Book: Paul Clifford, Volume 1.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Paul Clifford, Volume 1.




At the apartment of MacGrawler, Paul one morning encountered Mr. Augustus
Tomlinson, a young man of great promise, who pursued the peaceful
occupation of chronicling in a leading newspaper "Horrid Murders,"
"Enormous Melons," and "Remarkable Circumstances." This gentleman,
having the advantage of some years' seniority over Paul, was slow in
unbending his dignity; but observing at last the eager and respectful
attention with which the stripling listened to a most veracious detail of
five men being inhumanly murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by the Reverend
Zedekiah Fooks Barnacle, he was touched by the impression he had created,
and shaking Paul graciously by the hand, he told him there was a deal of
natural shrewdness in his countenance, and that Mr. Augustus Tomlinson
did not doubt but that he (Paul) might have the honour to be murdered
himself one of these days. "You understand me," continued Mr.
Augustus,--"I mean murdered in effigy,--assassinated in type,--while you
yourself, unconscious of the circumstance, are quietly enjoying what you
imagine to be your existence. We never kill common persons,--to say
truth, our chief spite is against the Church; we destroy bishops by
wholesale. Sometimes, indeed, we knock off a leading barrister or so,
and express the anguish of the junior counsel at a loss so destructive to
their interests. But that is only a stray hit, and the slain barrister
often lives to become Attorney-General, renounce Whig principles, and
prosecute the very Press that destroyed him. Bishops are our _proper_
food; we send them to heaven on a sort of flying griffin, of which the
back is an apoplexy, and the wings are puffs. The Bishop of---, whom we
despatched in this manner the other day, being rather a facetious
personage, wrote to remonstrate with us thereon, observing that though
heaven was a very good translation for a bishop, yet that in such cases
he preferred 'the original to the translation.' As we murder bishop, so
is there another class of persons whom we only afflict with lethiferous
diseases. This latter tribe consists of his Majesty and his Majesty's
ministers. Whenever we cannot abuse their measures, we always fall foul
on their health. Does the king pass any popular law, we immediately
insinuate that his constitution is on its last legs. Does the minister
act like a man of sense, we instantly observe, with great regret, that
his complexion is remarkably pale. There is one manifest advantage in
_diseasinq_ people, instead of absolutely destroying them: the public may
flatly contradict us in one case, but it never can in the other; it is
easy to prove that a man is alive, but utterly impossible to prove that
he is in health. What if some opposing newspaper take up the cudgels in
his behalf, and assert that the victim of all Pandora's complaints, whom
we send tottering to the grave, passes one half the day in knocking up a
'distinguished company' at a shooting-party, and the other half in
outdoing the same 'distinguished company' after dinner? What if the
afflicted individual himself write us word that he never was better in
his life? We have only mysteriously to shake our heads and observe that
to contradict is not to prove, that it is little likely that our
authority should have been mistaken, and (we are very fond of an
historical comparison), beg our readers to remember that when Cardinal
Richelieu was dying, nothing enraged him so much as hinting that he was
ill. In short, if Horace is right, we are the very princes of poets; for
I dare say, Mr. MacGrawler, that you--and you, too, my little gentleman,
perfectly remember the words of the wise old Roman,--

"'Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur
Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet.'"

["He appears to me to be, to the fullest extent, a poet who
airily torments my breast, irritates, soothes, fills it with
unreal terrors."]

Having uttered this quotation with considerable self-complacency, and
thereby entirely completed his conquest over Paul, Mr. Augustus
Tomlinson, turning to MacGrawler, concluded his business with that
gentleman,--which was of a literary nature, namely, a joint composition
against a man who, being under five-and-twenty, and too poor to give
dinners, had had the impudence to write a sacred poem. The critics were
exceedingly bitter at this; and having very little to say against the
poem, the Court journals called the author a "coxcomb," and the liberal
ones "the son of a pantaloon!"

There was an ease, a spirit, a life about Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, which
captivated the senses of our young hero; then, too, he was exceedingly
smartly attired,--wore red heels and a bag,--had what seemed to Paul
quite the air of a "man of fashion;" and, above all, he spouted the
Latin with a remarkable grace!

Some days afterwards, MacGrawler sent our hero to Mr. Tomlinson's
lodgings, with his share of the joint abuse upon the poet.

Doubly was Paul's reverence for Mr. Augustus Tomlinson increased by a
sight of his abode. He found him settled in a polite part of the town,
in a very spruce parlour, the contents of which manifested the universal
genius of the inhabitant. It hath been objected unto us, by a most
discerning critic, that we are addicted to the drawing of "universal
geniuses." We plead Not Guilty in former instances; we allow the soft
impeachment in the instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. Over his
fireplace were arranged boxing-gloves and fencing foils; on his table lay
a cremona and a flageolet. On one side of the wall were shelves
containing the Covent Garden Magazine, Burn's Justice, a pocket Horace, a
Prayer-Book, _Excerpta ex Tacito_, a volume of plays, Philosophy made
Easy, and a Key to all Knowledge. Furthermore, there were on another
table a riding-whip and a driving-whip and a pair of spurs, and three
guineas, with a little mountain of loose silver. Mr. Augustus was a
tall, fair young man, with a freckled complexion, green eyes and red
eyelids, a smiling mouth, rather under-jawed, a sharp nose, and a
prodigiously large pair of ears. He was robed in a green damask
dressing-gown; and he received the tender Paul most graciously.

There was something very engaging about our hero. He was not only
good-looking, and frank in aspect, but he had that appearance of
briskness and intellect which belongs to an embryo rogue. Mr. Augustus
Tomlinson professed the greatest regard for him,--asked him if he could
box, made him put on a pair of gloves, and very condescendingly knocked
him down three times successively. Next he played him, both upon his
flageolet and his cremona, some of the most modish airs. Moreover, he
sang him a little song of his own composing. He then, taking up the
driving-whip, flanked a fly from the opposite wall, and throwing himself
(naturally fatigued with his numerous exertions) on his sofa, observed,
in a careless tone, that he and his friend Lord Dunshunner were
universally esteemed the best whips in the metropolis. "I," quoth Mr.
Augustus, "am the best on the road; but my lord is a devil at turning a
corner."

Paul, who had hitherto lived too unsophisticated a life to be aware of
the importance of which a lord would naturally be in the eyes of Mr.
Augustus Tomlinson, was not so much struck with the grandeur of the
connection as the murderer of the journals had expected. He merely
observed, by way of compliment, that Mr. Augustus and his companion
seemed to be "rolling kiddies."

A little displeased with this metaphorical remark,--for it may be
observed that "rolling kiddy" is, among the learned in such lore, the
customary expression for "a smart thief,"--the universal Augustus took
that liberty to which by his age and station, so much superior to those
of Paul, he imagined himself entitled, and gently reproved our hero for
his indiscriminate use of flash phrases.

"A lad of your parts," said he,--"for I see you are clever, by your
eye,--ought to be ashamed of using such vulgar expressions. Have a
nobler spirit, a loftier emulation, Paul, than that which distinguishes
the little ragamuffins of the street. Know that in this country genius
and learning carry everything before them; and if you behave yourself
properly, you may, one day or another, be as high in the world as
myself."

At this speech Paul looked wistfully round the spruce parlour, and
thought what a fine thing it would be to be lord of such a domain,
together with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, boxing-gloves,
books, fly-flanking flagellum, three guineas, with the little mountain of
silver, and the reputation--shared only with Lord Dunshunner--of being
the best whip in London.

"Yes," continued Tomlinson, with conscious pride, "I owe my rise to
myself. Learning is better than house and land. 'Doctrina sed vim,'
etc. You know what old Horace says? Why, sir, you would not believe it;
but I was the man who killed his Majesty the King of Sardinia in our
yesterday's paper. Nothing is too arduous for genius. Fag hard, my boy,
and you may rival (for the thing, though difficult, may not be
impossible) Augustus Tomlinson!"

At the conclusion of this harangue, a knock at the door being heard, Paul
took his departure, and met in the hall a fine-looking person dressed in
the height of the fashion, and wearing a pair of prodigiously large
buckles in his shoes. Paul looked, and his heart swelled. "I may
rival," thought he,--"those were his very words,--I may rival (for the
thing, though difficult, is not impossible) Augustus Tomlinson!"
Absorbed in meditation, he went silently home. The next day the memoirs
of the great Turpin were committed to the flames, and it was noticeable
that henceforth Paul observed a choicer propriety of words, that he
assumed a more refined air of dignity, and that he paid considerably more
attention than heretofore to the lessons of Mr. Peter MacGrawler.
Although it must be allowed that our young hero's progress in the learned
languages was not astonishing, yet an early passion for reading, growing
stronger and stronger by application, repaid him at last with a tolerable
knowledge of the mother-tongue. We must, however, add that his more
favourite and cherished studies were scarcely of that nature which a
prudent preceptor would have greatly commended. They lay chiefly among
novels, plays, and poetry,--which last he affected to that degree that he
became somewhat of a poet himself. Nevertheless these literary
avocations, profitless as they seemed, gave a certain refinement to his
tastes which they were not likely otherwise to have acquired at the Mug;
and while they aroused his ambition to see something of the gay life they
depicted, they imparted to his temper a tone of enterprise and of
thoughtless generosity which perhaps contributed greatly to counteract
those evil influences towards petty vice to which the examples around him
must have exposed his tender youth. But, alas! a great disappointment
to Paul's hope of assistance and companionship in his literary labours
befell him. Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, one bright morning, disappeared,
leaving word with his numerous friends that he was going to accept a
lucrative situation in the North of England. Notwithstanding the shock
this occasioned to the affectionate heart and aspiring temper of our
friend Paul, it abated not his ardour in that field of science which it
seemed that the distinguished absentee had so successfully cultivated.
By little and little, he possessed himself (in addition to the literary
stores we have alluded to) of all it was in the power of the wise and
profound Peter MacGrawler to impart unto him; and at the age of sixteen
he began (oh the presumption of youth!) to fancy himself more learned
than his master.




CHAPTER IV.

He had now become a young man of extreme fashion, and as much _repandu_
in society as the utmost and most exigent coveter of London celebrity
could desire. He was, of course, a member of the clubs, etc. He was,
in short, of that oft-described set before whom all minor beaux sink
into insignificance, or among whom they eventually obtain a subaltern
grade, by a sacrifice of a due portion of their fortune.--Almack's
Revisited.

By the soul of the great Malebranche, who made "A Search after Truth,"
and discovered everything beautiful except that which he searched for,
--by the soul of the great Malebranche, whom Bishop Berkeley found
suffering under an inflammation in the lungs, and very obligingly
_talked to death_ (an instance of conversational powers worthy the
envious emulation of all great metaphysicians and arguers),--by the soul
of that illustrious man, it is amazing to us what a number of truths
there are broken up into little fragments, and scattered here and there
through the world. What a magnificent museum a man might make of the
precious minerals, if he would but go out with his basket under his arm,
and his eyes about him! We ourselves picked up this very day a certain
small piece of truth, with which we propose to explain to thee, fair
reader, a sinister turn in the fortunes of Paul.

"Wherever," says a living sage, "you see dignity, you may be sure there
is expense requisite to support it." So was it with Paul. A young
gentleman who was heir-presumptive to the Mug, and who enjoyed a handsome
person with a cultivated mind, was necessarily of a certain station of
society, and an object of respect in the eyes of the manoeuvring mammas
of the vicinity of Thames Court. Many were the parties of pleasure to
Deptford and Greenwich which Paul found himself compelled to attend; and
we need not refer our readers to novels upon fashionable life to inform
them that in good society the _gentlemen always pay for the ladies!_ Nor
was this all the expense to which his expectations exposed him. A
gentleman could scarcely attend these elegant festivities without
devoting some little attention to his dress; and a fashionable tailor
plays the deuce with one's yearly allowance.

We who reside, be it known to you, reader, in Little Brittany are not
very well acquainted with the manners of the better classes in St.
James's. But there was one great vice among the fine people about Thames
Court which we make no doubt does not exist anywhere else,--namely, these
fine people were always in an agony to seem finer than they were; and the
more airs a gentleman or a lady gave him or her self, the more important
they became. Joe, the dog's-meat man, had indeed got into society
entirely from a knack of saying impertinent things to everybody; and the
smartest exclusives of the place, who seldom visited any one where there
was not a silver teapot, used to think Joe had a great deal in him
because he trundled his cart with his head in the air, and one day gave
the very beadle of the parish "the cut direct."

Now this desire to be so exceedingly fine not only made the society about
Thames Court unpleasant, but expensive. Every one vied with his
neighbour; and as the spirit of rivalry is particularly strong in
youthful bosoms, we can scarcely wonder that it led Paul into many
extravagances. The evil of all circles that profess to be select is high
play; and the reason is obvious: persons who have the power to bestow on
another an advantage he covets would rather sell it than give it; and
Paul, gradually increasing in popularity and _ton_, found himself, in
spite of his classical education, no match for the finished, or, rather,
finishing gentlemen with whom he began to associate. His first
admittance into the select coterie of these men of the world was formed
at the house of Bachelor Bill, a person of great notoriety among that
portion of the _elite_ which emphatically entitles itself "Flash."
However, as it is our rigid intention in this work to portray _at length_
no episodical characters whatsoever, we can afford our readers but a
slight and rapid sketch of Bachelor Bill.

This personage was of Devonshire extraction. His mother had kept the
pleasantest public-house in town, and at her death Bill succeeded to her
property and popularity. All the young ladies in the neighbourhood of
Fiddler's Row, where he resided, set their caps at him: all the most
fashionable _prigs_, or _tobymen_, sought to get him into their set; and
the most crack _blowen_ in London would have given her ears at any time
for a loving word from Bachelor Bill. But Bill was a longheaded,
prudent fellow, and of a remarkably cautious temperament. He avoided
marriage and friendship; namely, he was neither plundered nor cornuted.
He was a tall, aristocratic _cove_, of a devilish neat address, and very
gallant, in an honest way, to the _blowens_. Like most single men,
being very much the gentleman so far as money was concerned, he gave
them plenty of "feeds," and from time to time a very agreeable _hop_.
His _bingo_ [Brandy] was unexceptionable; and as for his _stark-naked_
[Gin], it was voted the most brilliant thing in nature. In a very short
time, by his blows-out and his bachelorship,--for single men always
arrive at the apex of _haut ton_ more easily than married,--he became
the very glass of fashion; and many were the tight apprentices, even at
the west end of the town, who used to turn back in admiration of
Bachelor Bill, when of a Sunday afternoon he drove down his varment gig
to his snug little box on the borders of Turnham Green. Bill's
happiness was not, however, wholly without alloy. The ladies of
pleasure are always so excessively angry when a man does not make love
to them, that there is nothing they will not say against him; and the
fair matrons in the vicinity of Fiddler's Row spread all manner of
unfounded reports against poor Bachelor Bill. By degrees, however,--for,
as Tacitus has said, doubtless with a prophetic eye to Bachelor Bill,
"the truth gains by delay,"--these reports began to die insensibly away;
and Bill now waxing near to the confines of middle age, his friends
comfortably settled for him that he would be Bachelor Bill all his life.
For the rest, he was an excellent fellow,--gave his broken victuals to
the poor, professed a liberal turn of thinking, and in all the quarrels
among the blowens (your crack blowens are a quarrelsome set!) always
took part with the weakest. Although Bill affected to be very select in
his company, he was never forgetful of his old friends; and Mrs. Margery
Lobkins having been very good to him when he was a little boy in a
skeleton jacket, he invariably sent her a card to his _soirees_. The
good lady, however, had not of late years deserted her chimney-corner.
Indeed, the racket of fashionable life was too much for her nerves; and
the invitation had become a customary form not expected to be acted
upon, but not a whit the less regularly used for that reason. As Paul
had now attained his sixteenth year, and was a fine, handsome lad, the
dame thought he would make an excellent representative of the Mug's
mistress; and that, for her _protege_, a ball at Bill's house would be
no bad commencement of "Life in London." Accordingly, she intimated to
the Bachelor a wish to that effect; and Paul received the following
invitation from Bill:--

"Mr. William Duke gives a hop and feed in a quiet way on Monday next, and
_hops_ Mr. Paul Lobkins will be of the party. N. B. Gentlemen is
expected to come in pumps."

When Paul entered, he found Bachelor Bill leading off the ball to the
tune of "Drops of Brandy," with a young lady to whom, because she had
been a strolling player, the Ladies Patronesses of Fiddler's Row had
thought proper to behave with a very cavalier civility. The good
Bachelor had no notion, as be expressed it, of such tantrums, and he
caused it to be circulated among the finest of the _blowens_, that he
expected all who kicked their heels at his house would behave decent and
polite to young Mrs. Dot. This intimation, conveyed to the ladies with
all that insinuating polish for which Bachelor Bill was so remarkable,
produced a notable effect; and Mrs. Dot, being now led off by the flash
Bachelor, was overpowered with civilities the rest of the evening.

When the dance was ended, Bill very politely shook hands with Paul, and
took an early opportunity of introducing him to some of the most "noted
characters" of the town. Among these were the smart Mr. Allfair, the
insinuating Henry Finish, the merry Jack Hookey, the knowing Charles
Trywit, and various others equally noted for their skill in living
handsomely upon their own brains, and the personals of other people. To
say truth, Paul, who at that time was an honest lad, was less charmed
than he had anticipated by the conversation of these chevaliers of
industry. He was more pleased with the clever though self-sufficient
remarks of a gentleman with a remarkably fine head of hair, and whom we
would more impressively than the rest introduce to our reader under the
appellation of Mr. Edward Pepper, generally termed Long Ned. As this
worthy was destined afterwards to be an intimate associate of Paul, our
main reason for attending the hop at Bachelor Bill's is to note, as the
importance of the event deserves, the epoch of the commencement of their
acquaintance.

Long Ned and, Paul happened to sit next to each other at supper, and they
conversed together so amicably that Paul, in the hospitality of his
heart, expressed a hope that he should see Mr. Pepper at the Mug!

"Mug,--Mug!" repeated Pepper, half shutting his eyes, with the air of a
dandy about to be impertinent; "ah, the name of a chapel, is it not?
There's a sect called Muggletonians, I think?"

"As to that," said Paul, colouring at this insinuation against the Mug,
"Mrs. Lobkins has no more religion than her betters; but the Mug is a
very excellent house, and frequented by the best possible company."

"Don't doubt it!" said Ned. "Remember now that I was once there, and saw
one Dummie Dunnaker,--is not that the name? I recollect some years ago,
when I first came out, that Dummie and I had an adventure together; to
tell you the truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do now.
But--would you believe it, Mr. Paul?--this pitiful fellow was quite rude
to me the only time I ever met him since; that is to say, the only time I
ever entered the Mug. I have no notion of such airs in a merchant,--a
merchant of rags! Those commercial fellows are getting quite
insufferable."

"You surprise me," said Paul. "Poor Dummie is the last man to be rude;
he is as civil a creature as ever lived."

"Or sold a rag," said Ned. "Possibly! Don't doubt his amiable qualities
in the least. Pass the bingo, my good fellow. Stupid stuff, this
dancing!"

"Devilish stupid!" echoed Harry Finish, across the table. "Suppose we
adjourn to Fish Lane, and rattle the ivories! What say you, Mr.
Lobkins?"

Afraid of the "ton's stern laugh, which scarce the proud philosopher can
scorn," and not being very partial to dancing, Paul assented to the
proposition; and a little party, consisting of Harry Finish, Allfair,
Long Ned, and Mr. Hookey, adjourned to Fish Lane, where there was a club,
celebrated among men who live by their wits, at which "lush" and "baccy"
were gratuitously sported in the most magnificent manner. Here the
evening passed away very delightfully, and Paul went home without a
"brad" in his pocket.

From that time Paul's visits to Fish Lane became unfortunately regular;
and in a very short period, we grieve to say, Paul became that
distinguished character, a gentleman of three outs,--"out of pocket, out
of elbows, and out of credit." The only two persons whom he found
willing _to accommodate him with a slight loan_, as the advertisements
signed X. Y. have it, were Mr. Dummie Dunnaker and Mr. Pepper, surnamed
the Long. The latter, however, while he obliged the heir to the Mug,
never condescended to enter that noted place of resort; and the former,
whenever he good-naturedly opened his purse-strings, did it with a hearty
caution to shun the acquaintance of Long Ned,--"a parson," said Dummie,
"of wery dangerous morals, and not by no manner of means a fit 'sociate
for a young gemman of cracter like leetle Paul!" So earnest was this
caution, and so especially pointed at Long Ned,--although the company of
Mr. Allfair or Mr. Finish might be said to be no less prejudicial,--that
it is probable that stately fastidiousness of manner which Lord Normanby
rightly observes, in one of his excellent novels, makes so many enemies
in the world, and which sometimes characterized the behaviour of Long
Ned, especially towards the men of commerce, was a main reason why Dummie
was so acutely and peculiarly alive to the immoralities of that lengthy
gentleman. At the same time we must observe that when Paul, remembering
what Pepper had said respecting his early adventure with Mr. Dunnaker,
repeated it to the merchant, Dummie could not conceal a certain
confusion, though he merely remarked, with a sort of laugh, that it was
not worth speaking about; and it appeared evident to Paul that something
unpleasant to the man of rags, which was not shared by the unconscious
Pepper, lurked in the reminiscence of their past acquaintance. How beit,
the circumstance glided from Paul's attention the moment afterwards; and
he paid, we are concerned to say, equally little heed to the cautions
against Ned with which Dummie regaled him.

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