However, as there is scarce any difficulty to which the strength of men, assisted with the cunning of art, is not equal, I was at last hoisted into a small boat, and being rowed pretty near the shore, was taken up by two sailors, who waded with me through the mud, and placed me in a chair on the land, whence they afterwards conveyed me a quarter of a mile farther, and brought me to a house which seemed to bid the fairest for hospitality of any in Ryde.
We brought with us our provisions from the ship, so that we wanted nothing but a fire to dress our dinner, and a room in which we might eat it. In neither of these had we any reason to apprehend a disappointment, our dinner consisting only of beans and bacon; and the worst apartment in his majesty's dominions, either at home or abroad, being fully sufficient to answer our present ideas of delicacy.
Unluckily, however, we were disappointed in both; for when we arrived about four at our inn, exulting in the hopes of immediately seeing our beans smoking on the table, we had the mortification of seeing them on the table indeed, but without that circumstance which would have made the sight agreeable, being in the same state in which we had dispatched them from our ship. In excuse for this delay, though we had exceeded, almost purposely, the time appointed, and our provision had arrived three hours before, the mistress of the house acquainted us that it was not for want of time to dress them that they were not ready, but for fear of their being cold or over-done before we should come; which she assured us was much worse than waiting a few minutes for our dinner; an observation so very just, that it is impossible to find any objection in it; but, indeed, it was not altogether so proper at this time, for we had given the most absolute orders to have them ready at four, and had been ourselves, not without much care and difficulty, most exactly punctual in keeping to the very minute of our appointment. But tradesmen, inn-keepers, and servants, never care to indulge us in matters contrary to our true interest, which they always know better than ourselves; nor can any bribes corrupt them to go out of their way while they are consulting our good in our own despite.
Our disappointment in the other particular, in defiance of our humility, as it was more extraordinary, was more provoking. In short, Mrs. Francis (for that was the name of the good woman of the house) no sooner received the news of our intended arrival than she considered more the gentility than the humanity of her guests, and applied herself not to that which kindles but to that which extinguishes fire, and, forgetting to put on her pot, fell to washing her house.
As the messenger who had brought my venison was impatient to be dispatched, I ordered it to be brought and laid on the table in the room where I was seated; and the table not being large enough, one side, and that a very bloody one, was laid on the brick floor. I then ordered Mrs. Francis to be called in, in order to give her instructions concerning it; in particular, what I would have roasted and what baked; concluding that she would be highly pleased with the prospect of so much money being spent in her house as she might have now reason to expect, if the wind continued only a few days longer to blow from the same points whence it had blown for several weeks past.
I soon saw good cause, I must confess, to despise my own sagacity. Mrs. Francis, having received her orders, without making any answer, snatched the side from the floor, which remained stained with blood, and, bidding a servant to take up that on the table, left the room with no pleasant countenance, muttering to herself that, "had she known the litter which was to have been made, she would not have taken such pains to wash her house that morning. If this was gentility, much good may it do such gentlefolks; for her part she had no notion of it." From these murmurs I received two hints. The one, that it was not from a mistake of our inclination that the good woman had starved us, but from wisely consulting her own dignity, or rather perhaps her vanity, to which our hunger was offered up as a sacrifice. The other, that I was now sitting in a damp room, a circumstance, though it had hitherto escaped my notice from the color of the bricks, which was by no means to be neglected in a valetudinary state.
My wife, who, besides discharging excellently well her own and all the tender offices becoming the female character; who, besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse, could likewise supply the wants of a decrepit husband, and occasionally perform his part, had, before this, discovered the immoderate attention to neatness in Mrs. Francis, and provided against its ill consequences. She had found, though not under the same roof, a very snug apartment belonging to Mr. Francis, and which had escaped the mop by his wife's being satisfied it could not possibly be visited by gentle-folks. This was a dry, warm, oaken-floored barn, lined on both sides with wheaten straw, and opening at one end into a green field and a beautiful prospect. Here, without hesitation, she ordered the cloth to be laid, and came hastily to snatch me from worse perils by water than the common dangers of the sea.
Mrs. Francis, who could not trust her own ears, or could not believe a footman in so extraordinary a phenomenon, followed my wife, and asked her if she had indeed ordered the cloth to be laid in the barn? She answered in the affirmative; upon which Mrs. Francis declared she would not dispute her pleasure, but it was the first time she believed that quality had ever preferred a barn to a house. She showed at the same time the most pregnant marks of contempt, and again lamented the labor she had undergone, through her ignorance of the absurd taste of her guests.
At length we were seated in one of the most pleasant spots I believe in the kingdom, and were regaled with our beans and bacon, in which there was nothing deficient but the quantity. This defect was however so deplorable that we had consumed our whole dish before we had visibly lessened our hunger. We now waited with impatience the arrival of our second course, which necessity, and not luxury, had dictated. This was a joint of mutton which Mrs. Francis had been ordered to provide; but when, being tired with expectation, we ordered our servants TO SEE FOR SOMETHING ELSE, we were informed that there was nothing else; on which Mrs. Francis, being summoned, declared there was no such thing as mutton to be had at Ryde. When I expressed some astonishment at their having no butcher in a village so situated, she answered they had a very good one, and one that killed all sorts of meat in season, beef two or three times a year, and mutton the whole year round; but that, it being then beans and peas time, he killed no meat, by reason he was not sure of selling it. This she had not thought worthy of communication, any more than that there lived a fisherman at next door, who was then provided with plenty of soles, and whitings, and lobsters, far superior to those which adorn a city feast. This discovery being made by accident, we completed the best, the pleasantest, and the merriest meal, with more appetite, more real solid luxury, and more festivity, than was ever seen in an entertainment at White's.
It may be wondered at, perhaps, that Mrs. Francis should be so negligent of providing for her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive to her own interest; but this was not the case; for, having clapped a poll-tax on our heads at our arrival, and determined at what price to discharge our bodies from her house, the less she suffered any other to share in the levy the clearer it came into her own pocket; and that it was better to get twelve pence in a shilling than ten pence, which latter would be the case if she afforded us fish at any rate.
Thus we passed a most agreeable day owing to good appetites and good humor; two hearty feeders which will devour with satisfaction whatever food you place before them; whereas, without these, the elegance of St. James's, the charde, the perigord-pie, or the ortolan, the venison, the turtle, or the custard, may titillate the throat, but will never convey happiness to the heart or cheerfulness to the countenance.
As the wind appeared still immovable, my wife proposed my lying on shore. I presently agreed, though in defiance of an act of parliament, by which persons wandering abroad and lodging in ale-houses are decreed to be rogues and vagabonds; and this too after having been very singularly officious in putting that law in execution. My wife, having reconnoitered the house, reported that there was one room in which were two beds. It was concluded, therefore, that she and Harriot should occupy one and myself take possession of the other. She added likewise an ingenious recommendation of this room to one who had so long been in a cabin, which it exactly resembled, as it was sunk down with age on one side, and was in the form of a ship with gunwales too.
For my own part, I make little doubt but this apartment was an ancient temple, built with the materials of a wreck, and probably dedicated to Neptune in honor of THE BLESSING sent by him to the inhabitants; such blessings having in all ages been very common to them. The timber employed in it confirms this opinion, being such as is seldom used by ally but ship-builders. I do not find indeed any mention of this matter in Hearn; but perhaps its antiquity was too modern to deserve his notice. Certain it is that this island of Wight was not an early convert to Christianity; nay, there is some reason to doubt whether it was ever entirely converted. But I have only time to touch slightly on things of this kind, which, luckily for us, we have a society whose peculiar profession it is to discuss and develop.
Sunday, July 19. – This morning early I summoned Mrs. Francis, in order to pay her the preceding day's account. As I could recollect only two or three articles I thought there was no necessity of pen and ink. In a single instance only we had exceeded what the law allows gratis to a foot-soldier on his march, viz., vinegar, salt, etc., and dressing his meat. I found, however, I was mistaken in my calculation; for when the good woman attended with her bill it contained as follows: —
Now that five people and two servants should live a day and night at a public-house for so small a sum will appear incredible to any person in London above the degree of a chimney-sweeper; but more astonishing will it seem that these people should remain so long at such a house without tasting any other delicacy than bread, small beer, a teacupful of milk called cream, a glass of rum converted into punch by their own materials, and one bottle of wind, of which we only tasted a single glass though possibly, indeed, our servants drank the remainder of the bottle.
This wind is a liquor of English manufacture, and its flavor is thought very delicious by the generality of the English, who drink it in great quantities. Every seventh year is thought to produce as much as the other six. It is then drank so plentifully that the whole nation are in a manner intoxicated by it; and consequently very little business is carried on at that season. It resembles in color the red wine which is imported from Portugal, as it doth in its intoxicating quality; hence, and from this agreement in the orthography, the one is often confounded with the other, though both are seldom esteemed by the same person. It is to be had in every parish of the kingdom, and a pretty large quantity is consumed in the metropolis, where several taverns are set apart solely for the vendition of this liquor, the masters never dealing in any other. The disagreement in our computation produced some small remonstrance to Mrs. Francis on my side; but this received an immediate answer: "She scorned to overcharge gentlemen; her house had been always frequented by the very best gentry of the island; and she had never had a bill found fault with in her life, though she had lived upwards of forty years in the house, and within that time the greatest gentry in Hampshire had been at it; and that lawyer Willis never went to any other when he came to those parts. That for her part she did not get her livelihood by travelers, who were gone and away, and she never expected to see them more, but that her neighbors might come again; wherefore, to be sure, they had the only right to complain."
She was proceeding thus, and from her volubility of tongue seemed likely to stretch the discourse to an immoderate length, when I suddenly cut all short by paying the bill.
This morning our ladies went to church, more, I fear, from curiosity than religion; they were attended by the captain in a most military attire, with his cockade in his hat and his sword by his side. So unusual an appearance in this little chapel drew the attention of all present, and probably disconcerted the women, who were in dishabille, and wished themselves dressed, for the sake of the curate, who was the greatest of their beholders. While I was left alone I received a visit from Mr. Francis himself, who was much more considerable as a farmer than as an inn-holder. Indeed, he left the latter entirely to the care of his wife, and he acted wisely, I believe, in so doing. As nothing more remarkable passed on this day I will close it with the account of these two characters, as far as a few days' residence could inform me of them. If they should appear as new to the reader as they did to me, he will not be displeased at finding them here. This amiable couple seemed to border hard on their grand climacteric; nor indeed were they shy of owning enough to fix their ages within a year or two of that time. They appeared to be rather proud of having employed their time well than ashamed of having lived so long; the only reason which I could ever assign why some fine ladies, and fine gentlemen too, should desire to be thought younger than they really are by the contemporaries of their grandchildren. Some, indeed, who too hastily credit appearances, might doubt whether they had made so good a use of their time as I would insinuate, since there was no appearance of anything but poverty, want, and wretchedness, about their house; nor could they produce anything to a customer in exchange for his money but a few bottles of wind, and spirituous liquors, and some very bad ale, to drink; with rusty bacon and worse cheese to eat. But then it should be considered, on the other side, that whatever they received was almost as entirely clear profit as the blessing of a wreck itself; such an inn being the very reverse of a coffee-house; for here you can neither sit for nothing nor have anything for your money.
Again, as many marks of want abounded everywhere, so were the marks of antiquity visible. Scarce anything was to be seen which had not some scar upon it, made by the hand of Time; not an utensil, it was manifest, had been purchased within a dozen years last past; so that whatever money had come into the house during that period at least must have remained in it, unless it had been sent abroad for food, or other perishable commodities; but these were supplied by a small portion of the fruits of the farm, in which the farmer allowed he had a very good bargain. In fact, it is inconceivable what sums may be collected by starving only, and how easy it is for a man to die rich if he will but be contented to live miserable.
Nor is there in this kind of starving anything so terrible as some apprehend. It neither wastes a man's flesh nor robs him of his cheerfulness. The famous Cornaro's case well proves the contrary; and so did farmer Francis, who was of a round stature, had a plump, round face, with a kind of smile on it, and seemed to borrow an air of wretchedness rather from his coat's age than from his own.
The truth is, there is a certain diet which emaciates men more than any possible degree of abstinence; though I do not remember to have seen any caution against it, either in Cheney, Arbuthnot, or in any other modern writer or regimen.
Nay, the very name is not, I believe, in the learned Dr. James's Dictionary; all which is the more extraordinary as it is a very common food in this kingdom, and the college themselves were not long since very liberally entertained with it by the present attorney and other eminent lawyers in Lincoln's-inn-hall, and were all made horribly sick by it.
But though it should not be found among our English physical writers, we may be assured of meeting with it among the Greeks; for nothing considerable in nature escapes their notice, though many things considerable in them, it is to be feared, have escaped the notice of their readers. The Greeks, then, to all such as feed too voraciously on this diet, give the name of HEAUTOFAGI, which our physicians will, I suppose, translate MEN THAT EAT THEMSELVES.
As nothing is so destructive to the body as this kind of food, so nothing is so plentiful and cheap; but it was perhaps the only cheap thing the farmer disliked. Probably living much on fish might produce this disgust; for Diodorus Siculus attributes the same aversion in a people of Ethiopia to the same cause; he calls them the fish-eaters, and asserts that they cannot be brought to eat a single meal with the Heautofagi by any persuasion, threat, or violence whatever, not even though they should kill their children before their faces.
What hath puzzled our physicians, and prevented them from setting this matter in the clearest light, is possibly one simple mistake, arising from a very excusable ignorance; that the passions of men are capable of swallowing food as well as their appetites; that the former, in feeding, resemble the state of those animals who chew the cud; and therefore, such men, in some sense, may be said to prey on themselves, and as it were to devour their own entrails. And hence ensues a meager aspect and thin habit of body, as surely as from what is called a consumption. Our farmer was one of these. He had no more passion than an Ichthuofagus or Ethiopian fisher. He wished not for anything, thought not of anything; indeed, he scarce did anything or said anything. Here I cannot be understood strictly; for then I must describe a nonentity, whereas I would rob him of nothing but that free agency which is the cause of all the corruption and of all the misery of human nature. No man, indeed, ever did more than the farmer, for he was an absolute slave to labor all the week; but in truth, as my sagacious reader must have at first apprehended, when I said he resigned the care of the house to his wife, I meant more than I then expressed, even the house and all that belonged to it; for he was really a farmer only under the direction of his wife. In a word, so composed, so serene, so placid a countenance, I never saw; and he satisfied himself by answering to every question he was asked, "I don't know anything about it, sir; I leaves all that to my wife."
Now, as a couple of this kind would, like two vessels of oil, have made no composition in life, and for want of all savor must have palled every taste; nature or fortune, or both of them, took care to provide a proper quantity of acid in the materials that formed the wife, and to render her a perfect helpmate for so tranquil a husband. She abounded in whatsoever he was defective; that is to say, in almost everything. She was indeed as vinegar to oil, or a brisk wind to a standing-pool, and preserved all from stagnation and corruption.
Quin the player, on taking a nice and severe survey of a fellow-comedian, burst forth into this exclamation: – "If that fellow be not a rogue, God Almighty doth not write a legible hand."
Whether he guessed right or no is not worth my while to examine; certain it is that the latter, having wrought his features into a proper harmony to become the characters of Iago, Shylock, and others of the same cast, gave us a semblance of truth to the observation that was sufficient to confirm the wit of it. Indeed, we may remark, in favor of the physiognomist, though the law has made him a rogue and vagabond, that Nature is seldom curious in her works within, without employing some little pains on the outside; and this more particularly in mischievous characters, in forming which, as Mr. Derham observes, in venomous insects, as the sting or saw of a wasp, she is sometimes wonderfully industrious. Now, when she hath thus completely armed our hero to carry on a war with man, she never fails of furnishing that innocent lambkin with some means of knowing his enemy, and foreseeing his designs. Thus she hath been observed to act in the case of a rattlesnake, which never meditates a human prey without giving warning of his approach. This observation will, I am convinced, hold most true, if applied to the most venomous individuals of human insects. A tyrant, a trickster, and a bully, generally wear the marks of their several dispositions in their countenances; so do the vixen, the shrew, the scold, and all other females of the like kind. But, perhaps, nature hath never afforded a stronger example of all this than in the case of Mrs. Francis. She was a short, squat woman; her head was closely joined to her shoulders, where it was fixed somewhat awry; every feature of her countenance was sharp and pointed; her face was furrowed with the smallpox; and her complexion, which seemed to be able to turn milk to curds, not a little resembled in color such milk as had already undergone that operation. She appeared, indeed, to have many symptoms of a deep jaundice in her look; but the strength and firmness of her voice overbalanced them all; the tone of this was a sharp treble at a distance, for I seldom heard it on the same floor, but was usually waked with it in the morning, and entertained with it almost continually through the whole day.
Though vocal be usually put in opposition to instrumental music, I question whether this might not be thought to partake of the nature of both; for she played on two instruments, which she seemed to keep for no other use from morning till night; these were two maids, or rather scolding-stocks, who, I suppose, by some means or other, earned their board, and she gave them their lodging gratis, or for no other service than to keep her lungs in constant exercise.
She differed, as I have said, in every particular from her husband; but very remarkably in this, that, as it was impossible to displease him, so it was as impossible to please her; and as no art could remove a smile from his countenance, so could no art carry it into hers. If her bills were remonstrated against she was offended with the tacit censure of her fair-dealing; if they were not, she seemed to regard it as a tacit sarcasm on her folly, which might have set down larger prices with the same success. On this lather hint she did indeed improve, for she daily raised some of her articles. A pennyworth of fire was to-day rated at a shilling, to-morrow at eighteen-pence; and if she dressed us two dishes for two shillings on the Saturday, we paid half-a-crown for the cookery of one on the Sunday; and, whenever she was paid, she never left the room without lamenting the small amount of her bill, saying, "she knew not how it was that others got their money by gentle-folks, but for her part she had not the art of it." When she was asked why she complained, when she was paid all she demanded, she answered, "she could not deny that, nor did she know she had omitted anything; but that it was but a poor bill for gentle-folks to pay." I accounted for all this by her having heard, that it is a maxim with the principal inn-holders on the continent, to levy considerable sums on their guests, who travel with many horses and servants, though such guests should eat little or nothing in their houses; the method being, I believe, in such cases, to lay a capitation on the horses, and not on their masters. But she did not consider that in most of these inns a very great degree of hunger, without any degree of delicacy, may be satisfied; and that in all such inns there is some appearance, at least, of provision, as well as of a man-cook to dress it, one of the hostlers being always furnished with a cook's cap, waistcoat, and apron, ready to attend gentlemen and ladies on their summons; that the case therefore of such inns differed from hers, where there was nothing to eat or to drink, and in reality no house to inhabit, no chair to sit upon, nor any bed to lie in; that one third or fourth part therefore of the levy imposed at inns was, in truth, a higher tax than the whole was when laid on in the other, where, in order to raise a small sum, a man is obliged to submit to pay as many various ways for the same thing as he doth to the government for the light which enters through his own window into his own house, from his own estate; such are the articles of bread and beer, firing, eating and dressing dinner.
The foregoing is a very imperfect sketch of this extraordinary couple; for everything is here lowered instead of being heightened. Those who would see them set forth in more lively colors, and with the proper ornaments, may read the descriptions of the Furies in some of the classical poets, or of the Stoic philosophers in the works of Lucian.
Monday, July 20. – This day nothing remarkable passed; Mrs. Francis levied a tax of fourteen shillings for the Sunday. We regaled ourselves at dinner with venison and good claret of our own; and in the afternoon, the women, attended by the captain, walked to see a delightful scene two miles distant, with the beauties of which they declared themselves most highly charmed at their return, as well as with the goodness of the lady of the mansion, who had slipped out of the way that my wife and their company might refresh themselves with the flowers and fruits with which her garden abounded.
Tuesday, July 21. – This day, having paid our taxes of yesterday, we were permitted to regale ourselves with more venison. Some of this we would willingly have exchanged for mutton; but no such flesh was to be had nearer than Portsmouth, from whence it would have cost more to convey a joint to us than the freight of a Portugal ham from Lisbon to London amounts to; for though the water-carriage be somewhat cheaper here than at Deal, yet can you find no waterman who will go on board his boat, unless by two or three hours' rowing he can get drunk for the residue of the week.
And here I have an opportunity, which possibly may not offer again, of publishing some observations on that political economy of this nation, which, as it concerns only the regulation of the mob, is below the notice of our great men; though on the due regulation of this order depend many emoluments, which the great men themselves, or at least many who tread close on their heels, may enjoy, as well as some dangers which may some time or other arise from introducing a pure state of anarchy among them. I will represent the case, as it appears to me, very fairly and impartially between the mob and their betters. The whole mischief which infects this part of our economy arises from the vague and uncertain use of a word called liberty, of which, as scarce any two men with whom I have ever conversed seem to have one and the same idea, I am inclined to doubt whether there be any simple universal notion represented by this word, or whether it conveys any clearer or more determinate idea than some of those old Punic compositions of syllables preserved in one of the comedies of Plautus, but at present, as I conceive, not supposed to be understood by any one.
By liberty, however, I apprehend, is commonly understood the power of doing what we please; not absolutely, for then it would be inconsistent with law, by whose control the liberty of the freest people, except only the Hottentots and wild Indians, must always be restrained.
But, indeed, however largely we extend, or however moderately we confine, the sense of the word, no politician will, I presume, contend that it is to pervade in an equal degree, and be, with the same extent, enjoyed by, every member of society; no such polity having been ever found, unless among those vile people just before commemorated. Among the Greeks and Romans the servile and free conditions were opposed to each other; and no man who had the misfortune to be enrolled under the former could lay any claim to liberty till the right was conveyed to him by that master whose slave he was, either by the means of conquest, of purchase, or of birth.
This was the state of all the free nations in the world; and this, till very lately, was understood to be the case of our own.
I will not indeed say this is the case at present, the lowest class of our people having shaken off all the shackles of their superiors, and become not only as free, but even freer, than most of their superiors. I believe it cannot be doubted, though perhaps we have no recent instance of it, that the personal attendance of every man who hath three hundred pounds per annum, in parliament, is indispensably his duty; and that, if the citizens and burgesses of any city or borough shall choose such a one, however reluctant he appear, he may be obliged to attend, and be forcibly brought to his duty by the sergeant-at-arms.
Again, there are numbers of subordinate offices, some of which are of burden, and others of expense, in the civil government – all of which persons who are qualified are liable to have imposed on them, may be obliged to undertake and properly execute, notwithstanding any bodily labor, or even danger, to which they may subject themselves, under the penalty of fines and imprisonment; nay, and what may appear somewhat hard, may be compelled to satisfy the losses which are eventually incident, to that of sheriff in particular, out of their own private fortunes; and though this should prove the ruin of a family, yet the public, to whom the price is due, incurs no debt or obligation to preserve its officer harmless, let his innocence appear ever so clearly. I purposely omit the mention of those military or military duties which our old constitution laid upon its greatest members. These might, indeed, supply their posts with some other able-bodied men; but if no such could have been found, the obligation nevertheless remained, and they were compellable to serve in their own proper persons. The only one, therefore, who is possessed of absolute liberty is the lowest member of the society, who, if he prefers hunger, or the wild product of the fields, hedges, lanes, and rivers, with the indulgence of ease and laziness, to a food a little more delicate, but purchased at the expense of labor, may lay himself under a shade; nor can be forced to take the other alternative from that which he hath, I will not affirm whether wisely or foolishly, chosen.