was a person disordered in her senses, under for ever!". This acclamation, however, was the care and tuition of a widow lady her re- not so loud or universal, but that our advenlation, and that in a day or two they should turer could distinctly hear a counter-cry from pursue their journey northward to the place the populace, of—" No slavery,—No popish of her habitation.

pretender;" an insinuation so ill relished by After the footman had been some time dis- the cavaliers, that they began to ply their missed, the knight recollected that he had horsewhips among the multitude, and were, forgot to ask the name of the person to in their turn, saluted with a discharge or whom he belonged; and began to be uneasy volley of stones, dirt, and dead cats ; in conat this omission, which indeed was more in sequence of which some teeth were demo teresting than he could imagine: for an ex- lished, and many surtouts defiled. planation of this nature would in all likeli. Our adventurer's attention was soon called hood, have led to a discovery, that the lady off from this scene, to contemplate another in the coach was no other than Miss Aurelia procession of people on foot, adorned with Darnel, who seeing him unexpectedly in bunches of orange ribands, attended by a such an equipage and attitude, as he passed regular band of music, playing—“God save the coach (for his helmet was off), had great George our king," and headed by a thin screamed with surprise and terror, and faint- swarthy personage, of a sallow aspect, and ed away. Nevertheless, when she recovered large goggling eyes, arched over with two from her swoon, she concealed the real thick semicircles of hair, or rather bristles, cause of her agitation, and none of her at- jet black, and frowzy. His apparel was very tendants were acquainted with the person gorgeous, though his address was very awk. of Sir Launcelot.

ward; he was accompanied by the mayor, reThe circumstances of the disorder under corder, and heads of the corporation, in their which she was said to labour, shall be re- formalities. His ensigns were known by the vealed in due course. In the mean time, our inscription,—“ Liberty of conscience, and adventurer, though unaccountably affected, the protestant succession;" and the people never dreamed of such an occurrence; but saluted him as he passed with repeated cheers, being very much fatigued, resolved to in- that seemed to prognosticate success. He demnify himself for the loss of last night's had particularly ingratiated himself with the repose : and this happened to be one of the good women, who lined the street, and sent few things in which Crabshaw felt an am- forth many ejaculatory petitions in his favour. bition to follow his master's example.

Sir Launcelot immediately comprehended the meaning of this solemnity: he perceived

it was the prelude to the election of a memCHAPTER IX.

ber to represent the county in parliament,

and he was seized with an eager desire to Which may serve to show that true patriot- know the names and characters of the comism is of no party.

petitors.

In order to gratify this desire, he made The knight had not enjoyed his repose above repeated applications to the bell-rope that two hours, when he was disturbed by such a depended from the ceiling of his apartment; variety of noises, as might have discomposed but this produced nothing, except the repea brain of the firmest texture. The rumbling tition of the words,—"Coming, sir,” which of carriages, and the rattling of horses feet echoed from three or four different corners on the pavement, was intermingled with loud of the house. The waiters were so distracted shouts, and the noise of fiddle, French-horn, by a variety of calls, that they stood motionand bagpipe. A loud peal was heard ringing less in the state of the schoolman's ass bein the church-tower, at some distance, while tween two bundles of hay, incapable of the inn resounded with clamour, confusion, determining where they should first offer and uproar.

their attendance. Sir Launcelot being thus alarmed, started Our knight's patience was almost exfrom his bed, and running to the window, hausted, when Crabshaw entered the room, beheld a cavalcade of persons well mounted, in a very strange equipage: one half of his and distinguished by blue cockades. They face appeared close shaved, and the other were generally attired like jockeys, with gold covered with lather, while the blood trickled laced hats and buckskin breeches, and one of in two rivulets from his nose, upon a barber's them bore a standard of blue silk, inscribed cloth that was tucked under his chin; he in white letters,—“Liberty and the landed looked grim with indignation, and under his interest.” He who rode at their head was left arm carried his cutlass, unsheathed. a jolly figure, of a florid complexion and round Where he had acquired so much of the probelly, seemingly turned of fifty, and, in all fession of knight-errantry we shall not preappearance, of a choleric disposition. As tend to determine ; but certain it is, he fell they approached the market-place, they on his knees before Sir Launcelot, crying, waved their hats, huzza'd, and cried aloud, with an accent of grief and distraction, In —“No foreign connections !-Old England | the name of St George for England, I beg a

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boon, sir knight, and thy compliance I de- , the mayor, who was himself a manufacturer, mand, before the peacock and the ladies." had received a very considerable order for

Sir Launcelot, astonished at this address, exportation, in consequence of which it was replied, in a lofty strain,—"Valiant squire, believed he would support Mr Vanderpelft thy boon is granted, provided it doth not with all his influence and credit. contravene the laws of the land, and the con- Sir Launcelot, roused at this intelligence, stitutions of chivalry.”. · Then I crave called for his armour, which being buckled leave," answered Crabshaw, “to challenge on in a hurry, he mounted his steed, attended and defy to mortal combat that caitif barber by Crabshaw on Gilbert, and rode immediately who hath left me in this piteous condition; into the midst of the multitude by which the and I vow by the peacock, that I will not hustings were surrounded, just as Sir Valenshave my beard, until I have shaved his head tine Quickset began to harangue the people from bis shoulders : so may I thrive in the from an occasional theatre, formed of a plank occupation of an arrant squire.”.

supported by the upper board of the public Before his master had time to inquire into stocks, and an inferior rib of a wooden cage particulars, they were joined by a decent pitched also for the accommodation of petty man in boots, who was likewise a traveller, delinquents. and had seen the rise and progress of Timo- Though the singular appearance of Sir thy's disaster. He gave the knight to under- Launcelot at first attracted the eyes of all stand, that Crabshaw had sent for a barber, the spectators, yet they did not fail to yield and already undergone one half of the ope- attention to the speech of his brother knight, ration, when the operator received the long- Sir Valentine, which ran in the following expected message from both the gentlemen strain :"Gentlemen vreeholders of this here who stood candidates at the election. The county, I shan't pretend to meake a vine double summons was no sooner intimated to vlourishing speech-I'm a plain spoken man, him, than he threw down his bason, and re- as you all know. I hope I shall always speak tired with precipitation, leaving the squire in my maind without vear or vavour, as the the suds. Timothy, incensed at this deser- zaying is. 'Tis the way of the Quicksets tion, followed him with equal celerity into we are no upstarts, no vorreigners, nor have the street, where he collared the shaver, and we any Jewish blood in our veins; we have insisted upon being entirely trimmed, on pain lived in this here neighbourhood time out of the bastinado. The other, finding himself of mind, as you all know; and possess an thus arrested, and having no time to spare estate of vive thousand clear, which we spend for altercation, lifted up his fist, and dis- at whoam, among you, in old English hoscharged it upon the snout of Crabshaw, with pitality.--All my vorevathers have been par. such force that the unfortunate aggressor liament-men, and I can prove that ne'er a was fain to bite the ground, while the victor one o'um gave a zingle vote for the court hastened away, in hope of touching the since the revolution. Vor my own peart, I double wages of corruption.

value not the ministry three skips of a louse, The knight being informed of these circum- as the zaying is—I ne'er knew but one stances, told Timothy with a sinile, that he minister that was an honest man; and vor should have liberty to defy the barber ; but, in all the rest, I care not if they were hanged the mean time, he ordered him to saddle as high as Haman, with a pox tu'on-J am, Bronzomarte, and prepare for immediate thank God, a vree-born, true-hearted Eng. service. While the squire was thus em- lishman, and a loyal, thof unworthy son of ployed, his master engaged in conversation the church-vor all they have done vor with the stranger, who happened to be a H—r, I'd vain know what they have done London dealer travelling for orders, and was vor the church, with a vengeance-vor my well acquainted with the particulars which own peart, I hate all vorreigners, and vorour adventurer wanted to know.

reign measures, whereby this poor nation is It was from this communicative tradesman broken-backed with a dismal load of debt; he learned, that the competitors were Sir and taxes rise so high that the poor cannot Valentine Quickset and Mr Isaac Vander. get bread. Gentlemen vreeholders of this pelft; the first a mere fox-hunter, who de- county, I value no minister a vig's end, d'ye per led for success in this election upon his see; if you will vavour me with your votes interest among the high-flying gentry; the and interest, whereby I may be returned, other a stock-jobber and contractor, of foreign I'll engage one half of my estate that I never extract, not without a mixture of Hebrew cry yea to vour shillings in the pound, but blood, immensely rich, who was counte- will cross the ministry in every thing, as in nanced by his grace of and supposed duty bound, and as becomes an honest vreeto have distributed large sums in securing a holder in the ould interest—but, if you sell majority of votes among the yeomanry of the your votes and your country for bire, you will country, possessed of small freeholds, and be detested in this here world, and damned copyholders, a great number of which last in the next to all eternity; so I leave every resided in this borough. He said these were man to his own conscience." generally dissenters and weavers; and that This eloquent oration was received by his

a

own friends with loud peals of applause: the high court of parliament. This is your which, however, did not discourage his com- birthright, inherited from your ancestors, petitor, who, confident of his own strength, obtained by their courage, and sealed with ascended the rostrum, or, in other words, an their blood. It is not only your birthright old cask, set upright for the purpose. Having which you should maintain, in defiance of all bowed all round to the audience, with a smile danger, but also a sacred trust, to be executed of gentle condescension, he told them how with the most scrupulous care and fidelity. ambitious he was of the honour to represent The person whom you trust ought not only this county in parliament; and how happy to be endued with the most inflexible integhe found himself in the encouragement of rity, but should likewise possess a fund of his friends, who had so unanimously agreed knowledge that may enable him to act as a to support his pretensions. He said, over part of the legislature. He must be well and above the qualification he possessed acquainted with the history, the constitution, among them, he had fourscore thousand and the laws of his country; he must under. pounds in his pocket, which he had acquired stand the forms of business, the extent of by commerce, the support of the nation, un- the royal prerogative, the privilege of parder the present happy establishment, in de- liament, the detail of government, the nature fence of which he was ready to spend the and regulation of the finances, the different last farthing. He owned himself a faithful branches of commerce, the politics that presubject to his majesty king George, sincerely vail, and the connections that subsist among attached to the protestant succession, in de- the different powers of Europe; for on all testation and defiance of a popish, an ab. these subjects the deliberations of a house jured, and outlawed pretender; and declared of commons occasionally turn: but these that he would exhaust his substance and his great purposes will never be answered by blood, if necessary, in maintaining the prin. electing an illiterate savage, scarce qualified, ciples of the glorious revolution. “ This,” in point of understanding, to act as a country cried he, “is the solid basis and foundation justice of peace; a man who has scarce ever upon which I stand.”

travelled beyond the excursion of a fox. These last words had scarce proceeded chase, whose conversation never rambles from his mouth, when the head of the barrel farther than his stable, his kennel, and his or puncheon on which he stood, being frail barn-yard; who rejects decorum as degeneand infirm, gave way: so that down he went racy; mistakes rusticity for independence; with a crash, and in a twinkling disappeared ascertains his courage by leaping over gates from the eyes of the astonished beholders. and ditches, and founds his triumph on feats The fox-hunters, perceiving his disaster, ex- of drinking: who holds his estate by a facclaimed, in the phrase and accent of the tious tenure : professes himself the blind chase,"Stole away! stole away!" and, slave of a party, without knowing the prin. with hideous vociferation, joined in the syi- ciples that gave it birth, or the motives by van chorus which the hunters halloo when which it is actuated; and thinks that all the hounds are at fault.

patriotism consists in railing indiscriminately The disaster of Mr Vanderpelft was soon at ministers, and obstinately opposing every repaired by the assiduity of his friends, who measure of the administration. Such a man, disengaged him from the barrel in a trice, with no evil intentions of his own, might be hoisted him on the shoulders of four strong used as a dangerous tool in the hands of a weavers, and, resenting the unmannerly ex- desperate faction, by scattering the seeds of ultation of their antagonists, began to form disaffection, embarrassing the wheels of gov. themselves in order of battle.

ernment, and reducing the whole kingdom An obstinate fray would have undoubtedly to anarchy.”. ensued, had not their mutual indignation Here the knight was interrupted by the given way to their curiosity, at the motion of shouts and acclamations of the Vanderpelfour knight, who had advanced into the middle ites, who cried aloud, - Hear him! hear between the two fronts, and waving his hand him! long life to the iron-cased orator." as a signal for them to give attention, ad. This ciamour subsiding, he prosecuted his dressed himself to them, with graceful de- harangue to the following effect: meanour, in these words,—“Countrymen, “Such a man as I have described may be friends, and fellow-citizens, you are this day dangerous from ignorance; but is neither so assembled to determine a point of the utmost mischievous nor so detestable as the wretch consequence to yourselves and your poste. who knowingly betrays his trust, and sues to rity : a point that ought to be determined by be the hireling and prostitute of a weak and far other weapons than brutal force and fac-worthless minister: a sordid krave, without tious clamour. You, the freemen of Eng- honour or principle; who belongs to no land, are the basis of that excellent consti- family, whose example can reproach him tution which hath long flourished the object with degeneracy, who has no country to of envy and admiration. To you belongs command his respect, no friends to engage the inestimable privilege of choosing a dele- his affection, no religion to regulate his mogate properly qualified to represent you in rals, no conscience to restrain his iniquity,

a

and who worships no god but Mammon; antians, as free-born Britons and fellow-citi. insinuating miscreant, who undertakes for zens; but I perceive you are a pack of venal, the dirtiest work of the vilest administra- infamous scoundrels, and I will treat you tion : who practises national usury, receiving accordingly.” So saying, he brandished his by wholesale the rewards of venality, and lance, and riding into the thickest of the distributing the wages of corruption by re-concourse, laid about him wiih such dextail."

terity and effect, that the multitude was imIn this place our adventurer's speech was mediately dispersed, and he retired without drowned in the acclamations of the fox-hunt- further molestation. ers, who now triumphed in their turn, and The same good fortune did not attend hoicksed the speaker, exclaiming,—“Well Squire Crabshaw in his retreat. The ludiopened Jowler-to’un, to’un again, Sweet- crous singularity of his features, and the lips ! hey, Merry, Whitefoot !” After a half mown crop of hair that bristled from short interruption, he thus resumed his dis- one side of his countenance, invited some course :

wags to make merry at his expense; one of “When such a caitiff presents himself to them clapped a furze-bush under the tail of you, like the devil, with a temptation in his Gilbert, who, feeling himself thus stimulated hand, avoid him as if he were in fact the a posteriori, kicked, and plunged and capered devil-it is not the offering of disinterested in such a manner, that Timothy could hardly love ; for what should induce him, who has keep the saddle. In this commotion he lost no affections, to love you, to whose persons his cap and his periwig, while the rabble he is an utter stranger ? Alas! it is not a pelted him in such a manner, that before he benevolence, but a bribe. He wants to buy could join his master, he looked like a pillar, you at one market, that he may sell you at or rather a pillory of mud. another. Without doubt his intention is to make an advantage of his purchase ; and this aim he cannot accomplish, but by eacrificing,

CHAPTER X. in some sort, your interesi, your independency, to the wicked designs of a minister, as Which showeth that he who plays at bowls he can expect no gratification for the faithful will sometimes meet with rubbers. discharge of his duty. But, even if he should not find an opportunity of selling you to ad- SIR LAUNCELOT, boiling with indignation vantage, the crime, the shame, the infamy, at the venality and faction of the electors, will still be the same in you, who, baser than whom he had harangued to so little purpose, the most abandoned prostitutes, have sold retired with the most deliberate disdain to. yourselves and your posterity for hire—for a wards one of the gates of the town, on the paltry price, to be refunded with interest by outside of which his curiosity was attracted some minister, who will indemnify himself by a concourse of people, in the midst of out of your own pockets; for, after all, you whom stood Mr Ferret, mounted upon a are bought and sold with your own money, stool with a kind of satchel hanging round the miserable pittance you may now receive, his neck, and a phial displayed in his right is no more than a pitcher full of water thrown hand, while he held forth to the audience in to moisten the sucker of that pump which a very vehement strain of elocution. will drain you to the bottom. Let me there. Crabshaw thought hiinself happily de. fore advise and exhort you, my countrymen, livered when he reached the suburbs, and to avoid the opposite extremes of the igno- proceeded without halting; but his master rant clown and the designing courtier, and mingled with the crowd, and heard the orachoose a man of honesty, intelligence, and tor express himself to this effect. moderation, who will"-

“ Very likely you may undervalue me and The doctrine of moderation was a very my medicine, because I don't appear upon a unpopular subject in such an assembly; and stage of rotten boards, in a shabby velvet accordingly they rejected it as one man. They coat and tie-periwig, with a foolish fellow in began to think the stranger wanted to set a motley coat, to make you laugh by making up for himself; a supposition that could not wry faces : but I scorn to use these dirty arts fail to incense both sides equally, as they for engaging your attention. These paltry were both zealously engaged in their respec- tricks ad captandum vulgus can have no tive causes. The whigs and the tories effect but on ideots; and if you are ideots, joined against this intruder, who, being nei. I do'nt desire you should be my customers. ther, was treated like a monster or chimera in Take notice, I don't address you in the style

I politics. They hissed, they hooted and they of a mountebank, or a high German doctor; hallooed ; they annoyed him with missiles of and yet the kingdom is full of mountebanks, dirt, sticks, and stones; they cursed, they empirics, and quacks. We have quacks in threatened and reviled, till at length his pa- religion, quacks in physic, quacks in law, tience was exhausted.

quacks in politics, quacks in patriotism, “ Ungrateful and abandoned miscreants !" quacks in government : High-German quacks, he cried, “ I spoke to you as men and chris-Ithat have blistered, sweated, bled, and purged the nation into an atrophy. But this is not illiterate vagabond, that from idleness turns all; they have not only evacuated her into a quack, and advertises his nostrum in the consumption, but they have intoxicated her public papers. I ain neither a felonious drybrain, until she is become delirious; she can salter returned from exile, an hospital stumpno longer pursue her own interest, or indeed turner, a decayed staymaker, a bankrupt rightly distinguish it. Like the people of printer, or insolvent debtor, released by act Nineveh, she can hardly tell her right hand of parliament. I did not pretend to admin. from her left; but, as a changeling, is daz- ister medicines without the least tincture of zled and delighted by an ignis fatuus, a Willa letters, or suborn wretches to perjure themo'-the-wisp, an exhalation from the vilest selves in false affidavits of cures that were materials in nature, that leads her astray never performed; nor employ a set of ledthrough Westphalian bogs and deserts, and captains to harangue in my praise at all will one day break her neck over some bar- public places. I was bred regularly to the ren rocks, or leave her sticking in some profession of chemistry, and have tried all H- -n pit or quagmire. For my part, if the processes of alchemy; and I may ven. you have a mind to betray your country, I ture to say, that this here elixir is, in fact, have no objection. In selling yourselves and the chruseon pepuromenon ek puros, the your fellow-citizens, you only dispose of a visible, glorious, spiritual body, from whence pack of rascals who deserve to be sold—if all other beings derive their existence, as you sell one another, why should I not sell proceeding from their father the sun, and this bere elixir of long life, which, if properly their mother the moon; from the sun, as used, will protract your days till you shall from a living and spiritual gold, which is have seen your country ruined? I shall not mere fire, consequently the common and unipretend to disturb your understandings, which versal first created mover, from whence all are none of the strongest, with a hotchpotch moveable things have their distinct and parof unintelligible terms, such as Aristotle's ticular motions; and also from the moon, as four principles of generation, unformed from the wife of the sun, and the common matter, privation, efficient and final causes. mother of all sublunary things. And for as Aristotle was a pedantic blockhead, and still much as man is and must be the compre. more knave than fool. The same censure hensive end of all creatures, and the micro. we may safely put on that wiseacre Dios- cosm, he is counselled in the Revelation to corides, with his faculties of simples, his buy gold that is thoroughly fired, or rather seminal, specific, and principal virtues ? and pure fire, that he may become rich and like that crazy commentator Galen, with his four the sun; as, on the contrary, he becomes elements, elementary qualities, his eight poor when he abuses the arsenical poison; complexions, his harmonies and discords. so that his silver, by the fire, must be cal. Nor shall I expatiate on the alkahest of that cined to a caput mortuum, which happens mad scoundrel Paracelsus, with which he when he will hold and retain the menstruum, pretended to reduce flints into salt; nor the out of which he partly exists, for his own archæus or spiritus rector of that visionary property, and doth not daily offer up the Van Helmont, bis siinple, elementary water, same in the fire of the sun, that the woman his gas, ferments, and transmutations ; nor may be clothed with the sun, and become a shall I enlarge upon the salt, sulphur, and sun, and thereby rule over the moon; that oil, the acidum vagum, the mercury of me- is to say, that he may get the noon under tals, and the volatilized vitriol of other his feet. Now this here elixir, sold for no modern chemists, a pack of ignorant, con- more than sixpence a phial, contains the ceited, knavish rascals, that puzzle your weak essence of the alkahest; the archæus, the heads with such jargon, just as a German- catholicon, the menstruum, the sun, the moon, ized m-s throws dust in your eyes, by and, to sum up all in one word, is the true, lugging in and ringing the changes on the genuine, unadulterated, unchangeable, im. balance of power, the protestant religion, maculate, and specific chruseon pepuromeand your allies on the continent; acting like non ek puros.” the juggler, who picks your pockets, while The audience were variously affected by he dazzles your eyes and amuses your fancy this learned oration. Some of those who fawith twirling his fingers, and reciting the voured the pretensions of the whig candi. gibberish of hocus pocus; for, in fact, the date, were of opinion, that he ought to be balance of power is a mere chimera. As for punished for his presumption, in reflecting the protestant religion, nobody gives himself so scurrilously on ministers and ineasures. any trouble about it; and allies on the con- Of this sentiment was our adventurer, though tinent we have none, or at least none that he could not help admiring the courage of would raise an hundred men to save us from the orator, and owning within himself that perdition, unless we paid an extravagant he had mixed some melancholy truths with price for their assistance. But, to return to his scurrility. this here elixir of long life, I might embellish Mr Ferret would not have stood so long it with a great many high sounding epithets; in his rostrum unmolested, had not he cunbut I disdain to follow the example of every ningly chosen his station immediatelv with