The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend, Mr. Abraham Abrams/Book II, Chapter XVII

CHAPTER XVII.

_A dialogue between Mr Abraham Adams and his host, which, by the

disagreement in their opinions, seemed to threaten an unlucky

catastrophe, had it not been timely prevented by the return of

the lovers._

"Sir," said the host, "I assure you you are not the first to whom our

squire hath promised more than he hath performed. He is so famous for

this practice, that his word will not be taken for much by those who

know him. I remember a young fellow whom he promised his parents to make

an exciseman. The poor people, who could ill afford it, bred their son

to writing and accounts, and other learning to qualify him for the

place; and the boy held up his head above his condition with these

hopes; nor would he go to plough, nor to any other kind of work, and

went constantly drest as fine as could be, with two clean Holland shirts

a week, and this for several years; till at last he followed the squire

up to London, thinking there to mind him of his promises; but he could

never get sight of him. So that, being out of money and business, he

fell into evil company and wicked courses; and in the end came to a

sentence of transportation, the news of which broke the mother's

heart.--I will tell you another true story of him. There was a neighbour

of mine, a farmer, who had two sons whom he bred up to the business.

Pretty lads they were. Nothing would serve the squire but that the

youngest must be made a parson. Upon which he persuaded the father to

send him to school, promising that he would afterwards maintain him at

the university, and, when he was of a proper age, give him a living. But

after the lad had been seven years at school, and his father brought him

to the squire, with a letter from his master that he was fit for the

university, the squire, instead of minding his promise, or sending him

thither at his expense, only told his father that the young man was a

fine scholar, and it was pity he could not afford to keep him at Oxford

for four or five years more, by which time, if he could get him a

curacy, he might have him ordained. The farmer said, 'He was not a man

sufficient to do any such thing.'--'Why, then,' answered the squire, 'I

am very sorry you have given him so much learning; for, if he cannot get

his living by that, it will rather spoil him for anything else; and your

other son, who can hardly write his name, will do more at ploughing and

sowing, and is in a better condition, than he.' And indeed so it proved;

for the poor lad, not finding friends to maintain him in his learning,

as he had expected, and being unwilling to work, fell to drinking,

though he was a very sober lad before; and in a short time, partly with

grief, and partly with good liquor, fell into a consumption, and

died.--Nay, I can tell you more still: there was another, a young woman,

and the handsomest in all this neighbourhood, whom he enticed up to

London, promising to make her a gentlewoman to one of your women of

quality; but, instead of keeping his word, we have since heard, after

having a child by her himself, she became a common whore; then kept a

coffeehouse in Covent Garden; and a little after died of the French

distemper in a gaol.--I could tell you many more stories; but how do you

imagine he served me myself? You must know, sir, I was bred a seafaring

man, and have been many voyages; till at last I came to be master of a

ship myself, and was in a fair way of making a fortune, when I was

attacked by one of those cursed guarda-costas who took our ships before

the beginning of the war; and after a fight, wherein I lost the greater

part of my crew, my rigging being all demolished, and two shots received

between wind and water, I was forced to strike. The villains carried off

my ship, a brigantine of 150 tons--a pretty creature she was--and put me,

a man, and a boy, into a little bad pink, in which, with much ado, we at

last made Falmouth; though I believe the Spaniards did not imagine she

could possibly live a day at sea. Upon my return hither, where my wife,

who was of this country, then lived, the squire told me he was so

pleased with the defence I had made against the enemy, that he did not

fear getting me promoted to a lieutenancy of a man-of-war, if I would

accept of it; which I thankfully assured him I would. Well, sir, two or

three years passed, during which I had many repeated promises, not only

from the squire, but (as he told me) from the lords of the admiralty. He

never returned from London but I was assured I might be satisfied now,

for I was certain of the first vacancy; and, what surprizes me still,

when I reflect on it, these assurances were given me with no less

confidence, after so many disappointments, than at first. At last, sir,

growing weary, and somewhat suspicious, after so much delay, I wrote to

a friend in London, who I knew had some acquaintance at the best house

in the admiralty, and desired him to back the squire's interest; for

indeed I feared he had solicited the affair with more coldness than he

pretended. And what answer do you think my friend sent me? Truly, sir,

he acquainted me that the squire had never mentioned my name at the

admiralty in his life; and, unless I had much faithfuller interest,

advised me to give over my pretensions; which I immediately did, and,

with the concurrence of my wife, resolved to set up an alehouse, where

you are heartily welcome; and so my service to you; and may the squire,

and all such sneaking rascals, go to the devil together."--"O fie!" says

Adams, "O fie! He is indeed a wicked man; but G-- will, I hope, turn his

heart to repentance. Nay, if he could but once see the meanness of this

detestable vice; would he but once reflect that he is one of the most

scandalous as well as pernicious lyars; sure he must despise himself to

so intolerable a degree, that it would be impossible for him to continue

a moment in such a course. And to confess the truth, notwithstanding the

baseness of this character, which he hath too well deserved, he hath in

his countenance sufficient symptoms of that _bona indoles_, that

sweetness of disposition, which furnishes out a good Christian."--"Ah,

master! master!" says the host, "if you had travelled as far as I have,

and conversed with the many nations where I have traded, you would not

give any credit to a man's countenance. Symptoms in his countenance,

quotha! I would look there, perhaps, to see whether a man had the

small-pox, but for nothing else." He spoke this with so little regard to

the parson's observation, that it a good deal nettled him; and, taking

the pipe hastily from his mouth, he thus answered: "Master of mine,

perhaps I have travelled a great deal farther than you without the

assistance of a ship. Do you imagine sailing by different cities or

countries is travelling? No.

   "Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.

"I can go farther in an afternoon than you in a twelvemonth. What, I

suppose you have seen the Pillars of Hercules, and perhaps the walls of

Carthage. Nay, you may have heard Scylla, and seen Charybdis; you may

have entered the closet where Archimedes was found at the taking of

Syracuse. I suppose you have sailed among the Cyclades, and passed the

famous straits which take their name from the unfortunate Helle, whose

fate is sweetly described by Apollonius Rhodius; you have passed the

very spot, I conceive, where Daedalus fell into that sea, his waxen

wings being melted by the sun; you have traversed the Euxine sea, I make

no doubt; nay, you may have been on the banks of the Caspian, and called

at Colchis, to see if there is ever another golden fleece." "Not I,

truly, master," answered the host: "I never touched at any of these

places."--"But I have been at all these," replied Adams. "Then, I

suppose," cries the host, "you have been at the East Indies; for there

are no such, I will be sworn, either in the West or the Levant."--"Pray

where's the Levant?" quoth Adams; "that should be in the East Indies by

right." "Oho! you are a pretty traveller," cries the host, "and not know

the Levant! My service to you, master; you must not talk of these things

with me! you must not tip us the traveller; it won't go here." "Since

thou art so dull to misunderstand me still," quoth Adams, "I will inform

thee; the travelling I mean is in books, the only way of travelling by

which any knowledge is to be acquired. From them I learn what I asserted

just now, that nature generally imprints such a portraiture of the mind

in the countenance, that a skilful physiognomist will rarely be

deceived. I presume you have never read the story of Socrates to this

purpose, and therefore I will tell it you. A certain physiognomist

asserted of Socrates, that he plainly discovered by his features that he

was a rogue in his nature. A character so contrary to the tenour of all

this great man's actions, and the generally received opinion concerning

him, incensed the boys of Athens so that they threw stones at the

physiognomist, and would have demolished him for his ignorance, had not

Socrates himself prevented them by confessing the truth of his

observations, and acknowledging that, though he corrected his

disposition by philosophy, he was indeed naturally as inclined to vice

as had been predicated of him. Now, pray resolve me--How should a man

know this story if he had not read it?" "Well, master," said the host,

"and what signifies it whether a man knows it or no? He who goes abroad,

as I have done, will always have opportunities enough of knowing the

world without troubling his head with Socrates, or any such fellows."

"Friend," cries Adams, "if a man should sail round the world, and anchor

in every harbour of it, without learning, he would return home as

ignorant as he went out." "Lord help you!" answered the host; "there was

my boatswain, poor fellow! he could scarce either write or read, and yet

he would navigate a ship with any master of a man-of-war; and a very

pretty knowledge of trade he had too." "Trade," answered Adams, "as

Aristotle proves in his first chapter of Politics, is below a

philosopher, and unnatural as it is managed now." The host looked

stedfastly at Adams, and after a minute's silence asked him, "If he was

one of the writers of the Gazetteers? for I have heard," says he, "they

are writ by parsons." "Gazetteers!" answered Adams, "what is that?" "It

is a dirty newspaper," replied the host, "which hath been given away all

over the nation for these many years, to abuse trade and honest men,

which I would not suffer to lye on my table, though it hath been offered

me for nothing." "Not I truly," said Adams; "I never write anything but

sermons; and I assure you I am no enemy to trade, whilst it is

consistent with honesty; nay, I have always looked on the tradesman as a

very valuable member of society, and, perhaps, inferior to none but the

man of learning." "No, I believe he is not, nor to him neither,"

answered the host. "Of what use would learning be in a country without

trade? What would all you parsons do to clothe your backs and feed your

bellies? Who fetches you your silks, and your linens, and your wines,

and all the other necessaries of life? I speak chiefly with regard to

the sailors." "You should say the extravagancies of life," replied the

parson; "but admit they were the necessaries, there is something more

necessary than life itself, which is provided by learning; I mean the

learning of the clergy. Who clothes you with piety, meekness, humility,

charity, patience, and all the other Christian virtues? Who feeds your

souls with the milk of brotherly love, and diets them with all the

dainty food of holiness, which at once cleanses them of all impure

carnal affections, and fattens them with the truly rich spirit of grace?

Who doth this?" "Ay, who, indeed?" cries the host; "for I do not

remember ever to have seen any such clothing or such feeding. And so, in

the mean time, master, my service to you." Adams was going to answer

with some severity, when Joseph and Fanny returned and pressed his

departure so eagerly that he would not refuse them; and so, grasping his

crabstick, he took leave of his host (neither of them being so well

pleased with each other as they had been at their first sitting down

together), and with Joseph and Fanny, who both expressed much

impatience, departed, and now all together renewed their journey.