Elphinstone

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Introduction

Before I and that kind heart which is now beating with the delight of opening a new book enter into the eternal compact of author and reader, I wish to make a friendly remark or two, that we may commence and go on, on good terms with each other.- I shall not offer any excuses or apologies for the work itself; because, if I thought it worse than the average of such works, I would keep it to myself. I wish to guard the reader against certain misapprehensions which are frequently caused by works of this kind, and which might subject me to ill opinions, that I should be sorry to merit.

1. It will be acknowledged by persons acquainted with literary history that no writer ever published a work which laughed at the follies or satirized the vices of mankind, without creating prejudices against himself in the viii INTRODUCTION.

minds of well-meaning but short-seeing people. If the satire be directed against an individual of a class, people are apt to suppose that the whole class is attacked: and this prejudice lives as long as the author ; but it dies with him, and the next generation is astonished that such a prejudice could have existed in the minds of their fathers.

Now as I am not one of those great persons whose affairs posterity would be happy to settle at the expense of her own, and as I wish to live in peace with my contemporaries, I beg to observe that I have not attempted to throw ridicule on any section of society, and that whatever satire may be directed against an individual in his professional capacity, is directed against the individual rather than against the profession. Indeed some of my dearest friends are members of classes and professions mentioned in my work, and I do not fear to lose them on that account. I will not, as Pope does in his Essay on Woman, render the satire nugatory by asserting that my characters have not existed ; nor will I with Miss Edgeworth say in various passages. " This is a fact," to remind the reader constantly that he is perusing a history of circumstances which

INTRODUCTION, ix have never occurred. I can affirm that my tale is a true one; I request my reader to observe that I laugh only at the foolish, and satirize only the vicious : and I am sure that all honest and intelligent members of every class will justify me in my treatment of their fellow-members who differ from them in those qualities.

2. A certain conveyancer read through Clarissa Harlowe, and pronounced it to be a heap of utter nonsense, because there was not an item in her will which could be maintained in Court. There is more in this than appears at a first view. This lawyer was a type of a hundred classes of readers. He shewed himself incapable of judging a work addressed to man in general, although probably he was an excellent judge of a work on law. But a man's taste and intellect will not be improved by the most perfect acquaintance with any particular branch of learning ; and such a person, if he wish to communicate his information, nfast address himself to his professional brethen, and will be neglected by the rest of the world ; since every man to be generally admired must be understood, and therefore ought, even in his peculiar science to pierce through technicalities and formulas, and

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address himself to the universal intellect. A man maybe an admirable colourist, even an admirable draughtsman, and yet shall never be admired, excepting by painters ; while another shall be defective in both colour and form, and be admired by all the world excepting painters, though even painters of true genius will admit that the faults which only a professional eye. can detect are amply atoned for by the beauties of thought which are addressed to all mankind. A Surgeon, a Lawyer, or a Linguist shall write a work universally admired by Surgeons, Lawyers, or Linguists, and unreadable by the rest of mankind. They are all useful in their profession; but they are not famous. All merely scientific writers serve only to gather materials for the generalises and distributors; for a man of true genius, whatever be the subject on which he writes, addresses himself not to a particular sect or body of men, but to man.

In works of imagination the observance of this principle is more necessary than in any other, and in the present one, 1 have meddled with different professions, the details and technicalities of which a man of general education is not supposed to be intimately acquainted

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xi with ; and though where facts are concerned I can trust confidently to my memory, yet in technicalities or professional modes and words, not being one of the class, I may have fallen into some slight errors. If I shall be found to have done so, 1 shall be sorry ; but still I shall believe that if my book has interest for the general reader, those mistakes are of little importance.

If, however, my critics should be disposed to be severe, on discovery of these possible mistakes, I trust I shall disarm them by a confession of the cause of them. After considerable indulgence of a rambling disposition,' I, some two years since, took up my abode in an inconsiderable town, where I wrote these volumes. My collection of books was tolerably large, but did not contain any on the details of professional practice, and as I was apprehensive that I might have been mistaken on two or three points, I addressed myself to a couple of gentlemen, with whom I was slightly acquainted — the one I asked for permission to consult an old statute in a book of his, which he never looked at, the other I requested to inform me of the meaning of a word. But I had been in the town only a year ; and as that

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year bad been as usual divided into six months of suspicion, and six months of libel, the first mentioned gentleman gave me a direct refusal, and the other gave me the information in a manner yet more offensive. I did not attempt to gain any more information, but leave the work to the reader's charitable consideration, assuring him that it is not on that part of this work that I am anxious to have his opinion.

A propos of country towns, I have often thought, that a person possessed of a common portion of the power of observation, might write a very amusing work on the manners and habits of our small inland towns. The patronizing pompousness of the little gentry, the conceited arrogance of professional men, the pride of caste in the various orders of tradesmen, the ambition for parochial office, the religious divisions, the eternal currents of scandal, the inquisition into every body*s affairs, the local self-importance, though they seem trifling to an inhabitant of a great town, yet are they in feeling and action, as strongly marked as those which affect nations — they are more amusing, and I believe have never yet been fully described. Miss Austen has, indeed, drawn some

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xiii very beautiful pictures of country towns ; but she always writes like a lady of rank, and descends not to the tradesman or mechanic. Miss Mitford also has touched this subject with her delicate pen ; but she always writes like a lady, unconscious of the existence of human vice or folly; and the most foolish and wicked person she describes, is quite as wise as the wisest, and much better than the best of the people one meets with in common life. It is to be feared she paints human beings as they should be, rather than as they are, and I doubt not that she finds her originals in her own heart. The work which approaches nearest to what I mean is little Peddlington : but this work though amusing, has the too -common failing of being written to shew off one solitary idea, which though a true one, and evidently susceptible of being treated with much humour, yet when all the characters through a long tale act with direct reference to it, the result is continual exaggeration, and an incomplete portraiture of human minds and manners. Little Peddlington was written to shew up the self-importance of a little town ; but there never was a town in which every action, word, and thought of every individual was directed to that one object, and xiv

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therefore Little Peddlington, instead of being a complete portrait of a country town, is a drawing of only one of its features.

I have stated that it was my fortune to take up my residence in an inconsiderable country town, to all the individuals in which I was a stranger, and several incidents, in which I became personally concerned in consequence, first led me to think of my subject. In a few days after I had become a householder, a great variety of young ladies called on me to request my weekly subscription to various societies— for providing linen for lying-in women, for supporting poor illegitimate children, for sending blankets to the New Zealanders, and a variety of the like praiseworthy purposes. I at first demurred to the propriety of some of these objects, but the young ladies spoke so pathetically of the beauty of charity, as to make themselves appear very charming to a bachelor like myself, and I had not the heart to refuse them.

At length when I was committed for a subscription every day of my life, a lady whose face declared a decided approval of a single life during the last half century,

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XV called on me for a subscription towards sending prayer-books to the South Sea Islanders* I inquired whether these Islanders could read them — a point concerning which the . lady confessed ignorance, but spoke very warmly of the good cause. Her eloquence, however, as may be expected, was less effectual than that of the younger virgins, and I said that really I was paying several subscriptions towards similar objects, and not being a rich man, must beg to decline additional subscriptions, until I had made out a list of my charities, and ascertained whether I were not already a subscriber to her own charity. The lady left me, and in a few days I had the satisfaction to find that I was universally considered to be a suspicious character, if not an infidel, as I had refused to send prayer-books to the South Sea Islanders*

About the same time a lady, who had some unmarried sisters, called on me to request a subscription towards a piece of plate to be presented to the curate, as a testimonial of his private virtues and public services. I assured the lady that I had never spoken to the curate or even heard him preach, and in fact knew nothing about him ; which was the truth, as I only knew that xvi

INTRODUCTION, he was unmarried, and saw him constantly dangling at the tail of one or other of the ladies. The lady remarked that it would look very odd and be very much noticed if I did not subscribe, and assured me that if I were to stay a few years in the town, I should discover the inestimable merits of the curate, which were perfectly well-known to her and her sister: at length she talked me out of my mite, and my name was duly inscribed in the address to the curate, which was highly inflamed with complimentary epithets, of the truth of which I knew as much as the man in the moon.

Nor were these impertinences confined to ladies. A gentleman introduced himself to me, invited me to his house, where I found in him so much good sense and good taste, that I congratulated myself on discovering one exception to the general manners. But while in the height of my intimacy with this gentleman, not having yet quite forgotten the manners xd the great world, I one evening escorted to her home a young lady of decent station and reputation, whom I had found caught in a violent shower of rain. In the course of this exercise of gallantry, I met a servant of this gentleman,

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xvii who made great professions in a meeting house, and who was so shocked at the enormity of my offence, that the next time I met his master I was accosted with a very civil bow, which the next time was exchanged for an unconscious stare — the gentleman evidently glad to escape so dangerous an acquaintance*

It may be supposed that the individual and the town were of very delicate purity to be shocked by a young man shielding a young woman from a storm. But such was not the case. The gentleman was a member of a class by no means distinguished for morality ; and the town was notorious for that depravity to be found in large manufacturing towns; while here, it was rendered more conspipicuous by the narrower compass and the smaller number of persons among whom it was perpetrated.

At another time, as I was walking through the town, a person addressed me in the following manner, €t I hope you won't be offended at what I am going to say ; but really, Sir, excuse me, your hat is rather too bad for the rest of your dress, and I must say, you will excuse me, that you ought to have a new one. Oh ! I wish you would let me recommend you one

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of my four-and-twenty-shilling ones — bless me, they are the prettiest things your ever saw. Excuse me, shall I send one V y

Some time after an old woman called on me, who after asking my name, to be certain she had come to the right person, told me that Mr, Fig had seen me in alight summer coat, and requested I would send it to him, that he might try it on, and see whether he should like to have one made similar to it. I asked the woman who Mr. Fig happened to be, and found he was " the grocer round the corner/' As may be supposed, I found the free-and-easy principle carried rather too far in this case, and desired the woman to inform Mr. Fig that I was not in the habit of lending anything besides my horsewhip.

Such are a few samples of the curious manners of some of our small towns, and I am confident that a person who could give anything like an accurate portrait of the whole, would produce an amusing book. I leave the hint to authors in general, but beg to inform the reading world that if it prove so kind as to like the present work, I shall shortly attempt something of the kind myself, unless some more skilful writer previously handle the subject. As honest old Francis Quarles says, " Reader, be more than

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my hasty pen stiles thee; Reade mee with advice and thereafter judge me, and in that judgment censure me. If I jangle, think my intent thereby is to toll better ringers in. Farewell."

August, 1840.

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BOOK FIRST. Vhe Clerggntan

Unskilful be to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to die varying boor. Far other aims his heart had learned to prise, More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.

VOIj. I.

ELPHINSTONE.

CHAPTER I. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute

Of all the many parts that make up that awful whole, C( a work/' the easiest to accomplish is certainly not the beginning. A vast variety of modes has been shown by authors, but this very variety, like the prescriptions of various physicians for the same complaint, shows rather the difficulty than the easiness of finding one that could be marked " probar turn est."

If a respectable, middle-aged, black-coated gentleman sit himself down to write a pamphlet on church-rates, he commences by a metaphysics theological disquisition on the logos. If a learned gentleman in gown and band discusses the legality of shutting up an unused road, leading from one no-thoroughfare lane to

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another, he begins with a treatise on the state of the Roman laws which led to the digest of Justinian. Another person would make a dissertation on moral justice introductory to remarks on a magistrate's decision ; and, in fact, to read a book is to go on a voyage of discovery, with no chart but the title-page.

Even in works assuming to be imaginative, or pictures drawn from observation of human life, in which the embarrassment of choosing a point to start from, would appear not to be great, experience has shown the same difficulty. A man who has never been out of earshot of Bow bells, proposing to himself the history of some hero in his own way of life, sets out with a geological and botanical account of some foreign mountain, into which he unexpectedly dovetails a description of one of his characters, and then goes a-head in proper order.

If the tale be an old romance, it is sure to open with a storm on a November night, when Jacques and Zabetta are cooking their savoury rasher over a crackling fire ; they are sure to remember that it is nineteen years that very night, since there was such a storm, by reason that their good lady then died. Then, they

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suddenly hear a scream at the door; and, after having invoked all the saints, and held a long consultation with the unexpected visitor, the door is cautiously opened; and behold, there is a most interesting young lady, in a ball-room dress. She is put to bed ; Jacques and wife consult again ; the young lady has struck both as being the very image of their nineteen-years-lamented mistress — and this tells the tale ; for, of course, the young lady turns out to be the heiress, and all that the author has to do, is to overcome the usurping uncle — a thing, like giving fortunes, very easy for an author to accomplish — upon paper.

If the tale be of fashionable life, the classical author follows Horace's plan for the epic, and rushes at once, without invocation, " in medias res/' ' " Indeed ! and is his Lordship returned so soon?" exclaimed the Hon. Mrs. Clatter to her friend, Lady Betty Slatter, as they drove in a crimson lined open carriage, from Portland Place, etc.' And this plan is very good — — not so far as it goes, because it goes too far — it is very good, so far as it saves the trouble of beating about the bush to find a decent pretext for introducing " our hero " or a character. But it has one disadvantage ; it tempts

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authors to begin too near to the catastrophe, and then, at least two volumes are required to bring the reader up to the point at which he started, all the circumstances of which he has, of course, forgotten. This off-hand way of beginning has such charms for the author, that in a little time, we may expect to see books begun at the end 5 so that the life of a man might commence at his death, and terminate at his birth. But I question whether it would not be as easy for our modern authors, although no conjurors themselves, to imitate the conjurors of old in their satanic invocations — namely, give us their compositions with the beginning and end in their natural order, with instructions to read the whole backwards.

That much may be said in favour of each of these modes of beginning, I have no doubt ; yet, as they have been made so much use of, and are become so common, I trust I shall be excused for taking up a new method, which, if it be not admired for its own merits, must be admitted on the score of its rarity. To spare much painful conjecture, I may as well state, that the point at which I shall venture to begin my tale, is the beginning.

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Chapter II. Cicero

Holton is a small market town, in the county of Hants, and having said this, farther description will be unnecessary, as all small towns, in agricultural districts, are alike. The general mass is always a- mixture of houses and trees ; which, examined more intimately, will be found to consist of certain proportions of houses of butchers, tailors, bakers, etc., a light sprinkling of those of the gentry, a church of an unknown order of architecture, and a town hall for the exhibition of the eloquence of itinerant players and parsons. Such a mass, on a plain of luxuriant farms, is a portrait of Holton ; and, unlike a modern portrait, which resembles nothing, this will be

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recognised as the likeness of a hundred individuals.

But not being particularly fond of descriptive writing, save in the immortal works of George Robins, I leave the town until there is further need of it, as my only business there at present, is to introduce its clergyman to the reader, which I do, with many apologies for introducing so unfashionable a character.

George Elphinstone, to be sure, was of good family, had a good person, and was possessed of considerable talents and learning ; and some of his friends respected him with his three hundred a-year, as much as they did his brother with ten thousand; nay, some went so far as to allow as much weight to his opinions as to those of his brother. But this is a folly, happily, very rare; for I question whether my readers ever heard of a discussion, on any subject, between a man of three hundred and one of ten thousand a-year, in which the richer man had not the better of the argument.

The father of George had only ten thousand a year, and consequently could do little or nothing for his younger children. His grand object had been to leave the hereditary ten thousand a year to his heir, and to make the

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brothers and sisters live as they could. George was the second son, and as the father was patron of a living or two, which he would be able to give in a few years, and as the son seemed fit for nothing else, he was thrust into the church. I have said, that George seemed fit for nothing but the church, by which expression I mean, that he was wanting in all the qualities that make up a modern gentleman. Thus in youth he was fonder of study than of dissipation, cared very little about fieldsports, was not extravagant, did not get in debt, and had no taste for those practical amusements, which parents consider, in their own children, proofs of delightful animal spirits, and in the children of other people sure prognostics of the gallows.

He was sent to Oxford, gained prizes, took degrees, held a fellowship, and finally had the offer of the living of Holton from his college, which he accepted. But if, as nine-tenths of my readers will assert, the value of a thing is what it will bring ; and the fitness of a man for an office is in like proportion to his disposition to make the most that could be made of it, George showed as much unfitness for the church, as he had shown for every other

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gentlemanly calling. He never expressed any rapturous gratitude for the offer of a day's shooting, he was by no means a certain make-shift hand at a rubber, there were many better judges of port in the town, and many mote indefatigable laughers at the ponderous wit of great men ; consequently, he was by no means qualified to get on in the church— -ergo, he was not fit for the church.

What, then, were the characteristics of the man ? Why, the oaths and obligations he had taken on himself, he considered really binding. He seemed to have divided his life into a series of duties, which nothing could prevent him from fulfilling. To visit the sick or distressed — to relieve the poor — to restore goodwill — to study, with a view to his Sunday's labours, were things which he made a point of conscience to perform ; and he was really so weak as to neglect many delightful parties which would have interfered with the regular performance of these works, and what was most strange, he did not know the whigs in his congregation from the tories.

Of course, the man of ten thousand a-year was not so unreasonable as to expect his son to live on three hundred. This living was to

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be merely a make-shift, until the more valuable family living should become available. But George, in some way or other, had become so beloved by all the labouring people of his little community, so intimate with all the children, and so respected by all the respectable, that when the great preferment was offered to him, he could not find it in his heart to accept it. The offer was refused, to the great anger of his father, and the contempt of every one, who sets the usual value on the good things of this life.

It was incredible with what calmness he retained a situation in which he felt himself useful and happy, in preference to one from which he might have started on a race for the highest dignities of the church. But so it was, — he made up his mind to live and die where he was; and, at the opening of my tale, almost forgotten by his family, he had spent twenty years in a calm, unbroken by any incidents, save those which quiet, unassuming beneficence always finds to exercise itself on.

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Chapter III

If you write up, Please to ring the bell, Common politeness makes me stop and do it.

COL MAN, TOBY TOSSPOT.

I have said that Mr. Elphinstone had been twenty years vicar of Holton. He was, consequently, at least a middle-aged man ; and he was really a steady, methodical, orderly, quiet kind of gentleman — never having been married. He scarcely knew what an adventure was, unless the introduction of five or six small cats into his house every few months, might be called one. But he was not to go out of the world without something to remember it by. With dressing-gown on back, and slippers on feet, — and quite a secret from all the world, with spectacles on nose, — he was one evening comfortably ensconced in the elbowchair of his study, after a summer-day's hard

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IS walking, and was deep in the mysterious eloquence of the golden-mouthed Father, when a furious ringing of the outer door-bell aroused him from his studies.

A ring at the door ! Surely this was not a very unexpected or unusual thing — not a thing to arouse one. On the authority of Mr. Toby Tosspot, it was, at most, merely a proof of the politeness of some passing friend. But whether Mr. Elphinstone knew but little about politeness, or did not possess friends so accomplished as Mr. Tosspot, it happened that the loud peal, being rather late, took him out of his study, and caused a regular, or rather an irregular movement of the whole family, consisting of himself and an elderly housekeeper, to the front door. The door was opened without any screaming or trepidation ; but, to the vociferous amazement of the housekeeper and the ejaculatory surprise of Mr. Elphinstone, the visitor was discovered to be a child, about half a year old, fast asleep in a basket.

Now, it struck both the gentleman and the lady that the child could have no such pressing business at their house as to require so loud a peal of bell-ringing so late in the evening ; and they came to the reasonable conclusion that

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the child was not in fault, but that it had come there nolens volens, and that some person or persons, not present, had made them the gift of the child, but had been too modest to stay to receive their thanks.

The first thing to be done, was to take the child into the house ; the next, to examine it and the things in which it was wrapt ; and for the sake of lovers of romance, I am sorry to be obliged to say that the linen, though very good, was not of the most unimaginable fineness ; it was not marked with a coronet or family crest ; there was no necklace or other family jewel with coats of arms, in the basket ; neither did they discover a draught on Abraham Newland for one hundred pounds.