Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843

"Very well, old chap. Then just get out the bottle, and give your father something to coax the cod down. Poll, that fish won't settle."

The long hour was beginning. That bottle was the signal. A gin and water nightcap, on this occasion, officiated for the ale. Jack and his brother received a special invitation to a sip or two, which they at once unhesitatingly accepted. The sturdy fellows shook their father and fellow-labourer's hand, and were not loth to go to rest. Their mother was their attendant. The ruffle had departed from her face. It was as pleasant as before. She was but half a dissenter. So Thompson thought when he called her back again, and bade his "old 'ooman give her hobby one of her good old-fashioned busses, and think no more about it."

Thompson and I were left together.

"And what do you mean to do, sir, now?" was his first question.

"I hardly know." I answered.

"Of course, you'll cut the gang entirely—that's a nat'ral consequence."

"No, Thompson, not at present. I must not seem so fickle and inconstant. I must not seem so to myself. I joined this sect not altogether without deliberation. I must have further proof of the unsoundness of its principles. A few of its professors have been faithless even to their own position. Of what religious profession may not the same be said? I will be patient, and examine further."

"I was a-thinking," said Thompson, musingly, "I was a-thinking, 'till you've got something else to do——but no, never mind, you won't like that."

"What is it?"

"Why, I was thinking about the young un's. They're shocking back'ard in their eddication, and, between you and me, the missus makes them back'arder. I don't understand the way she has got of larning 'em at all. I don't want to make scholards of 'em. Nobody would but a fool. Bless 'em, they'll have enough to do to get their bread with sweating and toiling, without addling their brains about things they can't understand. But it is a cruelty, mind you, for a parent to hinder his child from reading his Bible on a Sunday afternoon, and to make him stand ashamed of himself before his fellow workman when he grows up, and finds that he can't put paid to a bill on a Saturday night. The boys should all know how to read and write, and keep accounts, and a little summut of human nature. This is what I wants to give 'em, and nobody should I like better to put it into 'em than you, my old friend, if you'd just take the trouble 'till you've got something better to do."

"Thompson," I answered instantly, "I will do it with pleasure. I ought to have made the offer. It did not occur to me. I shall rejoice to repay you, in this trifling way, for all your good feeling and kindness."

"Oh no!" answered my friend, "none of that. We must have an understanding. Don't you think I should have asked the question, if I meant to sneak out in that dirty sort of way. No, that won't do. It's very kind of you, but we must make all that right. We sha'n't quarrel, I dare say. If you mean you'll do it, I have only just a word or two to say before you begin."

"I shall be proud to serve you, Thompson, and on any terms you please."

"Well, it is a serving me—I don't deny it—but, mind you, only till you have dropped into something worth your while. What I wish to say is as this: As soon as ever my missus hears of what you are going to do, I know as well what she'll be at as I know what I am talking of now. She'll just be breaking my heart to have the boys larned French. Now, I'd just as soon bind 'em apprentice to that ere Clayton. I've seen too much of that ere sort of thing in my time. I'm as positive as I sit here, that when a chap begins to talk French he loses all his English spirit, and feels all over him as like a mounseer as possible. I'm sure he does. I've seen it a hundred times, and that I couldn't a-bear. Besides, I've been told that French is the language the thieves talk, and I solemnly believe it. That's one thing. Now, here's another. You'll excuse me, my dear fellow. In course you know more than I do, but I must say that you have got sometimes a very roundabout way of coming to the pint. I mean no offence, and I don't blame you. It's all along of the company you have kept. You are—it's the only fault you have got—you are oudaciously fond of hard words. Don't let the young uns larn 'em. That's all I have to say, and we'll talk of the pay some other time."

At this turn of the conversation, Thompson insisted upon my lighting a pipe and joining him in the gin and water. We smoked for many minutes in silence. My friend had unbuttoned his waistcoat, and had drawn the table nearer to his warm and hospitable fire. A log of wood was burning slowly and steadily away, and a small, bright—very bright—copper kettle overlooked it from the hob. My host had fixed his feet upon the fender—the unemployed hand was in his corduroys. His eyes were three parts closed, enjoying what from its origin may be called—a pure tobacco-born soliloquy. The smoke arose in thin white curls from the clay cup, and at regular periods stole blandly from the corner of his lips. The silent man was blessed. He had been happy at his work; he had grown happier as the sun went down; his happiness was ripening at the supper table; now, half-asleep and half-awake—half conscious and half dreaming—wholly free from care, and yet not free from pregnant thought—the labourer had reached the summit of felicity, and was at peace—intensely.

A few evenings only had elapsed after this interesting meeting, before I was again spending a delicious hour or two with the simple-hearted and generous upholsterer. There was something very winning in these moments snatched and secured from the hurricane of life, and passed in thorough and undisturbed enjoyment. My friend, notwithstanding that he had engaged my services, and was pleased to express his satisfaction at the mode in which I rendered them, was yet alive to my interests, and too apprehensive of injuring them by keeping me away from loftier employment. He did not like my being thrown out of the chapel, especially after he had heard my determination not to forsake immediately the sect to which I had attached myself. He was indifferent to his own fate. His worldly prospects could not be injured by his expulsion; on the contrary, he slyly assured me that "his neighbours would begin to think better of him, and give him credit for having become an honester and more trustworthy man." But with regard to myself it was a different thing. I should require "a character" at some time or another, and there was a body of men primed and ready to vilify and crush me. He advised me, whilst he acknowledged it was a hard thing to say, and "it went agin him to do it," to apply once more respectfully for my dismission. "It won't do," he pertinently said, "to bite your nose off to be revenged on your tongue." I was certainly in a mess, and must get out of it in the best way that I could. Buster and Tomkins had great power in the Church, and if I represented my case to either or both of them, he did hope they might be brought to consent not to injure me, or stand in the way of my getting bread. "In a quarrel," he said, in conclusion, "some one must give in. I was a young man, and had my way to make, and though he should despise his-self if he recommended me to do any thing mean and dirty in the business, yet, he thought, as the father of a numerous family, he ought to advise me to be civil, and to do the best for myself in this unfortunate dilemmy."

I accepted his advice, and determined to wait upon the dapper deacon. I was physically afraid to encounter Buster, not so much on account of what I had seen of his spiritual pretension, as of what I had heard of his domestic behaviour. It was not a very difficult task to obtain from Mrs Thompson the secret history of many of her highly privileged acquaintances and brethren. She enjoyed, in a powerful degree, the peculiar virtue of her amiable sex, and to communicate secrets, delivered to her in strictest confidence, and imparted by her again with equal caution and provisory care, was the choicest recreation of her well employed and useful life. It was through this lady that I was favoured with a glance into the natural heart of Mr Buster; or into what he would himself have called, with a most unfilial disgust, "HIS OLD MAN." It appeared that, like most great actors, he was a very different personage before and behind the curtain. Kings, who are miserable and gloomy through the five acts of a dismal tragedy, and who must needs die at the end of it, are your merriest knaves over a tankard at the Shakspeare's Head. Your stage fool shall be the dullest dog that ever spoiled mirth with sour and discontented looks. Jabez Buster, his employment being over at Mr Clayton's theatre, his dress thrown aside, his mask put by, was not to be recognised by his nearest friend. This is the perfection of art. A greater tyrant on a small scale, with limited means, never existed than the saintly Buster when his character was done, and he found himself again in the bosom of his family. Unhappy bosom was it, and a sad flustration did his presence, nine times out of ten, produce there. He had four sons, and a delicate creature for a wife, born to be crushed. The sons were remarkable chiefly for their hypocrisy, which promised, in the fulness of time, to throw their highly-gifted parent's far into the shade; and, secondarily, for their persecution of their helpless and indulgent mother. They witnessed and approved so much the success of Jabez in this particular, that during his absence they cultivated the affectionate habit until it became a kind of second nature, infinitely more racy and agreeable than the primary. In proportion to their deliberate oppression of their mother was their natural dread and terror of their father. Mrs Thompson pronounced it "the shockingest thing in this world to be present when the young blue-beards were worryting their mother's soul out with saying, 'I sha'n't' and 'I won't' to every thing, and swearing 'they'd tell their father this,' 'and put him up to that, and then wouldn't he make a jolly row about it,' with hollering out for nothing at all, only to frighten the poor timid cretur, and then making a holabaloo with the chairs, or perhaps falling down, roaring and kicking, just to drive the poor thing clean out of her wits, on purpose to laugh at her for being so taken in. Well, but it was a great treat, too," she added, "to hear, in the midst of all this, Buster's heavy foot in the passage, and to see what a scrimmage there was at once amongst all the young hypocrites. How they all run in different directions—one to the fire—one to the table—one out at the back-door—one any where he could—all of 'em as silent as mice, and afeard of the very eye of the blacksmith, who knew, good man, how to keep every man Jack of 'em in order, and, if a word didn't do, wasn't by no means behind hand with blows. Buster," she continued, "had his faults like other men, but he was a saint if ever there was one. To be sure he did like to have his own way at home, and wasn't it natural? And if he was rather overbearing and cruel to his wife, wasn't that, she should like to know, Satan warring with the new man, and sometimes getting the better of it? And if he was, as Thompson had hinted, rayther partial to the creature, and liked good living, what was this to the purpose? it was an infirmity that might happen to the best Christian living. Nobody could say that he wasn't a renewed man, and a chosen vessel, and faithful to his call. A man isn't a backslider because he's carnally weak, and a man isn't a saint because he's moral and well-behaved. 'Good works,' Mr Clayton said, 'was filthy rags,' and so they were. To be sure, between themselves, there were one or two things said about Buster that she couldn't approve of. For instance, she had been told—but this was quite in confidence, and really must not go further—that he was—that—that, in fact, he was overtaken now and then with liquor, and then the house could hardly hold him, he got so furious, and, they did say, used such horrid language. But, after all, what was this? If a man's elected, he is not so much the worse. Besides, if one listened to people, one might never leave off. She had actually heard, she wouldn't say from whom, that Buster very often kept out late at night—sometimes didn't come home at all, and sometimes did at two o'clock in the morning, very hungry and ill-tempered, and then forced his poor wife out of bed, and made the delicate and shivering creature light a fire, cook beefsteaks, go into the yard for beer, and wait upon him till he had even eat every morsel up. She for one would never believe all this, though Mrs Buster herself had told her every word with tears in her eyes, and in the greatest confidence; so she trusted I wouldn't repeat it, as it wouldn't look well in her to be found out telling other people's secrets." Singular, perhaps, to say, the tale did not go further. I kept the lady's secret, and at the same time declined to approach Mr Jabez Buster in the character of a suppliant. If his advocate and panegyrist had nothing more to say for him, it could not be uncharitable to conclude that the pretended saint was as bold a sinner as ever paid infamous courtship to religion, and as such was studiously to be avoided. I turned my attention from him to Tomkins. There was no grossness about him, no brutality, no abominable vice. In the hour of my defeat and desertion, he had extended to me his sympathy, and, more in sorrow than in anger, I am convinced he voted for my expulsion from the church when he found that his vote, and twenty added to it, would not have been sufficient to protect me. He could not act in opposition to the wishes of his friend and patron, Mr Clayton, but very glad would he have been, as every word and look assured me, to meet the wishes of us both, had that been practicable. If the great desire of Jehu Tomkins' heart could have been gratified, he never would have been at enmity with a single soul on earth. He was a soft, good-natured, easy man; most desirous to be let alone, and not uneasily envious or distressed to see his neighbours jogging on, so long as he could do his own good stroke of business, and keep a little way before them. Jehu was a Liberal too—in politics and in religion—in every thing, in fact, but the one small article of money, and here, I must confess, the good dissenter dissented little from the best of us. He was a stanch Conservative in matters connected with the till. For his private life it was exemplary—at least it looked so to the world, and the world is satisfied with what it sees. Jehu was attentive to his business—yes, very—and a business life is not monotonous and dull, if it be relieved, as it was in this case, by dexterous arts, that give an interest and flavour to the commonest pursuits. Sometimes a customer would die—a natural state of things, but a great event for Jehu. First, he would "improve the occasion" to the surviving relatives—condole and pray with them. Afterwards he would improve it to himself, in his own little room, at night, when all the children were asleep, and no one was awake but Mrs Tomkins and himself. Then he would get down his ledger, and turn to the deceased's account—

"——How long it is thou see'st, And he would gaze 'till it became much longer;"

"For who could tell whether six shirts or twelve were bought in July last, and what could be the harm of making those eight handkerchiefs a dozen? He was a strange old gentleman; lived by himself—and the books might be referred to, and speak boldly for themselves." Yes, cunning Jehu, so they might, with those interpolations and erasures that would confound and overcome a lawyer. When customers did not die, it was pastime to be dallying with the living. In adding up a bill with haste, how many times will four and four make nine? They generally did with Jehu. The best are liable to errors. It cost a smirk or smile; Jehu had hundreds at command, and the accident was amended. How easy is it sometimes to give no bill at all! How very easy to apply, a few months afterwards, for second payment; how much more easy still to pocket it without a word; or, if discovered and convicted, to apologize without a blush for the mistake! No, Jehu Tomkins, let me do you justice—this is not so easy—it requires all your zeal and holy intrepidity to reach this pitch of human frailty and corruption. With regard to the domestic position of my interesting friend, it is painful to add, that the less that is said about it the better. In vain was his name in full, painted in large yellow letters, over the shop front. In vain was Bot. of Jehu Tomkins engraven on satin paper, with flourishes innumerable beneath the royal arms; he was no more the master of his house than was the small boy of the establishment, who did the dirty work of the place for nothing a-week and the broken victuals. If Jehu was deacon abroad, he was taught to acknowledge an archdeacon at home—one to whom he was indebted for his success in life, and for reminding him of that agreeable fact about four times during every day of his existence. I was aware of this delicate circumstance when I ventured to the linen-draper's shop on my almost hopeless mission; but, although I had never spoken to Mrs Tomkins, I had often seen her in the chapel, and I relied much on the feeling and natural tenderness of the female heart. The respectable shop of Mr Tomkins was in Fleet Street. The establishment consisted of Mrs Tomkins, première; Jehu, under-secretary; and four sickly-looking young ladies behind the counter. It is to be said, to the honour of Mrs Tomkins, that she admitted no young woman into her service whose character was not decided, and whose views were not very clear. Accordingly, the four young ladies were members of the chapel. It is pleasing to reflect, that, in this well-ordered house of business, the ladies took their turns to attend the weekly prayer meetings of the church. Would that I might add, that they were not severally met on these occasions by their young men at the corner of Chancery Lane, and invariably escorted by them some two or three miles in a totally opposite direction. Had Mrs Tomkins been born a man, it is difficult to decide what situation she would have adorned the most. She would have made a good man of business—an acute lawyer—a fine casuist—a great divine. Her attainments were immense; her self-confidence unbounded. She was a woman of middle height, and masculine bearing. She was not prepossessing, notwithstanding her white teeth and large mouth, and the intolerable grin that a customer to the amount of a halfpenny and upwards could bring upon her face under any circumstances, and at any hour of the day. Her complexion might have been good originally. Red blotches scattered over her cheek had destroyed its beauty. She wore a modest and becoming cap, and a gold eyeglass round her neck. She was devoted to money-making—heart and soul devoted to it during business hours. What time she was not in the shop, she passed amongst dissenting ministers, spiritual brethren, and deluded sinners. It remains to state the fact, that, whilst a customer never approached the lady without being repelled by the offensive smirk that she assumed, no dependent ever ventured near her without the fear of the scowl that sat naturally (and fearfully, when she pleased) upon her dark and inauspicious brow. What wonder that little Jehu was crushed into nothingness, behind his own counter, under the eye of his own wife!

THE WORLD OF LONDON. SECOND SERIES

PART II

In our last, we had occasion to speak sharply of that class of our aristocratic youth known by the name of fast fellows, and it may be thought that we characterized their foibles rather pointedly, and tinctured our animadversions with somewhat of undue asperity. This charge, however, can be made with no ground of reason or justice: the fact is, we only lashed the follies for which that class of men are pre-eminent, but left their vices in the shade, in the hope that the raw we have already established, will shame the fast fellows into a sense of the proprieties of conduct due to themselves and their station.

The misfortune is, that these fast fellows forget, in the pursuit of their favourite follies, that the mischief to society begins only with themselves: that man is naturally a servile, imitative animal; and that he follows in the track of a great name, as vulgar muttons run at the heels of a belwether. The poison of fashionable folly runs comparatively innocuous while it circulates in fashionable veins; but when vulgar fellows are innoculated with the virus, it becomes a plague, a moral small-pox, distorting, disfiguring the man's mind, pockpitting his small modicum of brains, and blinding his mind's eye to the supreme contempt his awkward vagaries inspire.

The fast fellows rejoice exceedingly in the spread of their servile imitation of fashionable folly, this gentlemanly profligacy at second-hand; and perhaps this is the worst trait in their character, for it is at once malicious and unwise: malicious, because the contemplation of humanity, degraded by bad example in high station, should rather be a source of secret shame than of devilish gratification: unwise, because their example is a discredit to their order, and a danger. To posses birth, fashion, station, wealth, power, is title enough to envy, and handle sufficient for scandal. How much stronger becomes that title—how much longer that handle—when men, enjoying this pre-eminence, enjoy it, not using, but abusing their good fortune!

We should not have troubled our heads with the fast fellows at all, if it were not absolutely essential to the full consideration of our subject, widely to sever the prominent classes of fashionable life, and to have no excuse for continuing in future to confound them. We have now done with the fast fellows, and shall like them the more the less we hear of them.

CONCERNING SLOW FELLOWS

The SLOW SCHOOL of fashionable or aristocratic life, comprises those who think that, in the nineteenth century, other means must be taken to preserve their order in its high and responsible position than those which, in dark ages, conferred honour upon the tallest or the bravest. They think, and think wisely, that the only method of keeping above the masses, in this active-minded age, is by soaring higher and further into the boundless realms of intellect; or at the least forgetting, in a fair neck-and-neck race with men of meaner birth, their purer blood, and urging the generous contest for fame, regardless of the allurements of pleasure, or the superior advantages of fortune. In truth, we might ask, what would become of our aristocratic classes ere long, if they came, as a body, to be identified with their gambling lords, their black-leg baronets, their insolvent honourables, and the seedy set of Chevaliers Diddlerowski and Counts Scaramouchi, who caper on the platform outside for their living? The populace would pelt these harlequin horse-jockeys of fashionable life off their stage, if there was nothing better to be seen inside; but it fortunately happens that there is better.

We can boast among our nobles and aristocratic families, a few men of original, commanding, and powerful intellect; many respectable in most departments of intellectual rivalry; many more laborious, hard-working men; and about the same proportion of dull, stupid, fat-headed, crabbed, conceited, ignorant, insolent men, that you may find among the same given number of those commonly called the educated classes. We refer you to the aristocracies of other countries, and we think we may safely say, that we have more men of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as they feel, with the poet: