The History of Tom Jones, a foundling
by
Henry Fielding

Part 11 out of 18



For, as Martial says, _Aliter non fit, Avite, liber_. No book can be
otherwise composed. All beauty of character, as well as of
countenance, and indeed of everything human, is to be tried in this
manner. Cruel indeed would it be if such a work as this history, which
hath employed some thousands of hours in the composing, should be
liable to be condemned, because some particular chapter, or perhaps
chapters, may be obnoxious to very just and sensible objections. And
yet nothing is more common than the most rigorous sentence upon books
supported by such objections, which, if they were rightly taken (and
that they are not always), do by no means go to the merit of the
whole. In the theatre especially, a single expression which doth not
coincide with the taste of the audience, or with any individual critic
of that audience, is sure to be hissed; and one scene which should be
disapproved would hazard the whole piece. To write within such severe
rules as these is as impossible as to live up to some splenetic
opinions: and if we judge according to the sentiments of some critics,
and of some Christians, no author will be saved in this world, and no
man in the next.



Chapter ii.

The adventures which Sophia met with after her leaving Upton.


Our history, just before it was obliged to turn about and travel
backwards, had mentioned the departure of Sophia and her maid from the
inn; we shall now therefore pursue the steps of that lovely creature,
and leave her unworthy lover a little longer to bemoan his ill-luck,
or rather his ill-conduct.

Sophia having directed her guide to travel through bye-roads, across
the country, they now passed the Severn, and had scarce got a mile
from the inn, when the young lady, looking behind her, saw several
horses coming after on full speed. This greatly alarmed her fears, and
she called to the guide to put on as fast as possible.

He immediately obeyed her, and away they rode a full gallop. But the
faster they went, the faster were they followed; and as the horses
behind were somewhat swifter than those before, so the former were at
length overtaken. A happy circumstance for poor Sophia; whose fears,
joined to her fatigue, had almost overpowered her spirits; but she was
now instantly relieved by a female voice, that greeted her in the
softest manner, and with the utmost civility. This greeting Sophia, as
soon as she could recover her breath, with like civility, and with the
highest satisfaction to herself, returned.

The travellers who joined Sophia, and who had given her such terror,
consisted, like her own company, of two females and a guide. The two
parties proceeded three full miles together before any one offered
again to open their mouths; when our heroine, having pretty well got
the better of her fear (but yet being somewhat surprized that the
other still continued to attend her, as she pursued no great road, and
had already passed through several turnings), accosted the strange
lady in a most obliging tone, and said, "She was very happy to find
they were both travelling the same way." The other, who, like a ghost,
only wanted to be spoke to, readily answered, "That the happiness was
entirely hers; that she was a perfect stranger in that country, and
was so overjoyed at meeting a companion of her own sex, that she had
perhaps been guilty of an impertinence, which required great apology,
in keeping pace with her." More civilities passed between these two
ladies; for Mrs Honour had now given place to the fine habit of the
stranger, and had fallen into the rear. But, though Sophia had great
curiosity to know why the other lady continued to travel on through
the same bye-roads with herself, nay, though this gave her some
uneasiness, yet fear, or modesty, or some other consideration,
restrained her from asking the question.

The strange lady now laboured under a difficulty which appears almost
below the dignity of history to mention. Her bonnet had been blown
from her head not less than five times within the last mile; nor could
she come at any ribbon or handkerchief to tie it under her chin. When
Sophia was informed of this, she immediately supplied her with a
handkerchief for this purpose; which while she was pulling from her
pocket, she perhaps too much neglected the management of her horse,
for the beast, now unluckily making a false step, fell upon his
fore-legs, and threw his fair rider from his back.

Though Sophia came head foremost to the ground, she happily received
not the least damage: and the same circumstances which had perhaps
contributed to her fall now preserved her from confusion; for the lane
which they were then passing was narrow, and very much overgrown with
trees, so that the moon could here afford very little light, and was
moreover, at present, so obscured in a cloud, that it was almost
perfectly dark. By these means the young lady's modesty, which was
extremely delicate, escaped as free from injury as her limbs, and she
was once more reinstated in her saddle, having received no other harm
than a little fright by her fall.

Daylight at length appeared in its full lustre; and now the two
ladies, who were riding over a common side by side, looking stedfastly
at each other, at the same moment both their eyes became fixed; both
their horses stopt, and, both speaking together, with equal joy
pronounced, the one the name of Sophia, the other that of Harriet.

This unexpected encounter surprized the ladies much more than I
believe it will the sagacious reader, who must have imagined that the
strange lady could be no other than Mrs Fitzpatrick, the cousin of
Miss Western, whom we before mentioned to have sallied from the inn a
few minutes after her.

So great was the surprize and joy which these two cousins conceived at
this meeting (for they had formerly been most intimate acquaintance
and friends, and had long lived together with their aunt Western),
that it is impossible to recount half the congratulations which passed
between them, before either asked a very natural question of the
other, namely, whither she was going?

This at last, however, came first from Mrs Fitzpatrick; but, easy and
natural as the question may seem, Sophia found it difficult to give it
a very ready and certain answer. She begged her cousin therefore to
suspend all curiosity till they arrived at some inn, "which I
suppose," says she, "can hardly be far distant; and, believe me,
Harriet, I suspend as much curiosity on my side; for, indeed, I
believe our astonishment is pretty equal."

The conversation which passed between these ladies on the road was, I
apprehend, little worth relating; and less certainly was that between
the two waiting-women; for they likewise began to pay their
compliments to each other. As for the guides, they were debarred from
the pleasure of discourse, the one being placed in the van, and the
other obliged to bring up the rear.

In this posture they travelled many hours, till they came into a wide
and well-beaten road, which, as they turned to the right, soon brought
them to a very fair promising inn, where they all alighted: but so
fatigued was Sophia, that as she had sat her horse during the last
five or six miles with great difficulty, so was she now incapable of
dismounting from him without assistance. This the landlord, who had
hold of her horse, presently perceiving, offered to lift her in his
arms from her saddle; and she too readily accepted the tender of his
service. Indeed fortune seems to have resolved to put Sophia to the
blush that day, and the second malicious attempt succeeded better than
the first; for my landlord had no sooner received the young lady in
his arms, than his feet, which the gout had lately very severely
handled, gave way, and down he tumbled; but, at the same time, with no
less dexterity than gallantry, contrived to throw himself under his
charming burden, so that he alone received any bruise from the fall;
for the great injury which happened to Sophia was a violent shock
given to her modesty by an immoderate grin, which, at her rising from
the ground, she observed in the countenances of most of the
bye-standers. This made her suspect what had really happened, and what
we shall not here relate for the indulgence of those readers who are
capable of laughing at the offence given to a young lady's delicacy.
Accidents of this kind we have never regarded in a comical light; nor
will we scruple to say that he must have a very inadequate idea of the
modesty of a beautiful young woman, who would wish to sacrifice it to
so paltry a satisfaction as can arise from laughter.

This fright and shock, joined to the violent fatigue which both her
mind and body had undergone, almost overcame the excellent
constitution of Sophia, and she had scarce strength sufficient to
totter into the inn, leaning on the arm of her maid. Here she was no
sooner seated than she called for a glass of water; but Mrs Honour,
very judiciously, in my opinion, changed it into a glass of wine.

Mrs Fitzpatrick, hearing from Mrs Honour that Sophia had not been in
bed during the two last nights, and observing her to look very pale
and wan with her fatigue, earnestly entreated her to refresh herself
with some sleep. She was yet a stranger to her history, or her
apprehensions; but, had she known both, she would have given the same
advice; for rest was visibly necessary for her; and their long journey
through bye-roads so entirely removed all danger of pursuit, that she
was herself perfectly easy on that account.

Sophia was easily prevailed on to follow the counsel of her friend,
which was heartily seconded by her maid. Mrs Fitzpatrick likewise
offered to bear her cousin company, which Sophia, with much
complacence, accepted.

The mistress was no sooner in bed than the maid prepared to follow her
example. She began to make many apologies to her sister Abigail for
leaving her alone in so horrid a place as an inn; but the other stopt
her short, being as well inclined to a nap as herself, and desired the
honour of being her bedfellow. Sophia's maid agreed to give her a
share of her bed, but put in her claim to all the honour. So, after
many courtsies and compliments, to bed together went the
waiting-women, as their mistresses had done before them.

It was usual with my landlord (as indeed it is with the whole
fraternity) to enquire particularly of all coachmen, footmen,
postboys, and others, into the names of all his guests; what their
estate was, and where it lay. It cannot therefore be wondered at that
the many particular circumstances which attended our travellers, and
especially their retiring all to sleep at so extraordinary and unusual
an hour as ten in the morning, should excite his curiosity. As soon,
therefore, as the guides entered the kitchen, he began to examine who
the ladies were, and whence they came; but the guides, though they
faithfully related all they knew, gave him very little satisfaction.
On the contrary, they rather enflamed his curiosity than extinguished
it.

This landlord had the character, among all his neighbours, of being a
very sagacious fellow. He was thought to see farther and deeper into
things than any man in the parish, the parson himself not excepted.
Perhaps his look had contributed not a little to procure him this
reputation; for there was in this something wonderfully wise and
significant, especially when he had a pipe in his mouth; which,
indeed, he seldom was without. His behaviour, likewise, greatly
assisted in promoting the opinion of his wisdom. In his deportment he
was solemn, if not sullen; and when he spoke, which was seldom, he
always delivered himself in a slow voice; and, though his sentences
were short, they were still interrupted with many hums and ha's, ay
ays, and other expletives: so that, though he accompanied his words
with certain explanatory gestures, such as shaking or nodding the
head, or pointing with his fore-finger, he generally left his hearers
to understand more than he expressed; nay, he commonly gave them a
hint that he knew much more than he thought proper to disclose. This
last circumstance alone may, indeed, very well account for his
character of wisdom; since men are strangely inclined to worship what
they do not understand. A grand secret, upon which several imposers on
mankind have totally relied for the success of their frauds.

This polite person, now taking his wife aside, asked her "what she
thought of the ladies lately arrived?" "Think of them?" said the wife,
"why, what should I think of them?" "I know," answered he, "what I
think. The guides tell strange stories. One pretends to be come from
Gloucester, and the other from Upton; and neither of them, for what I
can find, can tell whither they are going. But what people ever travel
across the country from Upton hither, especially to London? And one of
the maid-servants, before she alighted from her horse, asked if this
was not the London road? Now I have put all these circumstances
together, and whom do you think I have found them out to be?" "Nay,"
answered she, "you know I never pretend to guess at your
discoveries."----"It is a good girl," replied he, chucking her under
the chin; "I must own you have always submitted to my knowledge of
these matters. Why, then, depend upon it; mind what I say--depend upon
it, they are certainly some of the rebel ladies, who, they say, travel
with the young Chevalier; and have taken a roundabout way to escape
the duke's army."

"Husband," quoth the wife, "you have certainly hit it; for one of them
is dressed as fine as any princess; and, to be sure, she looks for all
the world like one.----But yet, when I consider one thing"----"When
you consider," cries the landlord contemptuously----"Come, pray let's
hear what you consider."----"Why, it is," answered the wife, "that she
is too humble to be any very great lady: for, while our Betty was
warming the bed, she called her nothing but child, and my dear, and
sweetheart; and, when Betty offered to pull off her shoes and
stockings, she would not suffer her, saying, she would not give her
the trouble."

"Pugh!" answered the husband, "that is nothing. Dost think, because
you have seen some great ladies rude and uncivil to persons below
them, that none of them know how to behave themselves when they come
before their inferiors? I think I know people of fashion when I see
them--I think I do. Did not she call for a glass of water when she
came in? Another sort of women would have called for a dram; you know
they would. If she be not a woman of very great quality, sell me for a
fool; and, I believe, those who buy me will have a bad bargain. Now,
would a woman of her quality travel without a footman, unless upon
some such extraordinary occasion?" "Nay, to be sure, husband," cries
she, "you know these matters better than I, or most folk." "I think I
do know something," said he. "To be sure," answered the wife, "the
poor little heart looked so piteous, when she sat down in the chair, I
protest I could not help having a compassion for her almost as much as
if she had been a poor body. But what's to be done, husband? If an she
be a rebel, I suppose you intend to betray her up to the court. Well,
she's a sweet-tempered, good-humoured lady, be she what she will, and
I shall hardly refrain from crying when I hear she is hanged or
beheaded." "Pooh!" answered the husband.----"But, as to what's to be
done, it is not so easy a matter to determine. I hope, before she goes
away, we shall have the news of a battle; for, if the Chevalier should
get the better, she may gain us interest at court, and make our
fortunes without betraying her." "Why, that's true," replied the wife;
"and I heartily hope she will have it in her power. Certainly she's a
sweet good lady; it would go horribly against me to have her come to
any harm." "Pooh!" cries the landlord, "women are always so
tender-hearted. Why, you would not harbour rebels, would you?" "No,
certainly," answered the wife; "and as for betraying her, come what
will on't, nobody can blame us. It is what anybody would do in our
case."

While our politic landlord, who had not, we see, undeservedly the
reputation of great wisdom among his neighbours, was engaged in
debating this matter with himself (for he paid little attention to the
opinion of his wife), news arrived that the rebels had given the duke
the slip, and had got a day's march towards London; and soon after
arrived a famous Jacobite squire, who, with great joy in his
countenance, shook the landlord by the hand, saying, "All's our own,
boy, ten thousand honest Frenchmen are landed in Suffolk. Old England
for ever! ten thousand French, my brave lad! I am going to tap away
directly."

This news determined the opinion of the wise man, and he resolved to
make his court to the young lady when she arose; for he had now (he
said) discovered that she was no other than Madam Jenny Cameron
herself.


Chapter iii.

A very short chapter, in which however is a sun, a moon, a star, and
an angel.


The sun (for he keeps very good hours at this time of the year) had
been some time retired to rest when Sophia arose greatly refreshed by
her sleep; which, short as it was, nothing but her extreme fatigue
could have occasioned; for, though she had told her maid, and perhaps
herself too, that she was perfectly easy when she left Upton, yet it
is certain her mind was a little affected with that malady which is
attended with all the restless symptoms of a fever, and is perhaps the
very distemper which physicians mean (if they mean anything) by the
fever on the spirits.

Mrs Fitzpatrick likewise left her bed at the same time; and, having
summoned her maid, immediately dressed herself. She was really a very
pretty woman, and, had she been in any other company but that of
Sophia, might have been thought beautiful; but when Mrs Honour of her
own accord attended (for her mistress would not suffer her to be
waked), and had equipped our heroine, the charms of Mrs Fitzpatrick,
who had performed the office of the morning-star, and had preceded
greater glories, shared the fate of that star, and were totally
eclipsed the moment those glories shone forth.

Perhaps Sophia never looked more beautiful than she did at this
instant. We ought not, therefore, to condemn the maid of the inn for
her hyperbole, who, when she descended, after having lighted the fire,
declared, and ratified it with an oath, that if ever there was an
angel upon earth, she was now above-stairs.

Sophia had acquainted her cousin with her design to go to London; and
Mrs Fitzpatrick had agreed to accompany her; for the arrival of her
husband at Upton had put an end to her design of going to Bath, or to
her aunt Western. They had therefore no sooner finished their tea than
Sophia proposed to set out, the moon then shining extremely bright,
and as for the frost she defied it; nor had she any of those
apprehensions which many young ladies would have felt at travelling by
night; for she had, as we have before observed, some little degree of
natural courage; and this, her present sensations, which bordered
somewhat on despair, greatly encreased. Besides, as she had already
travelled twice with safety by the light of the moon, she was the
better emboldened to trust to it a third time.

The disposition of Mrs Fitzpatrick was more timorous; for, though the
greater terrors had conquered the less, and the presence of her
husband had driven her away at so unseasonable an hour from Upton,
yet, being now arrived at a place where she thought herself safe from
his pursuit, these lesser terrors of I know not what operated so
strongly, that she earnestly entreated her cousin to stay till the
next morning, and not expose herself to the dangers of travelling by
night.

Sophia, who was yielding to an excess, when she could neither laugh
nor reason her cousin out of these apprehensions, at last gave way to
them. Perhaps, indeed, had she known of her father's arrival at Upton,
it might have been more difficult to have persuaded her; for as to
Jones, she had, I am afraid, no great horror at the thoughts of being
overtaken by him; nay, to confess the truth, I believe she rather
wished than feared it; though I might honestly enough have concealed
this wish from the reader, as it was one of those secret spontaneous
emotions of the soul to which the reason is often a stranger.

When our young ladies had determined to remain all that evening in
their inn they were attended by the landlady, who desired to know what
their ladyships would be pleased to eat. Such charms were there in the
voice, in the manner, and in the affable deportment of Sophia, that
she ravished the landlady to the highest degree; and that good woman,
concluding that she had attended Jenny Cameron, became in a moment a
stanch Jacobite, and wished heartily well to the young Pretender's
cause, from the great sweetness and affability with which she had been
treated by his supposed mistress.

The two cousins began now to impart to each other their reciprocal
curiosity to know what extraordinary accidents on both sides
occasioned this so strange and unexpected meeting. At last Mrs
Fitzpatrick, having obtained of Sophia a promise of communicating
likewise in her turn, began to relate what the reader, if he is
desirous to know her history, may read in the ensuing chapter.



Chapter iv.

The history of Mrs Fitzpatrick.


Mrs Fitzpatrick, after a silence of a few moments, fetching a deep
sigh, thus began:

"It is natural to the unhappy to feel a secret concern in recollecting
those periods of their lives which have been most delightful to them.
The remembrance of past pleasures affects us with a kind of tender
grief, like what we suffer for departed friends; and the ideas of both
may be said to haunt our imaginations.

"For this reason, I never reflect without sorrow on those days (the
happiest far of my life) which we spent together when both were under
the care of my aunt Western. Alas! why are Miss Graveairs and Miss
Giddy no more? You remember, I am sure, when we knew each other by no
other names. Indeed, you gave the latter appellation with too much
cause. I have since experienced how much I deserved it. You, my
Sophia, was always my superior in everything, and I heartily hope you
will be so in your fortune. I shall never forget the wise and matronly
advice you once gave me, when I lamented being disappointed of a ball,
though you could not be then fourteen years old.----O my Sophy, how
blest must have been my situation, when I could think such a
disappointment a misfortune; and when indeed it was the greatest I had
ever known!"

"And yet, my dear Harriet," answered Sophia, "it was then a serious
matter with you. Comfort yourself therefore with thinking, that
whatever you now lament may hereafter appear as trifling and
contemptible as a ball would at this time."

"Alas, my Sophia," replied the other lady, "you yourself will think
otherwise of my present situation; for greatly must that tender heart
be altered if my misfortunes do not draw many a sigh, nay, many a
tear, from you. The knowledge of this should perhaps deter me from
relating what I am convinced will so much affect you." Here Mrs
Fitzpatrick stopt, till, at the repeated entreaties of Sophia, she
thus proceeded:

"Though you must have heard much of my marriage; yet, as matters may
probably have been misrepresented, I will set out from the very
commencement of my unfortunate acquaintance with my present husband;
which was at Bath, soon after you left my aunt, and returned home to
your father.

"Among the gay young fellows who were at this season at Bath, Mr
Fitzpatrick was one. He was handsome, _dégagé,_ extremely gallant, and
in his dress exceeded most others. In short, my dear, if you was
unluckily to see him now, I could describe him no better than by
telling you he was the very reverse of everything which he is: for he
hath rusticated himself so long, that he is become an absolute wild
Irishman. But to proceed in my story: the qualifications which he then
possessed so well recommended him, that, though the people of quality
at that time lived separate from the rest of the company, and excluded
them from all their parties, Mr Fitzpatrick found means to gain
admittance. It was perhaps no easy matter to avoid him; for he
required very little or no invitation; and as, being handsome and
genteel, he found it no very difficult matter to ingratiate himself
with the ladies, so, he having frequently drawn his sword, the men did
not care publickly to affront him. Had it not been for some such
reason, I believe he would have been soon expelled by his own sex; for
surely he had no strict title to be preferred to the English gentry;
nor did they seem inclined to show him any extraordinary favour. They
all abused him behind his back, which might probably proceed from
envy; for by the women he was well received, and very particularly
distinguished by them.

"My aunt, though no person of quality herself, as she had always lived
about the court, was enrolled in that party; for, by whatever means
you get into the polite circle, when you are once there, it is
sufficient merit for you that you are there. This observation, young
as you was, you could scarce avoid making from my aunt, who was free,
or reserved, with all people, just as they had more or less of this
merit.

"And this merit, I believe, it was, which principally recommended Mr
Fitzpatrick to her favour. In which he so well succeeded, that he was
always one of her private parties. Nor was he backward in returning
such distinction; for he soon grew so very particular in his behaviour
to her, that the scandal club first began to take notice of it, and
the better-disposed persons made a match between them. For my own
part, I confess, I made no doubt but that his designs were strictly
honourable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by
way of marriage. My aunt was, I conceived, neither young enough nor
handsome enough to attract much wicked inclination; but she had
matrimonial charms in great abundance.

"I was the more confirmed in this opinion from the extraordinary
respect which he showed to myself from the first moment of our
acquaintance. This I understood as an attempt to lessen, if possible,
that disinclination which my interest might be supposed to give me
towards the match; and I know not but in some measure it had that
effect; for, as I was well contented with my own fortune, and of all
people the least a slave to interested views, so I could not be
violently the enemy of a man with whose behaviour to me I was greatly
pleased; and the more so, as I was the only object of such respect;
for he behaved at the same time to many women of quality without any
respect at all.

"Agreeable as this was to me, he soon changed it into another kind of
behaviour, which was perhaps more so. He now put on much softness and
tenderness, and languished and sighed abundantly. At times, indeed,
whether from art or nature I will not determine, he gave his usual
loose to gaiety and mirth; but this was always in general company, and
with other women; for even in a country-dance, when he was not my
partner, he became grave, and put on the softest look imaginable the
moment he approached me. Indeed he was in all things so very
particular towards me, that I must have been blind not to have
discovered it. And, and, and----" "And you was more pleased still, my
dear Harriet," cries Sophia; "you need not be ashamed," added she,
sighing; "for sure there are irresistible charms in tenderness, which
too many men are able to affect." "True," answered her cousin; "men,
who in all other instances want common sense, are very Machiavels in
the art of loving. I wish I did not know an instance.--Well, scandal
now began to be as busy with me as it had before been with my aunt;
and some good ladies did not scruple to affirm that Mr Fitzpatrick had
an intrigue with us both.

"But, what may seem astonishing, my aunt never saw, nor in the least
seemed to suspect, that which was visible enough, I believe, from both
our behaviours. One would indeed think that love quite puts out the
eyes of an old woman. In fact, they so greedily swallow the addresses
which are made to them, that, like an outrageous glutton, they are not
at leisure to observe what passes amongst others at the same table.
This I have observed in more cases than my own; and this was so
strongly verified by my aunt, that, though she often found us together
at her return from the pump, the least canting word of his, pretending
impatience at her absence, effectually smothered all suspicion. One
artifice succeeded with her to admiration. This was his treating me
like a little child, and never calling me by any other name in her
presence but that of pretty miss. This indeed did him some disservice
with your humble servant; but I soon saw through it, especially as in
her absence he behaved to me, as I have said, in a different manner.
However, if I was not greatly disobliged by a conduct of which I had
discovered the design, I smarted very severely for it; for my aunt
really conceived me to be what her lover (as she thought him) called
me, and treated me in all respects as a perfect infant. To say the
truth, I wonder she had not insisted on my again wearing
leading-strings.

"At last, my lover (for so he was) thought proper, in a most solemn
manner, to disclose a secret which I had known long before. He now
placed all the love which he had pretended to my aunt to my account.
He lamented, in very pathetic terms, the encouragement she had given
him, and made a high merit of the tedious hours in which he had
undergone her conversation.--What shall I tell you, my dear
Sophia?--Then I will confess the truth. I was pleased with my man. I
was pleased with my conquest. To rival my aunt delighted me; to rival
so many other women charmed me. In short, I am afraid I did not behave
as I should do, even upon the very first declaration--I wish I did not
almost give him positive encouragement before we parted.

"The Bath now talked loudly--I might almost say, roared against me.
Several young women affected to shun my acquaintance, not so much,
perhaps, from any real suspicion, as from a desire of banishing me
from a company in which I too much engrossed their favourite man. And
here I cannot omit expressing my gratitude to the kindness intended me
by Mr Nash, who took me one day aside, and gave me advice, which if I
had followed, I had been a happy woman. `Child,' says he, `I am sorry
to see the familiarity which subsists between you and a fellow who is
altogether unworthy of you, and I am afraid will prove your ruin. As
for your old stinking aunt, if it was to be no injury to you and my
pretty Sophy Western (I assure you I repeat his words), I should be
heartily glad that the fellow was in possession of all that belongs to
her. I never advise old women: for, if they take it into their heads
to go to the devil, it is no more possible than worth while to keep
them from him. Innocence and youth and beauty are worthy a better
fate, and I would save them from his clutches. Let me advise you
therefore, dear child, never suffer this fellow to be particular with
you again.' Many more things he said to me, which I have now
forgotten, and indeed I attended very little to them at the time; for
inclination contradicted all he said; and, besides, I could not be
persuaded that women of quality would condescend to familiarity with
such a person as he described.

"But I am afraid, my dear, I shall tire you with a detail of so many
minute circumstances. To be concise, therefore, imagine me married;
imagine me with my husband, at the feet of my aunt; and then imagine
the maddest woman in Bedlam, in a raving fit, and your imagination
will suggest to you no more than what really happened.

"The very next day my aunt left the place, partly to avoid seeing Mr
Fitzpatrick or myself, and as much perhaps to avoid seeing any one
else; for, though I am told she hath since denied everything stoutly,
I believe she was then a little confounded at her disappointment.
Since that time, I have written to her many letters, but never could
obtain an answer, which I must own sits somewhat the heavier, as she
herself was, though undesignedly, the occasion of all my sufferings:
for, had it not been under the colour of paying his addresses to her,
Mr Fitzpatrick would never have found sufficient opportunities to have
engaged my heart, which, in other circumstances, I still flatter
myself would not have been an easy conquest to such a person. Indeed,
I believe I should not have erred so grossly in my choice if I had
relied on my own judgment; but I trusted totally to the opinion of
others, and very foolishly took the merit of a man for granted whom I
saw so universally well received by the women. What is the reason, my
dear, that we, who have understandings equal to the wisest and
greatest of the other sex, so often make choice of the silliest
fellows for companions and favourites? It raises my indignation to the
highest pitch to reflect on the numbers of women of sense who have
been undone by fools." Here she paused a moment; but, Sophia making no
answer, she proceeded as in the next chapter.



Chapter v.

In which the history of Mrs Fitzpatrick is continued.


"We remained at Bath no longer than a fortnight after our wedding; for
as to any reconciliation with my aunt, there were no hopes; and of my
fortune not one farthing could be touched till I was of age, of which
I now wanted more than two years. My husband therefore was resolved to
set out for Ireland; against which I remonstrated very earnestly, and
insisted on a promise which he had made me before our marriage that I
should never take this journey against my consent; and indeed I never
intended to consent to it; nor will anybody, I believe, blame me for
that resolution; but this, however, I never mentioned to my husband,
and petitioned only for the reprieve of a month; but he had fixed the
day, and to that day he obstinately adhered.

"The evening before our departure, as we were disputing this point
with great eagerness on both sides, he started suddenly from his
chair, and left me abruptly, saying he was going to the rooms. He was
hardly out of the house when I saw a paper lying on the floor, which,
I suppose, he had carelessly pulled from his pocket, together with his
handkerchief. This paper I took up, and, finding it to be a letter, I
made no scruple to open and read it; and indeed I read it so often
that I can repeat it to you almost word for word. This then was the
letter:

_'To Mr Brian Fitzpatrick._

'SIR,

'YOURS received, and am surprized you should use me in this manner,
as have never seen any of your cash, unless for one linsey-woolsey
coat, and your bill now is upwards of £150. Consider, sir, how often
you have fobbed me off with your being shortly to be married to this
lady and t'other lady; but I can neither live on hopes or promises,
nor will my woollen-draper take any such in payment. You tell me you
are secure of having either the aunt or the niece, and that you
might have married the aunt before this, whose jointure you say is
immense, but that you prefer the niece on account of her ready
money. Pray, sir, take a fool's advice for once, and marry the first
you can get. You will pardon my offering my advice, as you know I
sincerely wish you well. Shall draw on you per next post, in favour
of Messieurs John Drugget and company, at fourteen days, which doubt
not your honouring, and am,

Sir, your humble servant, 'SAM. COSGRAVE.'

"This was the letter, word for word. Guess, my dear girl--guess how
this letter affected me. You prefer the niece on account of her ready
money! If every one of these words had been a dagger, I could with
pleasure have stabbed them into his heart; but I will not recount my
frantic behaviour on the occasion. I had pretty well spent my tears
before his return home; but sufficient remains of them appeared in my
swollen eyes. He threw himself sullenly into his chair, and for a long
time we were both silent. At length, in a haughty tone, he said, `I
hope, madam, your servants have packed up all your things; for the
coach will be ready by six in the morning.' My patience was totally
subdued by this provocation, and I answered, `No, sir, there is a
letter still remains unpacked;' and then throwing it on the table I
fell to upbraiding him with the most bitter language I could invent.

"Whether guilt, or shame, or prudence, restrained him I cannot say;
but, though he is the most passionate of men, he exerted no rage on
this occasion. He endeavoured, on the contrary, to pacify me by the
most gentle means. He swore the phrase in the letter to which I
principally objected was not his, nor had he ever written any such. He
owned, indeed, the having mentioned his marriage, and that preference
which he had given to myself, but denied with many oaths the having
mentioned any such matter at all on account of the straits he was in
for money, arising, he said, from his having too long neglected his
estate in Ireland. And this, he said, which he could not bear to
discover to me, was the only reason of his having so strenuously
insisted on our journey. He then used several very endearing
expressions, and concluded by a very fond caress, and many violent
protestations of love.

"There was one circumstance which, though he did not appeal to it, had
much weight with me in his favour, and that was the word jointure in
the taylor's letter, whereas my aunt never had been married, and this
Mr Fitzpatrick well knew.----As I imagined, therefore, that the fellow
must have inserted this of his own head, or from hearsay, I persuaded
myself he might have ventured likewise on that odious line on no
better authority. What reasoning was this, my dear? was I not an
advocate rather than a judge?--But why do I mention such a
circumstance as this, or appeal to it for the justification of my
forgiveness?--In short, had he been guilty of twenty times as much,
half the tenderness and fondness which he used would have prevailed on
me to have forgiven him. I now made no farther objections to our
setting out, which we did the next morning, and in a little more than
a week arrived at the seat of Mr Fitzpatrick.

"Your curiosity will excuse me from relating any occurrences which
past during our journey; for it would indeed be highly disagreeable to
travel it over again, and no less so to you to travel it over with me.

"This seat, then, is an ancient mansion-house: if I was in one of
those merry humours in which you have so often seen me, I could
describe it to you ridiculously enough. It looked as if it had been
formerly inhabited by a gentleman. Here was room enough, and not the
less room on account of the furniture; for indeed there was very
little in it. An old woman, who seemed coeval with the building, and
greatly resembled her whom Chamont mentions in the Orphan, received us
at the gate, and in a howl scarce human, and to me unintelligible,
welcomed her master home. In short, the whole scene was so gloomy and
melancholy, that it threw my spirits into the lowest dejection; which
my husband discerning, instead of relieving, encreased by two or three
malicious observations. `There are good houses, madam,' says he, `as
you find, in other places besides England; but perhaps you had rather
be in a dirty lodgings at Bath.'

"Happy, my dear, is the woman who, in any state of life, hath a
cheerful good-natured companion to support and comfort her! But why do
I reflect on happy situations only to aggravate my own misery? my
companion, far from clearing up the gloom of solitude, soon convinced
me that I must have been wretched with him in any place, and in any
condition. In a word, he was a surly fellow, a character perhaps you
have never seen; for, indeed, no woman ever sees it exemplified but in
a father, a brother, or a husband; and, though you have a father, he
is not of that character. This surly fellow had formerly appeared to
me the very reverse, and so he did still to every other person. Good
heaven! how is it possible for a man to maintain a constant lie in his
appearance abroad and in company, and to content himself with shewing
disagreeable truth only at home? Here, my dear, they make themselves
amends for the uneasy restraint which they put on their tempers in the
world; for I have observed, the more merry and gay and good-humoured
my husband hath at any time been in company, the more sullen and
morose he was sure to become at our next private meeting. How shall I
describe his barbarity? To my fondness he was cold and insensible. My
little comical ways, which you, my Sophy, and which others, have
called so agreeable, he treated with contempt. In my most serious
moments he sung and whistled; and whenever I was thoroughly dejected
and miserable he was angry, and abused me: for, though he was never
pleased with my good-humour, nor ascribed it to my satisfaction in
him, yet my low spirits always offended him, and those he imputed to
my repentance of having (as he said) married an Irishman.

"You will easily conceive, my dear Graveairs (I ask your pardon, I
really forgot myself), that, when a woman makes an imprudent match in
the sense of the world, that is, when she is not an arrant prostitute
to pecuniary interest, she must necessarily have some inclination and
affection for her man. You will as easily believe that this affection
may possibly be lessened; nay, I do assure you, contempt will wholly
eradicate it. This contempt I now began to entertain for my husband,
whom I now discovered to be--I must use the expression--an arrant
blockhead. Perhaps you will wonder I did not make this discovery long
before; but women will suggest a thousand excuses to themselves for
the folly of those they like: besides, give me leave to tell you, it
requires a most penetrating eye to discern a fool through the
disguises of gaiety and good breeding.

"It will be easily imagined that, when I once despised my husband, as
I confess to you I soon did, I must consequently dislike his company;
and indeed I had the happiness of being very little troubled with it;
for our house was now most elegantly furnished, our cellars well
stocked, and dogs and horses provided in great abundance. As my
gentleman therefore entertained his neighbours with great hospitality,
so his neighbours resorted to him with great alacrity; and sports and
drinking consumed so much of his time, that a small part of his
conversation, that is to say, of his ill-humours, fell to my share.

"Happy would it have been for me if I could as easily have avoided all
other disagreeable company; but, alas! I was confined to some which
constantly tormented me; and the more, as I saw no prospect of being
relieved from them. These companions were my own racking thoughts,
which plagued and in a manner haunted me night and day. In this
situation I past through a scene, the horrors of which can neither be
painted nor imagined. Think, my dear, figure, if you can, to yourself,
what I must have undergone. I became a mother by the man I scorned,
hated, and detested. I went through all the agonies and miseries of a
lying-in (ten times more painful in such a circumstance than the worst
labour can be when one endures it for a man one loves) in a desert, or
rather, indeed, a scene of riot and revel, without a friend, without a
companion, or without any of those agreeable circumstances which often
alleviate, and perhaps sometimes more than compensate, the sufferings
of our sex at that season."



Chapter vi.

In which the mistake of the landlord throws Sophia into a dreadful
consternation.


Mrs Fitzpatrick was proceeding in her narrative when she was
interrupted by the entrance of dinner, greatly to the concern of
Sophia; for the misfortunes of her friend had raised her anxiety, and
left her no appetite but what Mrs Fitzpatrick was to satisfy by her
relation.

The landlord now attended with a plate under his arm, and with the
same respect in his countenance and address which he would have put on
had the ladies arrived in a coach and six.

The married lady seemed less affected with her own misfortunes than
was her cousin; for the former eat very heartily, whereas the latter
could hardly swallow a morsel. Sophia likewise showed more concern and
sorrow in her countenance than appeared in the other lady; who, having
observed these symptoms in her friend, begged her to be comforted,
saying, "Perhaps all may yet end better than either you or I expect."

Our landlord thought he had now an opportunity to open his mouth, and
was resolved not to omit it. "I am sorry, madam," cries he, "that your
ladyship can't eat; for to be sure you must be hungry after so long
fasting. I hope your ladyship is not uneasy at anything, for, as madam
there says, all may end better than anybody expects. A gentleman who
was here just now brought excellent news; and perhaps some folks who
have given other folks the slip may get to London before they are
overtaken; and if they do, I make no doubt but they will find people
who will be very ready to receive them."

All persons under the apprehension of danger convert whatever they see
and hear into the objects of that apprehension. Sophia therefore
immediately concluded, from the foregoing speech, that she was known,
and pursued by her father. She was now struck with the utmost
consternation, and for a few minutes deprived of the power of speech;
which she no sooner recovered than she desired the landlord to send
his servants out of the room, and then, addressing herself to him,
said, "I perceive, sir, you know who we are; but I beseech you--nay, I
am convinced, if you have any compassion or goodness, you will not
betray us."

"I betray your ladyship!" quoth the landlord; "no (and then he swore
several very hearty oaths); I would sooner be cut into ten thousand
pieces. I hate all treachery. I! I never betrayed any one in my life
yet, and I am sure I shall not begin with so sweet a lady as your
ladyship. All the world would very much blame me if I should, since it
will be in your ladyship's power so shortly to reward me. My wife can
witness for me, I knew your ladyship the moment you came into the
house: I said it was your honour, before I lifted you from your horse,
and I shall carry the bruises I got in your ladyship's service to the
grave; but what signified that, as long as I saved your ladyship? To
be sure some people this morning would have thought of getting a
reward; but no such thought ever entered into my head. I would sooner
starve than take any reward for betraying your ladyship."

"I promise you, sir," says Sophia, "if it be ever in my power to
reward you, you shall not lose by your generosity."

"Alack-a-day, madam!" answered the landlord; "in your ladyship's
power! Heaven put it as much into your will! I am only afraid your
honour will forget such a poor man as an innkeeper; but, if your
ladyship should not, I hope you will remember what reward I
refused--refused! that is, I would have refused, and to be sure it may
be called refusing, for I might have had it certainly; and to be sure
you might have been in some houses;--but, for my part, would not
methinks for the world have your ladyship wrong me so much as to
imagine I ever thought of betraying you, even before I heard the good
news."

"What news, pray?" says Sophia, something eagerly.

"Hath not your ladyship heard it, then?" cries the landlord; "nay,
like enough, for I heard it only a few minutes ago; and if I had never
heard it, may the devil fly away with me this instant if I would have
betrayed your honour! no, if I would, may I--" Here he subjoined
several dreadful imprecations, which Sophia at last interrupted, and
begged to know what he meant by the news.--He was going to answer,
when Mrs Honour came running into the room, all pale and breathless,
and cried out, "Madam, we are all undone, all ruined, they are come,
they are come!" These words almost froze up the blood of Sophia; but
Mrs Fitzpatrick asked Honour who were come?--"Who?" answered she,
"why, the French; several hundred thousands of them are landed, and we
shall be all murdered and ravished."

As a miser, who hath, in some well-built city, a cottage, value twenty
shillings, when at a distance he is alarmed with the news of a fire,
turns pale and trembles at his loss; but when he finds the beautiful
palaces only are burnt, and his own cottage remains safe, he comes
instantly to himself, and smiles at his good fortunes: or as (for we
dislike something in the former simile) the tender mother, when
terrified with the apprehension that her darling boy is drowned, is
struck senseless and almost dead with consternation; but when she is
told that little master is safe, and the Victory only, with twelve
hundred brave men, gone to the bottom, life and sense again return,
maternal fondness enjoys the sudden relief from all its fears, and the
general benevolence which at another time would have deeply felt the
dreadful catastrophe, lies fast asleep in her mind;--so Sophia, than
whom none was more capable of tenderly feeling the general calamity of
her country, found such immediate satisfaction from the relief of
those terrors she had of being overtaken by her father, that the
arrival of the French scarce made any impression on her. She gently
chid her maid for the fright into which she had thrown her, and said
"she was glad it was no worse; for that she had feared somebody else
was come."

"Ay, ay," quoth the landlord, smiling, "her ladyship knows better
things; she knows the French are our very best friends, and come over
hither only for our good. They are the people who are to make Old
England flourish again. I warrant her honour thought the duke was
coming; and that was enough to put her into a fright. I was going to
tell your ladyship the news.--His honour's majesty, Heaven bless him,
hath given the duke the slip, and is marching as fast as he can to
London, and ten thousand French are landed to join him on the road."

Sophia was not greatly pleased with this news, nor with the gentleman
who related it; but, as she still imagined he knew her (for she could
not possibly have any suspicion of the real truth), she durst not show
any dislike. And now the landlord, having removed the cloth from the
table, withdrew; but at his departure frequently repeated his hopes of
being remembered hereafter.

The mind of Sophia was not at all easy under the supposition of being
known at this house; for she still applied to herself many things
which the landlord had addressed to Jenny Cameron; she therefore
ordered her maid to pump out of him by what means he had become
acquainted with her person, and who had offered him the reward for
betraying her; she likewise ordered the horses to be in readiness by
four in the morning, at which hour Mrs Fitzpatrick promised to bear
her company; and then, composing herself as well as she could, she
desired that lady to continue her story.



Chapter vii.

In which Mrs Fitzpatrick concludes her history.


While Mrs Honour, in pursuance of the commands of her mistress,
ordered a bowl of punch, and invited my landlord and landlady to
partake of it, Mrs Fitzpatrick thus went on with her relation.

"Most of the officers who were quartered at a town in our
neighbourhood were of my husband's acquaintance. Among these there was
a lieutenant, a very pretty sort of man, and who was married to a
woman, so agreeable both in her temper and conversation, that from our
first knowing each other, which was soon after my lying-in, we were
almost inseparable companions; for I had the good fortune to make
myself equally agreeable to her.

"The lieutenant, who was neither a sot nor a sportsman, was frequently
of our parties; indeed he was very little with my husband, and no more
than good breeding constrained him to be, as he lived almost
constantly at our house. My husband often expressed much
dissatisfaction at the lieutenant's preferring my company to his; he
was very angry with me on that account, and gave me many a hearty
curse for drawing away his companions; saying, `I ought to be d--n'd
for having spoiled one of the prettiest fellows in the world, by
making a milksop of him.'

"You will be mistaken, my dear Sophia, if you imagine that the anger
of my husband arose from my depriving him of a companion; for the
lieutenant was not a person with whose society a fool could be
pleased; and, if I should admit the possibility of this, so little
right had my husband to place the loss of his companion to me, that I
am convinced it was my conversation alone which induced him ever to
come to the house. No, child, it was envy, the worst and most
rancorous kind of envy, the envy of superiority of understanding. The
wretch could not bear to see my conversation preferred to his, by a
man of whom he could not entertain the least jealousy. O my dear
Sophy, you are a woman of sense; if you marry a man, as is most
probable you will, of less capacity than yourself, make frequent
trials of his temper before marriage, and see whether he can bear to
submit to such a superiority.--Promise me, Sophy, you will take this
advice; for you will hereafter find its importance." "It is very
likely I shall never marry at all," answered Sophia; "I think, at
least, I shall never marry a man in whose understanding I see any
defects before marriage; and I promise you I would rather give up my
own than see any such afterwards." "Give up your understanding!"
replied Mrs Fitzpatrick; "oh, fie, child! I will not believe so meanly
of you. Everything else I might myself be brought to give up; but
never this. Nature would not have allotted this superiority to the
wife in so many instances, if she had intended we should all of us
have surrendered it to the husband. This, indeed, men of sense never
expect of us; of which the lieutenant I have just mentioned was one
notable example; for though he had a very good understanding, he
always acknowledged (as was really true) that his wife had a better.
And this, perhaps, was one reason of the hatred my tyrant bore her.

"Before he would be so governed by a wife, he said, especially such an
ugly b-- (for, indeed, she was not a regular beauty, but very
agreeable and extremely genteel), he would see all the women upon
earth at the devil, which was a very usual phrase with him. He said,
he wondered what I could see in her to be so charmed with her company:
since this woman, says he, hath come among us, there is an end of your
beloved reading, which you pretended to like so much, that you could
not afford time to return the visits of the ladies in this country;
and I must confess I had been guilty of a little rudeness this way;
for the ladies there are at least no better than the mere country
ladies here; and I think I need make no other excuse to you for
declining any intimacy with them.

"This correspondence, however, continued a whole year, even all the
while the lieutenant was quartered in that town; for which I was
contented to pay the tax of being constantly abused in the manner
above mentioned by my husband; I mean when he was at home; for he was
frequently absent a month at a time at Dublin, and once made a journey
of two months to London: in all which journeys I thought it a very
singular happiness that he never once desired my company; nay, by his
frequent censures on men who could not travel, as he phrased it,
without a wife tied up to their tail, he sufficiently intimated that,
had I been never so desirous of accompanying him, my wishes would have
been in vain; but, Heaven knows, such wishes were very far from my
thoughts.

"At length my friend was removed from me, and I was again left to my
solitude, to the tormenting conversation with my own reflections, and
to apply to books for my only comfort. I now read almost all day long.
How many books do you think I read in three months?" "I can't guess,
indeed, cousin," answered Sophia. "Perhaps half a score." "Half a
score! half a thousand, child!" answered the other. "I read a good
deal in Daniel's English History of France; a great deal in Plutarch's
Lives, the Atalantis, Pope's Homer, Dryden's Plays, Chillingworth, the
Countess D'Aulnois, and Locke's Human Understanding.

"During this interval I wrote three very supplicating, and, I thought,
moving letters to my aunt; but, as I received no answer to any of
them, my disdain would not suffer me to continue my application." Here
she stopt, and, looking earnestly at Sophia, said, "Methinks, my dear,
I read something in your eyes which reproaches me of a neglect in
another place, where I should have met with a kinder return." "Indeed,
dear Harriet," answered Sophia, "your story is an apology for any
neglect; but, indeed, I feel that I have been guilty of a remissness,
without so good an excuse.--Yet pray proceed; for I long, though I
tremble, to hear the end."

Thus, then, Mrs Fitzpatrick resumed her narrative:--"My husband now
took a second journey to England, where he continued upwards of three
months; during the greater part of this time I led a life which
nothing but having led a worse could make me think tolerable; for
perfect solitude can never be reconciled to a social mind, like mine,
but when it relieves you from the company of those you hate. What
added to my wretchedness was the loss of my little infant: not that I
pretend to have had for it that extravagant tenderness of which I
believe I might have been capable under other circumstances; but I
resolved, in every instance, to discharge the duty of the tenderest
mother; and this care prevented me from feeling the weight of that
heaviest of all things, when it can be at all said to lie heavy on our
hands.

"I had spent full ten weeks almost entirely by myself, having seen
nobody all that time, except my servants and a very few visitors, when
a young lady, a relation to my husband, came from a distant part of
Ireland to visit me. She had staid once before a week at my house, and
then I gave her a pressing invitation to return; for she was a very
agreeable woman, and had improved good natural parts by a proper
education. Indeed, she was to me a welcome guest.

"A few days after her arrival, perceiving me in very low spirits,
without enquiring the cause, which, indeed, she very well knew, the
young lady fell to compassionating my case. She said, `Though
politeness had prevented me from complaining to my husband's relations
of his behaviour, yet they all were very sensible of it, and felt
great concern upon that account; but none more than herself.' And
after some more general discourse on this head, which I own I could
not forbear countenancing, at last, after much previous precaution and
enjoined concealment, she communicated to me, as a profound
secret--that my husband kept a mistress.

"You will certainly imagine I heard this news with the utmost
insensibility--Upon my word, if you do, your imagination will mislead
you. Contempt had not so kept down my anger to my husband, but that
hatred rose again on this occasion. What can be the reason of this?
Are we so abominably selfish, that we can be concerned at others
having possession even of what we despise? Or are we not rather
abominably vain, and is not this the greatest injury done to our
vanity? What think you, Sophia?"

"I don't know, indeed," answered Sophia; "I have never troubled myself
with any of these deep contemplations; but I think the lady did very
ill in communicating to you such a secret."

"And yet, my dear, this conduct is natural," replied Mrs Fitzpatrick;
"and, when you have seen and read as much as myself, you will
acknowledge it to be so."

"I am sorry to hear it is natural," returned Sophia; "for I want
neither reading nor experience to convince me that it is very
dishonourable and very ill-natured: nay, it is surely as ill-bred to
tell a husband or wife of the faults of each other as to tell them of
their own."

"Well," continued Mrs Fitzpatrick, "my husband at last returned; and,
if I am thoroughly acquainted with my own thoughts, I hated him now
more than ever; but I despised him rather less: for certainly nothing
so much weakens our contempt, as an injury done to our pride or our
vanity.

"He now assumed a carriage to me so very different from what he had
lately worn, and so nearly resembling his behaviour the first week of
our marriage, that, had I now had any spark of love remaining, he
might, possibly, have rekindled my fondness for him. But, though
hatred may succeed to contempt, and may perhaps get the better of it,
love, I believe, cannot. The truth is, the passion of love is too
restless to remain contented without the gratification which it
receives from its object; and one can no more be inclined to love
without loving than we can have eyes without seeing. When a husband,
therefore, ceases to be the object of this passion, it is most
probable some other man--I say, my dear, if your husband grows
indifferent to you--if you once come to despise him--I say--that
is--if you have the passion of love in you--Lud! I have bewildered
myself so--but one is apt, in these abstracted considerations, to lose
the concatenation of ideas, as Mr Locke says:--in short, the truth
is--in short, I scarce know what it is; but, as I was saying, my
husband returned, and his behaviour, at first, greatly surprized me;
but he soon acquainted me with the motive, and taught me to account
for it. In a word, then, he had spent and lost all the ready money of
my fortune; and, as he could mortgage his own estate no deeper, he was
now desirous to supply himself with cash for his extravagance, by
selling a little estate of mine, which he could not do without my
assistance; and to obtain this favour was the whole and sole motive of
all the fondness which he now put on.

"With this I peremptorily refused to comply. I told him, and I told
him truly, that, had I been possessed of the Indies at our first
marriage, he might have commanded it all; for it had been a constant
maxim with me, that where a woman disposes of her heart, she should
always deposit her fortune; but, as he had been so kind, long ago, to
restore the former into my possession, I was resolved likewise to
retain what little remained of the latter.

"I will not describe to you the passion into which these words, and
the resolute air in which they were spoken, threw him: nor will I
trouble you with the whole scene which succeeded between us. Out came,
you may be well assured, the story of the mistress; and out it did
come, with all the embellishments which anger and disdain could bestow
upon it.

"Mr Fitzpatrick seemed a little thunderstruck with this, and more
confused than I had seen him, though his ideas are always confused
enough, heaven knows. He did not, however, endeavour to exculpate
himself; but took a method which almost equally confounded me. What
was this but recrimination? He affected to be jealous:--he may, for
aught I know, be inclined enough to jealousy in his natural temper;
nay, he must have had it from nature, or the devil must have put it
into his head; for I defy all the world to cast a just aspersion on my
character: nay, the most scandalous tongues have never dared censure
my reputation. My fame, I thank heaven, hath been always as spotless
as my life; and let falsehood itself accuse that if it dare. No, my
dear Graveairs, however provoked, however ill-treated, however injured
in my love, I have firmly resolved never to give the least room for
censure on this account.--And yet, my dear, there are some people so
malicious, some tongues so venomous, that no innocence can escape
them. The most undesigned word, the most accidental look, the least
familiarity, the most innocent freedom, will be misconstrued, and
magnified into I know not what, by some people. But I despise, my dear
Graveairs, I despise all such slander. No such malice, I assure you,
ever gave me an uneasy moment. No, no, I promise you I am above all
that.--But where was I? O let me see, I told you my husband was
jealous--And of whom, I pray?--Why, of whom but the lieutenant I
mentioned to you before! He was obliged to resort above a year and
more back to find any object for this unaccountable passion, if,
indeed, he really felt any such, and was not an arrant counterfeit in
order to abuse me.

"But I have tired you already with too many particulars. I will now
bring my story to a very speedy conclusion. In short, then, after many
scenes very unworthy to be repeated, in which my cousin engaged so
heartily on my side, that Mr Fitzpatrick at last turned her out of
doors; when he found I was neither to be soothed nor bullied into
compliance, he took a very violent method indeed. Perhaps you will
conclude he beat me; but this, though he hath approached very near to
it, he never actually did. He confined me to my room, without
suffering me to have either pen, ink, paper, or book: and a servant
every day made my bed, and brought me my food.

"When I had remained a week under this imprisonment, he made me a
visit, and, with the voice of a schoolmaster, or, what is often much
the same, of a tyrant, asked me, `If I would yet comply?' I answered,
very stoutly, `That I would die first.' `Then so you shall, and be
d--nd!' cries he; `for you shall never go alive out of this room.'

"Here I remained a fortnight longer; and, to say the truth, my
constancy was almost subdued, and I began to think of submission;
when, one day, in the absence of my husband, who was gone abroad for
some short time, by the greatest good fortune in the world, an
accident happened.--I--at a time when I began to give way to the
utmost despair----everything would be excusable at such a time--at
that very time I received----But it would take up an hour to tell you
all particulars.--In one word, then (for I will not tire you with
circumstances), gold, the common key to all padlocks, opened my door,
and set me at liberty.

"I now made haste to Dublin, where I immediately procured a passage to
England; and was proceeding to Bath, in order to throw myself into the
protection of my aunt, or of your father, or of any relation who would
afford it me. My husband overtook me last night at the inn where I
lay, and which you left a few minutes before me; but I had the good
luck to escape him, and to follow you.

"And thus, my dear, ends my history: a tragical one, I am sure, it is
to myself; but, perhaps, I ought rather to apologize to you for its
dullness."

Sophia heaved a deep sigh, and answered, "Indeed, Harriet, I pity you
from my soul!----But what could you expect? Why, why, would you marry
an Irishman?"

"Upon my word," replied her cousin, "your censure is unjust. There
are, among the Irish, men of as much worth and honour as any among the
English: nay, to speak the truth, generosity of spirit is rather more
common among them. I have known some examples there, too, of good
husbands; and I believe these are not very plenty in England. Ask me,
rather, what I could expect when I married a fool; and I will tell you
a solemn truth; I did not know him to be so."--"Can no man," said
Sophia, in a very low and altered voice, "do you think, make a bad
husband, who is not a fool?" "That," answered the other, "is too
general a negative; but none, I believe, is so likely as a fool to
prove so. Among my acquaintance, the silliest fellows are the worst
husbands; and I will venture to assert, as a fact, that a man of sense
rarely behaves very ill to a wife who deserves very well."



Chapter viii.

A dreadful alarm in the inn, with the arrival of an unexpected friend
of Mrs Fitzpatrick.


Sophia now, at the desire of her cousin, related--not what follows,
but what hath gone before in this history: for which reason the reader
will, I suppose, excuse me for not repeating it over again.

One remark, however, I cannot forbear making on her narrative, namely,
that she made no more mention of Jones, from the beginning to the end,
than if there had been no such person alive. This I will neither
endeavour to account for nor to excuse. Indeed, if this may be called
a kind of dishonesty, it seems the more inexcusable, from the apparent
openness and explicit sincerity of the other lady.--But so it was.

Just as Sophia arrived at the conclusion of her story, there arrived
in the room where the two ladies were sitting a noise, not unlike, in
loudness, to that of a pack of hounds just let out from their kennel;
nor, in shrillness, to cats, when caterwauling; or to screech owls;
or, indeed, more like (for what animal can resemble a human voice?) to
those sounds which, in the pleasant mansions of that gate which seems
to derive its name from a duplicity of tongues, issue from the mouths,
and sometimes from the nostrils, of those fair river nymphs, ycleped
of old the Naïades; in the vulgar tongue translated oyster-wenches;
for when, instead of the antient libations of milk and honey and oil,
the rich distillation from the juniper-berry, or, perhaps, from malt,
hath, by the early devotion of their votaries, been poured forth in
great abundance, should any daring tongue with unhallowed license
prophane, _i.e._, depreciate, the delicate fat Milton oyster, the
plaice sound and firm, the flounder as much alive as when in the
water, the shrimp as big as a prawn, the fine cod alive but a few
hours ago, or any other of the various treasures which those
water-deities who fish the sea and rivers have committed to the care
of the nymphs, the angry Naïades lift up their immortal voices, and
the prophane wretch is struck deaf for his impiety.

Such was the noise which now burst from one of the rooms below; and
soon the thunder, which long had rattled at a distance, began to
approach nearer and nearer, till, having ascended by degrees upstairs,
it at last entered the apartment where the ladies were. In short, to
drop all metaphor and figure, Mrs Honour, having scolded violently
below-stairs, and continued the same all the way up, came in to her
mistress in a most outrageous passion, crying out, "What doth your
ladyship think? Would you imagine that this impudent villain, the
master of this house, hath had the impudence to tell me, nay, to stand
it out to my face, that your ladyship is that nasty, stinking wh--re
(Jenny Cameron they call her), that runs about the country with the
Pretender? Nay, the lying, saucy villain had the assurance to tell me
that your ladyship had owned yourself to be so; but I have clawed the
rascal; I have left the marks of my nails in his impudent face. My
lady! says I, you saucy scoundrel; my lady is meat for no pretenders.
She is a young lady of as good fashion, and family, and fortune, as
any in Somersetshire. Did you never hear of the great Squire Western,
sirrah? She is his only daughter; she is----, and heiress to all his
great estate. My lady to be called a nasty Scotch wh--re by such a
varlet!--To be sure I wish I had knocked his brains out with the
punch-bowl."

The principal uneasiness with which Sophia was affected on this
occasion Honour had herself caused, by having in her passion
discovered who she was. However, as this mistake of the landlord
sufficiently accounted for those passages which Sophia had before
mistaken, she acquired some ease on that account; nor could she, upon
the whole, forbear smiling. This enraged Honour, and she cried,
"Indeed, madam, I did not think your ladyship would have made a
laughing matter of it. To be called whore by such an impudent low
rascal. Your ladyship may be angry with me, for aught I know, for
taking your part, since proffered service, they say, stinks; but to be
sure I could never bear to hear a lady of mine called whore.--Nor will
I bear it. I am sure your ladyship is as virtuous a lady as ever sat
foot on English ground, and I will claw any villain's eyes out who
dares for to offer to presume for to say the least word to the
contrary. Nobody ever could say the least ill of the character of any
lady that ever I waited upon."

_Hinc illae lachrymae;_ in plain truth, Honour had as much love for
her mistress as most servants have, that is to say--But besides this,
her pride obliged her to support the character of the lady she waited
on; for she thought her own was in a very close manner connected with
it. In proportion as the character of her mistress was raised, hers
likewise, as she conceived, was raised with it; and, on the contrary,
she thought the one could not be lowered without the other.

On this subject, reader, I must stop a moment, to tell thee a story.
"The famous Nell Gwynn, stepping one day, from a house where she had
made a short visit, into her coach, saw a great mob assembled, and her
footman all bloody and dirty; the fellow, being asked by his mistress
the reason of his being in that condition, answered, `I have been
fighting, madam, with an impudent rascal who called your ladyship a
wh--re.' `You blockhead,' replied Mrs Gwynn, `at this rate you must
fight every day of your life; why, you fool, all the world knows it.'
`Do they?' cries the fellow, in a muttering voice, after he had shut
the coach-door, `they shan't call me a whore's footman for all that.'"

Thus the passion of Mrs Honour appears natural enough, even if it were
to be no otherwise accounted for; but, in reality, there was another
cause of her anger; for which we must beg leave to remind our reader
of a circumstance mentioned in the above simile. There are indeed
certain liquors, which, being applied to our passions, or to fire,
produce effects the very reverse of those produced by water, as they
serve to kindle and inflame, rather than to extinguish. Among these,
the generous liquor called punch is one. It was not, therefore,
without reason, that the learned Dr Cheney used to call drinking punch
pouring liquid fire down your throat.

Now, Mrs Honour had unluckily poured so much of this liquid fire down
her throat, that the smoke of it began to ascend into her pericranium
and blinded the eyes of Reason, which is there supposed to keep her
residence, while the fire itself from the stomach easily reached the
heart, and there inflamed the noble passion of pride. So that, upon
the whole, we shall cease to wonder at the violent rage of the
waiting-woman; though at first sight we must confess the cause seems
inadequate to the effect.

Sophia and her cousin both did all in their power to extinguish these
flames which had roared so loudly all over the house. They at length
prevailed; or, to carry the metaphor one step farther, the fire,
having consumed all the fuel which the language affords, to wit, every
reproachful term in it, at last went out of its own accord.

But, though tranquillity was restored above-stairs, it was not so
below; where my landlady, highly resenting the injury done to the
beauty of her husband by the flesh-spades of Mrs Honour, called aloud
for revenge and justice. As to the poor man, who had principally
suffered in the engagement, he was perfectly quiet. Perhaps the blood
which he lost might have cooled his anger: for the enemy had not only
applied her nails to his cheeks, but likewise her fist to his
nostrils, which lamented the blow with tears of blood in great
abundance. To this we may add reflections on his mistake; but indeed
nothing so effectually silenced his resentment as the manner in which
he now discovered his error; for as to the behaviour of Mrs Honour, it
had the more confirmed him in his opinion; but he was now assured by a
person of great figure, and who was attended by a great equipage, that
one of the ladies was a woman of fashion, and his intimate
acquaintance.

By the orders of this person, the landlord now ascended, and
acquainted our fair travellers that a great gentleman below desired to
do them the honour of waiting on them. Sophia turned pale and trembled
at this message, though the reader will conclude it was too civil,
notwithstanding the landlord's blunder, to have come from her father;
but fear hath the common fault of a justice of peace, and is apt to
conclude hastily from every slight circumstance, without examining the
evidence on both sides.

To ease the reader's curiosity, therefore, rather than his
apprehensions, we proceed to inform him that an Irish peer had arrived
very late that evening at the inn, in his way to London. This
nobleman, having sallied from his supper at the hurricane before
commemorated, had seen the attendant of Mrs Fitzpatrick, and upon a
short enquiry, was informed that her lady, with whom he was very
particularly acquainted, was above. This information he had no sooner
received than he addressed himself to the landlord, pacified him, and
sent him upstairs with compliments rather civiller than those which
were delivered.

It may perhaps be wondered at that the waiting-woman herself was not
the messenger employed on this occasion; but we are sorry to say she
was not at present qualified for that, or indeed for any other office.
The rum (for so the landlord chose to call the distillation from malt)
had basely taken the advantage of the fatigue which the poor woman had
undergone, and had made terrible depredations on her noble faculties,
at a time when they were very unable to resist the attack.

We shall not describe this tragical scene too fully; but we thought
ourselves obliged, by that historic integrity which we profess,
shortly to hint a matter which we would otherwise have been glad to
have spared. Many historians, indeed, for want of this integrity, or
of diligence, to say no worse, often leave the reader to find out
these little circumstances in the dark, and sometimes to his great
confusion and perplexity.

Sophia was very soon eased of her causeless fright by the entry of the
noble peer, who was not only an intimate acquaintance of Mrs
Fitzpatrick, but in reality a very particular friend of that lady. To
say truth, it was by his assistance that she had been enabled to
escape from her husband; for this nobleman had the same gallant
disposition with those renowned knights of whom we read in heroic
story, and had delivered many an imprisoned nymph from durance. He was
indeed as bitter an enemy to the savage authority too often exercised
by husbands and fathers, over the young and lovely of the other sex,
as ever knight-errant was to the barbarous power of enchanters; nay,
to say truth, I have often suspected that those very enchanters with
which romance everywhere abounds were in reality no other than the
husbands of those days; and matrimony itself was, perhaps, the
enchanted castle in which the nymphs were said to be confined.

This nobleman had an estate in the neighbourhood of Fitzpatrick, and
had been for some time acquainted with the lady. No sooner, therefore,
did he hear of her confinement, than he earnestly applied himself to
procure her liberty; which he presently effected, not by storming the
castle, according to the example of antient heroes, but by corrupting
the governor, in conformity with the modern art of war, in which craft
is held to be preferable to valour, and gold is found to be more
irresistible than either lead or steel.

This circumstance, however, as the lady did not think it material
enough to relate to her friend, we would not at that time impart it to
the reader. We rather chose to leave him a while under a supposition
that she had found, or coined, or by some very extraordinary, perhaps
supernatural means, had possessed herself of the money with which she
had bribed her keeper, than to interrupt her narrative by giving a
hint of what seemed to her of too little importance to be mentioned.

The peer, after a short conversation, could not forbear expressing
some surprize at meeting the lady in that place; nor could he refrain
from telling her he imagined she had been gone to Bath. Mrs
Fitzpatrick very freely answered, "That she had been prevented in her
purpose by the arrival of a person she need not mention. In short,"
says she, "I was overtaken by my husband (for I need not affect to
conceal what the world knows too well already). I had the good fortune
to escape in a most surprizing manner, and am now going to London with
this young lady, who is a near relation of mine, and who hath escaped
from as great a tyrant as my own."

His lordship, concluding that this tyrant was likewise a husband, made
a speech full of compliments to both the ladies, and as full of
invectives against his own sex; nor indeed did he avoid some oblique
glances at the matrimonial institution itself, and at the unjust
powers given by it to man over the more sensible and more meritorious
part of the species. He ended his oration with an offer of his
protection, and of his coach and six, which was instantly accepted by
Mrs Fitzpatrick, and at last, upon her persuasions, by Sophia.

Matters being thus adjusted, his lordship took his leave, and the
ladies retired to rest, where Mrs Fitzpatrick entertained her cousin
with many high encomiums on the character of the noble peer, and
enlarged very particularly on his great fondness for his wife; saying,
she believed he was almost the only person of high rank who was
entirely constant to the marriage bed. "Indeed," added she, "my dear
Sophy, that is a very rare virtue amongst men of condition. Never
expect it when you marry; for, believe me, if you do, you will
certainly be deceived."

A gentle sigh stole from Sophia at these words, which perhaps
contributed to form a dream of no very pleasant kind; but, as she
never revealed this dream to any one, so the reader cannot expect to
see it related here.



Chapter ix.

The morning introduced in some pretty writing. A stagecoach. The
civility of chambermaids. The heroic temper of Sophia. Her generosity.
The return to it. The departure of the company, and their arrival at
London; with some remarks for the use of travellers.


Those members of society who are born to furnish the blessings of life
now began to light their candles, in order to pursue their daily
labours for the use of those who are born to enjoy these blessings.
The sturdy hind now attends the levee of his fellow-labourer the ox;
the cunning artificer, the diligent mechanic, spring from their hard
mattress; and now the bonny housemaid begins to repair the disordered
drum-room, while the riotous authors of that disorder, in broken
interrupted slumbers, tumble and toss, as if the hardness of down
disquieted their repose.

In simple phrase, the clock had no sooner struck seven than the ladies
were ready for their journey; and, at their desire, his lordship and
his equipage were prepared to attend them.

And now a matter of some difficulty arose; and this was how his
lordship himself should be conveyed; for though in stage-coaches,
where passengers are properly considered as so much luggage, the
ingenious coachman stows half a dozen with perfect ease into the place
of four; for well he contrives that the fat hostess, or well-fed
alderman, may take up no more room than the slim miss, or taper
master; it being the nature of guts, when well squeezed, to give way,
and to lie in a narrow compass; yet in these vehicles, which are
called, for distinction's sake, gentlemen's coaches, though they are
often larger than the others, this method of packing is never
attempted.

His lordship would have put a short end to the difficulty, by very
gallantly desiring to mount his horse; but Mrs Fitzpatrick would by no
means consent to it. It was therefore concluded that the Abigails
should, by turns, relieve each other on one of his lordship's horses,
which was presently equipped with a side-saddle for that purpose.

Everything being settled at the inn, the ladies discharged their
former guides, and Sophia made a present to the landlord, partly to
repair the bruise which he had received under herself, and partly on
account of what he had suffered under the hands of her enraged
waiting-woman. And now Sophia first discovered a loss which gave her
some uneasiness; and this was of the hundred-pound bank-bill which her
father had given her at their last meeting; and which, within a very
inconsiderable trifle, was all the treasure she was at present worth.
She searched everywhere, and shook and tumbled all her things to no
purpose, the bill was not to be found: and she was at last fully
persuaded that she had lost it from her pocket when she had the
misfortune of tumbling from her horse in the dark lane, as before
recorded: a fact that seemed the more probable, as she now recollected
some discomposure in her pockets which had happened at that time, and
the great difficulty with which she had drawn forth her handkerchief
the very instant before her fall, in order to relieve the distress of
Mrs Fitzpatrick.

Misfortunes of this kind, whatever inconveniencies they may be
attended with, are incapable of subduing a mind in which there is any
strength, without the assistance of avarice. Sophia, therefore, though
nothing could be worse timed than this accident at such a season,
immediately got the better of her concern, and, with her wonted
serenity and cheerfulness of countenance, returned to her company. His
lordship conducted the ladies into the vehicle, as he did likewise Mrs
Honour, who, after many civilities, and more dear madams, at last
yielded to the well-bred importunities of her sister Abigail, and
submitted to be complimented with the first ride in the coach; in
which indeed she would afterwards have been contented to have pursued
her whole journey, had not her mistress, after several fruitless
intimations, at length forced her to take her turn on horseback.

The coach, now having received its company, began to move forwards,
attended by many servants, and led by two captains, who had before
rode with his lordship, and who would have been dismissed from the
vehicle upon a much less worthy occasion than was this of
accommodating two ladies. In this they acted only as gentlemen; but
they were ready at any time to have performed the office of a footman,
or indeed would have condescended lower, for the honour of his
lordship's company, and for the convenience of his table.

My landlord was so pleased with the present he had received from
Sophia, that he rather rejoiced in than regretted his bruise or his
scratches. The reader will perhaps be curious to know the _quantum_ of
this present; but we cannot satisfy his curiosity. Whatever it was, it
satisfied the landlord for his bodily hurt; but he lamented he had not
known before how little the lady valued her money; "For to be sure,"
says he, "one might have charged every article double, and she would
have made no cavil at the reckoning."

His wife, however, was far from drawing this conclusion; whether she
really felt any injury done to her husband more than he did himself, I
will not say: certain it is, she was much less satisfied with the
generosity of Sophia. "Indeed," cries she, "my dear, the lady knows
better how to dispose of her money than you imagine. She might very
well think we should not put up such a business without some
satisfaction, and the law would have cost her an infinite deal more
than this poor little matter, which I wonder you would take." "You are
always so bloodily wise," quoth the husband: "it would have cost her
more, would it? dost fancy I don't know that as well as thee? but
would any of that more, or so much, have come into our pockets?
Indeed, if son Tom the lawyer had been alive, I could have been glad
to have put such a pretty business into his hands. He would have got a
good picking out of it; but I have no relation now who is a lawyer,
and why should I go to law for the benefit of strangers?" "Nay, to be
sure," answered she, "you must know best." "I believe I do," replied
he. "I fancy, when money is to be got, I can smell it out as well as
another. Everybody, let me tell you, would not have talked people out
of this. Mind that, I say; everybody would not have cajoled this out
of her, mind that." The wife then joined in the applause of her
husband's sagacity; and thus ended the short dialogue between them on
this occasion.

We will therefore take our leave of these good people, and attend his
lordship and his fair companions, who made such good expedition that
they performed a journey of ninety miles in two days, and on the
second evening arrived in London, without having encountered any one
adventure on the road worthy the dignity of this history to relate.
Our pen, therefore, shall imitate the expedition which it describes,
and our history shall keep pace with the travellers who are its
subject. Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious
traveller in this instance, who always proportions his stay at any
place to the beauties, elegancies, and curiosities which it affords.
At Eshur, at Stowe, at Wilton, at Eastbury, and at Prior's Park, days
are too short for the ravished imagination; while we admire the
wondrous power of art in improving nature. In some of these, art
chiefly engages our admiration; in others, nature and art contend for
our applause; but, in the last, the former seems to triumph. Here
Nature appears in her richest attire, and Art, dressed with the
modestest simplicity, attends her benignant mistress. Here Nature
indeed pours forth the choicest treasures which she hath lavished on
this world; and here human nature presents you with an object which
can be exceeded only in the other.

The same taste, the same imagination, which luxuriously riots in these
elegant scenes, can be amused with objects of far inferior note. The
woods, the rivers, the lawns of Devon and of Dorset, attract the eye
of the ingenious traveller, and retard his pace, which delay he
afterwards compensates by swiftly scouring over the gloomy heath of
Bagshot, or that pleasant plain which extends itself westward from
Stockbridge, where no other object than one single tree only in
sixteen miles presents itself to the view, unless the clouds, in
compassion to our tired spirits, kindly open their variegated mansions
to our prospect.

Not so travels the money-meditating tradesman, the sagacious justice,
the dignified doctor, the warm-clad grazier, with all the numerous
offspring of wealth and dulness. On they jog, with equal pace, through
the verdant meadows or over the barren heath, their horses measuring
four miles and a half per hour with the utmost exactness; the eyes of
the beast and of his master being alike directed forwards, and
employed in contemplating the same objects in the same manner. With
equal rapture the good rider surveys the proudest boasts of the
architect, and those fair buildings with which some unknown name hath
adorned the rich cloathing town; where heaps of bricks are piled up as
a kind of monument to show that heaps of money have been piled there
before.

And now, reader, as we are in haste to attend our heroine, we will
leave to thy sagacity to apply all this to the Boeotian writers, and
to those authors who are their opposites. This thou wilt be abundantly
able to perform without our aid. Bestir thyself therefore on this
occasion; for, though we will always lend thee proper assistance in
difficult places, as we do not, like some others, expect thee to use
the arts of divination to discover our meaning, yet we shall not
indulge thy laziness where nothing but thy own attention is required;
for thou art highly mistaken if thou dost imagine that we intended,
when we began this great work, to leave thy sagacity nothing to do; or
that, without sometimes exercising this talent, thou wilt be able to
travel through our pages with any pleasure or profit to thyself.



Chapter x.

Containing a hint or two concerning virtue, and a few more concerning
suspicion.


Our company, being arrived at London, were set down at his lordship's
house, where, while they refreshed themselves after the fatigue of
their journey, servants were despatched to provide a lodging for the
two ladies; for, as her ladyship was not then in town, Mrs Fitzpatrick
would by no means consent to accept a bed in the mansion of the peer.

Some readers will, perhaps, condemn this extraordinary delicacy, as I
may call it, of virtue, as too nice and scrupulous; but we must make
allowances for her situation, which must be owned to have been very
ticklish; and, when we consider the malice of censorious tongues, we
must allow, if it was a fault, the fault was an excess on the right
side, and which every woman who is in the self-same situation will do
well to imitate. The most formal appearance of virtue, when it is only
an appearance, may, perhaps, in very abstracted considerations, seem
to be rather less commendable than virtue itself without this
formality; but it will, however, be always more commended; and this, I
believe, will be granted by all, that it is necessary, unless in some
very particular cases, for every woman to support either the one or
the other.

A lodging being prepared, Sophia accompanied her cousin for that
evening; but resolved early in the morning to enquire after the lady
into whose protection, as we have formerly mentioned, she had
determined to throw herself when she quitted her father's house. And
this she was the more eager in doing from some observations she had
made during her journey in the coach.

Now, as we would by no means fix the odious character of suspicion on
Sophia, we are almost afraid to open to our reader the conceits which
filled her mind concerning Mrs Fitzpatrick; of whom she certainly
entertained at present some doubts; which, as they are very apt to
enter into the bosoms of the worst of people, we think proper not to
mention more plainly till we have first suggested a word or two to our
reader touching suspicion in general.

Of this there have always appeared to me to be two degrees. The first
of these I chuse to derive from the heart, as the extreme velocity of
its discernment seems to denote some previous inward impulse, and the
rather as this superlative degree often forms its own objects; sees
what is not, and always more than really exists. This is that
quick-sighted penetration whose hawk's eyes no symptom of evil can
escape; which observes not only upon the actions, but upon the words
and looks, of men; and, as it proceeds from the heart of the observer,
so it dives into the heart of the observed, and there espies evil, as
it were, in the first embryo; nay, sometimes before it can be said to
be conceived. An admirable faculty, if it were infallible; but, as this
degree of perfection is not even claimed by more than one mortal being;
so from the fallibility of such acute discernment have arisen many sad
mischiefs and most grievous heart-aches to innocence and virtue. I
cannot help, therefore, regarding this vast quick-sightedness into evil
as a vicious excess, and as a very pernicious evil in itself. And I am
the more inclined to this opinion, as I am afraid it always proceeds
from a bad heart, for the reasons I have above mentioned, and for one
more, namely, because I never knew it the property of a good one. Now,
from this degree of suspicion I entirely and absolutely acquit Sophia.

A second degree of this quality seems to arise from the head. This is,
indeed, no other than the faculty of seeing what is before your eyes,
and of drawing conclusions from what you see. The former of these is
unavoidable by those who have any eyes, and the latter is perhaps no
less certain and necessary a consequence of our having any brains.
This is altogether as bitter an enemy to guilt as the former is to
innocence: nor can I see it in an unamiable light, even though,
through human fallibility, it should be sometimes mistaken. For
instance, if a husband should accidentally surprize his wife in the
lap or in the embraces of some of those pretty young gentlemen who
profess the art of cuckold-making, I should not highly, I think, blame
him for concluding something more than what he saw, from the
familiarities which he really had seen, and which we are at least
favourable enough to when we call them innocent freedoms. The reader
will easily suggest great plenty of instances to himself; I shall add
but one more, which, however unchristian it may be thought by some, I
cannot help esteeming to be strictly justifiable; and this is a
suspicion that a man is capable of doing what he hath done already,
and that it is possible for one who hath been a villain once to act
the same part again. And, to confess the truth, of this degree of
suspicion I believe Sophia was guilty. From this degree of suspicion
she had, in fact, conceived an opinion that her cousin was really not
better than she should be.

The case, it seems, was this: Mrs Fitzpatrick wisely considered that
the virtue of a young lady is, in the world, in the same situation
with a poor hare, which is certain, whenever it ventures abroad, to
meet its enemies; for it can hardly meet any other. No sooner
therefore was she determined to take the first opportunity of quitting
the protection of her husband, than she resolved to cast herself under
the protection of some other man; and whom could she so properly
choose to be her guardian as a person of quality, of fortune, of
honour; and who, besides a gallant disposition which inclines men to
knight-errantry, that is, to be the champions of ladies in distress,
had often declared a violent attachment to herself, and had already
given her all the instances of it in his power?

But, as the law hath foolishly omitted this office of vice-husband, or
guardian to an eloped lady, and as malice is apt to denominate him by
a more disagreeable appellation, it was concluded that his lordship
should perform all such kind offices to the lady in secret, and
without publickly assuming the character of her protector. Nay, to
prevent any other person from seeing him in this light, it was agreed
that the lady should proceed directly to Bath, and that his lordship
should first go to London, and thence should go down to that place by
the advice of his physicians.

Now all this Sophia very plainly understood, not from the lips or
behaviour of Mrs Fitzpatrick, but from the peer, who was infinitely
less expert at retaining a secret than was the good lady; and perhaps
the exact secrecy which Mrs Fitzpatrick had observed on this head in
her narrative served not a little to heighten those suspicions which
were now risen in the mind of her cousin.

Sophia very easily found out the lady she sought; for indeed there was
not a chairman in town to whom her house was not perfectly well known;
and, as she received, in return of her first message, a most pressing
invitation, she immediately accepted it. Mrs Fitzpatrick, indeed, did
not desire her cousin to stay with her with more earnestness than
civility required. Whether she had discerned and resented the
suspicion above-mentioned, or from what other motive it arose, I
cannot say; but certain it is, she was full as desirous of parting
with Sophia as Sophia herself could be of going.

The young lady, when she came to take leave of her cousin, could not
avoid giving her a short hint of advice. She begged her, for heaven's
sake, to take care of herself, and to consider in how dangerous a
situation she stood; adding, she hoped some method would be found of
reconciling her to her husband. "You must remember, my dear," says
she, "the maxim which my aunt Western hath so often repeated to us
both; That whenever the matrimonial alliance is broke, and war
declared between husband and wife, she can hardly make a
disadvantageous peace for herself on any conditions. These are my
aunt's very words, and she hath had a great deal of experience in the
world." Mrs Fitzpatrick answered, with a contemptuous smile, "Never
fear me, child, take care of yourself; for you are younger than I. I
will come and visit you in a few days; but, dear Sophy, let me give
you one piece of advice: leave the character of Graveairs in the
country, for, believe me, it will sit very awkwardly upon you in this
town."

Thus the two cousins parted, and Sophia repaired directly to Lady
Bellaston, where she found a most hearty, as well as a most polite,
welcome. The lady had taken a great fancy to her when she had seen her
formerly with her aunt Western. She was indeed extremely glad to see
her, and was no sooner acquainted with the reasons which induced her
to leave the squire and to fly to London than she highly applauded her
sense and resolution; and after expressing the highest satisfaction in
the opinion which Sophia had declared she entertained of her ladyship,
by chusing her house for an asylum, she promised her all the
protection which it was in her power to give.

As we have now brought Sophia into safe hands, the reader will, I
apprehend, be contented to deposit her there a while, and to look a
little after other personages, and particularly poor Jones, whom we
have left long enough to do penance for his past offences, which, as
is the nature of vice, brought sufficient punishment upon him
themselves.




BOOK XII.

CONTAINING THE SAME INDIVIDUAL TIME WITH THE FORMER.



Chapter i.

Showing what is to be deemed plagiarism in a modern author, and what
is to be considered as lawful prize.


The learned reader must have observed that in the course of this
mighty work, I have often translated passages out of the best antient
authors, without quoting the original, or without taking the least
notice of the book from whence they were borrowed.

This conduct in writing is placed in a very proper light by the
ingenious Abbé Bannier, in his preface to his Mythology, a work of
great erudition and of equal judgment. "It will be easy," says he,
"for the reader to observe that I have frequently had greater regard
to him than to my own reputation: for an author certainly pays him a
considerable compliment, when, for his sake, he suppresses learned
quotations that come in his way, and which would have cost him but the
bare trouble of transcribing."

To fill up a work with these scraps may, indeed, be considered as a
downright cheat on the learned world, who are by such means imposed
upon to buy a second time, in fragments and by retail, what they have
already in gross, if not in their memories, upon their shelves; and it
is still more cruel upon the illiterate, who are drawn in to pay for
what is of no manner of use to them. A writer who intermixes great
quantity of Greek and Latin with his works, deals by the ladies and
fine gentlemen in the same paultry manner with which they are treated
by the auctioneers, who often endeavour so to confound and mix up
their lots, that, in order to purchase the commodity you want, you are
obliged at the same time to purchase that which will do you no
service.

And yet, as there is no conduct so fair and disinterested but that it
may be misunderstood by ignorance, and misrepresented by malice, I
have been sometimes tempted to preserve my own reputation at the
expense of my reader, and to transcribe the original, or at least to
quote chapter and verse, whenever I have made use either of the
thought or expression of another. I am, indeed, in some doubt that I
have often suffered by the contrary method; and that, by suppressing
the original author's name, I have been rather suspected of plagiarism
than reputed to act from the amiable motive assigned by that justly
celebrated Frenchman.

Now, to obviate all such imputations for the future, I do here confess
and justify the fact. The antients may be considered as a rich common,
where every person who hath the smallest tenement in Parnassus hath a
free right to fatten his muse. Or, to place it in a clearer light, we
moderns are to the antients what the poor are to the rich. By the poor
here I mean that large and venerable body which, in English, we call
the mob. Now, whoever hath had the honour to be admitted to any degree
of intimacy with this mob, must well know that it is one of their
established maxims to plunder and pillage their rich neighbours
without any reluctance; and that this is held to be neither sin nor
shame among them. And so constantly do they abide and act by this
maxim, that, in every parish almost in the kingdom, there is a kind of
confederacy ever carrying on against a certain person of opulence
called the squire, whose property is considered as free-booty by all
his poor neighbours; who, as they conclude that there is no manner of
guilt in such depredations, look upon it as a point of honour and
moral obligation to conceal, and to preserve each other from
punishment on all such occasions.

In like manner are the antients, such as Homer, Virgil, Horace,
Cicero, and the rest, to be esteemed among us writers, as so many
wealthy squires, from whom we, the poor of Parnassus, claim an
immemorial custom of taking whatever we can come at. This liberty I
demand, and this I am as ready to allow again to my poor neighbours in
their turn. All I profess, and all I require of my brethren, is to
maintain the same strict honesty among ourselves which the mob show to
one another. To steal from one another is indeed highly criminal and
indecent; for this may be strictly stiled defrauding the poor
(sometimes perhaps those who are poorer than ourselves), or, to set it
under the most opprobrious colours, robbing the spittal.

Since, therefore, upon the strictest examination, my own conscience
cannot lay any such pitiful theft to my charge, I am contented to
plead guilty to the former accusation; nor shall I ever scruple to
take to myself any passage which I shall find in an antient author to
my purpose, without setting down the name of the author from whence it
was taken. Nay, I absolutely claim a property in all such sentiments
the moment they are transcribed into my writings, and I expect all
readers henceforwards to regard them as purely and entirely my own.
This claim, however, I desire to be allowed me only on condition that
I preserve strict honesty towards my poor brethren, from whom, if ever
I borrow any of that little of which they are possessed, I shall never
fail to put their mark upon it, that it may be at all times ready to
be restored to the right owner.

The omission of this was highly blameable in one Mr Moore, who, having
formerly borrowed some lines of Pope and company, took the liberty to
transcribe six of them into his play of the Rival Modes. Mr Pope,
however, very luckily found them in the said play, and, laying violent
hands on his own property, transferred it back again into his own
works; and, for a further punishment, imprisoned the said Moore in the
loathsome dungeon of the Dunciad, where his unhappy memory now
remains, and eternally will remain, as a proper punishment for such
his unjust dealings in the poetical trade.



Chapter ii.

In which, though the squire doth not find his daughter, something is
found which puts an end to his pursuit.


The history now returns to the inn at Upton, whence we shall first
trace the footsteps of Squire Western; for, as he will soon arrive at
an end of his journey, we shall have then full leisure to attend our
heroe.

The reader may be pleased to remember that the said squire departed
from the inn in great fury, and in that fury he pursued his daughter.
The hostler having informed him that she had crossed the Severn, he
likewise past that river with his equipage, and rode full speed,
vowing the utmost vengeance against poor Sophia, if he should but
overtake her.

He had not gone far before he arrived at a crossway. Here he called a
short council of war, in which, after hearing different opinions, he
at last gave the direction of his pursuit to fortune, and struck
directly into the Worcester road.

In this road he proceeded about two miles, when he began to bemoan
himself most bitterly, frequently crying out, "What pity is it! Sure
never was so unlucky a dog as myself!" And then burst forth a volley
of oaths and execrations.

The parson attempted to administer comfort to him on this occasion.
"Sorrow not, sir," says he, "like those without hope. Howbeit we have
not yet been able to overtake young madam, we may account it some good
fortune that we have hitherto traced her course aright. Peradventure
she will soon be fatigated with her journey, and will tarry in some
inn, in order to renovate her corporeal functions; and in that case,
in all moral certainty, you will very briefly be _compos voti_."

"Pogh! d--n the slut!" answered the squire, "I am lamenting the loss
of so fine a morning for hunting. It is confounded hard to lose one of
the best scenting days, in all appearance, which hath been this
season, and especially after so long a frost."

Whether Fortune, who now and then shows some compassion in her
wantonest tricks, might not take pity of the squire; and, as she had
determined not to let him overtake his daughter, might not resolve to
make him amends some other way, I will not assert; but he had hardly
uttered the words just before commemorated, and two or three oaths at
their heels, when a pack of hounds began to open their melodious
throats at a small distance from them, which the squire's horse and
his rider both perceiving, both immediately pricked up their ears, and
the squire, crying, "She's gone, she's gone! Damn me if she is not
gone!" instantly clapped spurs to the beast, who little needed it,
having indeed the same inclination with his master; and now the whole
company, crossing into a corn-field, rode directly towards the hounds,
with much hallowing and whooping, while the poor parson, blessing
himself, brought up the rear.

Thus fable reports that the fair Grimalkin, whom Venus, at the desire
of a passionate lover, converted from a cat into a fine woman, no
sooner perceived a mouse than, mindful of her former sport, and still
retaining her pristine nature, she leaped from the bed of her husband
to pursue the little animal.

What are we to understand by this? Not that the bride was displeased
with the embraces of her amorous bridegroom; for, though some have
remarked that cats are subject to ingratitude, yet women and cats too
will be pleased and purr on certain occasions. The truth is, as the
sagacious Sir Roger L'Estrange observes, in his deep reflections,
that, "if we shut Nature out at the door, she will come in at the
window; and that puss, though a madam, will be a mouser still." In the
same manner we are not to arraign the squire of any want of love for
his daughter; for in reality he had a great deal; we are only to
consider that he was a squire and a sportsman, and then we may apply
the fable to him, and the judicious reflections likewise.

The hounds ran very hard, as it is called, and the squire pursued over
hedge and ditch, with all his usual vociferation and alacrity, and
with all his usual pleasure; nor did the thoughts of Sophia ever once
intrude themselves to allay the satisfaction he enjoyed in the chace,
which, he said, was one of the finest he ever saw, and which he swore
was very well worth going fifty miles for. As the squire forgot his
daughter, the servants, we may easily believe, forgot their mistress;
and the parson, after having expressed much astonishment, in Latin, to
himself, at length likewise abandoned all farther thoughts of the
young lady, and, jogging on at a distance behind, began to meditate a
portion of doctrine for the ensuing Sunday.

The squire who owned the hounds was highly pleased with the arrival of
his brother squire and sportsman; for all men approve merit in their
own way, and no man was more expert in the field than Mr Western, nor
did any other better know how to encourage the dogs with his voice,
and to animate the hunt with his holla.

Sportsmen, in the warmth of a chace, are too much engaged to attend to
any manner of ceremony, nay, even to the offices of humanity: for, if
any of them meet with an accident by tumbling into a ditch, or into a
river, the rest pass on regardless, and generally leave him to his
fate: during this time, therefore, the two squires, though often close
to each other, interchanged not a single word. The master of the hunt,
however, often saw and approved the great judgment of the stranger in
drawing the dogs when they were at a fault, and hence conceived a very
high opinion of his understanding, as the number of his attendants
inspired no small reverence to his quality. As soon, therefore, as the
sport was ended by the death of the little animal which had occasioned
it, the two squires met, and in all squire-like greeting saluted each
other.

The conversation was entertaining enough, and what we may perhaps
relate in an appendix, or on some other occasion; but as it nowise
concerns this history, we cannot prevail on ourselves to give it a
place here. It concluded with a second chace, and that with an
invitation to dinner. This being accepted, was followed by a hearty
bout of drinking, which ended in as hearty a nap on the part of Squire
Western.

Our squire was by no means a match either for his host, or for parson
Supple, at his cups that evening; for which the violent fatigue of
mind as well as body that he had undergone, may very well account,
without the least derogation from his honour. He was indeed, according
to the vulgar phrase, whistle drunk; for before he had swallowed the
third bottle, he became so entirely overpowered that though he was not
carried off to bed till long after, the parson considered him as
absent, and having acquainted the other squire with all relating to
Sophia, he obtained his promise of seconding those arguments which he
intended to urge the next morning for Mr Western's return.

No sooner, therefore, had the good squire shaken off his evening, and


 


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