The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves - Tobias Smollett
"For my part, if you have a mind to betray your country, I have no
objection. In selling yourselves and your fellow-citizens, you only
dispose of a pack of rascals who deserve to be sold. If you sell one
another, why should not I sell this here Elixir of Long Life, which, if
properly used, will protract your days till you shall have seen your
country ruined. I shall not pretend to disturb your understandings,
which are none of the strongest, with a hotchpotch of unintelligible
terms, such as Aristotle's four principles of generation, unformed
matter, privation, efficient, and final causes. Aristotle was a pedantic
blockhead, and still more knave than fool. The same censure we may
safely put on that wiseacre, Dioscorides, with his faculties of simples--
his seminal, specific, and principal virtues; and that crazy commentator,
Galen, with his four elements, elementary qualities, his eight
complexions, his harmonies and discords. Nor shall I expatiate on the
alkahest of that mad scoundrel, Paracelsus, with which he pretended to
reduce flints into salt; nor archaeus or spiritus rector of that
visionary Van Helmont, his simple, elementary water, his gas, ferments,
and transmutations; nor shall I enlarge upon the salt, sulphur, and oil,
the acidum vagum, the mercury of metals, and the volatilised vitriol of
other modern chemists, a pack of ignorant, conceited, knavish rascals,
that puzzle your weak heads with such jargon, just as a Germanised
m----r throws dust in your eyes, by lugging in and ringing the changes on
the balance of power, the Protestant religion, and your allies on the
continent; acting like the juggler, who picks your pockets while he
dazzles your eyes and amuses your fancy with twirling his fingers and
reciting the gibberish of hocus pocus; for, in fact, the balance of power
is a mere chimera. As for the Protestant religion, nobody gives himself
any trouble about it; and allies on the continent, we have none, or, at
least, none that would raise an hundred men to save us from perdition,
unless we paid an extravagant price for their assistance.
"But, to return to this here Elixir of Long Life, I might embellish it
with a great many high-sounding epithets; but I disdain to follow the
example of every illiterate vagabond, that, from idleness, turns quack,
and advertises his nostrum in the public papers. I am neither a
felonious drysalter returned from exile, an hospital stump-turner, a
decayed staymaker, a bankrupt printer, or insolvent debtor, released by
act of parliament. I do not pretend to administer medicines without the
least tincture of letters, or suborn wretches to perjure themselves in
false affidavits of cures that were never performed; nor employ a set of
led captains to harangue in my praise at all public places. I was bred
regularly to the profession of chemistry, and have tried all the
processes of alchemy; and I may venture to say, that this here elixir
is, in fact, the chruseon pepuromenon ek puros, the visible, glorious,
spiritual body, from whence all other beings derive their existence, as
proceeding from their father the sun, and their mother the moon; from
the sun, as from a living and spiritual gold, which is mere fire;
consequently, the common and universal first-created mover, from whence
all moveable things have their distinct and particular motions; and also
from the moon, as from the wife of the sun, and the common mother of all
sublunary things.
"And forasmuch as man is, and must be, the comprehensive end of all
creatures, and the microcosm, he is counselled in the Revelation to buy
gold that is thoroughly fired, or rather pure fire, that he may become
rich and like the sun; as, on the contrary, he becomes poor, when he
abuses the arsenical poison; so that, his silver, by the fire, must be
calcined to a caput mortuum, which happens when he will hold and retain
the menstruum, out of which he partly exists, for his own property, and
doth not daily offer up the same in the fire of the sun, that the woman
may be clothed with the sun, and become a sun, and thereby rule over the
moon; that is to say, that he may get the moon under his feet. Now, this
here elixir, sold for no more than sixpence a phial, contains the essence
of the alkahest, the archaeus, the catholicon, the menstruum, the sun,
the moon, and, to sum up all in one word, is the true, genuine,
unadulterated, unchangeable, immaculate, and specific chruseon
pepuromenon ek puros."
The audience were variously affected by this learned oration. Some of
those who favoured the pretensions of the Whig candidate, were of
opinion, that he ought to be punished for his presumption, in reflecting
so scurrilously on ministers and measures. Of this sentiment was our
adventurer, though he could not help admiring the courage of the orator,
and owning within himself, that he had mixed some melancholy truths with
his scurrility.
Mr. Ferret would not have stood so long in his rostrum unmolested, had
not he cunningly chosen his station immediately without the jurisdiction
of the town, whose magistrates therefore could not take cognisance of his
conduct; but application was made to the constable of the other parish,
while our nostrum-monger proceeded in his speech, the conclusion of which
produced such an effect upon his hearers, that his whole cargo was
immediately exhausted. He had just stepped down from his stool, when the
constable with his staff arrived, and took him under his guidance. Mr.
Ferret, on this occasion, attempted to interest the people in his behalf,
by exhorting them to vindicate the liberty of the subject against such an
act of oppression; but finding them deaf to the tropes and figures of his
elocution, he addressed himself to our knight, reminding him of his duty
to protect the helpless and the injured, and earnestly soliciting his
interposition.
Sir Launcelot, without making the least reply to his entreaties, resolved
to see the end of this adventure; and, being joined by his squire,
followed the prisoner at a distance, measuring back the ground he had
travelled the day before, until he reached another small borough, where
Ferret was housed in the common prison.
While he sat a-horseback, deliberating on the next step he should take,
he was accosted by the voice of Tom Clarke, who called, in a whimpering
tone, through a window grated with iron, "For the love of God, Sir
Launcelot, do, dear sir, be so good as to take the trouble to alight, and
come upstairs; I have something to communicate, of consequence to the
community in general, and you in particular. Pray do, dear Sir Knight.
I beg a boon in the name of St. Michael and St. George for England."
Our adventurer, not a little surprised at this address, dismounted
without hesitation, and, being admitted to the common jail, there found
not only his old friend Tom, but also the uncle, sitting on a bench, with
a woollen night-cap on his head, and a pair of spectacles on his nose,
reading very earnestly in a book, which he afterwards understood was
entitled, The Life and Adventures of Valentine and Orson. The captain no
sooner saw his great pattern enter, than he rose, and received him with
the salutation of, "What cheer, brother?" and before the knight could
answer, added these words: "You see how the land lies--here have Tom and
I been fast ashore these four-and-twenty hours; and this berth we have
got by attempting to tow your galley, brother, from the enemy's harbour.
Adds bobs! if we had this here fellow w---eson for a consort, with all
our tackle in order, brother, we'd soon show 'em the topsail, slip our
cable, and down with their barricadoes. But, howsomever, it don't
signify talking--patience is a good stream-anchor, and will hold, as the
saying is--but, d--n my--as for the matter of my boltsprit.--Harkye,
harkye, brother, d--ned hard to engage with three at a time, one upon my
bow, one upon my quarter, and one right a-head, rubbing and drubbing,
lying athwart hawse, raking fore and aft, battering and grappling, and
lashing and clashing--adds heart, brother; crash went the bolt-sprit--
down came the round-top--up with the deadlights--I saw nothing but the
stars at noon, lost the helm of my seven senses, and down I broached upon
my broadside."
As Mr. Clarke rightly conceived that his uncle would need an interpreter,
he began to explain these hints, by giving a circumstantial detail of his
own and the captain's disaster.
He told Sir Launcelot, that, notwithstanding all his persuasion and
remonstrances, Captain Crowe insisted upon appearing in the character of
a knight errant; and, with that view, had set out from the public-house
on the morning that succeeded his vigil in the church. That upon the
highway they had met with a coach, containing two ladies, one of whom
seemed to be under great agitation; for, as they passed, she struggled
with the other, thrust out her head at the window, and said something
which he could not distinctly hear. That Captain Crowe was struck with
admiration of her unequalled beauty; and he, Tom, no sooner informed him
who she was, than he resolved to set her at liberty, on the supposition
that she was under restraint, and in distress. That he accordingly
unsheathed his cutlass, and, riding after the coach, commanded the driver
to bring to, on pain of death. That one of the servants, believing the
captain to be a highwayman, presented a blunderbuss, and in all
probability would have shot him on the spot, had not he, the nephew, rode
up, and assured them the gentleman was non compos. That, notwithstanding
his intimation, all the three attacked him with the butt-ends of their
horsewhips, while the coach drove on, and although he laid about him with
great fury, at last brought him to the ground, by a stroke on the temple.
That Mr. Clarke himself then interposed in defence of his kinsman, and
was also severely beaten. That two of the servants, upon application to
a justice of the peace, residing near the field of battle, had granted a
warrant against the captain and his nephew, and, without examination,
committed them as idle vagrants, after having seized their horses and
their money, on pretence of their being suspected for highwaymen.
"But, as there was no just cause of suspicion," added he, "I am of
opinion, the justice is guilty of a trespass, and may be sued for falsum
imprisonamentum, and considerable damages obtained; for you will please
to observe, sir, no justice has a right to commit any person till after
due examination; besides, we were not committed for an assault and
battery, audita querela, nor as wandering lunatics by the statute, who,
to be sure, may be apprehended by a justice's warrant, and locked up and
chained, if necessary, or to be sent to their last legal settlement; but
we were committed as vagrants and suspected highwaymen. Now we do not
fall under the description of vagrants; nor did any circumstance appear
to support the suspicion of robbery; for, to constitute robbery, there
must be something taken; but here nothing was taken but blows, and they
were upon compulsion. Even an attempt to rob, without any taking, is not
felony, but a misdemeanour. To be sure, there is a taking in deed, and a
taking in law. But still the robber must be in possession of a thing
stolen; and we attempted to steal ourselves away. My uncle, indeed,
would have released the young lady vi et armis, had his strength been
equal to his inclination; and in so doing, I would have willingly lent my
assistance, both from a desire to serve such a beautiful young creature,
and also in regard to your honour, for I thought I heard her call upon
your name."
"Ha! how! what! whose name? say, speak--Heaven and earth!" cried the
knight, with marks of the most violent emotion.--Clarke, terrified at his
looks, replied, "I beg your pardon a thousand times; I did not say
positively she did speak those words; but I apprehended she did speak
them. Words, which may be taken or interpreted by law in a general or
common sense, ought not to receive a strained or unusual construction;
and ambiguous words"--"Speak, or be dumb for ever!" exclaimed Sir
Launcelot, in a terrific tone, laying his hand on his sword. "What young
lady, ha? What name did she call upon?"--Clarke, falling on his knees,
answered, not without stammering, "Miss Aurelia Darnel; to the best of my
recollection, she called upon Sir Launcelot Greaves."--"Sacred powers!"
cried our adventurer, "which way did the carriage proceed?"
When Tom told him that the coach quitted the post-road, and struck away to
the right at full speed, Sir Launcelot was seized with a pensive fit; his
head sunk upon his breast, and he mused in silence for several minutes,
with the most melancholy expression on his countenance; then recollecting
himself, he assumed a more composed and cheerful air, and asked several
questions with respect to the arms on the coach, and the liveries worn by
the servants? It was in the course of this interrogation, that he
discovered he had actually conversed with one of the footmen, who had
brought back Crabshaw's horse. A circumstance that filled him with
anxiety and chagrin, as he had omitted to inquire the name of his master,
and the place to which the coach was travelling; though, in all
probability, had he made these inquiries, he would have received very
little satisfaction, there being reason to think the servants were
enjoined secrecy.
The knight, in order to meditate on this unexpected adventure, sat down
by his old friend, and entered into a reverie, which lasted about a
quarter of an hour, and might have continued longer had it not been
interrupted by the voice of Crabshaw, who bawled aloud, "Look to it, my
masters--as you brew you must drink--this shall be a dear day's work to
some of you; for my part, I say nothing--the braying ass eats little
grass--one barber shaves not so close, but another finds a few stubble--
you wanted to catch a capon, and you've stole a cat--he that takes up his
lodgings in a stable, must be contented to lie upon litter."
The knight, desirous of knowing the cause that prompted Timothy to
apothegmatise in this manner, looked through the grate, and perceived the
squire fairly set in the stocks, surrounded by a mob of people. When he
called to him, and asked the reason of this disgraceful restraint,
Crabshaw replied, "There's no cake, but there's another of the same make
--who never climbed, never fell--after clouds comes clear weather. 'T is
all along of your honour, I've met with this preferment; no deservings of
my own, but the interest of my master. Sir Knight, if you will slay the
justice, hang the constable, release your squire, and burn the town, your
name will be famous in story; but, if you are content, I am thankful.
Two hours are soon spent in such good company; in the meantime, look to
'un, jailor, there's a frog in the stocks."
Sir Launcelot, incensed at this affront offered to his servant, advanced
to the prison door, but found it fast locked; and when he called to the
turnkey, he was given to understand, that he himself was prisoner.
Enraged at this intimation, he demanded at whose suit, and was answered
through the wicket, "At the suit of the King, in whose name I will hold
you fast, with God's assistance."
The knight's looks now began to lighten; he rolled his eyes around; and
snatching up an oaken bench, which three ordinary men could scarce have
lifted from the ground, he, in all likelihood, would have shattered the
door in pieces, had not he been restrained by the interposition of Mr.
Clarke, who entreated him to have a little patience, assuring him he
would suggest a plan that would avenge himself amply on the justice,
without any breach of the peace. "I say the justice," added Tom,
"because it must be his doing. He is a little petulant sort of a fellow,
ignorant of the law, guilty of numberless irregularities, and if properly
managed, may, for this here act of arbitrary power, be not only cast in a
swingeing sum, but even turned out of the commission with disgrace."
This was a very seasonable hint, in consequence of which the bench was
softly replaced, and Captain Crowe deposited the poker, with which he had
armed himself, to second the efforts of Sir Launcelot. They now, for the
first time, perceived that Ferret had disappeared; and, upon inquiry,
found that he was in fact the occasion of the knight's detention and the
squire's disgrace.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DESCRIPTION OF A MODERN MAGISTRATE.
Before the knight would take any resolution for extricating himself from
his present embarrassment, he desired to be better acquainted with the
character and circumstances of the justice by whom he had been confined,
and likewise to understand the meaning of his own detention. To be
informed in this last particular, he renewed his dialogue with the
turnkey, who told him through the grate, that Ferret no sooner perceived
him in the jail without his offensive arms, which he had left below, than
he desired to be carried before the justice, where he had given
information against the knight, as a violator of the public peace, who
strolled about the country with unlawful arms, rendering the highways
unsafe, encroaching upon the freedom of elections, putting his majesty's
liege subjects in fear of their lives, and, in all probability,
harbouring more dangerous designs under an affected cloak of lunacy.
Ferret, upon this information, had been released, and entertained as an
evidence for the King; and Crabshaw was put into the stocks, as an idle
stroller.
Sir Launcelot, being satisfied in these particulars, addressed himself to
his fellow-prisoners, and begged they would communicate what they knew
respecting the worthy magistrate, who had been so premature in the
execution of his office. This request was no sooner signified, than a
crew of naked wretches crowded around him, and, like a congregation of
rooks, opened their throats all at once, in accusation of Justice Gobble.
The knight was moved at this scene, which he could not help comparing, in
his own mind, to what would appear upon a much more awful occasion, when
the cries of the widow and the orphan, the injured and oppressed, would
be uttered at the tribunal of an unerring Judge, against the villanous
and insolent authors of their calamity.
When he had, with some difficulty, quieted their clamours, and confined
his interrogation to one person of a tolerably decent appearance, he
learned, that Justice Gobble, whose father was a tailor, had for some
time served as a journeyman hosier in London, where he had picked up some
law terms, by conversing with hackney writers and attorneys' clerks of
the lowest order; that, upon the death of his master, he had insinuated
himself into the good graces of the widow, who took him for her husband,
so that he became a person of some consideration, and saved money apace;
that his pride, increasing with his substance, was reinforced by the
vanity of his wife, who persuaded him to retire from business, that they
might live genteelly in the country; that his father dying, and leaving a
couple of houses in this town, Mr. Gobble had come down with his lady to
take possession, and liked the place so well, as to make a more
considerable purchase in the neighbourhood; that a certain peer being
indebted to him in the large way of his business, and either unable or
unwilling to pay the money, had compounded the debt, by inserting his
name in the commission; since which period his own insolence, and his
wife's ostentation, had exceeded all bounds; that, in the execution of
his authority, he had committed a thousand acts of cruelty and injustice
against the poorer sort of people, who were unable to call him to a
proper account; that his wife domineered with a more ridiculous, though
less pernicious usurpation, among the females of the place; that, in a
word, she was the subject of continual mirth, and he the object of
universal detestation.
Our adventurer, though extremely well disposed to believe what was said
to the prejudice of Gobble, would not give entire credit to this
description, without first inquiring into the particulars of his conduct.
He therefore asked the speaker, what was the cause of his particular
complaint. "For my own part, sir," said he, "I lived in repute, and kept
a shop in this here town, well furnished with a great variety of
articles. All the people in the place were my customers; but what I and
many others chiefly depended upon, was the extraordinary sale at two
annual customary fairs, to which all the country people in the
neighbourhood resorted to lay out their money. I had employed all my
stock, and even engaged my credit, to procure a large assortment of goods
for the Lammas market; but, having given my vote in the election of a
vestry-clerk, contrary to the interest of Justice Gobble, he resolved to
work my ruin. He suppressed the annual fairs, by which a great many
people, especially publicans, earned the best part of their subsistence.
The country people resorted to another town. I was overstocked with a
load of perishable commodities, and found myself deprived of the best
part of my home customers, by the ill-nature and revenge of the justice,
who employed all his influence among the common people, making use of
threats and promises, to make them desert my shop, and give their custom
to another person, whom he settled in the same business under my nose.
Being thus disabled from making punctual payments, my commodities
spoiling, and my wife breaking her heart, I grew negligent and careless,
took to drinking, and my affairs went to wreck. Being one day in liquor,
and provoked by the fleers and taunts of the man who had set up against
me, I struck him at his own door; upon which I was carried before the
justice, who treated me with such insolence, that I became desperate, and
not only abused him in the execution of his office, but also made an
attempt to lay violent hands upon his person. You know, sir, when a man
is both drunk and desperate, he cannot be supposed to have any command of
himself. I was sent hither to jail. My creditors immediately seized my
effects; and, as they were not sufficient to discharge my debts, a
statute of bankruptcy was taken out against me; so that here I must lie,
until they think proper to sign my certificate, or the parliament shall
please to pass an act for the relief of insolvent debtors."
The next person who presented himself in the crowd of accusers was a
meagre figure, with a green apron, who told the knight that he had kept a
public-house in town for a dozen years, and enjoyed a good trade, which
was in a great measure owing to a skittle-ground, in which the best
people of the place diverted themselves occasionally. That Justice
Gobble, being disobliged at his refusing to part with a gelding which he
had bred for his own use, first of all shut up the skittle-ground; but,
finding the publican still kept his house open, he took care that he
should be deprived of his licence, on pretence that the number of
ale-houses was too great, and that this man had been bred to another
employment. The poor publican being thus deprived of his bread, was
obliged to try the staymaking business, to which he had served an
apprenticeship; but being very ill qualified for this profession, he soon
fell to decay and contracted debts, in consequence of which he was now in
prison, where he had no other support but what arose from the labour of
his wife, who had gone to service.
The next prisoner who preferred his complaint against the unrighteous
judge was a poacher, at whose practices Justice Gobble had for some years
connived, so as even to screen him from punishment, in consideration of
being supplied with game gratis, till at length he was disappointed by
accident. His lady had invited guests to an entertainment, and bespoke a
hare, which the poacher undertook to furnish. He laid his snares
accordingly overnight, but they were discovered, and taken away by the
gamekeeper of the gentleman to whom the ground belonged. All the excuses
the poacher could make proved ineffectual in appeasing the resentment of
the justice and his wife at being thus disconcerted. Measures were taken
to detect the delinquent in the exercise of his illicit occupation; he
was committed to safe custody, and his wife, with five bantlings, was
passed to her husband's settlement in a different part of the country.
A stout squat fellow, rattling with chains, had just taken up the ball of
accusation, when Sir Launcelot was startled with the appearance of a
woman, whose looks and equipage indicated the most piteous distress. She
seemed to be turned of the middle age, was of a lofty carriage, tall,
thin, weather-beaten, and wretchedly attired; her eyes were inflamed with
weeping, and her looks displayed that wildness and peculiarity which
denote distraction. Advancing to Sir Launcelot, she fell upon her knees,
and, clasping her hands together, uttered the following rhapsody in the
most vehement tone of affliction:--