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 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 1
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 Abbe Bannier, in his preface to his Mythology, a work
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 clear
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 2
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 be began to bemoan
himself most bitterly, frequently crying out, "What a 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. How be
it 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
cars, 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
