Part 53 (1/2)
Having lately been travelling in Germany, I spent some time at that University in which Augustus Tomlinson presided as Professor of Moral Philosophy. I found that that great man died, after a lingering illness, in the beginning of the year 1822, perfectly resigned to his fate, and conversing, even on his deathbed, on the divine mysteries of Ethical Philosophy. Notwithstanding the little peccadilloes to which I have alluded in the latter pages of ”Paul Clifford,” and which his pupils deemed it advisable to hide from--
”The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day,”
his memory was still held in a tender veneration. Perhaps, as in the case of the ill.u.s.trious Burns, the faults of a great man endear to you his genius. In his latter days the PROFESSOR was accustomed to wear a light-green silk dressing-gown, and, as he was perfectly bald, a little black velvet cap; his small-clothes were pepper and salt. These interesting facts I learned from one of his pupils. His old age was consumed in lectures, in conversation, and in the composition of the little morceaux of wisdom we present to the public. In these essays and maxims, short as they are, he seems to have concentrated the wisdom of his industrious and honourable life. With great difficulty I procured from his executors the ma.n.u.scripts which were then preparing for the German press. A valuable consideration induced those gentlemen to become philanthropic, and to consider the inestimable blessings they would confer upon this country by suffering me to give the following essays to the light, in their native and English dress, on the same day whereon they appear in Germany in the graces of foreign disguise.
At an age when, while Hypocrisy stalks, simpers, sidles, struts, and hobbles through the country, Truth also begins to watch her adversary in every movement, I cannot but think these lessons of Augustus Tomlinson peculiarly well-timed. I add them as a fitting Appendix to a Novel that may not inappropriately be termed a Treatise on Social Frauds; and if they contain within them that evidence of diligent attention and that principle of good in which the satire of Vice is only the germ of its detection, they may not, perchance, pa.s.s wholly unnoticed; nor be even condemned to that hasty reading in which the Indifference of to-day is but the prelude to the Forgetfulness of to-morrow.
CONTENTS.
MAXIMS ON THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING, Ill.u.s.trated by Ten Characters, being an Introduction to that n.o.ble Science by which every Man may become his own Rogue
BRACHYLOGIA: On the Morality taught by the Rich to the Poor Emulation Caution against the Scoffers of ”Humbug”
Popular Wrath at Individual Imprudence Dum deflnat Amnis Self-Glorifiers Thought on Fortune Wit, and Truth Auto-theology Glorious Const.i.tution Answer to the Popular Cant that Goodness in a Statesman is better than Ability Common-sense Love, and Writers on Love The Great Entailed The Regeneration of a Knave Style
MAXIMS
ON
THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING,
ILl.u.s.tRATED BY TEN CHARACTERS;
BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO THAT n.o.bLE SCIENCE BY WHICH EVERY MAN MAY BECOME HIS OWN ROGUE.
Set a thief to catch a thief.---Proverb.
I.
Whenever you are about to utter something astonis.h.i.+ngly false, always begin with, ”It is an acknowledged fact,” etc. Sir Robert Filmer was a master of this method of writing. Thus, with what a solemn face that great man attempted to cheat! ”It is a truth undeniable that there cannot be any mult.i.tude of men whatsoever, either great or small, etc., but that in the same mult.i.tude there is one man amongst them that in nature hath a right to be King of all the rest,--as being the next heir to Adam!”
II.
When you want something from the public, throw the blame of the asking on the most sacred principle you can find. A common beggar can read you exquisite lessons on this the most important maxim in the art of popular cheating. ”For the love of G.o.d, sir, a penny!”
III.
Whenever on any matter, moral, sentimental, or political, you find yourself utterly ignorant, talk immediately of ”The Laws of Nature.”
As those laws are written nowhere,--[Locke]--they are known by n.o.body.
Should any ask you how you happen to know such or such a doctrine as the dictate of Nature, clap your hand to your heart and say, ”Here!”
IV.
Yield to a man's tastes, and he will yield to your interest.
V.
When you talk to the half-wise, twaddle; when you talk to the ignorant, brag; when you talk to the sagacious, look very humble, and ask their opinion.
VI.