Should I suffer my mother to want? No. To become a pauper? My heart spurned at the base suggestion. I had been several years under the tuition of the rector, and had acquired more than was good of his family dignity. The picture before me was not a pleasing one, but I would subject myself to any hardships, ay would starve on a grain a day, rather than abandon my mother. My motives were mixed; some wrong some right.
This affair made me resolve once more to visit my native country, and my resolution was immediately put in practice. It was a relief, though of a painful kind, to the more painful state in which my undecided thoughts at that moment held me. The man whose contradictory impulses goad him in a thousand different directions, without permitting him to pursue any one, is happy to be put in motion.
My arrival was unexpected: my mother, who was but little inclined to accuse herself, received me with much more satisfaction than embarra.s.sment.
The behaviour of Thornby was not quite so self-complacent. My questions, concerning the receipt and disburs.e.m.e.nt of my grandfather"s property, were sometimes answered with the affectation of open honesty; and at others with petulant ambiguity, so that I knew not whether he meant to shun or to provoke inquiry. "Executorship was a very thankless office; it involved a man in continual trouble, for which he could receive no recompence, and then subjected him to the suspicions of people, who were unable or unwilling to look after their own affairs. His very great friendship for the rector had induced him to take this office upon himself, though he well knew the trouble and tediousness attending it, and the ingrat.i.tude with which it was always repaid. He had several times in his life played the fool in the same way, and had always met with the same reward."
Equivocation is the essence of law, and I believe he spoke truth.
"He should take care, however, not to involve himself in such officious troubles for the future. As for the accounts, he was ready at all times, and desirous to have them settled. He had been plagued enough, and had even paid money out of his own pocket, which he was sure, whenever a balance came to be struck, he should not be reimbursed. But there were various affairs that he could not immediately close; law accounts, bad debts, mortgages, and other matters that required time. He had business of his own to which he must attend, or be ruined; his clients would have good actions against him, if it could be proved that their suits were lost by his neglect.
Indeed he was not bound to give me any account; but he always acted on the square, and therefore defied scrutiny; nay, he wished it, for what had an honest man to fear?"
He talked so much of his honesty that, if he did not quite persuade me it was immaculate, he at least led me to doubt.
Beside, as he had reminded me, what claims had I? The property was bequeathed to my mother; she had married, her husband had squandered it away, and there was an end of it. Farther inquiry was but vexation and loss of time. It is true, the supposed wealth of the rector had quickly disappeared: but if the owner of it, my mother"s husband, were satisfied, what could be said?
She indeed hinted to me that Wakefield, finding he could wrest no more from his uncle, unless by filing a bill in Chancery, or some other process at law, for which he had no funds, not to mention the great chance of his being cast in costs of suit, had been obliged to desist; though convinced that the property was not one half expended. He had a better hope. Thornby was old, had no children, and might soon leave him the whole.
With most men this would have been a powerful motive; but the pa.s.sions of her young husband, my mother owned, were too impetuous to be restrained by the cold considerations of prudence. At first she censured him with reluctance; for to censure him was in reality to adduce mementos of her own folly; but her resentment against him for having deserted her presently overpowered her caution, and the pictures she drew shewed him to be not only dissipated and prodigal but unprincipled. He had even so far offended the law, that it was doubtful whether his life were not in danger; and Thornby, whose plans had been frustrated by his extravagance, had more ways than one of ridding himself of his importunity.
In any case it was necessary to make some provision for my mother; and, embroiled in doubt as I was, the most prudent way that I could imagine was to consult Thornby.
He affected to be very conscientious, and scarcely knew what advice to give. "My mother was in want, and to desert her would be cruel; yet the money that was devised me was my own: it was bequeathed for a good purpose, and the pious will of the testator ought to be held sacred.
I was young, the grandson of a good man, an excellent man, and his dear friend. I had great learning and good sense, and ought not to be deprived of the means that had been left me of establishing myself in life. But then my mother had been tenderly brought up, and a dutiful son to be sure could not desert his parent. It was a difficult point.
To purchase a life annuity for her would be the best way of securing her, against the miseries of poverty in old age; but then it would sink deeply into the thousand pounds to make but a very moderate provision of this kind; though he knew no other method in her case that would be so safe."
While I listened I resolved. To provide for my mother I held to be an indispensable duty; and, notwithstanding my late disappointments, my fears for myself were but few. People of a sanguine temper are subject to temporary doubt and gloom; but the sky soon clears, and though one bright star may shoot and fall, hope soon creates a whole constellation. The earl and the prelate had both been unprincipled; but the failure was in them, not in me. I could not but remember the terror that Themistocles had excited in a prime minister; and the avidity with which a prelate had endeavoured to profit by my theological talents. How certainly and how soon could I bring these talents into notice! How easy the task! I need but mount the rostrum, I need but put pen to paper, and my adversaries would be brought to shame, and mankind taught to do me justice. Incontrovertible facts were in my favour; and to foster doubts and fears would be cowardice, self-desertion, and folly! Such were my conclusions.
I determined therefore, without farther hesitation, to employ the sum of five hundred pounds in the purchase of an annuity for my mother.
The remainder would amply supply me, till those rich mines should be explored from the fertile veins of which I had already drawn such dazzling specimens.
I continued in the country almost three weeks; but, as the purchase could not instantly be concluded, I left the stipulated sum in my mother"s possession, drew the remainder of the thousand pounds in bills and cash from Thornby, and, with more wealth than I ever bore about me at one time before, returned to Oxford.
Though Olivia was daily and hourly remembered, I had recovered so far by the business in which I had been engaged as to think seriously of pursuing my studies; for by their aid I was to realize those splendid projects on which, as I supposed, the happiness of man depends.
The learning, which the general forms of taking a degree require, is so little that a man of genius is inclined to treat it with contempt: but, if the candidate happen to be obnoxious to the heads of the university, his examination may then be of a very different kind. I had not much doubt; for, from the questions and answers I had so often heard on these occasions, to reject me seemed to be almost impossible.
Yet I was not entirely without alarm. The disgrace of rustication that I had suffered, the coldness of the reception I had met from the president on my return to college, and the ambiguity which I conceived I had since remarked in his manner, excited some fear; and my preparatory efforts were so strenuous that I imagined I might defy reproof.
I had been told indeed that malice had a very strange mode of exerting itself, but which was so arbitrary and odious as to be but rarely practised. Any member of convocation, or master of arts, without a.s.signing any cause for his conduct, may object, for two terms, to a person who shall ask leave to take his degree! Nay, these terms ended, another may object, and another! But this was a privilege so disgusting that I had not the least apprehension it would be put in practice against me.
To my utter astonishment, I was mistaken! On the day appointed to ask leave, a master of arts actually did appear, and without supporting his objection by reasoning, charge, or censure, exercised this detestable university veto.
My surprize and indignation, at hearing him p.r.o.nounce his negative, were so great that I was deprived of utterance. I even doubted the reality of what I heard: I stood gazing, till he was gone, and then exclaimed, as if to a person present--"Me, Sir!--Do you mean me?"
A minute afterward, my interjections were not quite so inoffensive. A torrent of pa.s.sion burst from me, and he, whose malignity could not justly a.s.sert I wanted learning, might, had he stayed, have collected sufficient proofs of my want of philosophy.
My attention had been diverted from the accuser, by my amazement at the accusation; but, as soon as I recovered my recollection, it seemed to me certain that I knew his face. The idea was seized with so much eagerness, and a.s.sociations occurred so rapidly, that the figure of one of my companions, on the night of the debauch when I first came to Oxford, rose full before me; though he had been absent from the university, so that till this day I had never seen him since. It was the very tutor of the Earl of Idford!
A train of the most tormenting suspicions rushed upon me. I soon learned, from inquiry, that he was intimate likewise with the president. Was not this a combination? What could it be else? This tutor was connected with the earl and the president; so was the latter with the bishop!
The whole plot, in its blackest hues, seemed developed.
My agitation was extreme. I ran from college to college, wherever I had acquaintance, repeating all I knew and much of what I suspected.
Nor did I merely confine myself to narrative. I added threats, which, however impotent they might be, were not the less violent. One of my first projects was to seek personal satisfaction of the vile tutor, or if he refused to chastise him with inexorable severity; but this he had taken care to elude, by keeping out of the way.
My denunciations soon reached the ear of the president, and I was given to understand that, if I were not immediately silent, I should be expelled the university; and that a degree would never be granted me, till I had publicly retracted the opprobrious words I had uttered.
Distant consequences are easily defied. My blood was in a flame, and despising the menace, I publicly declared that my persecutors were as infamous as the tool they had employed; that I should think it a disgrace to be a member of a body which could countenance proceedings so odiously wicked; that I spurned at every honour such a body could confer; and that, with respect to expulsion, I would myself erase my name from the register in which it had unfortunately been entered.
How little is man aware that by intemperance he d.a.m.ns his own cause, and gives the face of seeming honesty to injustice itself! Vicious as the place is, I myself could not abhor such proceedings more than many men in Oxford would have done, had they believed the tale.
Fortune still continued in her wayward mood. On the heel of one perverse imp another often treads. While I remained at Oxford, which was but a few days after this event, the retailing of my wrongs was my chief employment; and in a coffee-room, to which I resorted for this purpose, the following advertis.e.m.e.nt in a London newspaper met my astonished eye!
THIS DAY IS PUBLISHED:
A DEFENCE OF THE THIRTY NINE ARTICLES
BY THE
RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN G.o.d ******
LORD BISHOP OF ******
Injustice had by this time become so familiar to me that, scourged even to frenzy as I was, I sat rather stunned than transfixed by the blow. That this was the very defence of the articles I had written did not, with me, admit of a moment"s doubt. Every thing I had heard or remarked, of this wicked but weak church governor, had afforded proof of his incapacity for such a task; yet the injustice, effrontery and vice of the act was what till seen could not have been believed!
Nor did its baseness end here. What could I suppose, but that the bishop had been a.s.siduously tampering with the president; that they and the earl were in a conspiracy against me; that this was the cause of the disgrace and insult put upon me; and that, having robbed me of my writings, there was a concerted and fixed plan to render me contemptible, take away my character, and devote me to ruin?
The longer I thought the more painful were the sensations that a.s.saulted me. I had already been complaining to the whole city. Some few indeed seemed to credit me; but more to suspect; and none heard of my treatment with that glowing detestation which my feelings required.
Were I to tell this new tale, incredibly atrocious as it was, what would men think, but that I was a general calumniator, a frantic egotist, and a man dangerous to society? The total inability that I felt in myself, to obtain ample and immediate justice, almost drove me mad.
I had previously determined to quit Oxford, and this new goad did but quicken my departure. My preparations were soon made; and from some vague, and to myself undefined ideas, partly of expedition, and partly of letting the president, the college, and the whole university see that I, Hugh Trevor, was no ordinary person, a chaise and four waited my commands at the gate about noon the next day, behind which my goods and chattels were buckled, and I, after taking leave of the two or three friends who were thoughtless or courageous enough to acknowledge me, threw myself indignantly into it, with more maledictions in my heart than my impatient tongue could find energy to utter.
Arrived in London, it especially became me, as I supposed, to a.s.sume that consequence which should teach my enemies respect. I had money in my pocket, anger impelling me, and more pride than prudence. A waiter was dispatched from the Gloucester coffee-house, and apartments for myself and a valet were hired, in Half Moon Street, at three guineas and a half per week. The valet was a sudden decision, originating in the same false feelings that had lately taken possession of me. When I consulted the mistress of the coffee-house concerning apartments, she said, "You have a servant to be sure, Sir?" "Yes, madam;" replied my alarmed vanity. "No, madam;" instantly retorted my veracity, still more alarmed; "but I mean to hire one." "There," continued she, pointing to a smart well powdered young fellow that was talking to one of the waiters, "there stands one out of place, who I dare say will be glad of a good master. Here, Philip!"
I was one of the fools who, right or wrong, imagine it behooves them to be consistent. I was ashamed to retract, had not learned to prevaricate, and Philip, to whom as a footman I could discover no rational objection, was hired.
My effects were presently removed; my useless valet sent to loiter, and improve himself in vice, as valets usually are, and I left to meditate on the plan I had to pursue.
A little reflection induced me to renounce all thoughts of the church; for which indeed the doubts that the conversation of Turl had inspired me with, the inquiries to which these doubts led, and the disgust I had conceived at the character and conduct of the bishop had well prepared me.
For some time I sat perplexed in thought. During the life of the rector, I had often been told that the law was the road to honour; and when at the university, being eager to secure this said honour to myself, I had laboriously read some of the civilians. I say laboriously, for the task was far from inviting. The obscurity of their terms, the contradictions I thought I discovered, and the voluminous perplexity in which the whole was involved, were no alluring pictures.
With what pleasure did the wearied intellect escape from this wilderness of weeds and brambles, to rove through the paradise of poetry. The minstrelsy of genius, sporting with the fancy rouzing the pa.s.sions and unfolding the secrets of the heart, could fascinate at all times; while nothing could sooner create la.s.situde and repugnance than the incongruous jargon of law.
But, alas, who ever heard of a poet being made Lord High Chancellor?
Appoint him to such a station and he would act like a madman! Instead of employing his journeymen to dig through the rubbish of ignorance for precedents, he would listen to the wants of the injured, and would conceive that by relieving them only he could do justice! Did not the history of the world proclaim that, he who would attain wealth and power must turn the prejudices of mankind to their own harm?