Chapter 4

When every day that comes, comes to decayA day's work in us;1

the other,—

Even in the downfall of his mellowed yearsWhen Nature brought him to the door of Death.1

1SHAKESPEARE.

A TRANSITIONAL CHAPTER, WHEREIN THE AUTHOR COMPARES HIS BOOK TO AN OMNIBUS AND A SHIP, QUOTES SHAKESPEARE, MARCO ANTONIO DE CAMOS, QUARLES, SPENSER, AND SOMEBODY ELSE, AND INTRODUCES HIS READERS TO SOME OF THE HEATHEN GODS, WITH WHOM PERHAPS THEY WERE NOT ACQUAINTED BEFORE.

We are not to grudge such interstitial and transitional matter as may promote an easy connection of parts and an elastic separation of them, and keep the reader's mind upon springs as it were.

HENRYTAYLOR'SStatesman.

Dear impatient readers,—you whom I know and who do not know me,—and you who are equally impatient, but whom I cannot call equally dear, because you are totally strangers to me in my out-of-cog character,—you who would have had me hurry on

In motion of no less celerityThan that of thought,—1

you will not wonder, nor perhaps will you blame me now, that I do not hasten to the wedding day. The day on which Deborah left her father's house was the saddest that she had ever known till then; nor was there one of the bridal party who did not feel that this was the first of those events, inevitable and mournful all, by which their little circle would be lessened, and his or her manner of life or of existence changed.

1SHAKESPEARE.

There is no checking the course of time. When the shadow on Hezekiah's dial went back, it was in the symbol only that the miracle was wrought: the minutes in every other horologe held their due course. But as Opifex of this opus, I when it seems good unto me, may take the hour-glass from Time's hand and let it rest at a stand-still, till I think fit to turn it and set the sands again in motion. You who have got into this my omnibus, know that like other omnibusses, its speed is to be regulated not according to your individual and perhaps contrariant wishes, but by my discretion.

Moreover I am not bound to ply with this omnibus only upon a certain line. In that case there would be just cause of complaint, if you were taken out of your road.

Mas estorva y desabre en el caminoUna pequeña legua de desvioQue la jornada larga de contino.

Whoever has at any time lost his way upon a long journey can bear testimony to the truth of what the Reverend Padre Maestro Fray Marco Antonio de Camos says in those lines. (I will tell you hereafter reader (for it is worth telling), why that namesake of the Triumvir, when he wrote the poem from whence the lines are quoted, had no thoughts of dedicating it as he afterwards did to D. Juan Pimentel y de Requesens.) But you are in no danger of being bewildered, or driven out of your way. It is not in a stage coach that you have taken your place with me, to be conveyed to a certain point, and within a certain time, under such an expectation on your part, and such an engagement on mine. We will drop the metaphor of the omnibus,—observing however by the bye, which is the same thing in common parlance as by the way, though critically there may seem to be a difference, for by the bye might seem to denote a collateral remark and by the way a direct one; observing however as I said, that as Dexter called his work, or St. Jerome called it for him,Omnimoda Historia, so might this opus be not improperly denominated. You have embarked with me not for a definite voyage, but for an excursion on the water; and not in a steamer, nor in a galley, nor in one of the post-office packets, nor in a man-of-war, nor in a merchant-vessel; but in

A ship that's mann'dWith labouring Thoughts, and steer'd by Reason's hand.My Will's the seaman's card whereby she sails;My just Affections are the greater sails,The top sail is my fancy.2

Sir Guyon was not safer in Phædria's “gondelay bedecked trim” than thou art on “this wide inland sea,” in my ship

That knows her port and thither sails by aim;Ne care, ne fear I how the wind do blow;Or whether swift I wend, or whether slow,Both slow and swift alike do serve my turn.3

My turn is served for the present, and yours also. The question who was Mrs. Dove? propounded for future solution in the second Chapter P. I., and for immediate consideration at the conclusion of the 71st Chapter and the beginning of the 72nd, has been sufficiently answered. You have been made acquainted with her birth, parentage and education; and you may rest assured that if the Doctor had set out upon a tour, like Cœlebs, in search of a wife, he could never have found one who would in all respects have suited him better. What Shakespeare says of the Dauphin and the Lady Blanch might seem to have been said with a second sight of this union:

Such as she isIs this our Doctor, every way complete;If not complete, O say, he is not she:And she again wants nothing, to name want,If want it be not, that she is not he.He is the half part of a blessed man,Left to be finished by such a she;And she a fair divided excellenceWhose fulness of perfection lies in him.

2QUARLES:mutatis mutandis.

3SPENSER.

You would wish me perhaps to describe her person. Sixty years had “written their defeatures in her face” before I became acquainted with her; yet by what those years had left methinks I could conceive what she had been in her youth. Go to your looking glasses, young ladies,—and you will not be so well able to imagine by what you see there, how you will look when you shall have shaken hands with Threescore.

One of the Elizabethan minor-poets, speaking of an ideal beauty says,

Into a slumber then I fell,When fond ImaginationSeemed to see, but could not tell,Her feature, or her fashion.But even as babes in dreams do smile,And sometimes fall a weeping,So I awaked, as wise this while,As when I fell a-sleeping.

Just as unable should I feel myself were I to attempt a description from what Mrs. Dove was when I knew her, of what Deborah Bacon might be supposed to have been,—just as unable as this dreaming rhymer should I be, and you would be no whit the wiser. What the disposition was which gave her face its permanent beauty you may know by what has already been said. But this I can truly say of her and of her husband, that if they had lived in the time of the Romans when Doncaster was called Danum, and had been of what was then the Roman religion, and had been married, as consequently they would have been, with the rights of classical Paganism, it would have been believed both by their neighbours and themselves that their nuptial offerings had been benignly received by the god Domicius and the goddesses Maturna and Gamelia; and no sacrifice to Viriplaca would ever have been thought necessary in that household.

CONCERNING MAGAZINES, AND THE FORMER AND PRESENT RACE OF ALPHABET-MEN.

Altri gli han messo nome Santa Croce,Altri lo chiaman l' A. B. C. guastandoLa misura, gl' accenti, et la sua voce.SANSOVINO.

The reader has now been informed who Mrs. Dove was, and what she was on that day of mingled joy and grief when the bells of St. George's welcomed her to Doncaster as a bride. Enough too has been related concerning the Doctor in his single state, to show that he was not unworthy of such a wife. There is, however, more to be told; for any one who may suppose that a physician at Doncaster must have been pretty much the same sort of person in the year 1761 as at present, can have reflected little upon the changes for better and worse which have been going on during the intervening time. The fashions in dress and furniture have not altered more than the style of intellectual upholstery.

Our Doctor flourished in the Golden Age of Magazines, when their pages were filled with voluntary contributions from men who never aimed at dazzling the public, but came each with his scrap of information, or his humble question, or his hard problem, or his attempt in verse.

In those days A was an Antiquary, and wrote articles upon Altars and Abbeys and Architecture. B made a blunder, which C corrected. D demonstrated that E was in error, and that F was wrong in Philology, and neither Philosopher nor Physician, though he affected to be both. G was a Genealogist: H was an Herald, who helped him. I was an inquisitive inquirer, who found reason for suspecting J to be a Jesuit. M was a mathematician. N noted the weather. O observed the stars. P was a poet, who piddled in pastorals, and prayed Mr. Urban to print them. Q came in the corner of the page with his query. R arrogated to himself the right of reprehending every one who differed from him. S sighed and sued in song. T told an old tale, and when he was wrong U used to set him right. V was a virtuoso. W warred against Warburton. X excelled in algebra. Y yearned for immortality in rhyme; and Z in his zeal was always in a puzzle.

Those were happy times when each little star was satisfied with twinkling in his own sphere. No one thought of bouncing about like a cracker, singeing and burning in the mere wantonness of mischief, and then going out with a noise and a stink.

But now

——‘when all this world is woxen daily worse,’1

see what a change has taken place through the whole Chriscross Row! As for A, there is Alaric Watts with his Souvenir, and Ackerman with his Forget-me-not, and all the rest of the Annual Albumers. B is a blackguard, and blusters in a popular Magazine. C is a coxcomb who concocts fashionable novels for Colburn; and D is a dunce who admires him. E being empty and envious, thinks himself eminently qualified for Editor of a Literary Gazette. F figures as a fop in Knight's Quarterly. G is a general reformer, and dealer in Greek scrip. H is Humbug and Hume; and for my I, it may always be found with Mr. Irving and Mrs. Elizabeth Martin. J jeers at the Clergy in Mr. Jeffery's journal. K kicks against the pricks with his friend L, who is Leigh Hunt, the Liberal. M manufactures mischief for the Morning Chronicle. N is nobody knows who, that manufactures jokes for John Bull, and fathers them upon Rogers. O is an obstreperous orator. P was Peter Pindar, and is now Paul Pry. Q is the Quarterly Review, and R S Robert Southey, who writes in it. T tells lies in the Old Times. U is a Unitarian who hopes to be Professor of Theology at the London University. V is Vivian Grey. W is Sir Walter Scott. X the Ex-Sheriff Parkins. Y was the Young Roscius; and Z,—Zounds, who can Z be, but Zachary Macauley?

1SPENSER.

Oh,—

——se oggidi vivesse in terraDemocrito, (perchè di lagrimareIo non son vago, e però taccio il nomeD' Eraclito dolente;) or, se vivesseFra' mortali Democrito, per certoEi si smascellerebbe della risa,Guardando le sciocchezze de' mortali.2

2CHIABRERA.

HUNTING IN AN EASY CHAIR. THE DOCTOR'S BOOKS.

That place that does containMy books, the best companions, is to meA glorious court, where hourly I converseWith the old sages and philosophers;And sometimes for variety I conferWith Kings and Emperors, and weigh their counsels,Calling their victories, if unjustly got,Unto a strict account, and in my fancyDeface their ill placed statues.BEAUMONTand FLETCHER.

A certain Ludovicus Bosch, instead of having his coat of arms, or his cypher engraved to put in his books, had a little print of himself in his library. The room has a venerable collegiate character; there is a crucifix on the table, and a goodly proportion of folios on the shelves. Bosch in a clerical dress is seated in an easy chair, cogitabund, with a manuscript open before him, a long pen in his hand, and on his head a wig which with all proper respect for the dignity and vocation of the wearer, I cannot but honestly denominate a caxon. The caxon quizzifies the figure, and thereby mars the effect of what would otherwise have been a pleasing as well as appropriate design. Underneath in the scrolled framing is this verse

In tali nunquam lassat venatio sylvâ.

Dr. Charles Balguy of Peterborough had for the same purpose a design which though equally appropriate, was not so well conceived. His escutcheon, with the words

Jucunda oblivia vitæ

above, and his name and place of abode below, is suspended against an architectural pile of books. It was printed in green. I found it in one of our own Doctor's out-of-the-way volumes, a thin foolscap quarto, printed at Turin, 1589, being a treatisedella natura de' cibi et del bere, by Baldassare Pisanelli, a physician of Bologna.

Dr. Balguy's motto would not have suited our Doctor. For though books were among the comforts and enjoyments of his life from boyhood to old age, they never made him oblivious of its business. Like Ludovicus Bosch,—but remember I beseech you Ladies! his wig was not a caxon; and moreover that when he gave an early hour to his books, it was before the wig was put on, and that when he had a leisure evening for them, off went the wig, and a velvet or silken cap according to the season, supplied its place:—like Bosch, I say, when he was seated in his library,—but in no such conventual or collegiate apartment, and with no such assemblage of folios, quartos, and all inferior sizes, substantially bound, in venerable condition, and “in seemly order ranged;” nor with that atmospheric odour of antiquity and books which is more grateful to the olfactories of a student than the fumes of any pastille; but in a little room, with a ragged regiment upon his shelves, and an odour of the shop from below, in which rhubarb predominated, though it was sometimes overpowered by valerian, dear to cats, or assafœtida which sprung up, say the Turks, in Paradise, upon the spot where the Devil first set his foot:—like Bosch I say once more and without farther parenthesis,

περισσοὶ Παντες ὁι ᾿ν μεσῳ λογοι,1

like Bosch the Doctor never was weary with pursuing the game that might be started in a library. And though there was no forest at hand, there were some small preserves in the neighbourhood, over which he was at liberty to range.

1EURIPIDES.

Perhaps the reader's memory may serve him, where mine is just now at fault, and he may do for himself, what some future editor will do for me, that is supply the name of a man of letters who in his second childhood devised a new mode of book-hunting: he used to remove one of the books in his library from its proper place, and when he had forgotten as he soon did, where it had been put, he hunted the shelves till he found it. There will be some who see nothing more in this affecting anecdote than an exemplification of the vanity of human pursuits; but it is not refining too much, if we perceive in it a consolatory mark of a cheerful and philosophical mind, retaining its character even when far in decay. For no one who had not acquired a habit of happy philosophy would have extracted amusement from his infirmities, and made the failure of his memory serve to beguile some of those hours which could then no longer be profitably employed.

Circulating libraries, which serve for the most part to promote useless reading, were not known when Daniel Dove set up his rest at Doncaster. It was about that time that a dissenting minister, Samuel Fancourt by name, opened the first in London, of course upon a very contracted scale. Book clubs are of much later institution. There was no bookseller in Doncaster till several years afterwards: sometimes an itinerant dealer in such wares opened a stall there on a market day, as Johnson's father used to do at Birmingham; and one or two of the trade regularly kept the fair. A little of the live stock of the London publishers found its way thither at such times, and more of their dead stock, with a regular supply of certain works popular enough to be printed in a cheap form for this kind of sale. And when at the breaking up of a household such books as the deceased or removing owner happened to possess were sold off with the furniture, those which found no better purchaser on the spot usually came into the hands of one of these dealers, and made the tour of the neighbouring markets. It was from such stragglers that the Doctor's ragged regiment had been chiefly raised. Indeed he was so frequent a customer, that the stall-keepers generally offered to his notice any English book which they thought likely to take his fancy, and any one in a foreign language which had not the appearance of a school book. And when in one book he found such references to another as made him desirous of possessing, or at least consulting it, he employed a person at York to make enquiry for it there.

THOMAS GENT AND ALICE GUY, A TRUE TALE, SHOWING THAT A WOMAN'S CONSTANCY WILL NOT ALWAYS HOLD OUT LONGER THAN TROY TOWN, AND YET THE WOMAN MAY NOT BE THE PARTY WHO IS MOST IN FAULT.

Io dico, non dimandoQuel che tu vuoi udir, perch' io l'ho vistoOve s' appunta ogni ubi, e ogni quando.DANTE.

The person whom the Doctor employed in collecting certain books for him, and whom Peter Hopkins had employed in the same way, was that Thomas Gent of whom it was incidentally said in the 47th Chapter that he published the old poem of Flodden Field from a transcript made by Daniel's kind hearted schoolmaster Richard Guy, whose daughter he married. Since that chapter was written an account of Gent's life, written by himself in 1746, when he was in his 53d year, and in his own handwriting, was discovered by Mr. Thorpe the bookseller among a collection of books from Ireland, and published by him, with a portrait of the author copied from a fine mezzotinto engraving by Valentine Green, which is well known to collectors. Gent was a very old man when that portrait was taken; and his fine loose-flowing silver hair gave great effect to a singularly animated and cheerful face. His autobiography is as characteristic as John Dunton's, and like it contains much information relating to the state of the press in his days, and the trade of literature. A few curious notices occur in it of the manners and transactions of those times. But the portion pertinent to the business of these volumes is that which in its consequences led him to become the Doctor's purveyor of old books in the ancient city of York.

Gent, though descended, he says, from the Gents of Staffordshire, was born in Dublin: his parents were good people in humble life, who trained him up in the way he should go, gave him the best education their means could afford and apprenticed him to a printer, from whom after three years' service he ran away, because of the brutal usage which he received. He got on board ship with little more than a shilling in his pocket, and was landed at Parkgate to seek his fortune. But having made good use of the time which he had served with his tyrannical master, he obtained employment in London, and made himself useful to his employers. After having been four years there, he accepted an offer from Mr. White, who, as a reward for printing the Prince of Orange's Declaration when all the printers in London refused to undertake so dangerous a piece of work, was made King's printer for York and five other counties. Mr. White had plenty of business, there being few printers in England, except in London, at that time; “None,” says Gent, “I am sure, at Chester, Liverpool, Whitehaven, Preston, Manchester, Kendal, and Leeds. The offer was eighteen pounds a year, with board, washing and lodging, and a guinea to bear his charges on the road. Twenty shillings of this I offered,” he says, “to Crofts the carrier, a very surly young fellow as ever I conversed with, but he would have five or six shillings more; finding him so stiff with me, I resolved to venture on foot. He set out with his horses on Monday, and the next morning, being the 20th of April, 1714, I set forward and had not, I think, walked three miles, when a gentleman's servant with a horse ready saddled and himself riding another overtook me, and for a shilling, with a glass or so on the road, allowed me to ride with him as far as Caxton, which was the period of his journey.”

Having reached York about twelve o'clock on the Sunday following, and found the way to Mr. White's house the door was opened by the head-maiden. “She ushered me,” says Gent, “into the chamber where Mrs. White lay something ill in bed; but the old gentleman was at his dinner, by the fire side, sitting in a noble arm-chair, with a good large pie before him, and made me partake heartily with him. I had a guinea in my shoe lining, which I pulled out to ease my foot; at which the old gentleman smiled, and pleasantly said, it was more than he had ever seen a journeyman save before. I could not but smile too, because my trunk, with my clothes and eight guineas, was sent, about a month before to Ireland, where I was resolved to go and see my friends had his place not offered to me as it did.”

Gent was as happy as he could wish here, and as he earned money bought clothes to serve him till he should rejoin his trunk in Dublin, which at the year's end he determined to do, refusing to renew his engagement till he had visited his parents. “Yet,” says he, “what made my departure somewhat uneasy, I scarce then well knew how, was through respect of Mrs. Alice Guy, the young woman who I said, first opened the door to me, upper maiden to Mrs. White, who I was persuaded to believe had the like mutual fondness for me—she was the daughter of Mr. Richard Guy, schoolmaster at Ingleton, near Lancashire; had very good natural parts, quick understanding, was of a fine complexion, and very amiable in her features. Indeed I was not very forward in love, or desire of matrimony, till I knew the world better, and consequently should be more able to provide such a handsome maintenance as I confess I had ambition enough to desire; but yet my heart could not absolutely slight so lovely a young creature as to pretend I had no esteem for her charms, which had captivated others, and particularly my master's grandson, Mr. Charles Bourne, who was more deserving than any. However I told her (because my irresolution should not anticipate her advancement,) that I should respect her as one of the dearest of friends; and receiving a little dog from her as a companion on the road, I had the honour to be accompanied as far as Bramham Moor by my rival.”

He was received by his parents like the Prodigal son, and had engaged himself as journeyman in Dublin, when his old master Powell employed officers to seize him for leaving his apprenticeship. It was in vain that his father and a friendly brother-in-law offered a fair sum for his release, while he concealed himself; more was demanded than would have been proper for them to give; there was no other remedy than to leave Ireland once more, and as about that time he had received a letter from his dearest at York, saying that he was expected there, thither purely again to enjoy her company, he resolved to direct his course. His friends were much concerned at their parting, “but my unlucky whelp,” says he, “that a little before while taking a glass with Mr. Hume (the printer with whom I had engaged), had torn my new hat in pieces, seemed nowise affected by my taking boat; so I let the rascal stay with my dear parents who were fond of him for my sake, as he was of them for his own; nor was he less pleasant by his tricks to the neighbourhood, who called him Yorkshire, from the country whence I brought him.”

There is a chasm in this part of the manuscript: it appears, however, that he remained some months at York, and then went to London, where he was as careful as possible in saving what he had earned, “but yet,” says he, “could not perceive a prospect of settlement whereby to maintain a spouse like her as I judged she deserved, and I could not bear the thoughts to bring her from a good settlement, without I could certainly make us both happy in a better.” He went on, however, industriously and prosperously, had “the great happiness” in the year 1717 of being made freeman of the company of Stationers, and in the same year commenced citizen of London, his share of the treat that day with other expences coming to about five pounds. Now that he was beyond his reach, his old tyrant in Dublin was glad to accept of five pounds for his discharge; this money he remitted, and thus became absolutely free both in England and Ireland, for which he gave sincere thanks to the Almighty.

“And now,” says he, “I thought myself happy, when the thoughts of my dearest often occurred to my mind: God knows it is but too common, and that with the best and most considerate persons, that something or other gives them disquietude or makes them seek after it.” A partnership at Norwich was offered him, and he accepted it; but a few hours afterwards there came a mournful letter from his parents, saying that they were very infirm, and extremely desirous to see him once more before they died. It is to Gent's honour that he immediately gave up his engagement at Norwich, though the stage coach had been ordered to receive him. The person whom he recommended in his stead, was Mr. Robert Raikes, who when Gent wrote these memoirs was settled as a master in Gloucester; he became the father of a singularly prosperous family, and one of his sons his successor in the printing office is well known as the person who first established Sunday schools.

Yet though Gent acted under an impulse of natural duty on this occasion, he confesses that he was not without some cause for self reproach: “I wrote,” said he, “a lamenting letter to my dear in York, bewailing that I could not find a proper place as yet to settle in, told her that I was leaving the kingdom, and reminded her by what had past that she could not be ignorant where to direct if she thought proper so to do; that I was far from slighting her, and resigned her to none but the protection of Heaven. But sure never was poor creature afflicted with such melancholy as I was upon my journey, my soul did seem to utter within me, ‘wretch that I am, what am I doing, and whither going?’ My parents, it's true, as they were constantly most affectionate, so indeed they are, especially in far advanced years, peculiar objects of my care and esteem; but am I not only leaving England, the Paradise of the world, to which as any loyal subject I have now an indubitable right, but am I not also departing, for aught I know for ever, from the dearest creature upon earth? from her that loved me when I knew not well how to respect myself; who was wont to give me sweet counsel in order for my future happiness, equally partook of those deep sorrows which our tender love had occasioned, was willing to undergo all hazards with me in this troublesome life, whose kind letters had so often proved like healing balm to my languishing condition, and whose constancy, had I been as equally faithful and not so timorous of being espoused through too many perplexing doubts, would never have been shaken, and without question would have promoted the greatest happiness for which I was created.”

These self-reproaches, which were not undeserved, made him ill on the road. He reached Dublin, however, and though the employment which he got there was not nearly so profitable as what he had had in London, love for his parents made him contented, “and took,” he says, “all thoughts of further advantages away, till Mr. Alexander Campbell, a Scotchman in the same printing office with me, getting me in liquor, obtained a promise that I should accompany him to England, where there was a greater likelihood of prosperity. Accordingly he so pressed me, and gave such reasons to my dear parents that it was not worth while to stay there for such small business as we enjoyed, that they consented we should go together: but alas! their melting tears made mine to flow, and bedewed my pillow every night after that I lodged with them. ‘What Tommy,’ my mother would sometimes say, ‘this English damsel of yours, I suppose, is the chiefest reason why you slight us and your native country!’ ‘Well,’ added she, ‘the ways of Providence I know are unsearchable; and whether I live to see you again or no, I shall pray God to be your defender and preserver!’—I thought it not fit to accumulate sorrows to us all, by returning any afflictive answers; but taking an opportunity whilst she was abroad on her business, I embarked with my friend once more for England.”

Tommy, however, made the heart of his English damsel sick with hope long deferred. He was provident overmuch; and this he acknowledges even when endeavouring to excuse himself:—“all that I had undergone I must confess,” he says, “I thought were but my just deserts for being so long absent from my dear,” (it had now been an absence of some years,) “and yet I could not well help it. I had a little money it is very true, but no certain home wherein to invite her. I knew she was well fixed; and it pierced me to the very heart to think, if through any miscarriage or misfortune I should alter her condition for the worse instead of the better. Upon this account my letters to her at this time were not so amorously obliging as they ought to have been from a sincere lover; by which she had reason, however she might have been mistaken, to think that I had failed in my part of those tender engagements which had passed between us.”

Gent had sometimes the honour of being the Bellman's poet, and used to get heartily treated for the Christmas verses which he composed in that capacity. One lucky day he happened to meet his friend Mr. Evan Ellis, who was the Bellman's printer in ordinary: “Tommy,” said his friend, “I am persuaded that sometime or other you'll set up a press in the country, where I believe you have a pretty northern lass at heart; and as I believe you save money and can spare it, I can help you to a good pennyworth preparatory to your design.” Accordingly upon this recommendation he purchased at a cheap price a considerable quantity of old types, which Mr. Mist, the proprietor of a journal well known at that time by his name, had designed for the furnace. To this he added a font almost new, resolving to venture in the world with his dearest, who at first, he says, gave him encouragement. He does not say that she ever discouraged him, and his own resolution appears to have been but half-hearted. His purse being much exhausted by these purchases, he still worked on for further supplies; by and by he bought a new font, and so went on increasing his stock, working for his old first master and for himself also, and occasionally employing servants himself, though the fatigue was exceedingly great and almost more than he could go through. Alas the while for Alice Guy, who was now in the tenth year of her engagement to lukewarm Thomas!

Lukewarm Thomas imagined “things would so fall out that after some little time he should have occasion to invite his dear to London.” But let him tell his own story. “One Sunday morning, as my shoes were japanning by a little boy at the end of the lane, there came Mr. John Hoyle, who had been a long time in a messenger's custody on suspicion for reprintingVox Populi Vox Dei, under direction of Mrs. Powell with whom he wrought as journeyman; ‘Mr. Gent,’ said he, ‘I have been at York to see my parents, and am but just as it were returned to London. I am heartily glad to see you, but sorry to tell you that you have lost your old sweetheart; for I assure you that she is really married to your rival Mr. Bourne!’ I was so thunderstruck that I could scarcely return an answer,—all former thoughts crowding into my mind, the consideration of spending my substance on a business I would not have engaged in as a master but for her sake, my own remissness that had occasioned it, and withal that she could not in such a case be much blamed for mending her fortune,—all these threw me under a very deep concern.”

He consoled himself as Petrarch had done: and opening his old vein of poetry and bell-metal, gave some vent to his passion by writing a copy of verses to the tune of “Such charms has Phillis!” then much in request, and proper for the flute. He entitled it “The Forsaken Lover's Letter to his former Sweetheart.” “When I had done,” says he, “as I did not care that Mr. Midwinter (his master) should know of my great disappointment, I gave the copy to Mr. Dodd, who printing the same sold thousands of them, for which he offered me a price; but as it was on my own proper concern, I scorned to accept of anything except a glass of comfort or so.” If the Forsaken Lover's Lamentation had been sung about the streets of York, Mrs. Bourne might have listened to it without suspecting that she was the treacherous maid, who for the sake of this world's splendour had betrayed her only sweet jewel, left him to languish alone, and broken his heart,

Proving that none could be falser than she.

Conscience would never have whispered to her that it was lukewarm Thomas who closed his complaint with the desperate determination expressed in the ensuing stanza.

Now to the woods and groves I'll be ranging,Free from all women I'll vent forth my grief:While birds are singing and sweet notes exchangingThis pleasing concert will yield me relief.Thus like the swan before its departingSings forth its elegy in melting strains,My dying words shall move all the kind powers aboveTo pity my fate, the most wretched of swains.

He neither went to the woods, nor died; but entered into an engagement with Mr. Dodd's widow to manage her printing business, being the more willing to enter into the service of this gentlewoman since he was disappointed of his first love. The widow was a most agreeable person, daughter to a sea captain, and had been educated at the boarding school at Hackney: Dodd was her second husband, and she had been left with a child by each. “I thought her,” says Gent, “worthy of the best of spouses; for sure there never could be a finer economist or sweeter mother to her dear children, whom she kept exceedingly decent. I have dined with her; but then as in reason I allowed what was fitting for my meals, and her conversation, agreeably to her fine education, almost wounded me with love, and at the same time commanded a becoming reverence. What made her excellent carriage the more endearing was, that I now must never expect to behold my first love at York: though I heard by travellers that not only she, but her husband used to enquire after me. Indeed I was sensible that Mr. Bourne, though a likely young man, was not one of the most healthful persons; but far from imagining otherwise then that he might have outlived me who then was worn to a shadow. But, see the wonderful effects of Divine Providence in all things!

“It was one Sunday morning that Mr. Philip Wood, a quondam partner at Mr. Midwinter's, entering my chambers where I sometimes used to employ him too when slack of business in other places—‘Tommy,’ said he, ‘all these fine materials of yours, must be moved to York!’ At which wondering, ‘what mean you?’ said I. ‘Aye,’ said he, ‘and you must go too, without its your own fault; for your first sweetheart is now at liberty, and left in good circumstances by her dear spouse, who deceased but of late.’ ‘I pray heaven,’ answered I, ‘that his precious soul may be happy: and for aught I know it may be as you say, for indeed I think I may not trifle with a widow as I have formerly done with a maid.’ I made an excuse to my mistress that I had business in Ireland, but that I hoped to be at my own lodgings in about a month's time; if not, as I had placed every thing in order, she might easily by any other person carry on the business. But she said she would not have any beside me in that station I enjoyed, and therefore should expect my return to her again: but respectfully taking leave, I never beheld her after, though I heard she was after very indifferently married. I had taken care that my goods should be privately packed up, and hired a little warehouse and put them in ready to be sent, by sea or land, to where I should order: and I pitched upon Mr. Campbell my fellow traveller, as my confidant in this affair, desiring my cousins to assist him; all of whom I took leave of at the Black Swan in Holborn, where I had paid my passage in the stage coach, which brought me to York in four days time. Here I found my dearest once more, though much altered from what she was about ten years before that I had not seen her. There was no need for new courtship; but decency suspended the ceremony of marriage for some time: till my dearest at length, considering the ill consequence of delay in her business, as well as the former ties of love that passed innocently between us by word and writing, gave full consent to have the nuptials celebrated,”—and performed accordingly they were, “in the stately cathedral,” the very day of Archbishop Blackburne's installation.

THE AUTHOR HINTS AT CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE LIFE OF THOMAS GENT ON WHICH HE DOES NOT THINK IT NECESSARY TO DWELL.

Round white stones will serve they say,As well as eggs, to make hens lay.BUTLER.

If I were given to prolixity, and allowed myself to be led away from the subject before me, I might here be tempted to relate certain particulars concerning Thomas Gent; how under his first London master, Mr. Midwinter, whose house was a ballad-house, “he worked many times from five in the morning till twelve at night, and frequently without food from breakfast till five or six in the evening, through their hurry with hawkers.” And how in that same service he wrote, which is to say in modern languagereported, Dr. Sacheverel's sermon after his suspension, for which his master gave him a crown piece, and a pair of breeches,—not before they were wanted;—and by which the said master gained nearly thirty pounds in the course of the week. And how he once engaged with Mr. Francis Clifton, who having had a liberal education at Oxford proved a Papist, set up a press, printed a newspaper, and getting in debt moved his goods into the liberty of the Fleet and there became entered as a prisoner; and how Gent sometimes in extreme weather worked for him under a mean shed adjoining to the prison walls, when snow and rain fell alternately on the cases, yet, he says, the number of wide mouthed stentorian hawkers, brisk trade, and very often a glass of good ale, revived the drooping spirits of him and his fellow workmen: and he often admired the success of this Mr. Clifton in his station, for whether through pity of mankind or the immediate hand of Divine Providence to his family, advantageous jobs so often flowed upon him as gave him cause to be merry under his heavy misfortunes.

And how while in this employ a piece of work came in which he composed and helped to work off, but was not permitted to know who was the author. It was a vindication of an honest clergyman who had been committed to the King's Bench upon an action ofscandalum magnatum:however says he, “when finished the papers were packed up, and delivered to my care; and the same night, my master hiring a coach we were driven to Westminster, where we entered into a large sort of monastic building. Soon were we ushered into a spacious hall, where we sate near a large table covered with an ancient carpet of curious work, and whereon was soon laid a bottle of wine for our entertainment. In a little time we were visited by a grave gentleman in a black lay habit, who entertained us with one pleasant discourse or other. He bid us be secret; for, said he, the imprisoned divine does not know who is his defender; and if he did, I know his temper; in a sort of transport he would reveal it, and so I should be blamed for my good office: and whether his intention was designed to show his gratitude, yet if a man is hurt by a friend, the damage is the same as if done by an enemy: to prevent which is the reason I desire this concealment. You need not fear me, Sir, said my master; ‘and I, good sir,’ added I, ‘you may be less afraid of; for I protest I do not know where I am, much less your person, nor heard where I should be driven, or if I shall not be driven to Jerusalem before I get home again. Nay I shall forget I ever did the job by tomorrow, and consequently shall never answer any questions about it, if demanded. Yet sir, I shall secretly remember your generosity, and drink to your health with this brimfull glass.’ Thereupon this set them both a laughing, and truly I was got merrily tipsy, so merry that I hardly knew how I was driven homewards. For my part I was ever inclined to secresy and fidelity; and therefore I was nowise inquisitive concerning our hospitable entertainer.—But happening afterwards to behold a state prisoner in a coach, guarded from Westminster to the Tower, God bless me, thought I, it was no less than the Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Atterbury, by whom my master and I had been treated!”

Were I to ramble from my immediate purpose I might relate how Gent saw Mr. John Mathews, a young printer, drawn on a sledge to the place of execution where he suffered for high treason; and how Mathews's clothes were exceeding neat, the lining of his coat a rich Persian silk, and every other thing as befitted a gentleman; and how he talked of death like a philosopher to some young ladies who came to take their farewell. This poor youth was but in his nineteenth year, and not out of his apprenticeship to his mother and brother. He had been under misfortunes before, and through the favour of the government at that time was discharged, at which time his brother had given public orders to the people in his employ that if ever they found John either doing or speaking any thing against the government, they would inform him that he might take a proper method to prevent it. Nevertheless for ten guineas, he with the assistance of another apprentice and a journeyman printed a treasonable paper intitledVox Populi Vox Dei, containing direct incitement to rebellion. I might relate also how this journeyman Lawrence Vezey, who went by the name ofold gentlemanin the printing office, and who had not the character of an honest man about his printing; and who moreover had gone to the criminal's mother and offered to go out of the way if she would give him money, and accordingly had gone to St. Albans, and staid there nine days, but no money coming, he could not stay out of the way longer, but seems rather to have been suspected of putting himself in the way,—I might, I say, relate, how this Vezey did not long survive the ill-fated youth; and how at his burial in an obscure part of Islington church-yard, many of the printers boys called devils, made a noise like such, with their ball stocks carried thither for that purpose, and how the minister was much interrupted thereby in the burial service, and shameful indignities were committed at the grave: and how the printers who had been at Islington that day, had their names sent off to the Courts of Westminster, where it cost their pockets pretty well before their persons were discharged from trouble. But Gent, who desired to be out of harm's way, had shunned what he called the crew of demons with their incendiaries to a mischief.

I might also relate how he once carried skull caps made of printing balls stuffed with wool to his brother printers, who were to exhibit their faces in that wooden frame called the pillory; in which frame nevertheless he seems to think they were properly set; and the mob were of the same opinion, for these skull caps proved but weak helmets against the missiles wherewith they were assailed. Moreover further to exemplify the perils which in those days environed the men who meddled with printer's types, I might proceed to say how, after a strange dream, poor Gent was in the dead of the night alarmed by a strange thundering noise at the door, and his door broken open, and himself seized in his bed by two king's messengers upon a false information that he had been engaged in printing some lines concerning the imprisoned Bishop of Rochester, which had given offence; and how he was carried to a public house near St. Sepulchre's Church, whither his two employers Mr. Midwinter and Mr. Clifton were also brought prisoners, and how they were taken to Westminster and there imprisoned in a very fine house in Manchester Court which had nevertheless within the fusty smell of a prison; and how from the high window of his humble back apartment he could behold the Thames, and hear the dashing of the flowing waters against the walls that kept it within due bounds: and how in the next room to him was confined that unhappy young Irish clergyman Mr. Neynoe, (not Naypoe as the name in these memoirs is erroneously given.) “I used,” says Gent, “to hear him talk to himself when his raving fits came on; and now and then would he sing psalms with such a melodious voice as produced both admiration and pity from me, who was an object of commiseration myself, in being awhile debarred from friends to see me, or the use of pen, ink, and paper to write to them.” And how after five days he was honourably discharged, and took boat from Palace Yard stairs, in which he says “my head seemed to be affected with a strange giddiness; and when I safely arrived at home, some of my kinder neighbours appeared very joyful at my return. And my poor linnet, whose death I very much feared would come to pass, saluted me with her long, pleasant, chirping notes; and indeed the poor creature had occasion to be the most joyful, for her necessary stock was almost exhausted, and I was come just in the critical time to yield her a fresh supply.” It was some compensation for his fright on this occasion that he printed the Bishop of Rochester's Effigy “with some inoffensive verses that pleased all parties,” which sold very well; and that he formed some observations upon the few dying words of Counsellor Layer, in nature of a large speech, which for about three days had such a run of sale that the unruly hawkers were ready to pull his press in pieces for the goods.

Farther I might say of Gent that in January 1739 when the Ouse at York was frozen, he set up a press on the ice, and printed names there, to the great satisfaction of young gentlemen, ladies, and others, who were very liberal on the occasion. And how having been unjustly as he thought ejected from a house in Stonegate which was held under a prebendal lease and which fell to Mr. Laurence Sterne, (to whom however it was in vain to apply for redress, it not being in his power to relieve him,) he bought a house in Petergate and built a tower upon it; “by which addition,” said he “my house seems the highest in the city and affords an agreeable prospect round the country: we have a wholesome air whenever we please to ascend, especially the mornings and evenings, with great conveniency for my business when overcrowded in the narrow rooms below; and several gentlemen have occasionally taken a serious pipe there, to talk of affairs in printing, as well as neighbours to satisfy their curiosity in viewing the flowers that grow almost round about upon the walls.”

This, and much more than this, might be said of Thomas Gent, and would have been deemed not uninteresting by the collectors of English topography, and typographic curiosities, Gent being well known to them for his “famous history of the City of York, its magnificent Cathedral, St. Mary's Abbey, &c.;” his “History of the Loyal Town of Ripon, Fountains Abbey, Beverley, Wakefield, &c.;” and his “History of the Royal and Beautiful Town of Kingston-upon-Hull.” He entered upon a different province when he wrote his Treatise, entitled “Divine Justice and Mercy displayed in the Life of Judas Iscariot.” But though it was because of his turn for books and antiquities that the Doctor employed him to hunt the stalls at York, as Browne Willis did to collect for him epitaphs and tradesmen's halfpence, what I had to say of him arises out of his connection with Richard Guy, and must therefore be confined to his dilatory courtship and late marriage.

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