Paul Clifford — Complete
on the other hand, when Mrs. Lobkins entered on the subject of
remuneration, the Scotsman professed himself perfectly willing to teach
any and every thing that the most exacting guardian could require. It
was finally settled that Paul should attend Mr. MacGrawler two hours a
day; that Mr. MacGrawler should be entitled to such animal comforts of
meat and drink as the Mug afforded, and, moreover, to the weekly stipend
of two shillings and sixpence,--the shillings for instruction in the
classics, and the sixpence for all other humanities; or, as Mrs. Lobkins
expressed it, “two bobs for the Latin, and a site for the vartue.”
Let not thy mind, gentle reader, censure us for a deviation from
probability in making so excellent and learned a gentleman as Mr. Peter
MacGrawler the familiar guest of the lady of the Mug. First, thou must
know that our story is cast in a period antecedent to the present, and
one in which the old jokes against the circumstances of author and of
critic had their foundation in truth; secondly, thou must know that
by some curious concatenation of circumstances neither bailiff nor
bailiff's man was ever seen within the four walls continent of Mrs.
Margery Lobkins; thirdly, the Mug was nearer than any other house
of public resort to the abode of the critic; fourthly, it afforded
excellent porter; and fifthly, O reader, thou dost Mrs. Margery Lobkins
a grievous wrong if thou supposest that her door was only open to those
mercurial gentry who are afflicted with the morbid curiosity to pry into
the mysteries of their neighbours' pockets,--other visitors, of fair
repute, were not unoften partakers of the good matron's hospitality;
although it must be owned that they generally occupied the private room
in preference to the public one. And sixthly, sweet reader (we grieve to
be so prolix), we would just hint to thee that Mr. MacGrawler was one
of those vast-minded sages who, occupied in contemplating morals in the
great scale, do not fritter down their intellects by a base attention
to minute details. So that if a descendant of Langfanger did sometimes
cross the venerable Scot in his visit to the Mug, the apparition did not
revolt that benevolent moralist so much as, were it not for the above
hint, thy ignorance might lead thee to imagine.
It is said that Athenodorus the Stoic contributed greatly by his
conversation to amend the faults of Augustus, and to effect the change
visible in that fortunate man after his accession to the Roman empire.
If this be true, it may throw a new light on the character of Augustus,
and instead of being the hypocrite, he was possibly the convert. Certain
it is that there are few vices which cannot be conquered by wisdom; and
yet, melancholy to relate, the instructions of Peter MacGrawler produced
but slender amelioration in the habits of the youthful Paul. That
ingenious stripling had, we have already seen, under the tuition of
Ranting Bob, mastered the art of reading,--nay, he could even construct
and link together certain curious pot-hooks, which himself and Mrs.
Lobkins were wont graciously to term “writing.” So far, then, the way of
MacGrawler was smoothed and prepared.
But, unhappily, all experienced teachers allow that the main difficulty
is not to learn, but to unlearn; and the mind of Paul was already
occupied by a vast number of heterogeneous miscellanies which stoutly
resisted the ingress either of Latin or of virtue. Nothing could wean
him from an ominous affection for the history of Richard Turpin; it
was to him what, it has been said, the Greek authors should be to the
Academician,--a study by day, and a dream by night. He was docile enough
during lessons, and sometimes even too quick in conception for the
stately march of Mr. MacGrawler's intellect. But it not unfrequently
happened that when that gentleman attempted to rise, he found himself,
like the Lady in “Comus,” adhering to--
“A venomed seat Smeared with gums of glutinous heat;”
or his legs had been secretly united under the table, and the tie was
not to be broken without overthrow to the superior powers. These, and
various other little sportive machinations wherewith Paul was wont to
relieve the monotony of literature, went far to disgust the learned
critic with his undertaking. But “the tape” and the treasury of Mrs.
Lobkins re-smoothed, as it were, the irritated bristles of his mind, and
he continued his labours with this philosophical reflection: “Why fret
myself? If a pupil turns out well, it is clearly to the credit of his
master; if not, to the disadvantage of himself.” Of course, a similar
suggestion never forced itself into the mind of Dr. Keate [A celebrated
principal of Eton]. At Eton the very soul of the honest headmaster is
consumed by his zeal for the welfare of the little gentlemen in stiff
cravats.
But to Paul, who was predestined to enjoy a certain quantum of
knowledge, circumstances happened, in the commencement of the second
year of his pupilage, which prodigiously accelerated the progress of his
scholastic career.
At the apartment of MacGrawler, Paul one morning encountered Mr.
Augustus Tomlinson, a young man of great promise, who pursued the
peaceful occupation of chronicling in a leading newspaper “Horrid
Murders,” “Enormous Melons,” and “Remarkable Circumstances.” This
gentleman, having the advantage of some years' seniority over Paul,
was slow in unbending his dignity; but observing at last the eager
and respectful attention with which the stripling listened to a most
veracious detail of five men being inhumanly murdered in Canterbury
Cathedral by the Reverend Zedekiah Fooks Barnacle, he was touched by the
impression he had created, and shaking Paul graciously by the hand, he
told him there was a deal of natural shrewdness in his countenance, and
that Mr. Augustus Tomlinson did not doubt but that he (Paul) might have
the honour to be murdered himself one of these days. “You understand
me,” continued Mr. Augustus,--“I mean murdered in effigy,--assassinated
in type,--while you yourself, unconscious of the circumstance, are
quietly enjoying what you imagine to be your existence. We never kill
common persons,--to say truth, our chief spite is against the Church; we
destroy bishops by wholesale. Sometimes, indeed, we knock off a leading
barrister or so, and express the anguish of the junior counsel at a loss
so destructive to their interests. But that is only a stray hit, and the
slain barrister often lives to become Attorney-General, renounce Whig
principles, and prosecute the very Press that destroyed him. Bishops are
our proper food; we send them to heaven on a sort of flying griffin,
of which the back is an apoplexy, and the wings are puffs. The Bishop
of---, whom we despatched in this manner the other day, being rather
a facetious personage, wrote to remonstrate with us thereon, observing
that though heaven was a very good translation for a bishop, yet that in
such cases he preferred 'the original to the translation.' As we murder
bishop, so is there another class of persons whom we only afflict with
lethiferous diseases. This latter tribe consists of his Majesty and his
Majesty's ministers. Whenever we cannot abuse their measures, we always
fall foul on their health. Does the king pass any popular law, we
immediately insinuate that his constitution is on its last legs. Does
the minister act like a man of sense, we instantly observe, with great
regret, that his complexion is remarkably pale. There is one manifest
advantage in diseasing people, instead of absolutely destroying them:
the public may flatly contradict us in one case, but it never can in the
other; it is easy to prove that a man is alive, but utterly impossible
to prove that he is in health. What if some opposing newspaper take up
the cudgels in his behalf, and assert that the victim of all Pandora's
complaints, whom we send tottering to the grave, passes one half the day
in knocking up a 'distinguished company' at a shooting-party, and the
other half in outdoing the same 'distinguished company' after dinner?
What if the afflicted individual himself write us word that he never
was better in his life? We have only mysteriously to shake our heads
and observe that to contradict is not to prove, that it is little likely
that our authority should have been mistaken, and (we are very fond
of an historical comparison), beg our readers to remember that when
Cardinal Richelieu was dying, nothing enraged him so much as hinting
that he was ill. In short, if Horace is right, we are the very princes
of poets; for I dare say, Mr. MacGrawler, that you--and you, too, my
little gentleman, perfectly remember the words of the wise old Roman,--
“'Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur
Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet.'”
[“He appears to me to be, to the fullest extent, a poet who
airily torments my breast, irritates, soothes, fills it with
unreal terrors.”]
Having uttered this quotation with considerable self-complacency,
and thereby entirely completed his conquest over Paul, Mr. Augustus
Tomlinson, turning to MacGrawler, concluded his business with that
gentleman,--which was of a literary nature, namely, a joint composition
against a man who, being under five-and-twenty, and too poor to give
dinners, had had the impudence to write a sacred poem. The critics were
exceedingly bitter at this; and having very little to say against the
poem, the Court journals called the author a “coxcomb,” and the liberal
ones “the son of a pantaloon!”
There was an ease, a spirit, a life about Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, which
captivated the senses of our young hero; then, too, he was exceedingly
smartly attired,--wore red heels and a bag,--had what seemed to Paul
quite the air of a “man of fashion;” and, above all, he spouted the
Latin with a remarkable grace!
Some days afterwards, MacGrawler sent our hero to Mr. Tomlinson's
lodgings, with his share of the joint abuse upon the poet.
Doubly was Paul's reverence for Mr. Augustus Tomlinson increased by a
sight of his abode. He found him settled in a polite part of the town,
in a very spruce parlour, the contents of which manifested the universal
genius of the inhabitant. It hath been objected unto us, by a most
discerning critic, that we are addicted to the drawing of “universal
geniuses.” We plead Not Guilty in former instances; we allow the
soft impeachment in the instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. Over his
fireplace were arranged boxing-gloves and fencing foils; on his table
lay a cremona and a flageolet. On one side of the wall were shelves
containing the Covent Garden Magazine, Burn's Justice, a pocket Horace,
a Prayer-Book, Excerpta ex Tacito, a volume of plays, Philosophy made
Easy, and a Key to all Knowledge. Furthermore, there were on another
table a riding-whip and a driving-whip and a pair of spurs, and three
guineas, with a little mountain of loose silver. Mr. Augustus was a
tall, fair young man, with a freckled complexion, green eyes and red
eyelids, a smiling mouth, rather under-jawed, a sharp nose, and
a prodigiously large pair of ears. He was robed in a green damask
dressing-gown; and he received the tender Paul most graciously.
There was something very engaging about our hero. He was not only
good-looking, and frank in aspect, but he had that appearance of
briskness and intellect which belongs to an embryo rogue. Mr. Augustus
Tomlinson professed the greatest regard for him,--asked him if he could
box, made him put on a pair of gloves, and very condescendingly knocked
him down three times successively. Next he played him, both upon his
flageolet and his cremona, some of the most modish airs. Moreover, he