The Days of Hogarth: or, the Mysteries of Old London, etc

Front matter

JJiui^S' ENGLISH NOVELS. By Gr. yj%r. iur. mz-vhoi^us. Complete, from the Original Edition— Numerous Illustrations LONDON : JOHN DICKS, 313, STRAND. PRICE SIXPENCE. ADVERTISEMENTS. THE GREAT MEDIOiNE. It gives Instant relies In HEADACHE, SEA or BILIOUS SICK- NESS, CONSTIPATION, INDIGESTION, LASSITUDE, LOW SPIRITS, HEARTBURN, and FEVERISH COLDS ; prevents and quickly relieves or cures the worst form of TYPHJS, SCARLET, and other FEVERS, SMALL POX, MEASLES, and ERUPTIVE or SKIN COMPLAINTS, and various other altered conditions of the Blood. Tbe Testimony of Medical Gentlemen and the Proessimial Press has been unqualified in prai KJ LAMPLOUGH'S PYRETIC SALINE as possessing most important elements calculated to restore and maintain Health with perfect Vigour of Body and Mind. It is effervescing and Tasteless, and forms a most invigorating, vitalizing, and refreshing beverage.

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Chapter I

dog-, was in his eyes a greater triumph than the correct elaboration of all the Latin themes ever set him at Oxford. His attire was as magnificent as that of hi* father, bnt more elegant — worn with greater ease — and exhibiting no formal precision, though not a whit the less care was bestowed upon its choice and arrangement. THE PEER AND HIS SON.— THE MISER. Our tale opens in the month of October, 1721 ; and we shall at once introduce our readers to a splendidly-furnished drawing-room at the Earl of Castleton's mansion in Lincoln's Inn Fields— at that period a fashionable part of the great metropolis. It was about ten o'clock in the evening ; and the crim son curtains were drawn over the windows, their rich gold fringes touching the thick carpet — then an article of comparative luxury, Kidderminster not as yet having sought to vie with Brussels or Tourney in their staple manufacture.

The brilliant light of numerous wax candles was reflected in the handsome mirrors, and gave effect to the fine polish of the massive and elaborately carved furniture of mahogany — a material which had but recently como into vogue. On Bmall but elegant side-tables were vases of porcelain, their rich colours bearing comparison with the hues of the flowers they contained ; and on a larger table, in the centre of the room, were a few books bound in a style of elegance which showed that they were rather for ornament than use. " Yes, Sydney," said the Earl of Castleton, speaking with slow and measured voice, "this marriage which I have projected for you, wUl prove absolutely necessary, unless my brother-in-law should consent to advance me the amount I require to relieve myself from these serious pecuniary embarrassments."

" Your lordship is well aware that my highly respect able uncle will not part with a guinea, save on the best security and at exorbitant interest," observed the young Viscount. " Money is his god — and he envies Judas the thirty pieces of silver. I would sooner that you should make any sacrifice than be compelled to lay yourself under an obligation to that despicable old miser." " Yes — it will be a sacrifice, indeed, to permit you — my only son, and the hope of a family whose pure blood has never yet mingled with the plebeian puddle — to lead the daughter of a vulgar alderman to the altar," said Lord Castleton. " I know not how I shall be able to endure such a cruel alternative." In this luxurious apartment were seated the Earl of Castleton and his only son, Viscount Langham. The former was a personage of about fifty-eight— possessing a countenance that would have been considered strikingly handsome even at that age, were not the effect of a fine facial outline marred by an expression of such extreme haughtiness, self-sufficient pomposity, and over-weening pride, that not even his equals found themselves at ease in his. presence, while his inferiors were over-awed by the chilling reserve or downright contempt with which ho treated them.

His stately aspect was in perfect keeping with the idea that ho entertained of his own importance : every look was studied — every word was weighed — every gesture was mechanical and formal, — so that he appeared to dwell in an atmosphere of freezing ceremony. His very attire WU painfully precise, thouph magnificent in the extreme. His lull wig denoted the immense care bestowed upon it by a French valet ; his velvet coat, square cut, and elalil.ratrly laced with gold, showed not a wrinkle on its plossy surface ; and his waistcoat, of rich flowered silk of a large pattern on a white ground, was perfectly adjusted to his somewhat portly shape. His son, who was twenty-three yeai-s old, and rejoiced in the aristocratic name of Sydney Langham, inherited little of the father's pride of high birth and interminable ancestry : but he was endowed with the equally repulsive and disagreeable characteristic of the most unbounded gelf-OOnoeit.

Clever, well educated, and handsome, he certainly was : nature had been bountiful alike to his mind aud person ;— but he deserved not her kindness — Fashion spoilt him— and ho was frivolous in His conversation, as he was a coxcomb in his toilette. Ho prided himself far moro on the elegance of his biUct-doiu' than on his proficiency in the classics ; and success in the composition of a dozen lines laudntory of a lady's lap- " Your lordship should rather ask mo how I shall be able to endure it," exclaimed Sydney: " for, methinks that after all I shall be the hero of the drama." " And yet," continued the Earl, not heeding this inter ruption, "there is some consolation in the prospect ; for Miss Johnston is a great improvement on the average race of the youngladies dwelling within the sound of Bow bells.

She is not deficient in wit— her taste in dress is good — she is decidedly handsomo — and her manners require but a little polish to render her an ornament to the drawing-room of fashionable life." " Besides," added the young Viscount, in a semi satirical tone, " your lordship can bind her over never to mention to our friends that she was bom in "Wood street, Cheapside, and that her father is au excellent tanner and a worthy alderman." " Jesting is most unreasonable, Lord Langham," said the Earl, in a voice of awful solemnity, " when we are occupied in the discussion of important affairs." " It is the first time, my lord, that ever I heard mar riage treated as an important matter," said the Viscount flippantly, as he took a pinch of snuff from a gold box of diminutive size and exquisite workmanship.

" But, to speak seriously, did Mr. Ferrers give your lordship any hope of granting the accommodation which you conde- Boended to solicit Y" " Mr. Ferrers— whom I am ashamed to acknowledge as the brother of the lato Countess of Castleton," responded the Earl, drawing himself up with majestic hauteur, " held up his hands in affected astonishment, and muttered something about his wonder that people should suppose him to be possessed of any money to lend." " The curmudgeon of au uncle !" said Sydney. " Why ere any proof was given that the summons had been heard within. At length there was a slow and apparently unwilling drawing-back of bolts, followed by the removal ot a clanking chain; and a wretched old crone, bent nearly double with age, infirmity, and semi-starvation, opened the door. "Is that his lordship?" she asked in a tremulous voice.

The valet replied in the affirmative ; and the Earl of Castleton entered the miserable abode, desiring his people to remain without until his return. " Your lordship must go up in the dark," said the old woman, closing the door and drawing the bolts again ; " for it would kill master outright if there was to be two candles burning in the dwelling at the s^nie time." The Earl paused to put a few questions to his brother in-law's housekeeper — for sueh the harridan was ; and he learnt that Mr. Ferrers had been seized with a sudden fit about an hour previously, but that although he was compelled to retire to bed, he would on no account allow a doctor to be sent for. " Lead the way to your master's chamber," said the nobleman. The crone obeyed, and conducted the Earl up a wide stair-case, which, was involved in the deepest obscurity.

At length they reached a landing where faint gleams of light appeared through the crevices of the door ; and in another moment the proud peer stood by the side of a wretched bed, in a chamber of mean and filthy appear ance, the tenant of which was an old, withered, and fear fully emaciated man, who lay stretched on his back in the sordid conch. " Mr. Ferrers," said the Earl, in his cold, monotonous voice, " I am sorry to find you indisposed. Your domestic tells me that you have had a fit : surely you will per mit me to send for Dr. Brook ?" —all the world knows that he is worth two hundred thousand pounds at the least. But it will no^ last long when once my cousin Tom gets possession of it. Had he been able to command the means, he would have launched out even more than I did at Oxford." "That were scarcely possible," observed the Earl, severely.

" And I must tell you plainly, Lord Langham, that Mr. Ferrers is irritated against us because he believes that your example and society led his son into scrapes and extravagances at college." "The cruel old uncle!" exclaimed Sydney, talcing another pinch of snuff. " See what it is to have a griping miser for a relation : he will neither lend you his money, nor give me credit for my kind solicitude to make his son Tom a man of the world !" " You would have acted more prudently, had you left your cousin undisturbed in the parsimonious habits and niggard ways wherein his father had reared him," said Lord Castleton. " The griping miser, as you respectfully call your uncle, would have entertained a better opinion of you, and might perhaps have remembered you in his will. But he looks upon you as a wild young man ; and it was to separate his son from your society, that he dispatched him on business to York.

Indeed, your uncle considers that you are pursuing a ruinous career ; and I must confess that I should be better pleased were you to renounce the company of such men as Colonel Char teris, the notorious proflgate— Captain Stab, the bullying duellist " " Considering the excellent example your lordship has set me, ever since the death of my niother," said the Viscount with cool insolence, " it is really a wonder that I am not more of a saint." The Earl of Castleton bit his lip, and knit his brows sternly: but Sidney Langham, affecting not to notice the displeasure his remark had occasioned, hummed an Opera air, and played in a iinnikin manner with his snuff-box. Fortunately the entrance of a domestic, in powdered wig and rich livery, interrupted a scene that might have produced farther insolence on the part of the son and additional confusion to the parent.

"My" lord," said the servant, with a low obeisance, "a messenger has just called with the tidings that Mr. Ferrers has been taken suddenly and dangerously ill " " The poor old uncle I" exclaimed Sydney, affecting a whining tone. " And your lordship's presence is requested imme diately in Newcastle-street," added the domestic, thereby finishing his message. " I will repair thither without delay," said the Earl, rising from his seat — but not in a hurried manner, for had the house been on fire he would not have so far for gotten his aristocratic propriety as to deviate from his pompous and measured solemnity of pace. ' ' Lord Langham," he continued, addressing his son, " do you accompany me ?" "" Faith ! my lord, I would rather not," was the reply. " I am a bad hand at supporting a sick pillow, and the sight of a bolus produces a disagreeable nausea.

Besides I am under a promise to join Counsellor Denvil and Colo nel Charteris at Ranelagh." The Earl made no answer, but turned aud walked ma jestically out of the room. In the hall one valet assisted him to put on a handsome cloak, while another handed him his hat trimmed with feathers. The nobleman then stept into his sedan-chair, which had been got ready for him to repair to his brother-in-law's abode, and in a few minutes he was conveyed to Newcastle-street, Strand. Lord Castleton alighted at the door of a spacious but gloomy-looking house, the walls of which were sombre and dingy, and the lower windows defended with strong iron bars. The night was beautiful and clear, and en abled the eye to embrace all the sordid features of the exterior of that dwelling. The knocker hung but by one nail to the door which, had been tarred over, doubtless to save expense of paint : the panes of the fan-light were "broken, the apertures being closed with paper stuck over or rags thrust through ;— the shutters of nearly all the upper casements were shut ; and from one only did a light gleam— and that so feebly, so faintly, and with such vacillating rays, that a passer-by would have in stinctively conjectured it to be the flickering rush-light in a sick room.

It was sufficient to inspire melancholy thoughts, merely to gaze upon that large, aioumfu1 building, one room of which alone appeared to be a human habitation. "Dr. Brook! Dr. Brook!" repeated the invalid, his cadaverous countenance becoming ghastly at the mere mention of the name of a fashionable physician ; " you must be mad yourself, or think me so ! "Who would pay him his fee — a guinea— a whole guinea ?" added the miser, with strong emphasis. " I have not so much as a guinea in the world! Besides, I don't want a doctor— I shall be well to-morrow— I can cure myself : abstinence will do it. I eat too much ! ' ' "Poor old soul!" muttered the crone, who had followed the Earl into the room and now approached the bed; "it is food that he wants! He starves himself— and me too," she added, in a still lower tone.

"You lie, you hag— you lie !" almost shrieked forth the miser, as with a withered arm he raised himself painfully to a sitting posture. " You are always eating — always ! It is the waste which goes on in the house that is killing me — and you know it ! Starve you, indeed!" — and chuckling horribly, he fell back, ex hausted, ou his pillow. " This will never do — he must not be permitted to perish thus," said the Earl. ""Woman, go you and fetch Dr. Brook : I will pay him his fee," he added pomp ously. " Martha, I command you not to go for Dr. Brook!" vociferated the miser, in a tone of screeching querulous ness : "I will not have him here — he will order soups, and jellies, and wine— and will be turning the house topsey-turvey. I have no money to buy such things with. If I must have a doctor, go for Master Leachly, the barber-surgeon — he is cheap and conscientious — he will not rob me— he will not order expensive diet— he will bleed me for threepence.

Or, stay!" cried the wretched old man, his countenance brightening up with the cheering idea that had just struck him— but it was as if the gleam of a lamp had suddenly fallen on thc features of a corpse : — " When I think of it, Master Leachly undertakes to bleed three times for sixpence, Martha! So mind and make that bargain with him— d'ye hear Y" " Yes— yes," muttered the old crone, as she moved.to wards the door, for the purpose of obeying the whispered intimation now given to her by the Earl to fetch Dr. Brook. " That old wretch wants to ruin me outright," said tho miser, in a low and confidential tone as soon as his housekeeper had departed. She tried to persuade me to take gruel and expensive messes of that kind : but you know, my dear Earl— yes, you know that I have not the means !

I am not so very, very ill. I shall recover soon, if 1 am left to myself— anl with a little bleeding." " Mr. Ferrers," said the nobleman. " I am no physician ; but I can see sufficient evidence to convince me that you are indeed very ill; and it is my duty to warn One of the Earl's valets, who attended the sedan, knocked gently at the door, and several minutes elapsed you of that fact. As a Christian and as a relative, I must beg of you to think seriously of your condition, aud to be prepared for the worst. I do not ask through idle curiosity, nor any sinister motive— but have you settled your affairs to your wishes P— have you made your will ?" "My will!" yelled forth the dying man, his countenance becoming distorted with horrified amazement : "why should I make a will? What have I to leave?

Do you want to pump me— to sift me ? There's nothing in those cupboards!" he continued, thinking that the Earl's eyes, which were averted in mingled disgust and indignation, had fixed their glances significantly on the padlocked closets. " There's nothing there worth speaking of ! I shall leave my son Tom a few pence — yes, a few pence— just to begin the world with, as I did ■ but— a will ! No— no ! "Why should I throw away money amongst the lawyers ? They shall not have au opportunity of robbing me ! Besides I am not going to die yet — I shall soon be better ! I feel myself stronger already !" — but, in physical contradiction to the assertion, the wretched man fell back on his pillow, from which he had again raised himself in the exeitement ot his voluble asseverations — panting and exhausted.

" My God ! he is dying," thought thc Earl to himself ; " and he will depart without leaving a will. There will be no legacy for me !" — then, stooping over the bed, he took the miser's emaciated and clammy hand, saying, *' Mr, Ferrers, have you no last injunctions to give me ? is there nothing which, in case of the worst, you are anxious to commit to my charge until your son shall return ? Remember — I am nearly allied to you — and if there be anything I can do to serve you " "Yes— yes, there is!" murmured Ferrers, staring with fixed and glazing eyes up from his pillow to the countenance that was now bent over him. " I — I do begin to think that I — lam worse than I just now imagined. But — but I would rather die at once than have an expensive illness. It would ruin me — ruin me outright !

Come a little nearer — it hurts me to speak so loud — I feel it horel" — and he with difficulty placed his left hand on his forehead, tho Earl still holding the right, which seemed to stiffen in his own. " There — stoop a little lower still I Now you can hear mo well. You have always been kind and considerate towards me — and I shall leave you all I can afford to give — my blossing! Now, don't ! tart like that — don't be grieved on my account. It is bettor that I should die than have to go upon the parish —and it would havo come to that ! But listen to me— I have a favour to ask — and I know you will oblige me. Look here," he continued, touching thejf ront of his linen with his les t hand ; "this is a new shirt— put on clean this morning ! But if I die, the person who lays me out mil claim it as a perquisite.

Now, my dear friend," he continued in a tone of mysterious confidence, "let's baulk the greedy longing of that old crone, Martha ! In the top drawer, there — just behind you — you will find my old shirt— it's all in rags— but quite good enough to be laid out in. Get it out for mo— help me to put it on — and hide this new one before she comes back with the doctor." Tho old man closed his eyes through sheer exhaustion — and tho Earl of Castleton drew back with feelings of indescribable loathing and disgust : indeed, not for many a day had his aristocratic gravity been so seriously discomposed. He even thought of quitting the house, and leaving thc penurious wretch to die in the solitude of his miserable chamber ; for, having ascertained that the miser had made no will, the selfish peer saw all hope of a legacy suddenly destroyed.

He was, indeed, already turning round to retrace his way to the sedan, when Ferrers called him faintly by name. " Mv dear Castleton," he said, speaking with great difficulty, bnt opening his eyes so wide that their glassy glare was horrible to contemplate, " I — I feel that I am going ! Send for Tom— he is at York — gone to see Parson Hemmings, who owes me some money — pray to God that he may get it— or I don't know what will become of the poor boy ! Tl-11 him to be frugal— to give up expensive habits — to be careful to whom he lends his cash — and never under sixty per cent. Tell him — but my voice fails me— why do you put out the light ? Ah ! now I see it again — and now it goes away once more ! Don't play with the candle— it only wastes it. Where are you ? Come nearer — there — give me your hand — how you tremble I No — it's mine that trembles — I am going — going fast.

Castleton — my dear friend — one word more —pray don't let Tom associate with your son Sydney — he's a s.ul scapegrace! Ah! a sudden pain shoots through my head— my eyes flash fire— there is more than one candle iu the room — why do yon permit this waste ? —I shall be ruined! Oh! my God— I am dying— but Castleton — remember — the — the — parish must bury me !" The death-rattle interrupted farther utterance, and in a few moments the wretched miser breathed his last, just as the old crone returned with Dr. Brook. The physician opened a vein in Ferrers' arm, but he was past the reach of human aid ! " My steward will come hither in the morning, and superintend the necessary arrangements for the funeral," said the Earl to the old housekeeper. "Asa connexion of my family your deceased master must be in terred with suitable ceremony.

The obsequies will not, however, take place until the arrival of Mr. Thomas Ferrers, to whom I shall dispatch a special messenger to-morrow." The nobleman then accompanied Dr. Brook down stairs, and they parted at the door of the house of death, — the Earl returning home in his sedan-chair, after an absence of little more than an hour, during which he had been the spectator of a scene that had aroused within his breast feelings of a more exciting nature than had stirred his cold and callous heart for many, many years.

Chapter II. The Heie

— LOVE'S VICTIM. Let us suppose that ten days have elapsed since the miser's death; and in the meantime the tomb has received his remains : — for, in consequence of the wretched slowness of travelling at the period of which we arc writing nearly that interval passed ere young Ferrers could arrive in London to fulfil the duty of chief mourner. Chief mourner, indeed ! It was true that the youth assumed the garb of woe, and buried his countenance in a clean white handkerchief, as he stood by the vault into which the coffin was lowered : but few were the tear-drops that moistened the cambric, .and evanescent was the impression made by the solemn scene I How could it have been otherwise ? The father "had not acted towards his son in a manner calculated to command respect or ensure affection ; and his parsimony was of too severe, too ascetic a nature to be valuable as an example.

It ran into that extreme — that bitter extreme, at which it became loathsome and repugnant to all whe were unfortunate enough to dwell within its influence. The youth had been sent to college ; but he was there so stinted in even the necessary supply of funds, that he was frequently compelled to blush at the meannesses which his penniless condition forced upon him ; and when he became the companion of his cousin, Lord Langham, he felt himself to be in the degrading light of a hanger-on, and not a friend on equal and independent terms. It was no wonder, then, if he had actually learnt to" look upon his own father as a species of unnatural enemy, who wilfully threw him into the most awkward embarrassments, or at all events placed him in a position where ho was certain to fall into difficulties, from which the old man obstinately refused to extricate him.

And, in such a state of mind as this unpleasant mode of existence was sure to engender, it would have indeed been astonishing if Thomas Ferrers had not frequently revolved plans of amusement and pleasure, to be exeented the moment he should become possessed of the means. And that day had now come ! The funeral had taken place on the previous afternoon, and there was no longer a necessity to assume the semblance of grief. Thoma^ Ferrers suddenly found himself the undisputed heir to a fortune notoriously immense, but the lull extent of which yet remained to be discovered. He had ever been kept so short of funds— such a slight acquaintanceship had hitherto existed between himself and a well-lines' purse, that he was seized with an insatiable longing to ascertain the amount of his riches. But it was not that longing which had taught his departed father to weigh and count his gold to see how much he was worth : it was a craving on the youth's part to learn how much he had to spend !

Accordingly, on the morning after the day of the funeral, great was the bustle and remarkable was the change which characterised the large and gloomy-looking house in Newcastle-street. Shutters that had remained closed for years, were thrown open ; and the light of thc sun was allowed to pour its golden flood into the dusty rooms, whither partial glimmerings had until then alone been able to steal through cracks and crevices. Padlock on good guarantees, and at exorbitant interest. Ineffable delight was depicted in the pleasing, though not precisely handsome, countenance of Thomas Ferrers ; the harsh, sinister features of the old lawyer were contracted into grim smiles savouring of rapacity ; and the half -starved cat appeared to mew with satisfaction at the unusual scene around. A knock was heard at the door ; and in walked a fashionable tailor from the Strand, to measure the youth for divers suits of clothes on which no expense was to be spared.