Part 98 (2/2)
said the waiter.--”Companee! vat you tell me of companee?”
exclaimed Handel. ”I vant no companee. I order dem two tree ting for my lonch!” The repast was served up, and honoured by Handel to the bones. He then drank a bottle of wine, and afterwards went home to dinner!
During one of the campaigns of Frederick of Prussia, a boor was brought before him of an appet.i.te so incredibly ravenous, that he offered to devour a hog barbacued. A general officer present ob-served, that the fellow ought to be burnt as a wizard.--”May it please your Majesty,” said the gormand, ”to order that old gentleman to take off his spurs, and I will eat him before I begin the hog!” Panic struck, although a brave soldier, at the idea of being devoured alive, the general shut himself up in his tent until the man-eater departed the encampment.
~~315~~~ The Squire knew not what to think--the circ.u.mstance was so extraordinary, that the story would have been rejected by him as unworthy of notice, had it been told by any other person; and coming even from his respectable friend, he remained, until rea.s.sured of the fact, rather incredulous of belief.
Descending the declivity leading from Pentonville to Battle Bridge, Dashall, pointing to an extensive pile of buildings at some little distance on the left,--”That,” said he, ”is Cold Bath Fields Penitentiary House, constructed on the plan of the late Mr. Howard, and may be considered in all respects as an experiment of his principles.
It cost the county of Middles.e.x between 70 and 80,000, and its yearly expenditure is about 7,000. It was opened in 1794, and was originally designed only as a kind of Bridewell; but having suitable accommodations for several descriptions of prisoners, it was applied to their different circ.u.mstances. The prison you may observe is surrounded by a wall of moderate height. Here are workshops for the prisoners; an office in which the business of the prison is transacted; a committee-room, and the best chapel of any prison in London. The cells are 218 in number, about eight feet long each. In these, penitentiary prisoners are confined till they have completed their tasks, when they are let into the courts at the back. Owing to the exertions of Sir Francis ~~316~~~ Burdett, and his partizans, this house, about the year 1799 and 1800, attracted much popular odium. Many abuses, now rectified, were then found to exist in the management, though not to the full extent described.”
A new scene now rose on the view of our two pedestrians. A little further on, in a field by the roadside, a motley a.s.semblage of auditors environed an orator mounted on a chair, who with frequent contortion of feature, and appropriate accompaniment of gesticulation, was holding forth in the spirit, as Pashalt, surmised, either of radicalism or fanaticism. This elevated personage, on closer approximation, proved to be a field-preacher, and judging from exterior appearance, no stranger to the good things of this life, although his present admonitory harangue strongly reprobated indulgence in the vanities of this wicked world;--he was well clad, and in portly condition, and certainly his rubicundity of visage by no means indicated on his part the union of practice with precept.
Nothing of further interest occurred, and they reached home, pleased with their day's ramble, that had been productive of so much amus.e.m.e.nt;--”thus verifying,” said Dashall to the Squire, ”the observation which you lately made--that every hour brings to a metropolitan perambulator a fresh accession of incident.”
CHAPTER XXIII
Observe that lean wretch, how dejected he looks, The while these fat Justices pore o'er their books.-- ”Hem, hem,--this here fellow our fortunes would tell,-- He thence at the treading-mill must have a spell: He lives by credulity!”--Most people do,-- Even you on the bench there,--ay, you Sir, and you!
Release then the Confrer at Equity's call, Or otherwise build treading-mills for us all!
~~317~~~ Adverting to the trick recently and successfully practised on Sir Felix O'Grady, by a juvenile adept in fraud, obtaining from the Baronet a new suit of clothes; his servant, indignant at his master having been thus plundered with impunity, had, for several days, been meditating in what manner most effectually to manouvre, so as to recover the lost property, and retrieve the honor of Munster, which he considered tarnished by his master having been duped by a stripling; when one morning a hand-bill was found in the area, intimating the residence in Town, pro bono publico, of a celebrated professor of the Occult Sciences; to whom was given the sublime art of divination, and who, by astrological and intuitive knowledge, would discover lost or stolen property, with infallible precision. Thady, whose credulity was of no inferior order, elate with the idea of consummating his wishes, communicated to his master the happy opportunity, and was permitted to seek the counsel of the celestial augurer. Not that the Baronet entertained any belief of its proving available of discovery, but rather with the view of introducing to his friends, Dashall and Tallyho, a fresh source of amus.e.m.e.nt, as connected with their diurnal investigation of Real Life in London.
Thither then, Thady repaired, and consulting the Seer, was astonished by responses which implied the most profound knowledge of times past, present, and to come! The simplicity of Thady had not escaped the Astrologer's ~~318~~~ notice, who, by dint of manouvre having contrived to draw from the Munster man, unwittingly, the requisite intelligence, merely echoed back the information thus received, to the utter amazement of Thady, who concluded that the Doctor must have intercourse with the Devil, and thence that he merited implicit veneration and belief. The sage predictor having received the customary douceur, now dismissed his credulous visitant, saying that the planets must be propitiated, and desiring him to come again at the expiration of twenty-four hours, when he would receive further intelligence.
Tom and his Cousin having called at the lodging of Sir Felix during the time that Thady was out on his expedition of discovery, the Baronet apprized his friends of the amus.e.m.e.nt in reserve; and they agreed to visit this expounder of destinies on the servant's return.
Thady at last arrived, and having reiterated his belief that this marvellous conjurer was the devil's own relative, the party set out to ascertain by what means they could prove the truth of the affinity between his infernal majesty and the sage descendant of the Magi.
Gaining the sublunary domicile of this mystical unraveller, which for the greater facility of communication with the stars he had fixed in the loftiest apartment of the house, our trio knocked at the door, which, after some hesitation, was opened by an ancient Sybil, who was presently joined by her counterpart, both ”so withered and so wild in their attire,” that ”they looked not like inhabitants o' th' earth, and yet were on it.” On the party requiring to see the Doctor, the two hags explained in a breath that the Doctor received only one visitor at a time; and while one gentleman went up stairs, the other two must remain below; and this arrangement being acquiesced in, Tom and Bob were shewn into a mean looking room on the ground floor, and Sir Felix followed the ascent of his conductor to the attic.
Entering the presence chamber,--”Welcome, sphinx,” exclaimed the Doctor.
”By the powers,” said the Baronet, ”but you are right to a letter; the Sphinx is a monster-man, and I, sure enough, am a Munster-man.”
”I know it.--What would'st thou, Sir Felix O'Grady?”
~~319~~~ The Baronet felt surprised by this familiar recognition of his person, and replied by observing, that as the inquirer so well knew his name, he might also be acquainted with the nature of his business.
”I partly guess it,” rejoined the Seer, ”and although I cannot absolutely predict rest.i.tution of thy lost property, yet I foresee that accident will throw the depredator in thy way, when the suit may perhaps find its way back to thy wardrobe. Now, hence to thy business, and I to mine.”
The Baronet having nothing further to ask, withdrew accordingly; and our Squire of Belville-hall was next ushered into the _sanctum sanctorum_.
Bob was at a loss what to say, not having prepared himself with any reasonable pretext of inquiry. A silence of a few moments was the consequence, and the Squire having first reconnoitred the person of the conjurer, who was arrayed in the appropriate costume of his profession, scrutinized the apartment, when the attention of the visitor and visited being again drawn to each other, the Soothsayer addressed himself to Tallyho in the following words:
The shadows of joy shall the mind appal, And the death-light dimly flit round the hall Of him, by base lucre who led astray, Shall age into fruitless minion betray!
The death-light shall glimmer in Belville-hall, And childless the lord of the mansion fall; A wife when he weds, vain, ugly, and old, Though charms she brings forty thousand in gold!
The Squire was not p.r.o.ne to anger; but that this fellow should interfere with his private concerns, and impute to him the intention of forming a most preposterous connexion, under the influence of avarice, roused him into a whirlwind of pa.s.sion.--”Rascal!” he exclaimed, ”who take upon you to predict the fate of others, are you aware of your own! Vagabond!
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