, which ended in Mac Grawler's final expulsion from the Mug. There are some young gentlemen of the present day addicted to the adoption of Lord Byron's poetry, with the alteration of new rhymes, who are pleased graciously to inform us that they are born to be the ruin of all those who love them : an interesting fact, doubtless, but which they might as well keep to themselves. It would seem, by the contents of this chapter, as if the same misfortune were destined to Paul. The exile of Mac Grawler, — the insults offered to Dummie Dunnaker, — alike occasioned by him, appear to sanction that opinion. Unfortunately, though Paul was a poet, he was not much of a sentimentalist; and he has never given us the edifying ravings of his re- morse on those subjects. But Mac Grawler, like Dun- naker, was resolved that our hero should perceive the curse of his fatality ; and as he still retained some influence over the mind of his quondam pupil, his accusations against Paul, as the origin of his banishment, were attended with a greater success than were the complaints of Dummie Dunnaker on a similar calamity. Paul, who, like most people who are good for nothing, had an excellent heart, was exceedingly grieved at Mac Grawler's banishment on voi. I. — 7 14 PAUL CLIFFORD. his account : and he endeavored to atone for it by such pecuniary consolations as he was enabled to offer. These Mac Grawler (purely, we may suppose, from a benevolent desire to lessen the boy's remorse) scrupled not to accept ; and thus, so similar often are the effects of virtue and of vice, the exemplary Mac Grawler conspired with the un- principled Long Ned and the heartless Henry Finish, in producing, that unenviable state of vacuity which now sad- dened over the pockets of Paul. As our hero was slowly walking toward the sage's abode, depending on his gratitude and friendship for a temporary shelter, one of those lightning flashes of thought which often illumine the profonndest abyss of afSiction darted across his mind. Recalling the image of the critic, he remembered that he had seen that ornament of " The Asineeum" receive sundry sums for his critical lucubra- tions. " "Why," said Paul, seizing on that fact, and stopping short in the street, " why should I not turn a critic my- self?" The only person to whom one ever puts a question with a tolerable certainty of receiving a satisfactory answer is one's self. The moment Paul started this luminons sug- gestion, it appeared to him that he had discovered the mines of Potosi. Burning with impatience to discuss with the great Mac Grawler the feasibility of his project he quickened his pace almost into a run, and in a very few minutes, having only overthrown one chimney-sweeper and two apple women by the way, he arrived at the sage's doo> r/LVIi CLIFFORD t6 CHAPTER V. "Te realms yet unreTeal*d to human elghtl Ye canes athwart the hapless hands that write! Te critic chiefs — permit me to relate The mystic wonders of your silent state I" ViRon, ^n. b. vl. Fortune had smiled upon Mr. Mac Grawler Bince he first undertook the tuition of Mrs. Lobkins' protegS. He now inhabited a second-floor, and defied the sheriiF and his evil spirits. It was at the dusk of the eyening that Paul found him at home and alone. Before the mighty man stood a pot of London porter; a candle, with an unregarded wick, shed its solitary light upon his labors ; and an infant cat played sportively at his learned feet, beguiling the weary moments with the remnants of the spiral cap wherewith, instead of laurel, the critic had hitherto nightly adorned his brows. So soon as Mac Grawler, piercing through the gloomy mist which hung about the chamber, perceived the person of the intruder, a frown settled upon his brow. " Have I not told yon, youngster I" he growled, " never to enter a gentleman's room without knocking? I tell you, sir, that manners are no less essential to human hap- piness tnan virtue ; wherefore, never disturb a gentleman ?6 PAUL CLIFFORD. in his- avocations, and sit yourself down without molesting the cat I" Paul, who knew that his respected tutor disliked any one to trace the source of the wonderful spirit which he infused into his critical compositions, affected not to per- ceiye the pewter Hippocrene, and with many apologies for his want of preparatory politeness, seated himself as directed. It was then that the following edifying conver- sation ensued. " The ancients," quoth Paul, " were very great men, Mr. Mac Grawler." " They vpere so, sir," returned the critic; "we "make it a Tule in our profession to assert that fact 1" "But, sir," said Paul, "they were wrong now and then." "Never, Ignoramus; never I" " They praised poverty, Mr. Mac Grawler I" said Paul, with a sigh. " Hem 1" quoth the critic, a little staggered, but pres- ently recovering his characteristic acumen, he observed : " It is true, , Paul ; but that was the poverty of other people." There was a slight pause. " Criticism," renewed Paul, "must be a most difficult art." "A-hem 1 And what art is there, sir, that is not diffi- cult — at least, to become master of?" " True," sighed Paul ; " or else " " Or else what, boy f " repeated Mr. Mac Grawler, seeing that Paul hesitated, either from fear of his superior knowl- PAUL CLIFFORD. 17 edge, as the critic's vanity suggested, or from (what was equally likely) want of a word to express his meaning. " Why, I was thinking, sir," said Paul, with that des- perate courage which gives a distinct and loud intonation to the voice of all who set, or think they set, their fate upon a cast: "I was thinking that I should like to be- come a critic myself I" ^ " W — h — e — w 1" whistled Mac Grawler, elevating his eyebrows ; " w — h — e — w 1 great ends have come of less beginnings I" Encouraging as this assertion was, coming as it did from the lips of so great a man and so great a critic, at the very moment too when nothing short of an anathema against arrogance and presumption was expected to issue from those portals of wisdom : yet, such is the fallacy "^f all human hopes, that Paul's of a surety would have been a little less elated, had he, at the same time his ears drank in the balm of these gracious words, been able to have dived into the source whence they emanated. " Know thyself 1" was a precept the sage Mac Grawler had endeavored to obey : consequently the result of his obedience was, that even by himself he was better known than trusted.. Whatever he might appear to others, he had in reality no vain faith in the infallibility of his own talents and resources ; as well might a butcher deem him- self a perfect anatomist from the frequent amputation of legs of mutton, as the critic of " The Asinasum" have laid " the flattering unction to his soul " that he was really skilled in the art of criticism, or even acquainted with one 7* T8 PAUL CLIFFOKD. of its commonest rules, because he could with all speed out up and disjoint any work, from the smallest to the greatest, from the most superficial to the most superior; and thus it was that he never had the want of candor to deceive himself as to his own talents. Paul's wish, there- fore, was no sooner expressed, than a vague but golden scheme of future profit illumed the brain of Mac Grawler: ■ — in a word, he resolved that Paul should henceforward share the labor of his critiques ; and that he, Mac Grawler, should receive the whole profits in return for the honor thereby conferred on his coadjutor. Looking, therefore, at our hero with a benignant air, Mr. Mac Grawler thus continued : "Yes, I repeat, — great ends have come from less be- ginnings 1 — Rome was not built in a day, — and I, Paul, I myself was not always the editor of ' The Asinaeum.' You say wisely, criticism is a great science — a very great sci- ence, and it may be divided into three branches; viz., 'to tickle, to slash, and to plaster.' In each of these three, I believe without vanity, I am a profound adept! I will initiate you into all. Your labors shall begin this very evening. I have three works on my table, they must be dispatched by to-morrow night; I will take the most arduous, I abandon to you the others. The three consist of a Romance, an Epic in twelve books, and an Inquiry into the Human Mind, in three volumes; I, Paul, will tickle the- Romance, you this very evening shall plaster the Epic and slash the Inquiry 1" " Heavens, Mr. Mac Grawler !" cried Paul, in conster- PAUL OLIPPOKD. 19 nation, ''what do yon mean? I should never be able to rea(4 an epic in twelve books, and I should fall asleep in the first page of the Inquiry. No, no, leave me the ro- mance, and take the other two under your own protec- tion I" Although great genius is always benevolent, Mr. Mac Grawler could not restrain a smile of ineffable contempt at the simplicity of his pupil. "Know, young gentleman," said he solemnly, "that the romance in question must be tickled ; it is not given to raw beginners to conquer that great mystery of onr science." "Before we proceed further, explain the words of the art," said Paul, impatiently. " Listen, then," rejoined Mac Grawler ; and as he spoke the candle cast an awful glimm'ering on his countenance. " To slash is, speaking grammatically, to employ the ac- cusative, or accusing case ; yon must cut up your book right and left, top and bottom, root and branch. To plaster a book, is to employ the dative, or giving case, and you must bestow on the work all the superlatives in the language ; you must lay on your praise thick and thin, and not leave a crevice untroweled. But to tickle, sir, is a comprehensive word, and it comprises all the infinite varieties that fill the interval between slashing and plas- tering, This is the nicety of the art, arid yon can only acquire it by practice ; a few examples will suffice to give yon an idea of its delicacy. " We will begin with the encouraging tickle. 'Although 80 PAUL CLIFFORD. this work is fall of faults ; though the characters are un- natural, the plot utterly improbable, the thoughts jjack- neyed, and the style ungrammatical ; yet we would by no means discourage the author from proceeding ; and in the mean while we confidently recommend his work to the attention of the reading public' " Take, now, the advising tickle. " ' There is a good deal of merit in these little Tolumes, although we must regret the evident haste in which they were written. The author might do better — we recom- mend him a study of the best writers,' — then conclude by a Latin quotation, which you may take from one of the mottoes in the Spectator. " Now, young gentleman, for a specimen of the meta- phorical tickle. " ' We beg this poetical aspirant to remember the fate of Pyrenaans, who, attempting to pursue the Muses, forgot that he had not the wings of the goddesses, flung himself from the loftiest ascent he could reach, and perished.' " This, you see, Paul, is a loftier and more erudite sort of tickle, and may be reserved for one of the Quarterly Previews. Never throw away a simile unnecessarily. "Now for a sample of the facetious tickle. " ' Mr. has obtained a considerable reputation 1 Some fine ladies think him a great philosopher, and he has been praised in our hearing by some Cambridge Fel- lows, for his knowledge of fashionable society.' " For this sort of tickle we generally use the dullest of our tribe, and I have selected the foregoing example from PAUL CLIFFORD. 8] the criticisms of a distinguished writer in ' The Asinseuin,' whom we call, par excellence, the Ass. " There is a variety of other tickles ; the familiar, the vulgar, the polite, the good-natured, the bitter: but iu general all tickles may be supposed to signify, however disguised, one or other of these meanings : — ' This book would be exceedingly good if it were not exceedingly bad;' — or, 'This book would be exceedingly bad if it were not exceedingly go'od.' " You have now, Paul, a general idea of the superior art required by the tickle ?" Our hero signified his assent by a sort of hysterical Bound between a laugh and a groan. Mac Grawler con- tinued : " There is another grand difficulty attendant on this class of criticism, — it is generally requisite to read a few pages of the work ; because we seldom tickle without ex- tracting, and it requires some judgment to make the con- text agree with the extract ; but it is not often necessary to extract when you slash or when you plaster ; when you slash, it is better in general to conclude with — " 'After what we have said, it is unnecessary to add that we cannot offend the taste of our readers by any quota- tion from this execrable trash.' And when you plaster, you may wind np with, ' We regret that our limits will not allow us to give any extracts from this wonderful and unrivaled work. We must refer our readers to the book itself "And now, sir, I think I have given you a sufficient 7* P 82 PAUL CLirroRD. outline of the noble science of Scaliger and Mac Grawler. Doubtl gains of my industry with my friends." ^ " Bravo I" cried Tomlinson. "And now that that is settled, the sooner you are inaugurated the better. Since the starlight has shone forth, I see that I am in a place I ought to be very well acquainted with ; or, if you like to be suspicious, you may believe that I have brought you purposely in this direction : but first let me ask if you feel any great desire \o pass the night by this haystack, or whether you would like a song and the punch-bowl almost as much as the open air, with the chance of being eaten up iu a pinch of hay by some strolling cow !" "You may conceive my choice,'' answered Paul. " Well, then, there is an excellent fellow near here, who keeps a public-house, and is a firm ally and generous patron of the lads of the cross. At certain periods they PAUL CLIFFORD. 159 hold weekly meetings at this house : this is one of the nights. What say you? shall I introduce you to she club?" " I shall be very glad, if they will adniit me 1" returned Paul, whom many and conflicting thoughts rendered laconic. " Oh 1 no fear of that, under my auspices. To tell you the truth, though we are a tolerant sect, we welcome every new proselyte with enthusiasm. But are you tired?" "A little ; the house is not far, you say ?" "About a mile oflf," answered Tomlinson. "Lean on me." Our wanderers now, leaving the haystack, struck across part of Finchley Common ; for the abode of the worthy publican was felicitously situated, and the scene in which his guests celebrated their festivities was close by that on which they often performed their exploits. As they proceeded, Paul questioned his friend touching the name and character of " mine host ;" and the all-know- ing Augustus Tomlinson answered him, Quaker-like, by a question : " Have you never heard of Gentleman George ?" " What I the noted head of a flash public-house in the country? To be sure I have, often ; my poor nurse, Dame Lobkins, used to say he was the best-spoken man in the trade 1" "Ay, so he is still, la his youth, George was a vevy handsome fellow, but a little too fond of his lass and his bottle to please his father, a very staid old gentleman, wl o 160 PAUL CLIFPOED. walked about on Sundays in a bob-wig and a gold-headed cane, and was a much better farmer on week-days than he was head of a public-house. George used to be a re- markably smart-dressed fellow, and so he is to this day. He has a great deal of wit, is a very good whist- player, has a capital cellar, and is so fond of seeing his friends drunk that he bought some time ago a large pewter meas- ure in which six men can stand upright. The girls, or rather the old women, to which last he used to be much more civil of the two, always liked him ; they say, nothing is so fine as his fine speeches, and they give him the title of 'Gentleman George.' He is a nice, kind-hearted man in many things. Pray Heaven we shall have no cause to miss him when he departs. But, to tell you the truth, he takes more than his share of our common purse." " What, is he avaricious ?" " Quite the reverse ; but he's so cursedly fond of build- ing, he invests all his money (and wants us to invest all ours) in houses ; and there's one confounded dog of a bricklayer who' runs him up terrible bills, — a fellow called ' Cunning Nat,' who is equally adroit in spoiling ground and improving ground rent.'" " What do you mean ?" "Ah I thereby hangs a tale. But we are near the place now ; you will see a curious set." As Tomlinson said this, the pair approached a house Standing alone, and seemingly without any other abode in the vicinity. It was of curious and grotesque shape, painted white, with a Gothic chimney, a Chinese sign-post PAUL CLIFFORD. 161 (on which was depicted a gentleman fishing, with the words " The Jolly Angler " written beneath), and a porch that would have been Grecian if it had not been Dutch. It stood in a little field, with a hedge behind it, and the common in front 1 Augustus stopped at the door, and, while he paused, bursts of laughter rang cheerily within. "Ah, the merry boys !" he muttered : " I long to ba with them I" and then with his clinched fist he knocked four times on the door. There was a sudden silence, which lasted about a minute, and was broken by a voice within, asking who was there. Tomlinson answered by some cabalistic word ; the door was opened, and a little boy presented himself. " Well, my lad," said Augustus, " and how is your mas- ter ? — Stout and hearty, if I may judge by his voice.'' "Ay, Master Tommy, ay, he's boosing away at a fine rate in the back parlor, with Mr. Pepper and fighting Attie, and half a score more of them. He'll be woundy glad to see you, I'll be bound." " Show this gentleman into the bar," rejoined Augustus, " while I go and pay my respects to honest Geordie 1" The boy made a sort of a bow, and leading our hero into the bar, consigned him to the care of Sal, a buxom barmaid, who reflected credit on the taste of the landlord, and who received Paul with marked distinction and a gill of brandy. Paul had not long to play the amiable, before Tomlin- son rejoined him with the information that Gentleman George would be most happy to see him in the back parlor, 14* !< Iba PAUL CLIFFORD. and that he would there find an old friend in the person of Mr. Pepper. " What ! is he here ?" cried Paul. " The sorry knave ! to let me be caged in his stead 1" " Gently, gently, no misapplication of terms," said Au- gustus ; " that was not knavery, that was prudence, the greatest of all virtues and the rarest. But come along, and Pepper shall explain to-morrow." Treading a gallery or passage, Augustus preceded our hero, opened a door, and introduced him into a long low apartment, where sat, round a table spread with pipes and liquor, some ten or a dozen men, while at the top of the table, in an arm-chair, presided Gentleman George. That dignitary was a portly and comely gentleman, with a know- ing look, and a Welsh wig, worn, as the Morning Chronicle says of his Majesty's hat, "in a degag& manner, on one side." Being afflicted with the gout, his left foot reclined on a stool ; and the attitude developed, despite of a lamb's wool stocking, the remains of an exceedingly good leg. As Gentleman George was a person of majestic dignity among the Knights of the Cross, we trust we shall not be thought irreverent in applying a few of the words by which the foresaid Morning Chronicle depicted his Majesty, on the day he laid the first stone of his father's monument, to the description of Gentleman George. " He had on a handsome blue coat, and a white waist- coat;" moreover, "he laughed most good-humoredly," as, turning to Augustus Tomlinson, he saluted him with : "So, this is the youngster you present to us? — WeU PAUL CLIFPOIID. 163 come to the Jolly Angler ! Give us thy hand, young sir ; — I shall be happy to blow a cloud with thee.'' " With all due submission," said Mr. Tomlinson, " I think it may first be as well to introduce my pupil and friend to his future companions." " Tou speak like a leary cove," cried Gentleman George, still squeezing our hero's hand ; and, turning round in his elbow-chair, he pointed to each member, as he severally introduced his guests to Paul : " Here," said he, — " here's a fine chap at my right hand — (the person thus designated was a thin military-looking figure, in a shabby riding frock, and with a commanding, bold, aquiline countenance, a little the worse for wear) — here's a fine chap for you; Fighting Attie we calls him: he's a devil on the road. ' Halt — deliver — must and shall —can't and shan't — do as I bid you, or go to the devil,' — . that's all Fighting Attic's palaver ; and, 'sdeath, it has a wonderful way of coming to the point I A famous cull is my friend Attie — an old soldier — has seen the world, and knows what is what; has lots of gumption, and devil a bit of blarney. Howsomever, the highflyers doesn't like him ; and when he takes people's money, he need not be quite so cross about it I — Attie, let me introduce a new pal to you." Paul made his bow. " Stand at ease, man 1" quoth the veteran, without taking the pipe from his month. Gentleman George then continued ; and, after pointing out four or five of the company (among whom our hero discovered, to his surprise, his old friends, Mr. Eustaoe 164 PAUL CLIFFORD. Pitzlierbert and Mr. William Howard Russell), came, at length, to one with a very red face and a lusty frame of body. " That gentleman," said he, " is Scarlet Jem ; a dangerous fellow for a press, though he says he Jikes robbing alone now, for a general press is not half such a good thing as it used to be formerly. You have no idea what a hand at disguising himself Scarlet Jem is. He has an old wig which he generally does business in ; and you would not go for to know him again, when he concesils himself under the vng. Oh, he's a precious rogue, is Scar- let Jem I — As for the cove on t'other side," continued the host of the Jolly Angler, pointing to Long Ned, " all I can say of him, good, bad, or indifferent, is, that he has an unkimmon fine head of hair : and now, youngster, as yon knows him, spose you goes and sits by him, and he'll introduce you to the rest ; for, split my wig I (Gentleman George was a bit of a swearer) if I ben't tired, and so here's to your health ; and if so be" as your name's Paul, may you always rob Peter* in order to pay Paul!" This witticism of mine host's being exceedingly well received, Paul went, amid the general laughter, to take possession of the vacant seat beside Long Ned. That tall gentleman, who had hitherto been cloud-compelling (as Homer calls Jupiter) in profound silence, now turned to Paul with the warmest cordiality, declared himself over- joyed to meet his old friend once more, and congratulated him alike on his escape from Bridewell and his admission * Peter : a portmanteau. PAUL CLIFFORD. 165 to the councils of Gentleman George. But Paul, mindful of tliat exertion of " prudence " on the part of Mr. Pepper by which he had been left to his fate and the mercy of Justice Burnflat, received his advances very sullenly. This coolness so incensed Ned, who was naturally choleric, that he turned his back on our hero, and being of an aristo- cratic spirit, muttered something about " upstart, and vulgar clyfakers being admitted to the company of swell tobymen." This murmur called all Paul's blood into his cheek ; for though he had been punished as a clyfaker (or pickpocket) nobody knew better than Long Ned whether or not he was innocent; and a reproach from him came therefore with double injustice and severity. In his wrath, he seized Mr. Pepper by the ear, and, telling him he was a shabby scoundrel, challenged him to fight. So pleasing an invitation not being announced sotto voce, but in a tone suited to the importance of the propo- sition, every one around heard it ; and before Long Ned could answer, the full voice of Gentleman George thun- dered forth : " Keep the peace there, you youngster I What I are you just admitted into our merry-makings, and must you be wrangling already ? Harkye, gemmen, I have been plagued enough with your quarrels before now, and the first cove as breaks the present quiet of the Jolly Angler shall be turned out neck and crop — shan't he, Attie ?" " Right about, march," said the hero. "Ay, that's the word, Attie," said Gentleman George. "And now, Mr. Pepper, if there be any ill blood 'twixl 16(i PAUL CLIFFORD. you and the lad there, wash it away in a bumper of bingo, and let's hear no more whatsomever about it." " I'm willing," cried Long Ned, with the deferential air of a courtier, and holding out his hand to Paul. Our hero, being somewhat abashed by the novelty of his situ- ation and the rebuke of Gentleman George, accepted, though with some reluctance, the proffered courtesy. Order being thus restored, the conversation of the con- vivialists began to assume a most fascinating bias. They talked with infinite goiit of the sums they had levied on the public, and the peculations they had committed for what one called the "good of the community," and an- other, the "established order," — meaning themselves. It was easy to see in what school the discerning Augustus Tomlinson had learned the value of words. There was something edifying in hearing the rascals t So nice was their language, and so honest their enthusiasm for their own interests, you might have imagined you were listening to a coterie of cabinet ministers conferring or taxes or debating on perquisites. "Long may the Commons flourish I" cried punning Georgie, filling his glass; "it is by the commons we're fed, and may they never know cultiwation 1" " Three times three I" shouted Long Ned : and the toast was drunk as Mr. Pepper proposed. "A little moderate cultivation of the commons, to speak frankly," said Augustus Tomlinson modestly, " might not be amiss ; for it would decoy people into the belief that they might travel safely ; and, after all, a hedge or a bar PAUL CLIITOED 16t ley-field is as good for us as a barren heath, where we have DO shelter if once pursued I" " You talks nonsense, you spooney 1" cried a robber of note, called Bagshot; who, being aged, and having been a lawyer's footboy, was sometimes denominated " Old Bags." "You talks nonsense; these innowating plows are the ruin of ns. Every blade of corn in a common is an encroachment on the constitution and rights of the gemmen highwaymen. I'm old, and mayn't live to see these things ; but, mark my words, a time will come when a man may go from Lunnun to Johnny Groat's without losing a penny by one of us ; when Hounslow will be safe, and Finchley secure. My eyes, what a sad thing for us that'll be I" The venerable old man became suddenly silent, and the tears started to his eyes. Gentleman George had a great horror of blue devils, and particularly disliked all disagree- able subjects. " Thunder and oons, Old Bags 1" quoth mine host of the Jolly Angler, " this will never do : we're all met here to bo merry, and not to listen to your mullancolly tarata- rantarums. I says, Ned Pepper, spose you tips ns a song, and I'll beat time with my knuckles." Long Ned, taking the pipe from his mouth, attempted, like Walter Scott's Lady Heron, one or two pretty ex- cuses : these being drowned by an universal shout, the handsome purloiner gave the following song, to the tune of " Time has not thinned my flowing hair." 16S PAUL CI/IFFOED. LONG NED'S SONG. 1. " Oh, if my hands adhere to cash, My gloves at least are clean, And rarely have the gentry flash In sprucer clothes been seen. Sweet Public, since your coffers must Afford our wnnts relief. Oh ! soothes it not to yield the dust To such a charming thief? I never robbed a single coach But with a lover's air; And though you might my course reproach, You never could my hair. 4. John Bull, who loves a harmless joke, Is apt at me to grin, But why be cross with laughing folk. Unless they laugh and win ? 5. John Bull has money in his box ; And though his wit's divine. Yet let me laugh at Johnny's locks — And John may laugh at mine !" " 'And John may laugh at mine,' excellent 1" cried Gen- tleman George, lighting his pipe and winking at Attie, " I hears as how you be a famous fellow with the lasses." Ned smiled and answered, — " No man should boast • but -" Pepper paused significantly, and then glancing PAUL CLIFFORD. 1G9 at Attie, said — " Talking of lasses, it is my turn to knock down a gentleman for a song, and I knock down Fighting Attie." " I never sing," said the warrior. " Treason, treason," cried Pepper. " It is the law, and you must obey the law; — so begin." " It is true, Attie," said Gentleman George. There was no appeal from the honest publican's fiat ; so, in a quick and laconic manner, it being Attie's favorite dogma, that the least said is the soonest mended, the war- rior sung as follows : FIGHTING ATTIE'S SONG. Air. — " Ue waB famed for deeds of armfl." " Rise at six — dine at two — Bob your man without ado — Such my maxims — if you doubt Their wisdom, to the right about!" (Signing to a sallow gentleman on the same side of the table to send up the brandy bowl.) " Pass round the bingo, — of a gun, You musky, dusky, husky son!"* (The sallow gentleman, in a hoarse voice,) "Attie — the bingo's now with me, I can't resign it yet, d'ye see!" * Much of whatever amusement might bo occasioned by the not (we trust) ill-natured travesties of certain eminent characters iu (liis part of our work, when first published, like all political allu- sions, loses point and becomes obscure as the applications cease to be familiar. It is already necessary, perhaps, to say, that Fight- ing Attic herein typifies or illustrates the Duke of Wellington's abrubt dismissal of Mr. Huskisson. VOL. I. — 15 no PAUL OlilFFORD. (^Attie, seizing the bowl,') " Resign, resign it — cease your dust!" ( Wretting it away, and fiercely regarding the sallow gentleman.) " Tou have resign'd it — and you must." Chorus. " You have resign'd it— ^and you must." While the chorus, laughing at the discomfited tippler, yelled forth the emphatic words of the heroic Attie, that personage emptied the brandy at a draught, resumed his pipe, and, in as few words as possible, called on Bagshot for a song. The excellent old highwayman, with great diffidence, obeyed the request, cleared his throat, and struck off with a ditty somewhat to the tune of " The Old Woman." OLD BAGS' SONG. "Are the days then gone, when on Hounslow Heath, We flash'd our nags ? When the stoutest bosoms quail'd beneath The voice of Bags ? Ne'er was my work half undone, lest I should be nabb'd: Slow was old Bags, but he never ceased 'Till the whole was grabb'd. Chorus. 'Till the whole was grabb'd. When the slow coach paused, and the gemmen storm'd, / bore the brunt — And the only sound which my grave lips form'd Was 'blunt'— still 'blunt!' PAUL OLirrORD. Ill oil! those jovial days are ne'er forgot 1 — But the tape lags — When I he's dead, you'll drink one pot To poor old Bags I Chorus, To poor old Bags !" "Ay, that we will, my dear Bagshot," cried Gentleman George, afiFectionately ; but, observing a tear in the fine old fellow's eye, he added, " Cheer up. What, ho 1 cheer np 1 Times will improve, and Providence may yet send us one good year, when yon shall be as well ofiF as ever ! You shakes your poll. Well, don't be humdurgeoned, but knock down a gemman." Dashing away the drop of sensibility, the veteran knocked down Gentleman George himself. "Oh, dang it I" said George, with an air of dignity, "I ought to skip, since I finds the lush ; but howsomever here goes." GENTLEMAN GEORGE'S SONG, air.— "Old Bang Colo." " I he's the cove — the merry old cove, Of whose max all the rvfflers sing ; And a lashing cove, I thinks, by Jove, Is as great as a sober king ! Chorus. Is as great as a sober king. Whatever the noise as is made by the boys. At the bar as they lush away, The devil a noise my peace alloys, As long as the rascals pay ! Chorus. As long as the rascals pay 1 172 I'AUL CLIFFORD. What if I sticks my stones and my bricks With mortar I takes from tlie snobbish ? All who can feel for the public weal. Likes the public house to be bobbish. Chorus. Likes the public house to be bobbish." " There, gemmen I" said the publican, stopping short, " that's the pith of the matter, and split my wig but I'm short of breath now. So, send round the brandy, Augus- tus : you sly dog, you keeps it all to yourself." By this time the whole conclave were more than half- seas over, or, as Augustus Tomlinson expressed it, "their more austere qualities were relaxed by a pleasing and in- nocent indulgence." Paul's eyes reeled, and his tongue ran loose. By degrees the room swam round, the faces of his comrades altered, the countenance of Old Bags assumed an awful and menacing air. He thought Long Ned in- sulted him, and that Old Bags took the part of the assail- ant, doubled his fists, and threatened to put the plaintiff's nob into chancery if he disturbed the peace of the meet- ing. Yarious other imaginary evils beset him. He thought he had robbed a mail-coach in company with Pepper ; that Tomlinson informed against him, and that Gentleman George ordered him to be hanged ; in short, he labored under a temporary delirium, occasioned by a sudden re- verse of fortune — from water to brandy; and the last thing of which he retained any recollection, before he sunk under the table, in company with Long Ned, Scarlet Jem, and Old Bags, was, the bearing his part in the burden of what appeared to him a chorus of last dying speeches aud PAUI. CLIFFORD. 173 confessions, bnt what in reality was a song made in honor of Gentleman George, and sung by his grateful guests as a finale to the festintiea. It ran thus : THE ROBBER'S GRAND TOAST. "A tumbler of blue ruin, fill, fill for me! Red tape those as likes it may drain ; But whatever the lush, it a bumper must be, If we ne'er drinks a bumper again ! Now — now in the crib, where a Tvffler may lie, Without fear that the traps should distress him, With a drop in the mouth, and a drop in the eye. Here's to Gentleman George — God bless him! God bless him — God bless him! Here's to Gentleman George — God bless him! 'Mong the pals of the Prince, I have heard it's the go. Before they have tippled enough. To smarten their punch with the best curaooa. More conish to render the stuff! I boast not such lush ! — but whoever his glass Does not like, I'll be hang'd if I press him ! Upstanding, my kiddies — round, round let it pass! Here's to Gentleman George— God bless him! God bless him — God bless him! Here's to Gentleman George — God bless him! See — see — the fine fellow grows weak on the stumps. Assist him, ye rascals, to stand! Why, ye stir not a peg ! — Are you all in the dumps ? — Fighting Attie, go, lend him a hand!" [The robbers crowd around Gentleman George, each, under pretense oj supporting him, pulling him first one way and then another.) "Come, lean upon me — at your service I am! Get away from his elbow, you whelp ! — him You'll only upset — them 'ere fellows but sham! Here's to Gentleman George — God help him! God help him — God help him ! — Here's to Gentleman George — God help him'" 15* 174 PAUL CLIFFOED. CHAPTER XI. **I boaat no song in magic wonders rife. But yetj Natnrel is there naught to prise, Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life ? And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies No form with which the soul may sympathize? Tonng, Innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise. An inmate in the home of Albert smiled. Or blest his noonday walk — she was his only child." Gertrude of Wytyming^ O TIME, thon hast played strange tricks with ns I and tve bless the stars that made us a novelist and permit ns now to retaliate. Leaving Paul to the instructions of Augustus Tomlinson and the festivities of the Jolly An- gler, and suffering him, by slow but sure degrees, to ac- quire the graces and the reputation of the accomplished and perfect appropriator of other men's possessions, we shall pass over the lapse of years with the same heedless rapidity with which they have glided over us, and summon our reader to a very different scene from those which would be likely to greet his eyes were he following the adventures of our new Telemachus. Nor wilt thou, dear reader, whom we make the umpire between ourself and those who never read — the critics ; — thou who hast, in the true spirit of gentle breeding, gone with us among places where the novelty of the scene has, we fear, scarcely atoned for the coarseness, not giving thyself the airs of a dainty Abigail PAUL CLIFFORD. ITS not prating, lacqney-like, on the low company thou hast met ; — Mot wilt thon, dear and friendly reader, have cause to dread that we shall weary thy patience by a "damnable iteration" of the same localities. Pausing for a moment to glance over the divisions of onr story, which lies before us like a map, we feel that we may promise in future to conduct thee among aspects of society more familiar to thy habits ; — where events flow to their allotted gulf through landscapes of more pleasing variety, and among tribes of a more luxurious civilization. Upon the banks of one of fair England's fairest rivers, and about fifty miles distant from London, still stands an old-fashioned abode, which we shall here term Warlock Manor-house. It is a building of brick, varied by stone copings, and covered in great part with ivy and jasmine. Around it lie the ruins of the elder part of the fabric, and these are sufficiently numerous in extent, and important in appearance, to testify that the mansion was oncfe not with- out pretensions to the magnificent. These remains of power, some of which bear date as far back as the reign of Henry the Third, are sanctioned by the character of the country immediately in the vicinity of the old inanor- honse. A vast tract of waste land, interspersed with groves of antique pollards, and here and there irregular and sinuous ridges of green mound, betoken to the ex- perienced eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or park, whicn must originally have been of no common dimensions. On one side of the honse the lawn slopes toward the river, divided from a terrace, which forms the most important 176 PAUL CLIFFORD. embellishment of the pleasnre-gronnds, by that fence to which has been given the ingenious and significant name of " ha-ha 1" A few scattered trees of giant growth are the sole obstacles that break the view of the river, which has often seemed to us, at that particular passage of its course, to glide with unnusual calmness and serenity. On the opposite side of the stream there is a range of steep hills, celebrated for nothing more romantic than their property of imparting to the flocks that browse upon their short, and seemingly stinted herbage, a favor peculiarly I grateful to the lovers of that pastorial animal which changes its name into mutton after its decease. Upon these hills the vestige of human habitation is not visible ; and at times, when no boat defaces the lonely smoothness of the river, and the evening has stilled the sounds of labor and of life, we know few scenes so utterly tranquil, so steeped in quiet, as that which is presented by the old, quaint- fashioned house and its antique grounds — the smooth lawn, the silent, and (to speak truly, though disparagingly) the somewhat sluggish river, together with the large hills (to which we know, from simple, though metaphysical causes, how entire an idea of quiet, and immovability, peculiarly attaches itself), and the white flocks — those most peaceful of God's creatures, — that in fleecy clusters stud the ascent. In Warlock House, at the time we refer to, lived a gen- tleman of the name of Brandon. He was a widower and had attained his fiftieth year, without casting much regret on the past, or feeling much anxiety for the future. In a word, Joseph Brandon was one of those careless, quiescent. PAUL CLIFFORD. ItT indifferent men, by whom a thought upon any subject is never recurred to without a very urgent necessity. Ha was good-natured, inoffensive, and weak; and if he was not an incomparable citizen, he was, at least, an excellent vegetable. He was of a family of high antiquity, and formerly of considerable note. For the last four or five generations, however, the proprietors of Warlock House, gradually losing something alike from their acres and their consequence, had left to their descendants no higher rank than that of a small country squire. One had been a Jacobite, and had drunk out half a dozen farms in honor of Charley over the water; — Charley over the water was no very dangerous person, but Charley over the wine was rather more ruinous. The next Brandon had been a fox- hunter, and fox-hunters live as largely as patriotic poli- ticians. Pausanias tells us, that the same people who were the most notorious for their love of wine were also the most notorious for their negligence of affairs. Times are not much altered since Pausanias wrote, and the re- mark holds us good with the English as it did with the Phigalei. After this Brandon came one who, though he did not scorn the sportsman, rather assumed the fine gen- tleman. He married an heiress, who, of course, assisted to ruin him : wishing no assistance in so pleasing an oc- cupation, he overturned her (^perhaps not on purpose) in a new sort of carriage which he was learning to drive, and the good lady was killed on the spot. She left the fine gentleman two sons, Joseph Brandon, the present thane, and a brother some years younger. The elder, being of a 15* M 178 PAUL CLIFFORD. fitting age, was sent to school, and somewhat escaped the contagion of the paternal mansion. But the younge? Brandon, having only reached his fifth year at the time of his mother's decease, was retained at home. Whether he was handsome, or clever, or impertinent, or like his father about the eyes (that greatest of all merits), we know not; but the widower became so fond of him, that it was at a late period, and with great reluctance, that he finally in- trusted him to the providence of a school. Among harlots, and gamblers, and lords, and sharpers, and gentlemen of the guards, together with their frequent accompaniments — guards of the gentlemen, viz., bailiffs, William Brandon passed the first stage of his boyhood. He was about thirteen when he was sent to school ; and being a boy of remarkable talents, he recovered lost time so well, that when, at the age of nineteen, he adjourned t , the university, he had scarcely resided there a single term before he had borne off two of the highest prizes awarded to academical merit. Prom the university he departed on the "grand tour," at that time thought so necessary to complete the gentleman : he went in company with a young nobleman, whose friendship he had won at the university, stayed abroad more than two years, and on his return he settled down to the profession of the law. Meanwhile his father died, and his fortune, as a younger brother, being literally next to nothing, and the family estate (for his brother was not unwilling to assist him) being terribly involved, it was believed that he struggled for some years with very embarrassed and penurious cir PAUL CLIFFORD. 179 aurastances. During this interval of his life/ however, he was absent from London, and by his brother supposed to have returned to the Continent : at length, it seems, he profited by a renewal of his friendship with the young nobleman who had accompanied him abroad, reappeared in town, and obtained, through his noble friend, one or two legal appointments to reputable emolument : soon afterward he got a brief on some cause where a major had been raising a corps to his brother officer, with the better consent of the brother officer's wife than of the brother officer himself Brandon's abilities here, for the first time in his profession, found an adequate vent ; his reputation seemed made at once, he rose rapidly in his profession, &nd, at the time we now speak of, he was sailing down the full tide of fame and wealth, the envy and the oracle of all young Templars and barristers, who, having been starved themselves for ten years, began now to calculate on the possibility of starving their clients. At an early period in his career he had, through the good offices of the nobleman we have mentioned, obtained a seat in the House of Com- mons ; and though his eloquence was of an order much better suited to the bar than the senate, he had neverthe- less acquired a very considerable reputation in the latter, and was looked upon by many as likely to win to the same brilliant fortunes as the courtly Mansfield — a great man, whose political principles and urbane address Brandon was supposed especially to affect as his own model. Of un- blemishea integrity in public life — for, as he supported all things that exist with the most unbending rigidity, ha 180 PAUL CLIPFORD. could not be accused of inconsistency — William Brandon was (as we have said in a former place of unhappy memory to our hero) esteemed in private life the most honorable, the most moral, even the most austere of men ; and his grave and stern repute on this score, joined to the dazzle of his eloquence and forensic powers, had bafiHed in great measure the rancor of party hostility, and obtained for him a character for virtues almost as high and as enviable as that which he had acquired for abilities. While William was thus treading a noted and an honor- able career, his elder brother, who had married into a clergyman's family, and soon lost his consort, had with his only child, a daughter named Lucy, resided in his paternal mansion in undisturbed obscurity. The discreditable char- acter and habits of the preceding lords of Warlock, which had sunk their respectability in the county, as well as cur- tailed their property, had rendered the surrounding gentry little anxious to cultivate the intimacy of the present pro- prietor ; and the heavy mind and retired manners of Joseph Brandon were not calculated to counterbalance the faults of his forefathers, nor to reinstate the name of Brandon in its ancient popularity and esteem. Though dull and little cul- tivated, the squire was not without his "proper pride;" he attempted not to intrude himself where he was unwelcome, avoided county meetings and county balls, smoked his pipe with the parson, and not unoften with the surgeon and the solicitor, and suffered his daughter Lucy to educate her- self, with the help of the parson's wife, and to ripen (for Nature was more favorable to her than Art) into the very PAUL CLIFFORD. 181 prettiest girl that the whole county — we long to say the whole country — at that time could boast of. Never did glass give back a more lovely image than that of Lucy Brandon at the age of nineteen. Her auburn hair fell in the richest luxuriance over a brow never ruffled and a cheek where the blood never slept ; with every instant the color varied, and at every variation that smooth, pure, virgin cheek seemed still more lovely than before. She had the most beautiful laugh that one who loved music could im- agine, — silvery, low, and yet so full of joy ! all her move- ments, as the old parson said, seemed to keep time to that laugh ; for mirth made a great part of her innocent and childish temper ; and yet the mirth was feminine, never loud, nor like that of young ladies who had received the last finish at Highgate seminaries. Everything joyous af- fected her, and at once; — air, — flowers, — sunshine, — but- terflies. Unlike heroines in general, she very seldom cried, and she saw nothing charming in having the vapors. But she never looked so beautiful as in sleep 1 and as the light breath came from her parted lips, and the ivory lids closed over those eyes which only in sleep were silent — and her attitude in her sleep took that ineffable grace belonging solely to childhood, or the fresh youth into which child- hood merges, — she was just what you might imagine a sleeping Margaret, before that most simple and gentle of all a poet's visions of womanhood had met with Faust, or her slumbers been ruffled with a dream of love. We cannot say much for Lucy's intellectual acquire- ments ; she could, thanks to the parson's wife, spell ii^dif- VOL. I. — 16 182 PAUL CLIFFORD. ferently well, and write a tolerable hand ; she made pre- 1 Berves, and sometimes riddles — it was more difiScult to ques- tion the excellence of the former than to answer the queries of the latter. She worked to the admiration of all who knew her, and we beg leave to say that we deem that *' an excellent thing in woman." She made caps for herself and gowns for the poor, and now and then she accom- plished the more literary labor of a stray novel that had wandered down to the Manor-house, or an abridgment of ancient history, in which was omitted everything but the proper names. To these attainments she added a certain • modicum of skill upon the spinet, and the power of singing old songs with the richest and sweetest voice that ever made one's eyes moisten or one's heart beat. Her moral qualities were more fully developed than her mental. She was the kindest of human beings ; the very dog that had never seen her before, knew that truth at the first glance, and lost no time in making her acquaintance. The goodness of her heart reposed upon her face like sunshine, and the old wife at the lodge said poetically and truly of the effect it produced, that " one felt warm when one looked on her." If we could abstract from the description a certain chilling transparency, the following exquisite verses of a forgotten poet* might express the Durity and luster of her countenance : " Her face was like the milky way i' the sky, A meeting of gentle lights without a name." * Suckling. PAUL CLIFFORD. 183 She was surronnded by pets of all kinds, ugly and hand some, from Ralph the raven to Beauty the pheasant, and from Bob, the sheep-dog without a tail, to Beau, the Blen- heim with blue ribbons round his neck; all things loved her, and she loved all things. It seemed doubtful at that time whether she would ever have sufficient steadiness and strength of character. Her beauty and her character ap- peared so essentially womanlike — soft, yet lively, buoyant, yet caressing, — that you could scarcely place in her that moral dependence that you might in a character less amia- ble but less yieldingly feminine. Time, however, and cir- cumstance, which alter and harden, were to decide whether the inward nature did not possess some latent and yet undiscovered properties. Such was Lucy Brandon in the year , and in that year, on a beautiful autumnal evening, we first introduce her personally to our readers. She was sitting on a garden-seat by the river side with her father, who was deliberately conning the evening paper of a former week, and gravely seasoning the ancient news with the inspirations of that weed which so bitterly ex- cited the royal indignation of our British Solomon. It happens, unfortuuately for us, — for outward peculiarities are scarcely worthy the dignity to which comedy, whether in the drama or the narrative, aspires, — that Squire Bran- don possessed so few distinguishing traits of mind that he leaves his delineator little whereby to designate him, save a confused and parenthetical habit of speech, by which he very often appeared to those who did not profit by long experience, or close observation, to say exactly, and PAUL CLIFFORD. somewhat ludicrously, that which he did not mean to " convey. " I say, Lucy," observed Mr. Brandon, but without lifting his eyes from the paper ; " I say, corn has fallen — think of that, girl, think of that I These times, in my opinion (ay, and in the opinion of wiser heads than mine, though I do not mean to say that I have not some experi- ence in these matters, which is more than can be said of all our neighbors), are very curious, and even dan- gerous." "Indeed, papal" answered Jjucy. "And I say, Lucy dear," resumed the squire, after a short pause, "there has been (and very strange it is, too, when one considers the crowded neighborhood — Bless mo ! what times these are 1) a shocking murder covimitled upon {the tobacco-stopper — there it is) — think, you know, girl — just by Eppiug I — an old gentleman 1" " Dear, how shocking I by whom ?" "Ay, that's the question! The coroner's inquest Las (what a blessing it is to live in a civilized country, where a man does not die without knowing the why and the wherefore I) sat on the body, and declared (it is very strange, but they don't seem to have made much discovery for why ? we knew as much before) that the body was found (it was found on the floor, Lucy) murdered ; mur- derer or murderers (in the bureau, which was broken open, they found the money left quite untouched) un- known 1" Here there was again a slight pause, and passing to PAUL CLirroRD. 185 another side of the paper, Mr. Brandon resumed in a quicker tone : " Ha I well, now this is odd 1 But he's a deuced clever fellow, Lucy ! that brother of mine has (and in a very honorable manner too, which I am sure is highly credit- able to the family, though he has not taken too much notice of me lately ; — a circumstance which, considering I am his elder brother, I am a little angry at;) — distin- guished himself in a speech, remarkable, the paper says, for its great legal — (I wonder, by-the-by, whether William could get me that agistment-money I 'tis a heavy thing to lose ; but going to law, as my poor father used to say, is like fishing for gudgeons [not a bad little fish, we can have some for supper'] with guineas) — knowledge, as well as its splendid and overpowering — (I do love Will for keeping up the family honor ; I am sure it is more than I have done — heigh-ho 1) — eloquence 1" "And on what subject has he been speaking, papa?" "Oh, a very fine subject ; what you call a — (it is aston- ishing that in this country there should be such a wish for taking away people's characters, which, for my part, I don't see is a bit more entertaining than what you are always doing — playing with those stupid birds) — libel 1" " But is not my uncle William coming down to see us ? He promised to do so, and it made you quite happy, papa for two days. I hope he will not disappoint you ; and I am sure that it is not his fault if he ever seems to neglect you. He spoke of you to me, when I saw him, in the 16* 186 PAUL CLirFORD. kindest and most affectionate manner. I do think, my dear father, that he loves you very much." •'Ahem 1" said the squire, evidently flattered, and yet not convinced. " My brother Will is a very acute fellow, and I make no^my dear little girl — question, but that — (when you have seen as much of the world as I have, you will grow suspicious) — he thought that any good word said of me to my daughter, would — (you see, Lucy, I am as clearsighted as my neighbors, though I don't give my- self all their airs ; which I very well might do, considering my great-great-great-grandfather, Hugo Brandon, had a hand in detecting the gunpowder plot) — be told to me again I" " Nay, but I am quite sure my uncle never spoke of you to me with that intention." " Possibly, my dear child ; but when (the evenings are much shorter than they were !) did you talk with your uncle about me ?" " Oh, when staying with Mrs. Warner, in London ; to be sure, it is six years ago ; but I remember it perfectly. I recollect, in particular, that he spoke of you very hand- somely to Lord Mauleverer, who dined with him one evening when I was there, and when my uncle was so kind as to take me to the play. I was afterward quite sorry that he was so good-natured, as he lost — (you re- member I told you the story) — a very valuable watch." "Ay, ay, I remember all about that, and so — how long friendship lasts with some people 1 — Lord Mauleverer dined with William 1 What a fine thing it is for a man — (it is what I never did, indeed, I like being what they call 'Cock PAUL CLIFFORD. 187 jf the Walk' — let me see, now I think of it, Pillum cornea to-night to play a hit at backgammon) — to make friends with a great man early in (yet Will did not do it very early, poor fellow ! he struggled first with a great deal of sorrow hardship that is ) life I It is many years now, since Will has been hand-and-glove with my ('tis a bit of a puppy) Lord Mauleverer, — what did yon think of his lordship ?" " Of Lord Mauleverer ? Indeed I scarcely observed him ; but he seemed a handsome man, and was very polite. Mrs. Warner said he had been a very wicked person when he was young, but he seems good-natured enough now, papa." " By-the-by," said the squire, " his lordship has just been made — (this new ministry seems very unlike the old, which rather puzzles me ; for I think it my duty, d'ye see, Lucy, always to vote for his Majesty's government, espe- cially seeing that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in detect- ing the gunpowder plot ; and it is a little odd, at least, at first, to think that good now which one has always be- fore been thinking abominable) Lord Lieutenant of the county." " Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant ?" " Yes, child ; and since his lordship is such a friend of my brother's, I should think, considering especially what an old family in the county we are, — not that I wish to intrude myself where I am not thought as fine as the rest, — that he would be more attentive to us than Lord was ; but thau, my dear Lucy, puts me in mind of Pillum, 188 PAUL CLIFFORD. aod so, perhaps, you would like to walk to the parson'Sj as it is a fine evening. John shall come for you at nine o'clock with {the moon is not up then) the lantern." Leaning on his daughter's willing arm, the good old man then rose and walked homeward ; and so soon as she had wheeled round his easy chair, placed the backgammon^ board on the table, and wished the old gentleman an easy victory over his expected antagonist the apothecary, Lucy tied down her bonnet and took her way to the rectory. When she arrived at the clerical mansion and entered the drawing-room, she was surprised to find the parson's wife, a good, homely, lethargic old lady, run up to her, seemingly in a state of great nervous agitation, and crying, " Oh, my dear Miss Brandon 1 which way did you come 1 Did you meet nobody by the road ? Oh, I am so fright- ened 1 Such an accident to poor dear Dr. Slopperton ! Stopped in the king's highway, robbed of some tithe- money he had just received from Farmer Slowforth : if it had not been for that dear angel, good, young man, God only knows whether I might not have been a dis- consolate widow by this time I" While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy's eye glancing round the room discovered in an arm- chair the round and oily little person of Dr. Slopperton, with a countenance from which all the carnation hues, save in one circular excrescence on the nasal member, that was left, like the last rose of summer, blooming alone, were faded into an aspect of miserable pallor : the little man tried to conjure up a smile while his wife was narrating PAUL CLIFFORD. 189 his misfortune, and to mutter forth some syllable of uncon- cern ; but he looked, for all his bravado, so exceedingly scared, that Lucy would, despite herself, have laughed out- right, had not her eye rested upon the figure of a young man who had been seated beside the reverend gentleman, but who had risen at Lucy's entrance, and who now stood gazing upon her intently but with an air of great respect. Blushing deeply, and involuntarily, she turned her eyes hastily away, and approaching the good doctor, made her inquiries into the present state of his nerves, in a graver tone than she had a minute before imagined it possible that she should have been enabled to command. "Ah I my good young lady," said the doctor, squeezing her hand, " I — may, I may say the church — for am I not its minister ? — was in imminent danger : — but this excel- lent gentleman prevented the sacrilege, at least in great measure. I only lost some of my dues — my rightful dues — for which I console myself with thinking that the in- famous and abandoned villain will suffer hereafter." " There cannot be the least doubt of thai," said the young man : " had he only robbed the mail coach, or' broken into a gentleman's house, the offense might have been expiable ; but to rob a clergyman, and a rector, too 1 — Oh, the sacrilegious dog 1" " Your warmth does you honor, sir," said the doctor, beginning now to recover ; " and I am very proud to have made the acquaintance of a gentleman of such truly re- ligious opinions 1" "Akj" cried the stranger, "my foible, sir — if I may so ISO PAUL CLIPFOKD. Bpeak — is a sort of enthusiastic fervor for the Ptotestant Establishment. Nay, sir, I never come across the very nave of the church, without feeling an indescribable emo- tion — a kind of sympathy, as it were, — with — with — ^you understand me, sir — I fear I express myself ill." " Not at all, not at all 1" exclaimed the doctor : " sach sentiments are uncommon in one so young." " Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend and pre- ceptor of mine, Mr. Mac Grawler, and I trust they may continue with me to my dying day." Here the doctor's servant entered with (we borrow a phrase from the novel of * * * *) "the tea-equipage," and Mrs. Slopperton, betaking herself to its superintend- ence, inquired, with more composure than hitherto had belonged to her demeanor, what sort of a looking creature the ruffian was ? " I will tell you, my dear, I will tell you. Miss Lucy, all about it. I was walking home from Mr. Slowforth's with his money in my pocket, thinking, my love, of buying you that topaz cross you wished to. have." " Dear good man !" cried Mrs. Slopperton ; " what a fiend it must have been to rob so excellent a creature 1" "And," resumed the doctor, " it also occurred to me that the Madeira was nearly out — the Madeira, I mean, with the red seal ; and I was thinking it might not be amiss to devote part of the money to buy six dozen more ; and the remainder, my love, which would be about one pound eighteen, I thought I would divide, — 'for he that giveth tc the poor lendeth to the Lord V — among the thirty poor PAUL CLIFFORD. 191 families on the common : that is, if they behaved well, and the apples in the back garden were not feloniously ab- stracted 1" " Excellent, charitable man I" ejaculated Mrs. Slop- porton. " While I was thus meditating, I lifted my eyes and saw before me two men ; one of prodigious height, and with a great profusion of hair about his shoulders ; the other was smaller, and wore his hat slouched over his face : it was a very large hat. My attention was arrested by the singu- larity of the tall person's hair, and while I was smiling at its luifuriance, I heard him say to his companion, — ' Well, Augustus, as you are such a moral dog, he is in your line, not mine: so I leave him to you.' — Little did I think those words related to me. No sooner were they uttered, than the tall rascal leaped over a gate and disappeared; the other fellow then marching up to me, very smoothly asked me the way to the church, and while I was explain- ing to him to turn first to the right and then to the left, and 80 on — for the best way is, you know, exceedingly crooked — the hypocritical scoundrel seized me by the col- lar, and cried out — 'Your money, or your life I' I do Hssure you, that I never trembled so much ; not, my dear Miss Lucy, so much for my own sake, as for the sake of the thirty poor families on the common, whose wants it had been my intention to relieve. I gave up the money, finding my prayers and expostulations were in vain ; and the dog then, brandishing over my head an enormous bludgec-Q, said — what abominable language I — 'I think, doctoi, T 19S PAUL CLIFFORD. shall put an end to an existence derogatory to yourseli and useless to others.' At that moment the young gentle- man beside me sprang over the very gate by which the tall ruffian had disappeared, and cried, 'Hold, villain!' On seeing my deliverer, the coward started back and plunged into a neighboring wood. The good young gen- tleman pursued him for a few minutes, but then returning to my aid, conducted me home; and as we used to say at school : " 'Te rediisse incolumem gaudeo.' Which, being -interpreted, means, — (sir, excuse a pun, I am sure so great a friend to the church understands Latin) — that I am very glad to get back safe to my tea. He I he 1 And now. Miss Lucy, you must thank that young gentleman for having saved the life of your pastoral teacher, which act will no doubt be remembered at the Great Day I" As Lucy, looking toward the stranger, said something in compliment, she observed a vague, and, as it were, covert smile upon his countenance, which immediately, and as if by sympathy, conjured one to her own. The hero of the adventure, however, in a very grave tone replied to her compliment, at the same time bowing profoundly : " Mention it not, madam I I were unworthy of the name of a Briton, and a man, could I pass the highway without relieving the distress, or lightening the burden, of a fellow-creature. And," continued the stranger, after a momentary pause, coloring while he spoke, and conclud- ing in the highflown gallantry of the day, " methinks il PAUL CLIFFORD. 193 were sufficient reward, had I saved the whole church, in stead of oue of its most valuable members, to receive the thainks of a lady whom I might reasonably take for one of those celestial beings to whom we have been piously taught that the church is especially the care I" Though there might have been something really ridic- nloQS in this overstrained compliment, coupled as it was with the preservation of Dr. Slopperton, yet, coming from the mouth of one whom Lucy thought the very handsomest person she had ever seen, it appeared to her anything but absurd; and, for a very long time afterward, her heart thrilled with pleasure when she remembered that the cheek of the speaker had glowed, and his voice had trembled, as he spoke it. The conversation now, turning from robbers in par- ticular, dwelt upon robberies in general. It was edifying to hear the honest indignation with which the stranger Bpoke of the lawless depredators with whom the country, in that day of Macheaths, was infested. "A pack of infamous rascals !" said he, in a glow; "who attempt to justify their misdeeds by the example of honest men ; and who say that they do no more than is done by lawyers and doctors, soldiers, clergymen, and ministers of state. Pitiful delusion, or rather shameless hypocrisy !" " It all comes of educating the poor," said the doctor " The moment they pretend to judge the conduct of their betters — there's an end of all order I They see nothing eacred in the laws, though we hang the dogs ever so fast ; VOL. I. — 17 N 194 PAUL CLIFFORD. and the very peers of the land, spiritnal and temporal, cease to be venerable in their eyes." " Talking of peers," said Mrs. Slopperton, " I hear thai Lord Mauleverer is to pass by this road to-night, on his way to Mauleverer Park. Do you know his lordship, Miss Iiucy? he is very intimate with your uncle." "I have only seen him once," answered Lncy. "Are you sure that his lordship will come this road ?" asked the stranger, carelessly : " I heard something of it this morning, but did not know it was settled." " Oh, quite so 1" rejoined Mrs. Slopperton. " His lord- ship's gentleman wrote for post-horses to meet his lordship at Wyburn, about three miles on the other side of the vil- lage, at ten o'clock to-night. His lordship is very im- patient of delay." " Pray," said the doctor, who had not much heeded this turn in the conversation, and was now " on hospitable cares intent;" — "Pray, sir, if not impertinent, are you. visiting or lodging in the neighborhood ; or, will you take a bed with us ?" " You are extremely kind, my dear sir, but I fear I must soon wish you good evening. I have to look after a little property I have some miles hence, which, indeed, brought me down into this part of the world." "Property! — in what direction, sir, if I may ask?" quoth the doctor ; " I know the country for miles." " Do yon, iudeed ? — where's my property, you say ? Why, it is rather difficult to describe it, and it is, after all, a mere trifle : it is only some common-land near the PAUL CLIFFORD. .95 high-road, and I came down to try the experiment of hedging and draining." '"Tis a good plan, if one has capital and does not require a speedy return." " Yes ; but one likes a good interest for the loss of principal, and a speedy return is always desirable ; al- though, alas 1 it is often attended with risk 1'' "I hope, sir,'' said the doctor, "if you must leave us so soon, that your property will often bring you into our neighborhood." "Tou overpower me with so much unexpected good- ness," answered the stranger, " To tell you the truth, nothing can give me greater pleasure than to meet those again who have once obliged me." " Whom you have obliged, rather I" cried Mrs. Slop- perton, and then added, in a loud whisper to Lucy — " How modest 1 but it is always so with true courage I" " I assure you, madam," returned the benevolent stranger, "that I never think twice of the little favors I render my fellow-men — my only hope is, that they may be as forgetful as myself." Charmed with so much unaffected goodness of disposi- tion, the Dr. and Mrs. Slopperton now set up a sort of duet in praise of their guest : after enduring their com- mendations and compliments for some minutes with mnch grimace of disavowal and diffidence, the stranger's modesty seemed at last to take pain at the excess of their grati- tude; and, accordingly, pointing to the clock, which was within a few minutes of nine, he said : I9fi PAUL CLIFFORD. " I fear, my respected host and my admired hostess, that I mast now leave you ; I have far to go." " But are you yourself not afraid of the highwaymen ?" cried Mrs. Slopperton, interrupting him. " The highwaymen 1" said the stranger, smiling : " No 1 I do not fear them; besides, I have little about me worth robbing. " "Do you superintend your property yourself?" said the doctor ; who farmed his own glebe, and who, unwilling to part with so charming a guest, seized him now by the button. " Superintend it myself 1— why, not exactly. There is a bailiff, whose views of things don't agree with mine, and who now and then gives me a good deal of trouble 1" " Then why don't you discharge him altogether ?" "Ahl I wish I could: but 'tis a necessary evil. We landed proprietors, my dear sir, must always be plagued with something of the sort. For my part, I have found those cursed bailiffs would take away, if they could, all the little property one has been trying to accumulate. But," abruptly changing his manner into one of great soft- ness, " could I not proffer my services and my compaiiion- ghip to this young lady? Would she allow me to con- duct her home, and, indeed, stamp this day upon my memory as one of the few delightful ones I have ever known ?" " Thank you, dear sir," said Mrs. Slopperton, answering at once for Lucy ; " it is very considerate of you ; and I am sure, my love, I could not think of letting you go home PAUL CLIFFORD. 191 alone with old John, after such an adventure to the poor dear doctor." Lucy began an excuse which the good lady would not hear. But as the servant whom Mr. Brandon was to send with the lantern to attend his daughter home had not arrived, and as Mrs. Slopperton, despite her preposses- sions in favor of her husband's deliverer, did not for a mo ment contemplate his accompanying, without any other attendance, her young friend across the fields at that un- seasonable hour, the stranger was forced, for the present, to reassume his seat. An open harpsichord at one end of the room gave him an opportunity to make some remark upon music, and this introducing an euloginm on Lucy's voice from Mrs. Slopperton, necessarily ended in a request to Miss Brandon to indulge the stranger with a song. Never had Lucy, who was not a shy girl — she was too innocent J to be bashful — felt nervous hitherto in singing before a stranger ; but now she hesitated and faltered, and went through a whole series of little natural affectations before she complied with the request. She chose a song composed somewhat after the old English school, which at that time was reviving into fashion. The song, though conveying a sort of conceit, was not, perhaps, altogether without ten- derness ; — it was a favorite with Lucy, she scarcely knew why, and ran thus : LUCY'S SONG. " Why sleep, ye genlle flowers, ah, why, When tender eve is falling, And starlight drinks the happy sigh Of winds to fairies calling ? IT* 198 PAUL CLIFFOEB. Calling with low and plaining note, Most like a ringdove chiding, Or flute faint-heard from distant boat O'er smoothest waters gliding. Lo, round you steals the wooing breeze— Lo, on you falls the dew ! Sweets, awake, for scarcely these Can charm while wanting you! Wake ye not yet — ^while fast below The silver time is fleeing? Heart of mine, these flowers but show Thine own contented being. The twilight but preserves the bloom The sun can but decay ; The warmfh that brings the rich perfume, But steals the life away. Heart, enjoy thy present calm, Best peaceful in the shade. And dread the sun that gives the balm To bid the blossom fade." When Lncy ended, the stranger's praise was less lond than either the doctor's or his lady's ; but how far more Bweet it was ; and for the first time in her life Lncy made the discovery that eyes can praise as well as lips. For our part, we have often thought that that discovery is an epoch in life. It was now that Mrs. Slopperton declared her thorough conviction that the stranger himself could sing — " He had that about him," she said, "which made her sure of it." " Indeed, dear madam," said he, with his usual undefina- ble half-frank, half-latent smile, " my voice is but so-so, and PAUL CLIPFORI). 199 my memory so indifferent, that even in the easiest passages I soon come to a stand. My best notes are in the falsetto, and as for my execution — but we won't talk of that." " Nay, nay ; you are so modest," said Mrs. Slopperton : " I am sure you could oblige us if you would." "Your command," said the stranger, moving to the harpsichord, " is all-sufScient ; and since you, madam " (turning to Lucy), " have chosen a song after the old school, may I find pardon if I do the same ? My selec- tion is, to be sure, from a lawless song-book, and is supposed to be a ballad by Robin Hood, or, at least, one of his merry men ; a very different sort of outlaws from the knaves who attacked you, sir 1" With this preface, the stranger sung to a wild yet jovial air, with a tolerable voice, the following effusion : THE LOVE OF OUK PROFESSION, OR THE ROBBER'S LIFE. " On the stream of the World, the Robber's life Is borne on the blithest wave ; Now it bounds into light in a gladsome strife. Now it laughs in its hiding cave. At his maiden's lattice he stays the rein. How still is his courser proud ! {But still as a wind when it hangs o'er the main In the breast of the boding cloud) — With the champed bit and the arched crest. And the eye of a listening deer, Like valor, fretful most in rest, Least chafed when in career. 200 PAUIi CLIFFORD. Fit slave to a Lord whom all else refuse To save at his desperate need ; By my troth ! I think one whom the TOrld pursues Hath a right to a gallant steed. 'Away, my beloved, I hear their feet ! I blow thee a kiss, my fair. And I promise to bring thee^ when next we mett, A braid for thy bonny hair. ' Hurra 1 for the booty ! — my steed, hurra 1 Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we; And the coy Moon smiles on our merry way. Like my own love — timidly.' The Parson he rides with a jingling pouch, How it blabs of the rifled poor !> The Courtier he lolls in his gilded coach, How it smacks of a sinecure! The Lawyer revolves in his whirling chaise. Sweet thoughts of a mischief done ; And the Lady that knoweth the card she plays Is counting her guineas won! ' Ho, Lady ! — What, holla, ye sinless men ! My claim ye can scarce refuse ; For when honest folk live on their neighbors, then They encroach on the Kobber's dues!' The Lady changed cheek like a bashful maid, The lawyer talk'd wondrous fair, The Parson blasphemed, and the Courtier pray'd, And the Robber bore off his share. 'Hurra! for the revel! my steed, hurra; Thorough bush, thorough brake, go we ! It is ever a virtue, when others pay, To ruffle it merrily 1' PAUL CLIFFORD. 201 Oh ! there never was life like the Kobber's — so Jolly, and bold, and free ; And its end — why, a cheer from the crowd below, And a leap from a leafless tree !" This very moral lay being ended, Mrs. Slopperton de- clared it was excellent ; though she confessed she thought the sentiments rather loose. Perhaps the gentleman might be induced to favor them with a song of a more refined and modern turn— something sentimental, in short. Glanc- ing toward Lucy, the stranger answered that he only Isnew one song of the kind Mrs. Slopperton specified, and it was so short that he could scarcely weary her patience by granting her request. At this moment, the river, which was easily descried from the windows of the room, glimmered in the starlight, and directing his loolss toward the water, as if the scene had suggested to him the verses he sung, he gave the fol- lowing stanzas in a very low, sweet tone, and with a far purer taste than, perhaps, would have suited the preceding and ruder song. THE WISH. "As sleeps the dreaming Eve below. Its holiest star keeps ward above. And yonder wave begins to glow, Like Friendship bright'ning into Love! Ah !- would thy bos