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 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 10
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 chuse to be her guardian as a person of quality, of
fortune, of honour; and who, besides a gallant disposition which
inclines men to knighterrantry, 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
