The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

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As Mr Barton advanced to present me to his grace, it was my
fortune to attract his notice, before I was announced -- He
forthwith met me more than half way, and, seizing me by the hand,
'My dear Sir Francis! (cried he) this is so kind -- I vow to God! I
am so obliged -- Such attention to a poor broken minister. Well --
Pray when does your excellency set sail? -- For God's sake have a
care of your health, and cat stewed prunes in the passage. Next to
your own precious health, pray, my dear excellency, take care of
the Five Nations -- Our good friends the Five Nations. The
Toryrories, the Maccolmacks, the Out-o'the-ways, the Crickets,
and the Kickshaws -- Let 'em have plenty of blankets, and
stinkubus, and wampum; and your excellency won't fail to scour
the kettle, and boil the chain, and bury the tree, and plant the
hatchet -- Ha, ha, ha!' When he had uttered this rhapsody, with his
usual precipitation, Mr Barton gave him to understand, that I was
neither Sir Francis, nor St Francis, but simply Mr Melford,
nephew to Mr Bramble; who, stepping forward, made his bow at the
same time. 'Odso! no more it is Sir Francis -- (said this wise
statesman) Mr Melford, I'm glad to see you -- I sent you an
engineer to fortify your dock -- Mr Bramble -- your servant, Mr
Bramble -- How d'ye, good Mr Bramble? Your nephew is a pretty young
fellow -- Faith and troth, a very pretty fellow! -- His father is my
old friend -- How does he hold it? Still troubled with that damned
disorder, ha?' 'No, my lord (replied my uncle), all his troubles
are over -- He has been dead these fifteen years.' 'Dead! how -- Yes
faith! now I remember: he is dead sure enough -- Well, and how --
does the young gentleman stand for Haverford West? or -- a what
d'ye. My dear Mr Milfordhaven, I'll do you all the service in my
power I hope I have some credit left' -- My uncle then gave him to
understand, that I was still a minor; and that we had no
intention to trouble him at present, for any favour whatsoever --
'I came hither with my nephew (added he) to pay our respects to
your grace; and I may venture to say, that his views and mine are
at least as disinterested as those of any individual in this
assembly.' 'My dear Mr Brambleberry! you do me infinite honour -- I
shall always rejoice to see you and your hopeful nephew, Mr
Milfordhaven -- My credit, such as it is, you may command -- I wish
we had more friends of your kidney.'

Then, turning to captain C--, 'Ha, C--! (said he) what news, C--?
How does the world wag? ha!' 'The world wags much after the old
fashion, my lord (answered the captain): the politicians of
London and Westminster have begun again to wag their tongues
against your grace; and your short-lived popularity wags like a
feather, which the next puff of antiministerial calumny will blow
away' -- 'A pack of rascals (cried the duke) -- Tories, Jacobites,
rebels; one half of them would wag their heels at Tyburn, if they
had their deserts' -- So saying, he wheeled about; and going round
the levee, spoke to every individual, with the most courteous
familiarity; but he scarce ever opened his mouth without making
some blunder, in relation to the person or business of the party
with whom he conversed; so that he really looked like a comedian,
hired to burlesque the character of a minister -- At length, a
person of a very prepossessing appearance coming in, his grace
ran up, and, hugging him in his arms, with the appellation of 'My
dear Ch--s!' led him forthwith into the inner apartment, or
Sanctum Sanctorum of this political temple. 'That (said captain
C--) is my friend C-- T--, almost the only man of parts who has
any concern in the present administration -- Indeed, he would have
no concern at all in the matter, if the ministry did not find it
absolutely necessary to make use of his talents upon some
particular occasions -- As for the common business of the nation,
it is carried on in a constant routine by the clerks of the
different offices, otherwise the wheels of government would be
wholly stopt amidst the abrupt succession of ministers, every one
more ignorant than his predecessor -- I am thinking what a fine
hovel we should be in, if all the clerks of the treasury, the
secretaries, of the war-office, and the admiralty, should take it
in their heads to throw up their places in imitation of the great
pensioner --But, to return to C-- T--; he certainly knows more
than all the ministry and all the opposition, if their heads were
laid together, and talks like an angel on a vast variety of
subjects. He would really be a great man, if he had any
consistency or stability of character -- Then, it must be owned, he
wants courage, otherwise he would never allow himself to be cowed
by the great political bully, for whose understanding he has
justly a very great contempt. I have seen him as much afraid of
that overbearing Hector, as ever schoolboy was of his pedagogue;
and yet this Hector, I shrewdly suspect, is no more than a craven
at bottom -- Besides this defect, C-- has another, which he is at
too little pains to hide -- There's no faith to be given to his
assertions, and no trust to be put in his promises -- However, to
give the devil his due, he's very good-natured; and even
friendly, when close urged in the way of solicitation -- As for
principle, that's out of the question -- In a word, he is a wit and
an orator, extremely entertaining, and he shines very often at
the expence even of those ministers to whom he is a retainer. This
is a mark of great imprudence, by which he has made them all his
enemies, whatever face they may put upon the matter; and sooner
or later he'll have cause to wish he had been able to keep his
own counsel. I have several times cautioned him on this subject;
but 'tis all preaching to the desert -- His vanity runs away with
his discretion' -- I could not help thinking the captain himself
might have been the better for some hints of the same nature -- His
panegyric, excluding principle and veracity, puts me in mind of a
contest I once overheard, in the way of altercation, betwixt two
apple-women in Spring-garden -- One of those viragos having hinted
something to the prejudice of the other's moral character, her
antagonist, setting her hands in her sides, replied -- 'Speak out,
hussy -- I scorn your malice -- I own I'm both a whore and a thief;
and what more have you to say? -- Damn you, what more have you to
say? baiting that, which all the world knows, I challenge you to
say black is the white of my eye' -- We did not wait for Mr T--'s
coming forth; but after captain C-- had characterised all the
originals in waiting, we adjourned to a coffeehouse, where we had
buttered muffins and tea to breakfast, the said captain still
favouring us with his company -- Nay, my uncle was so diverted with
his anecdotes, that he asked him to dinner, and treated him with
a fine turbot, to which he did ample justice -- That same evening I
spent at the tavern with some friends, one of whom let me into C--'s
character, which Mr Bramble no sooner understood, than he
expressed some concern for the connexion he had made, and
resolved to disengage himself from it without ceremony.

We are become members of the Society for the Encouragement of the
Arts, and have assisted at some of their deliberations, which
were conducted with equal spirit and sagacity -- My uncle is
extremely fond of the institution, which will certainly be
productive of great advantages to the public, if, from its
democratical form, it does not degenerate into cabal and
corruption -- You are already acquainted with his aversion to the
influence of the multitude, which, he affirms, is incompatible
with excellence, and subversive of order -- Indeed his detestation
of the mob has been heightened by fear, ever since he fainted in
the room at Bath; and this apprehension has prevented him from
going to the Little Theatre in the Hay-market, and other places
of entertainment, to which, however, I have had the honour to
attend the ladies.

It grates old Square-toes to reflect, that it is not in his power
to enjoy even the most elegant diversions of the capital, without
the participation of the vulgar; for they now thrust themselves
into all assemblies, from a ridotto at St James's, to a hop at
Rotherhithe. I have lately seen our old acquaintance Dick Ivy,
who we imagined had died of dram-drinking; but he is lately
emerged from the Fleet, by means of a pamphlet which he wrote and
published against the government with some success. The sale of
this performance enabled him to appear in clean linen, and he is
now going about soliciting subscriptions for his Poems; but his
breeches are not yet in the most decent order.

Dick certainly deserves some countenance for his intrepidity and
perseverance -- It is not in the power of disappointment, nor even
of damnation, to drive him to despair -- After some unsuccessful
essays in the way of poetry, he commenced brandy-merchant, and I
believe his whole stock ran out through his own bowels; then he
consorted with a milk-woman, who kept a cellar in Petty France:
but he could not make his quarters good; he was dislodged and
driven up stairs into the kennel by a corporal in the second
regiment of foot-guards -- He was afterwards the laureat of
Blackfriars, from whence there was a natural transition to the
Fleet -- As he had formerly miscarried in panegyric, he now turned
his thoughts to satire, and really seems to have some talent for
abuse. If he can hold out till the meeting of the parliament, and
be prepared for another charge, in all probability Dick will
mount the pillory, or obtain a pension, in either of which events
his fortune will be made -- Mean while he has acquired some degree
of consideration with the respectable writers of the age; and as
I have subscribed for his works, he did me the favour t'other
night to introduce me to a society of those geniuses; but I found
them exceedingly formal and reserved -- They seemed afraid and
jealous of one another, and sat in a state of mutual repulsion,
like so many particles of vapour, each surrounded by its own
electrified atmosphere. Dick, who has more vivacity than
judgment, tried more than once to enliven the conversation;
sometimes making an effort at wit, sometimes letting off a pun,
and sometimes discharging a conundrum; nay, at length he started
a dispute upon the hackneyed comparison betwixt blank verse and
rhyme, and the professors opened with great clamour; but, instead
of keeping to the subject, they launched out into tedious
dissertations on the poetry of the ancients; and one of them, who
had been a school-master, displayed his whole knowledge of
prosody, gleaned from Disputer and Ruddiman. At last, I ventured
to say, I did not see how the subject in question could be at all
elucidated by the practice of the ancients, who certainly had
neither blank verse nor rhyme in their poems, which were measured
by feet, whereas ours are reckoned by the number of syllables --
This remark seemed to give umbrage to the pedant, who forthwith
involved himself in a cloud of Greek and Latin quotations, which
nobody attempted to dispel -- A confused hum of insipid
observations and comments ensued; and, upon the whole, I never
passed a duller evening in my life -- Yet, without all doubt, some
of them were men of learning, wit, and ingenuity. As they are
afraid of making free with one another, they should bring each
his butt, or whet-stone, along with him, for the entertainment of
the company -- My uncle says, he never desires to meet with more
than one wit at a time -- One wit, like a knuckle of ham in soup,
gives a zest and flavour to the dish; but more than one serves
only to spoil the pottage -- And now I'm afraid I have given you an
unconscionable mess, without any flavour at all; for which, I
suppose, you will bestow your benedictions upon

Your friend,
and servant
J. MELFORD
LONDON, June 5

To Dr LEWIS.

DEAR LEWIS

Your fable of the monkey and the pig, is what the Italians call
ben trovata: but I shall not repeat it to my apothecary, who is a
proud Scotchman, very thin skinned, and, for aught I know, may
have his degree in his pocket -- A right Scotchman has always two
strings to his bow, and is in utrumque paratus -- Certain it is, I
have not 'scaped a scouring; but, I believe, by means of that
scouring, I have 'scaped something worse, perhaps a tedious fit
of the gout or rheumatism; for my appetite began to flag, and I
had certain croakings in the bowels, which boded me no good -- Nay,
I am not yet quite free of these remembrances, which warn me to
be gone from this centre of infection --

What temptation can a man of my turn and temperament have, to
live in a place where every corner teems with fresh objects of
detestation and disgust? What kind of taste and organs must those
people have, who really prefer the adulterate enjoyments of the
town to the genuine pleasures of a country retreat? Most people,
I know, are originally seduced by vanity, ambition, and childish
curiosity; which cannot be gratified, but in the busy haunts of
men: but, in the course of this gratification, their very organs
of sense are perverted, and they become habitually lost to every
relish of what is genuine and excellent in its own nature.

Shall I state the difference between my town grievances, and my
country comforts? At Brambleton-hall, I have elbow-room within
doors, and breathe a clear, elastic, salutary air -- I enjoy
refreshing sleep, which is never disturbed by horrid noise, nor
interrupted, but in a-morning, by the sweet twitter of the
martlet at my window -- I drink the virgin lymph, pure and
chrystalline as it gushes from the rock, or the sparkling
beveridge, home-brewed from malt of my own making; or I indulge
with cyder, which my own orchard affords; or with claret of the
best growth, imported for my own use, by a correspondent on whose
integrity I can depend; my bread is sweet and nourishing, made
from my own wheat, ground in my own mill, and baked in my own
oven; my table is, in a great measure, furnished from my own
ground; my five-year old mutton, fed on the fragrant herbage of
the mountains, that might vie with venison in juice and flavour;
my delicious veal, fattened with nothing but the mother's milk,
that fills the dish with gravy; my poultry from the barn-door,
that never knew confinement, but when they were at roost; my
rabbits panting from the warren; my game fresh from the moors; my
trout and salmon struggling from the stream; oysters from their
native banks; and herrings, with other sea fish, I can eat in
four hours after they are taken -- My sallads, roots, and potherbs,
my own garden yields in plenty and perfection; the produce of the
natural soil, prepared by moderate cultivation. The same soil
affords all the different fruits which England may call her own,
so that my dessert is every day fresh-gathered from the tree; my
dairy flows with nectarious tildes of milk and cream, from whence
we derive abundance of excellent butter, curds, and cheese; and
the refuse fattens my pigs, that are destined for hams and bacon --
I go to bed betimes, and rise with the sun -- I make shift to pass
the hours without weariness or regret, and am not destitute of
amusements within doors, when the weather will not permit me to
go abroad -- I read, and chat, and play at billiards, cards or
back-gammon -- Without doors, I superintend my farm, and execute
plans of improvements, the effects of which I enjoy with
unspeakable delight -- Nor do I take less pleasure in seeing my
tenants thrive under my auspices, and the poor live comfortably
by the employment which I provide -- You know I have one or two
sensible friends, to whom I can open all my heart; a blessing
which, perhaps, I might have sought in vain among the crowded
scenes of life: there are a few others of more humble parts, whom
I esteem for their integrity; and their conversation I find
inoffensive, though not very entertaining. Finally, I live in the
midst of honest men, and trusty dependents, who, I flatter
myself, have a disinterested attachment to my person. You,
yourself, my dear Doctor, can vouch for the truth of these
assertions.

Now, mark the contrast at London -- I am pent up in frowzy
lodgings, where there is not room enough to swing a cat; and I
breathe the steams of endless putrefaction; and these would,
undoubtedly, produce a pestilence, if they were not qualified by
the gross acid of sea-coal, which is itself a pernicious nuisance
to lungs of any delicacy of texture: but even this boasted
corrector cannot prevent those languid, sallow looks, that
distinguish the inhabitants of London from those ruddy swains
that lead a country-life -- I go to bed after midnight, jaded and
restless from the dissipations of the day -- I start every hour
from my sleep, at the horrid noise of the watchmen bawling the
hour through every street, and thundering at every door; a set of
useless fellows, who serve no other purpose but that of
disturbing the repose of the inhabitants; and by five o'clock I
start out of bed, in consequence of the still more dreadful alarm
made by the country carts, and noisy rustics bellowing green
pease under my window. If I would drink water, I must quaff the
maukish contents of an open aqueduct, exposed to all manner of
defilement; or swallow that which comes from the river Thames,
impregnated with all the filth of London and Westminster -- Human
excrement is the least offensive part of the concrete, which is
composed of all the drugs, minerals, and poisons, used in
mechanics and manufacture, enriched with the putrefying carcasses
of beasts and men; and mixed with the scourings of all the wash-tubs,
kennels, and common sewers, within the bills of mortality.

This is the agreeable potation, extolled by the Londoners, as the
finest water in the universe -- As to the intoxicating potion, sold
for wine, it is a vile, unpalatable, and pernicious
sophistication, balderdashed with cyder, corn-spirit, and the
juice of sloes. In an action at law, laid against a carman for
having staved a cask of port, it appeared from the evidence of
the cooper, that there were not above five gallons of real wine
in the whole pipe, which held above a hundred, and even that had
been brewed and adulterated by the merchant at Oporto. The bread
I cat in London, is a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk,
alum, and bone-ashes; insipid to the taste, and destructive to
the constitution. The good people are not ignorant of this
adulteration -- but they prefer it to wholesome bread, because it
is whiter than the meal of corn: thus they sacrifice their taste
and their health, and the lives of their tender infants, to a
most absurd gratification of a mis-judging eye; and the miller,
or the baker, is obliged to poison them and their families, in
order to live by his profession. The same monstrous depravity
appears in their veal, which is bleached by repeated bleedings,
and other villainous arts, till there is not a drop of juice left
in the body, and the poor animal is paralytic before it dies; so
void of all taste, nourishment, and savour, that a man might dine
as comfortably on a white fricassee of kid-skin gloves; or chip
hats from Leghorn.

As they have discharged the natural colour from their bread,
their butchers-meat, and poultry, their cutlets, ragouts,
fricassees and sauces of all kinds; so they insist upon having
the complexion of their potherbs mended, even at the hazard of
their lives. Perhaps, you will hardly believe they can be so mad
as to boil their greens with brass halfpence, in order to improve
their colour; and yet nothing is more true -- Indeed, without this
improvement in the colour, they have no personal merit. They are
produced in an artificial soil, and taste of nothing but the
dunghills, from whence they spring. My cabbage, cauliflower, and
'sparagus in the country, are as much superior in flavour to
those that are sold in Covent-garden, as my heath-mutton is to
that of St James's-market; which in fact, is neither lamb nor
mutton, but something betwixt the two, gorged in the rank fens of
Lincoln and Essex, pale, coarse, and frowzy -- As for the pork, it
is an abominable carnivorous animal, fed with horse-flesh and
distillers' grains; and the poultry is all rotten, in consequence
of a fever, occasioned by the infamous practice of sewing up the
gut, that they may be the sooner fattened in coops, in
consequence of this cruel retention.

Of the fish, I need say nothing in this hot weather, but that it
comes sixty, seventy, fourscore, and a hundred miles by land-carriage;
a circumstance sufficient without any comment, to turn
a Dutchman's stomach, even if his nose was not saluted in every
alley with the sweet flavour of fresh mackarel, selling by retail.
This is not the season for oysters; nevertheless, it may not be
amiss to mention, that the right Colchester are kept in slime-pits,
occasionally overflowed by the sea; and that the green
colour, so much admired by the voluptuaries of this metropolis,
is occasioned by the vitriolic scum, which rises on the surface
of the stagnant and stinking water -- Our rabbits are bred and fed
in the poulterer's cellar, where they have neither air nor
exercise, consequently they must be firm in flesh, and delicious
in flavour; and there is no game to be had for love or money.

It must be owned, the Covent-garden affords some good fruit;
which, however, is always engrossed by a few individuals of
overgrown fortune, at an exorbitant price; so that little else
than the refuse of the market falls to the share of the
community; and that is distributed by such filthy hands, as I
cannot look at without loathing. It was but yesterday that I saw
a dirty barrow-bunter in the street, cleaning her dusty fruit
with her own spittle; and, who knows but some fine lady of St
James's parish might admit into her delicate mouth those very
cherries, which had been rolled and moistened between the filthy,
and, perhaps, ulcerated chops of a St Giles's huckster -- I need
not dwell upon the pallid, contaminated mash, which they call
strawberries; soiled and tossed by greasy paws through twenty
baskets crusted with dirt; and then presented with the worst
milk, thickened with the worst flour, into a bad likeness of
cream: but the milk itself should not pass unanalysed, the
produce of faded cabbage-leaves and sour draff, lowered with hot
water, frothed with bruised snails, carried through the streets
in open pails, exposed to foul rinsings, discharged from doors
and windows, spittle, snot, and tobacco-quids from foot
passengers, overflowings from mud carts, spatterings from coach
wheels, dirt and trash chucked into it by roguish boys for the
joke's sake, the spewings of infants, who have slabbered in the
tin-measure, which is thrown back in that condition among the
milk, for the benefit of the next customer; and, finally, the
vermin that drops from the rags of the nasty drab that vends this
precious mixture, under the respectable denomination of milk-maid.

I shall conclude this catalogue of London dainties, with that
table-beer, guiltless of hops and malt, vapid and nauseous; much
fitter to facilitate the operation of a vomit, than to quench
thirst and promote digestion; the tallowy rancid mass, called
butter, manufactured with candle grease and kitchen stuff; and
their fresh eggs, imported from France and Scotland. -- Now, all
these enormities might be remedied with a very little attention
to the article of police, or civil regulation; but the wise
patriots of London have taken it into their heads, that all
regulation is inconsistent with liberty; and that every man ought
to live in his own way, without restraint -- Nay, as there is not
sense enough left among them, to be discomposed by the nuisance I
have mentioned, they may, for aught I care, wallow in the mire of
their own pollution.

A companionable man will, undoubtedly put up with many
inconveniences for the sake of enjoying agreeable society. A
facetious friend of mine used to say, the wine could not be bad,
where the company was agreeable; a maxim which, however, ought to
be taken cum grano salis: but what is the society of London, that
I should be tempted, for its sake, to mortify my senses, and
compound with such uncleanness as my soul abhors? All the people
I see, are too much engrossed by schemes of interest or ambition,
to have any room left for sentiment or friendship. Even in some of
my old acquaintance, those schemes and pursuits have obliterated
all traces of our former connexion -- Conversation is reduced to
party disputes, and illiberal altercation -- Social commerce, to
formal visits and card-playing -- If you pick up a diverting
original by accident, it may be dangerous to amuse yourself with
his oddities -- He is generally a tartar at bottom; a sharper, a
spy, or a lunatic. Every person you deal with endeavours to
overreach you in the way of business; you are preyed upon by idle
mendicants, who beg in the phrase of borrowing, and live upon the
spoils of the stranger -- Your tradesmen are without conscience,
your friends without affection, and your dependents without
fidelity. --

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