The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume II Part 10

Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the _only Salopian house;_ yet be it known to thee, reader--if thou art one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact--he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from stalls, and under open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humbler customers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle, not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for the honours of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer, between the expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odours. The rake, who wisheth to dissipate his o'er-night vapours in more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he pa.s.seth; but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast.

This is _Saloop_--the precocious herb-woman's darling--the delight of the early gardener, who transports his smoking cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith to Covent-garden's famed piazzas--the delight, and, oh I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him shouldest thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the grateful steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee but three half-pennies) and a slice of delicate bread and b.u.t.ter (an added halfpenny)--so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'er-charged secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lighter volume to the welkin--so may the descending soot never taint thy costly well-ingredienced soups--nor the odious cry, quickreaching from street to street, of the _fired chimney_, invite the rattling engines from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation thy peace and pocket!

I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than forgiveness.--In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with my accustomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and shame enough--yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had happened--when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered me. There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob, and to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular, till the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a previous weeping, and soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all with such a joy, s.n.a.t.c.hed out of desolation, that Hogarth--but Hogarth has got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley, grinning at the pye-man--there he stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever--with such a maximum of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth--for the grin of a genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it--that I could have been content, if the honour of a gentleman might endure it, to have remained his b.u.t.t and his mockery till midnight.

I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is a casket, presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should take leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as when

A sable cloud Turns forth her silver lining on the night.

It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a badge of better days; a hint of n.o.bility:--and, doubtless, under the obscuring darkness and double night of their forlorn disguis.e.m.e.nt, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many n.o.ble Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and the recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance of, good fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless _defiliations_.

In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since--under a ducal canopy--(that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especially a connoisseur)--encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets inwoven--folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius--was discovered by chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow confounded his pa.s.sage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys, by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber; and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to resist the delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so, creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a young Howard.

Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle.--But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under such a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far above his pretensions--is this probable, I would ask, if the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young n.o.bleman (for such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, when he was used to be lapt by his mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back as into his proper _incunabula_, and resting-place.--By no other theory, than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), can I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any other system, so indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper.

My pleasant friend JEM WHITE was so impressed with a belief of metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor changelings, he inst.i.tuted an annual feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure to officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew.

Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the metropolis, confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now and then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good-naturedly winked at; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight, indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into our party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time to be no chimney-sweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was quoited out of the presence with universal indignation, as not having on the wedding garment; but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The place chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable hubbub of that vanity; but remote enough not to be obvious to the interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests a.s.sembled about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues dilated at the savour. JAMES WHITE, as head waiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trusty companion BIG.o.d, ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first table--for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some general expression of thanks for the honour the company had done him, his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting, half-blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and imprint upon her chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host would set up a shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled the night with their brightness. O it was a pleasure to see the sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with _his_ more unctuous sayings--how he would fit the t.i.t bits to the puny mouths, reserving the lengthier links for the seniors--how he would intercept a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it "must to the pan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's eating"--how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or that piece of kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them all to have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best patrimony,--how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it were wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, he should lose their custom; with a special recommendation to wipe the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts--"The King,"--the "Cloth,"--which, whether they understood or not, was equally diverting and flattering;--and for a crowning sentiment, which never failed, "May the Brush supersede the Laurel!" All these, and fifty other fancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment with a "Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so," which was a prodigious comfort to those young orphans; every now and then stuffing into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them mightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of the entertainment.

Golden lads and la.s.ses must.

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust--

JAMES WHITE is extinct, and with him these suppers have long ceased.

He carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died--of my world at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and, missing him, reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of Smithfield departed for ever.

A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS

The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation--your only modern Alcides' club to rid the time of its abuses--is uplift with many-handed sway to extirpate the last fluttering tatters of the bugbear MENDICITY from the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags--staves, dogs, and crutches--the whole mendicant fraternity with all their baggage are fast posting out of the purlieus of this eleventh persecution. From the crowded crossing, from the corners of streets and turnings of allies, the parting Genius of Beggary is "with sighing sent."

I do not approve of this wholesale going to work, this impertinent crusado, or _bellum ad exterminationem_, proclaimed against a species.

Much good might be sucked from these Beggars.

They were the oldest and the honourablest form of pauperism. Their appeals were to our common nature; less revolting to an ingenuous mind than to be a suppliant to the particular humours or caprice of any fellow-creature, or set of fellow-creatures, parochial or societarian.

Theirs were the only rates uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in the a.s.sessment.

There was a dignity springing from the very depth of their desolation; as to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man, than to go in livery.

The greatest spirits have felt this in their reverses; and when Dionysius from king turned schoolmaster, do we feel any thing towards him but contempt? Could Vand.y.k.e have made a picture of him, swaying a ferula for a sceptre, which would have affected our minds with the same heroic pity, the same compa.s.sionate admiration, with which we regard his Belisarius begging for an _obolum_? Would the moral have been more graceful, more pathetic?

The Blind Beggar in the legend--the father of pretty Bessy--whose story doggrel rhymes and ale-house signs cannot so degrade or attenuate, but that some sparks of a l.u.s.trous spirit will shine through the disguis.e.m.e.nts--this n.o.ble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he was) and memorable sport of fortune, fleeing from the unjust sentence of his liege lord, stript of all, and seated on the flowering green of Bethnal, with his more fresh and springing daughter by his side, illumining his rags and his beggary--would the child and parent have cut a better figure, doing the honours of a counter, or expiating their fallen condition upon the three-foot eminence of some sempstering shop-board?

In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just antipode to your King.

The poets and romancical writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would call them) when they would most sharply and feelingly paint a reverse of fortune, never stop till they have brought down their hero in good earnest to rags and the wallet. The depth of the descent ill.u.s.trates the height he falls from. There is no medium which can be presented to the imagination without offence. There is no breaking the fall.

Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his garments, till he answer "mere nature;" and Cresseid, fallen from a prince's love, must extend her pale arms, pale with other whiteness than of beauty, supplicating lazar alms with bell and clap-dish.

The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a converse policy, when they would express scorn of greatness without the pity, they show us an Alexander in the shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis getting up foul linen.

How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had declined his affections upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the imagination at all violated when we read the "true ballad," where King Cophetua wooes the beggar maid?

Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity, but pity alloyed with contempt. No one properly contemns a beggar. Poverty is a comparative thing, and each degree of it is mocked by its "neighbour grice." Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told.

Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a shade better, while the rich pa.s.s by and jeer at both. No rascally comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him.

He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of property. He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No one twitteth him with ostentation above his means. No one accuses him of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbour seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes to law with him. If I were not the independent gentleman that I am, rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness of my mind, to be a Beggar.

Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and graceful _insignia_ of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required to put on court mourning. He weareth all colours, fearing none. His costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become bail or surety for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe. The Mendicants of this great city were so many of her sights, her lions. I can no more spare them than I could the Cries of London. No corner of a street is complete without them. They are as indispensable as the Ballad Singer; and in their picturesque attire as ornamental as the Signs of old London. They were the standing morals, emblems, mementos, dial-mottos, the spital sermons, the books for children, the salutary checks and pauses to the high and rushing tide of greasy citizenry--

--Look Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there.

Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to line the wall of Lincoln's Inn Garden, before modern fastidiousness had expelled them, casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray of pity, and (if possible) of light, with their faithful Dog Guide at their feet,--whither are they fled? or into what corners, blind as themselves, have they been driven, out of the wholesome air and sun-warmth? immersed between four walls, in what withering poor-house do they endure the penalty of double darkness, where the c.h.i.n.k of the dropt half-penny no more consoles their forlorn bereavement, far from the sound of the cheerful and hope-stirring tread of the pa.s.senger? Where hang their useless staves? and who will farm their dogs?--Have the overseers of St. L---- caused them to be shot? or were they tied up in sacks, and dropt into the Thames, at the suggestion of B----, the mild rector of ----?

Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vincent Bourne, most cla.s.sical, and at the same time, most English, of the Latinists!--who has treated of this human and quadrupedal alliance, this dog and man friendship, in the sweetest of his poems, the _Epitaphium in Canem_, or, _Dog's Epitaph_. Reader, peruse it; and say, if customary sights, which could call up such gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do more harm or good to the moral sense of the pa.s.sengers through the daily thoroughfares of a vast and busy metropolis.

Pauperis hic Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis, Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectae, Dux caeco fidus: nec, me ducente, solebat, Praetenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua locorum Incertam explorare viam; sed fila secutus, Quae dubios regerent pa.s.sus, vestigia tuta Fixit inoffenso gressu; gelidumque sedile In nudo nactus saxo, qua praetereuntium Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras Lamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam.

Ploravit nec frustra; obolum dedit alter et alter, Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam.

Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile, Vel mediis vigil in somnis; ad herilia jussa Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amice Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei Taedia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat.

Hi mores, haec vita fuit, dum fata sinebant, Dum neque languebam morbis, nec inerte senecta; Quae tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite caec.u.m Orbavit dominum: prisci sed gratia facti Ne tola intereat, longos deleta per annos, Exiguum hunc Irus tumulum de cespite fecit, Etsi inopis, non ingratae, munuscula dextrae; Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum.

Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, That wont to tend my old blind master's steps, His guide and guard: nor, while my service lasted, Had he occasion for that staff, with which He now goes picking out his path in fear Over the highways and crossings; but would plant, Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide Of pa.s.sers by in thickest confluence flow'd: To whom with loud and pa.s.sionate laments From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd.

Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there, The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave.

I meantime at his feet obsequious slept; Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear p.r.i.c.k'd up at his least motion; to receive At his kind hand ray customary crums, And common portion in his feast of sc.r.a.ps; Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent With our long day and tedious beggary.

These were my manners, this my way of life, Till age and slow disease me overtook, And sever'd from my sightless master's side.

But lest the grace of so good deeds should die.

Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost, This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared, Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand, And with short verse inscribed it, to attest, In long and lasting union to attest, The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog.

These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months past a well-known figure, or part of the figure, of a man, who used to glide his comely upper half over the pavements of London, wheeling along with most ingenious celerity upon a machine of wood; a spectacle to natives, to foreigners, and to children. He was of a robust make, with a florid sailor-like complexion, and his head was bare to the storm and sunshine. He was a natural curiosity, a speculation to the scientific, a prodigy to the simple. The infant would stare at the mighty man brought down to his own level. The common cripple would despise his own pusillanimity, viewing the hale stoutness, and hearty heart, of this half-limbed giant. Few but must have noticed him; for the accident, which brought him low, took place during the riots of 1780, and he has been a groundling so long. He seemed earth-born, an Antaeus, and to suck in fresh vigour from the soil which he neighboured. He was a grand fragment; as good as an Elgin marble. The nature, which should have recruited his reft legs and thighs, was not lost, but only retired into his upper parts, and he was half a Hercules. I heard a tremendous voice thundering and growling, as before an earthquake, and, casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that had started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his just stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had been cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could have made shift with yet half of the body-portion which was left him. The _os sublime_ was not wanting; and he threw out yet a jolly countenance upon the heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven this out of door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the service, but his good spirits no way impaired, because he is not content to exchange his free air and exercise for the restraints of a poor-house, he is expiating his contumacy in one of those houses (ironically christened) of Correction.

Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance, which called for legal interference to remove? or not rather a salutary and a touching object, to the pa.s.sers-by in a great city? Among her shows, her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping curiosity (and what else but an acc.u.mulation of sights--endless sights--_is_ a great city; or for what else is it desirable?) was there not room for one _Lusus_ (not _Naturae_, indeed, but) _Accidentium_? What if in forty-and-two years'

going about, the man had sc.r.a.ped together enough to give a portion to his child (as the rumour ran) of a few hundreds--whom had he injured?--whom had he imposed upon? The contributors had enjoyed their _sight_ for their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to the heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven--shuffling his ungainly trunk along in an elaborate and painful motion--he was enabled to retire at night to enjoy himself at a club of his fellow cripples over a dish of hot meat and vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought against him by a clergyman deposing before a House of Commons'

Committee--was _this_, or was his truly paternal consideration, which (if a fact) deserved a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is inconsistent at least with the exaggeration of nocturnal orgies which he has been slandered with--a reason that he should be deprived of his chosen, harmless, nay edifying, way of life, and be committed in h.o.a.ry age for a st.u.r.dy vagabond?--

There was a Yorick once, whom it would not have shamed to have sate down at the cripples' feast, and to have thrown in his benediction, ay, and his mite too, for a companionable symbol. "Age, thou hast lost thy breed."--

Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made by begging are (I verily believe) misers' calumnies. One was much talked of in the public papers some time since, and the usual charitable inferences deduced. A clerk in the Bank was surprised with the announcement of a five hundred pound legacy left him by a person whose name he was a stranger to. It seems that in his daily morning walks from Peckham (or some village thereabouts) where he lived, to his office, it had been his practice for the last twenty years to drop his half-penny duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus, that sate begging alms by the way-side in the Borough. The good old beggar recognised his daily benefactor by the voice only; and, when he died, left all the ama.s.sings of his alms (that had been half a century perhaps in the acc.u.mulating) to his old Bank friend. Was this a story to purse up people's hearts, and pennies, against giving an alms to the blind?--or not rather a beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the one part, and n.o.ble grat.i.tude upon the other?

I sometimes wish I had been that Bank clerk.

I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature, blinking, and looking up with his no eyes in the sun--Is it possible I could have steeled my purse against him?

Perhaps I had no small change.

Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words, imposition, imposture--_give, and ask no questions_. Cast thy bread upon the waters. Some have unawares (like this Bank clerk) entertained angels.