The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 37

The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 37

"Fleas are not lobsters--Damn their souls!"

 

But though I could not avoid touching upon these matters, it is as

a citizen of London, and as the condescending friend of our most

patriotic magistrates--our modern Whittingtons--that I presume to

address your Royal Highness, and to solicit your favour to an essay

towards the history of that great man, the honour of which cannot

fail to be reflected on his successors; and in addition to this

gracious patronage for myself, I am charged by others to solicit your

Royal Highness, to be pleased to lend your name as President to a new

literary and most useful association, held in Bearbinder Lane, at

the back of the Mansion House, called "The Whittington Institution,

for teaching Aldermen to read, write, cypher, and dance, on Mr.

Lancaster's system."

 

In humble hope of your Royal Highness's most gracious condescension,

I have the honour to remain, Sir,

 

Your Royal Highness's

Most devoted and obedient Servant,

VICESIMUS BLINKINSOP.

 

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TENTAMEN, &c.

 

In looking at the propensities of the age we live in, comparatively

with those of times past, one cannot fail to observe a laudable love

for the noble science of antiquities: of which it may be truly said,

that it is conversant with peaceful and unoffending yesterdays, while

the idle votaries of the world are busied about to-day, and the

visionaries of ambition are dreaming of to-morrow.

 

Connected with this grave and useful pursuit is the general

inclination to search into the minutiæ of history, which never before

prevailed amongst us in so ardent a degree. The smallest information

upon traditional points is received with an avidity more salutary

and commendable than that which is the result of a commonplace love

of novelty; and the smaller the information, the greater the merit

of the painstaking author; who, like a skilful clock-maker, or other

nice handy-craftsman, is lauded in proportion to the minuteness of

his work.

 

Such are, for instance, the valuable discoveries which that excellent

philosopher and novelist Mr. Godwin hath made and edited, of and

concerning the great poet Chaucer; and, inasmuch as the nice and

small works of clock-makers, which we have mentioned, are carefully

placed in huge towers and steeples, beyond malicious or impertinent

curiosity, so this prudent philosopher hath disposed his small facts

in two tall volumes, equally out of the reach of the vulgar.

 

Such also are those valuable illustrations of the private lives of

public men which have issued from the Press under the titles of

"Ana," "Remains," and "Memoirs," and which have so admirably answered

the purposes for which they were put forth--namely, that of being

sold--while they at the same time maintain a discreet silence on

all matters which the ingenious subject of the biography might wish

to conceal, agreeably to that excellent maxim, _de mortuis nil nisi

bonum_: by these means, such treatises become a delectable kind of

reading, wherein nothing is admitted which can hurt the feelings

of any of the worthy persons mentioned in the course of the work,

particularly if they be deceased. This mode of writing conduces to

good humour and charity amongst men, and manifestly tends, as Dr.

Johnson observes on another occasion, to raise the general estimate

of human nature.

 

On these principles and considerations have I been induced, at no

small cost of time and labour, to endeavour to throw a new light upon

the life of Matthew Whittington, some time Mayor (or Lord Mayor, as

the courtesy goeth) of this worthy City of London,--a man, whose fame

needs no addition, but only to be placed in a proper point of view,

to challenge the admiration of a grateful posterity of Mayors and

Aldermen.

 

In humble imitation of my aforesaid friend Mr. Godwin, and of divers

other well-reputed authors, I have written this life in one hundred

and seventy-eight quires of foolscap paper, in a small and close,

but neat hand; which by my computation, having counted the number

of words therein contained, as well as the number of words in the

learned Bishop Watson's life of himself (which made my excellent

friend Dr. Snodgrass, who lent me the same, facetiously declare,

that I was the only man he ever knew who could get through it); I

say, having counted all these words, I find that my life of Mr.

Whittington (including thirteen quires on the general history of

Cats) would, if duly printed after the manner of Mr. Davison, who

never puts more than sixteen lines into a quarto page, make or

constitute five volumes of a similar size and shape to Dr. Watson's

life, which, with cuts by Mr. John Britton, author of several curious

topographical works, might be sold for the reasonable sum of £31

10_s._, being only six guineas the volume; and if it should please

the Legislature, in its wisdom, to repeal the Copy-right Bill (by

which costly books are made accessible to poor students at the

Universities, who have no business with such sort of works), my said

work might be furnished at the reduced price of £31 4_s._ 6_d._

 

But small as this sum is, it is with grief I say, that such is the

badness of the times, occasioned by the return of peace, and the

late long succession of plentiful harvests, that I find booksellers

strangely reluctant to embark in this transaction with me.[28] They

offer indeed to print my work if I can get it previously praised

in the _Edinburgh Review_; and the Reviewers say, that they are

not unwilling to praise it, but that it must, of a necessity, be

previously printed.

 

I have observed to Mr. Jeffrey in my seventh letter to him on this

subject, that this condition is not only new and injurious to me,

but, by his own showing, clearly gratuitous and unnecessary; because,

for aught that appears in the generality of his articles, he may

never have read the work which is the subject-matter of them; nay, it

hath sometimes been proved from the context, that he never hath even

seen the work at all; and as this little accident hath not hindered

his writing an excellent essay under colour of such work, so I

contended, that he need not now make the preliminary _sine quâ non_,

as to having my work printed; for "de non impressis et de non lectis

eadem est ratio."

 

But I grieve to say, that all my well-grounded reasoning hath been

unavailing; and as neither party will give up his notion, I stand at

a dead lock between the booksellers and reviewers.

 

In this dilemma, I should--like Aristotle's celebrated ass--have

starved till doomsday; but that, through the kindness and prudent

advice of my learned friends Mr. Jonas Backhouse, Jun. of

Pocklington, and the Rev. Doctor Snodgrass of Hog's-Norton, I have

been put upon a mode of extricating myself, by publishing, in a small

form, a tentamen, specimen, or abridgement of part of my great work,

which I am told Mr. Jeffrey will not object to review, he being

always ready to argue "à particulari ad universale:" so that, in

future time, the learned world may have hope of seeing my erudite

labours at full length, whereof this dissertation is a short and

imperfect sample or pattern.

 

* * * * *

 

The whole history of the illustrious Whittington is enveloped

in doubt. The mystery begins even before he is born; for no one

knows who his mother, and still less who his father, was. We are

in darkness as to where he first saw the light, and though it is

admitted that he most probably had a Christian name, _adhuc sub

judice lis est_, as to what that Christian name was.

 

This important point, however, my revered friend, the Rev. Dr.

Snodgrass of Hog's-Norton hath enabled me to decide.

 

Tradition has handed down to us that Whittington was a charity

boy, as it is called, and received the rudiments of letters at the

parish school of Hog's-Norton aforesaid; this clue directed the

Doctor's researches, and by that enlightened zeal for which he was

conspicuous, he has been so fortunate as to discover rudely carved on

the wainscot by some fellow-pupil,

 

M. W. IS A FOOL;

M. W. IS A DUNCE;

And one, which is more satisfactory,

M----W, W. IS A STUPID DOG,

1772.

 

This date seems at first sight to apply to a period long posterior

to Mr. Whittington; but when we recollect how often the wisest men,

the most careful copyists, the most expert printers, mistake dates

and transpose figures, we are not to be surprised at a similar error

in an unlettered and heedless school-boy; and therefore, as Dr.

Snodgrass judiciously advises--(a noble conjecture indeed, which

places the critic almost on a level with the original writer)--the

mistake may be corrected by the simple change of placing the figures

in their obvious proper order, 1277, which, as Mr. Whittington is

known to have been Sheriff or Mayor about the year 1330, when he

was probably near sixty, shews that he was about seven when at

Hog's-Norton; and proves incontestably, that to him and him alone

these ancient and fortunately discovered inscriptions refer.

 

Having established their authenticity, it is easy to show that Mr.

Whittington's name was not Richard, as the vulgar fondly imagine; R,

and not M, being the initial of Richard; and we might perhaps have

doubted between Matthew, Mathias, Moses, Melchisedec or Mark; but the

concluding W. of the last inscription seems to settle the matter in

favour of Matthew, which is the only name that I know of in ordinary

use which begins with M, and ends, as all the world sees, with a W.

 

I shall say little of an erroneous supposition--built on the strength

of the words "fool," "dunce," and "stupid dog;" and on the manifestly

mistaken date,--which would refer these characteristic sentences to

a worthy alderman now alive; (with whose initials they do, indeed,

by a strange accident, agree.) Such a supposition is clearly false

and untenable, as may be proved by one decisive observation, _inter

alia_; that they appear to be the work of some jealous rival,

displeased at Mr. Whittington's superior ability: perhaps they

were even engraved by a fraud on the parish furniture, after Mr.

Whittington's rise had given some handle to envy; whereas it is well

known and universally admitted, to be the happiness of the worthy

alderman now alive, that no human being either ever did, or could

envy _him_:--this sets that important question asleep for ever.