Paul Clifford — Complete
posterity, in avoiding the faults of thy masonry, will be grateful for
the effects of thy ambition. The same demi-philosophy which influenced
thee in private life exercised a far benigner and happier power over
thee in public. Thou wert not idly vexatious in vestries, nor ordinarily
tyrannic in thy parish; if thou wert ever arbitrary it was only when thy
pleasure was checked, or thy vanity wounded. At other times thou didst
leave events to their legitimate course, so that in thy latter years
thou wert justly popular in thy parish; and in the grave thy great good
fortune will outshine thy few bad qualities, and men will say of thee
with a kindly, not an erring judgment, “In private life he was not worse
than the Rufers who came to this bar; in public life he was better than
those who kept a public before him.” Hark! those huzzas! what is the
burden of that chorus? Oh, grateful and never time-serving Britons, have
ye modified already for another the song ye made so solely in honour of
Gentleman George: and must we, lest we lose the custom of the public and
the good things of the tap-room,--roust we roar with throats yet hoarse
with our fervour for the old words, our ardour for the new--
“Here's to Mariner Bill, God bless him!
God bless him!
God bless him!
Here 's to Mariner Bill, God bless him!”
TOMLINSONIANA;
OR,
THE POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS
OF THE CELEBRATED
AUGUSTUS TOMLINSON,
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF -------
ADDRESSED TO HIS PUPILS,
AND COMPRISING
I
MAXIMS ON THE POPULAR ART OF CREATING, ILLUSTRATED BY TEN CHARACTERS,
BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO THAT NOBLE SCIENCE BY WHICH EVERY MAN MAY
BECOME HIS OWN ROGUE.
II
BRACHYLOGIA; OR, ESSAYS CRITICAL, SENTIMENTAL, MORAL, AND ORIGINAL.
INTRODUCTION.
Having lately been travelling in Germany, I spent some time at that
University in which Augustus Tomlinson presided as Professor of Moral
Philosophy. I found that that great man died, after a lingering illness,
in the beginning of the year 1822, perfectly resigned to his fate, and
conversing, even on his deathbed, on the divine mysteries of Ethical
Philosophy. Notwithstanding the little peccadilloes to which I have
alluded in the latter pages of “Paul Clifford,” and which his pupils
deemed it advisable to hide from--
“The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day,”
his memory was still held in a tender veneration. Perhaps, as in the
case of the illustrious Burns, the faults of a great man endear to you
his genius. In his latter days the PROFESSOR was accustomed to wear a
light-green silk dressing-gown, and, as he was perfectly bald, a
little black velvet cap; his small-clothes were pepper and salt. These
interesting facts I learned from one of his pupils. His old age was
consumed in lectures, in conversation, and in the composition of the
little morceaux of wisdom we present to the public. In these essays and
maxims, short as they are, he seems to have concentrated the wisdom of
his industrious and honourable life. With great difficulty I procured
from his executors the manuscripts which were then preparing for the
German press. A valuable consideration induced those gentlemen to become
philanthropic, and to consider the inestimable blessings they would
confer upon this country by suffering me to give the following essays
to the light, in their native and English dress, on the same day whereon
they appear in Germany in the graces of foreign disguise.
At an age when, while Hypocrisy stalks, simpers, sidles, struts, and
hobbles through the country, Truth also begins to watch her adversary in
every movement, I cannot but think these lessons of Augustus Tomlinson
peculiarly well-timed. I add them as a fitting Appendix to a Novel that
may not inappropriately be termed a Treatise on Social Frauds; and if
they contain within them that evidence of diligent attention and that
principle of good in which the satire of Vice is only the germ of its
detection, they may not, perchance, pass wholly unnoticed; nor be even
condemned to that hasty reading in which the Indifference of to-day is
but the prelude to the Forgetfulness of to-morrow.
CONTENTS.
MAXIMS ON THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING, Illustrated by Ten
Characters, being an Introduction to that noble Science by which
every Man may become his own Rogue
BRACHYLOGIA:
On the Morality taught by the Rich to the Poor
Emulation
Caution against the Scoffers of “Humbug”
Popular Wrath at Individual Imprudence
Dum deflnat Amnis
Self-Glorifiers
Thought on Fortune
Wit, and Truth
Auto-theology
Glorious Constitution
Answer to the Popular Cant that Goodness in a Statesman is
better than Ability
Common-sense
Love, and Writers on Love
The Great Entailed
The Regeneration of a Knave
Style
MAXIMS
ON
THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING,
ILLUSTRATED BY TEN CHARACTERS;
BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO THAT NOBLE SCIENCE BY WHICH EVERY MAN MAY
BECOME HIS OWN ROGUE.
Set a thief to catch a thief.---Proverb.
I.
Whenever you are about to utter something astonishingly false, always
begin with, “It is an acknowledged fact,” etc. Sir Robert Filmer was
a master of this method of writing. Thus, with what a solemn face that
great man attempted to cheat! “It is a truth undeniable that there
cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever, either great or small, etc.,
but that in the same multitude there is one man amongst them that in
nature hath a right to be King of all the rest,--as being the next heir
to Adam!”
II.
When you want something from the public, throw the blame of the asking
on the most sacred principle you can find. A common beggar can read you
exquisite lessons on this the most important maxim in the art of popular
cheating. “For the love of God, sir, a penny!”
III.
Whenever on any matter, moral, sentimental, or political, you find
yourself utterly ignorant, talk immediately of “The Laws of Nature.”
As those laws are written nowhere,--[Locke]--they are known by nobody.
Should any ask you how you happen to know such or such a doctrine as the
dictate of Nature, clap your hand to your heart and say, “Here!”
IV.
Yield to a man's tastes, and he will yield to your interest.
V.
When you talk to the half-wise, twaddle; when you talk to the ignorant,
brag; when you talk to the sagacious, look very humble, and ask their
opinion.
VI.
Always bear in mind, my beloved pupils, that the means of livelihood
depend not on the virtues, but the vices of others. The lawyer, the
statesman, the hangman, the physician, are paid by our sins; nay, even
the commoner professions--the tailor, the coachmaker, the upholsterer,
the wine-merchant--draw their fortunes, if not their existence, from
those smaller vices, our foibles. Vanity is the figure prefixed to the
ciphers of Necessity. Wherefore, oh my beloved pupils! never mind what a
man's virtues are; waste no time in learning them. Fasten at once on his
infirmities. Do to the One as, were you an honest man, you would do to
the Many. This is the way to be a rogue individually, as a lawyer is a
rogue professionally. Knaves are like critics,--[Nullum simile est
quod idem.--EDITOR.]--“flies that feed on the sore part, and would have
nothing to live on were the body in health.”--[Tatler].
VII.
Every man finds it desirable to have tears in his eyes at times,--one
has a sympathy with humid lids. Providence hath beneficially provided
for this want, and given to every man, in its divine forethought,
misfortunes painful to recall. Hence, probably, those human calamities
which the atheist rails against! Wherefore, when you are uttering
some affecting sentiment to your intended dupe, think of the greatest
misfortune you ever had in your life; habit will soon make the
association of tears and that melancholy remembrance constantly
felicitous. I knew, my dear pupils, a most intelligent Frenchman, who
obtained a charming legacy from an old poet by repeating the bard's
verses with streaming eyes. “How were you able to weep at will?” asked I
(I was young then, my pupils). “Je pensois,” answered he, “a mon
pauvre pere, qui est mort.” The union of sentiment with the ability of
swindling made that Frenchman a most fascinating creature!
VIII.
Never commit the error of the over-shrewd, and deem human nature worse
than it is. Human nature is so damnably good that if it were not for
human art, we knaves could not live. The primary elements of a man's
mind do not sustain us; it is what he owes to “the pains taken with his
education,” and “the blessings of civilized society!”
IX.
Whenever you doubt, my pupils, whether your man be a quack or not,
decide the point by seeing if your man be a positive asserter. Nothing
indicates imposture like confidence. Volney saith well, “that the most
celebrated of charlatans--[Mahomet]--and the boldest of tyrants begins
his extraordinary tissue of lies by these words, 'There is no doubt in
this book!'”
X.
There is one way of cheating people peculiar to the British Isles, and
which, my pupils, I earnestly recommend you to import hither,--cheating
by subscription. People like to be plundered in company; dupery then
grows into the spirit of party. Thus one quack very gravely requested
persons to fit up a ship for him and send him round the world as its
captain to make discoveries; and another patriotically suggested that
L10,000 should be subscribed--for what?--to place him in parliament!
Neither of these fellows could have screwed an individual out of a
shilling had he asked him for it in a corner; but a printed list, with
“His Royal Highness” at the top, plays the devil with English guineas.
A subscription for individuals may be considered a society for the
ostentatious encouragement of idleness, impudence, beggary, imposture,
and other public virtues!
XI.
Whenever you read the life of a great man, I mean a man eminently
successful, you will perceive all the qualities given to him are the
qualities necessary even to a mediocre rogue. “He possessed,” saith the
biographer, “the greatest address [namely, the faculty of wheedling];
the most admirable courage [namely, the faculty of bullying]; the most
noble fortitude [namely, the faculty of bearing to be bullied]; the most
singular versatility [namely, the faculty of saying one thing to one
man, and its reverse to another]; and the most wonderful command over
the mind of his contemporaries [namely, the faculty of victimizing
their purses or seducing their actions].” Wherefore, if luck cast you in
humble life, assiduously study the biographies of the great, in order to
accomplish you as a rogue; if in the more elevated range of society, be
thoroughly versed in the lives of the roguish: so shall you fit yourself
to be eminent!
XII.
The hypocrisy of virtue, my beloved pupils, is a little out of fashion