the Count asleep, he made so unguarded an attack upon him, that the other caught him in the fact: however, he did not think proper to acquaint him with the discovery he had made; but, preventing him from any booty at that time, he only took care for the future to button his pockets, and to pack the cards with double industry. So far was this detection from causing any quarrel between these two prigs [thieves,] that in reality it recommended them to each other: for a wise man, that is to say a rogue, considers a trick in life, as a gamester doth a trick at play. It sets him on his guard; but he admires the dexterity of him who plays it. These therefore, and many other such instances of ingenuity, operated so violently on the Count, that notwithstanding the disparity which age, title, and above all dress, had set between them, he resolved to enter into an acquaintance with Wild. This soon produced a perfect intimacy, and that a friendship, which had a longer duration than is common to that passion between persons who only propose to themselves the common advantages of eating, drinking, whoring, or borrowing money; which ends if they soon fail, so doth the friendship founded upon them. Mutual interest, the greatest of all purposes, was the cement of this alliance, which nothing of consequence, but superior interest, was capable of dissolving. CHAPTER V. A dialogue between young master Wild and Count La Ruse, which, having extended to the rejoinder, had a very quiet, easy, and natural conclusion. ONE evening after the Miss Snaps were retired to rest, the count thus addressed himself to young Wild: You cannot, I apprehend, Mr. Wild, be such a stranger to your own great capacity, as to be surprised when I tell you I have often viewed, with a mixture of astonishment and concern, your shining qualities confined to a sphere where they can never reach the eyes of those who would introduce them properly into the world, and raise you to am eminence, where you may blaze out to the admiration of all men. I assure you I am pleased with my captivity, when I reflect I am likely to owe it to an acquaintance, and I hope friendship, with the greatest genius of my age; and, what is still more, when I indulge my vanity with a prospect of drawing from obscurity, (pardon the expression,) such talents as were, I believe, never before like to have been buried in it; for I make no question, but, at my discharge from confinement, which will now soon happen, I shall be able to introduce you into company, where you may reap the advantage of your superior parts. 'I will bring you acquainted, sir, with those, who as they are capable of setting a true value on such qualifications, so they will have it both in their power and inclination to prefer you for them. Such an introduction is the only advantage you want, without which your merit might be your misfortune; for those abilities which would entitle you to honour and profit in a superior station,may render you only obnoxious to danger and disgrace in a lower.' Mr. Wild answered: Sir, I am not insensible of my obligations to you, as well for the overvalue you have set 'on my small abilities, as for the kindness you express in offering to introduce me among my superiors. I must own, my father hath often persuaded me to push myself into the company of my betters; but, to say the truth, I have an awkward pride in my nature, which is better. pleased with being at the head of the lowest class, than at the bottom of the highest. Permit me to say, though. the idea may be somewhat coarse, I had rather stand on the summit of a dunghill, than at the bottom of a hill in Paradise; I have always thought it signifies little into what rank of life I am thrown, provided I make a great figure: therein; and should be as well satisfied with exerting my talents well at the head of a small party or gang, as in. the command of a mighty army: for I am far from agreeing with you, that great parts are often lost in a low situa tion; on the contrary, I am convinced it is impossible they should be lost. I have often persuaded myself that there were not fewer than a thousand in Alexander's troops capable of performing what Alexander himself did. 'But because such spirits were not elected or destined to an imperial command, are we therefore to imagine they came off without a booty? Or that they contented themselves with the share in common with their comrades? Surely, no. In civil life, doubtless, the same genius, the same endowments have often composed the statesman and the Prig for so we call what the vulgar name a thief. The same parts, the same actions often promote men to the head of superior societies, which raise them to the head of lower; and where is the essential difference, if the one ends on Tower-hill, or the other at Tyburn ? Hath the block any preference to the gallows, or the axe to the halter, but was given them by the ill-guided judgment of men? You will pardon me, therefore, if I am not so hastily inflamed with the common outside of things, nor join the general opinion in preferring one state to another. A guinea is as valuable in a leathern as in an embroidered purse; and a cod's head, is a cod's head still, whether in a pewter or a silver dish.' The Count replied as follows: 'What you have now said doth not lessen my idea of your capacity; but confirms my opinion of the ill effects of bad and low company. Can any man doubt, whether it is better to be a great statesman, or a common thief? I have often heard that the devil used to say, where, or to whom, I know not, that it was better to reign in hell, than to be a valet de chambre in Heaven, and perhaps he was in the right; but surely if he had had the choice of reigning in either, he would have chosen better. The truth therefore is, that by low conversation we contract a greater awe for high things than they deserve. We decline great pursuits not from contempt, but despair. The man who prefers the high road to a more reputable way of making his fortune, doth it because he imagines the one easier than the other; but you yourself have asserted, and with undoubted truth, that the same abilities qualify you for undertaking, and : the same means will bring you to your end in both journeys; as in music, it is the same tune, whether you play it in a higher or a lower key. To instance in some particulars is it not the same qualifications which enables this man to hire himself as a servant, and to get into the confidence and secrets of his master, in order to rob him, and that to undertake trusts of the highest nature with a design to break and betray them? Is it less difficult by false tokens to deceive a shop keeper into the delivery of his goods, which you afterwards run away with, than to impose upon him by outward splendour, and the appearance of fortune into a credit by which you gain, and he loses twenty times as much? Doth it not require more dexterity in the fingers to draw out a man's purse from his pocket, or to take a lady's watch from her side, without being perceived of any, (an excellence in which, without flattery, I am persuaded you have no superior,) than to cog a die, or to shuffle a pack of cards? Is not as much art, as many excellent qualities, required to make a pimping porter at a common bawdy-house, as would enable a man to prostitute his own or his friend's wife or child? Doth it not ask as good a memory, as nimble an invention, as steady a countenance, to forswear yourself in Westminister-hall, as would furnish out a complete fool in state, or perhaps a statesman himself? It is needless to particularize every instance; in all we shall find, that there is a nearer connextion between high and low life than is generally imagined, and that a highwayman is entitled to more favour with the great than he usually meets with. If therefore, as I think I have proved, the same parts which qualify a man for eminence in a low sphere, qualify him likewise for eminence in a higher, sure it can be no doubt in which he would choose to exert them. Ambition, without which no one can be a great man, will immediately instruct him, in your own phrase, to prefer a hill in paradise to a dunghill; nay, even fear, a passion the most repugnant to greatness, will show him how much more safely he may indulge himself in the full and free exertion of his mighty abilities in the higher, than in the lower rank: Since experience teaches him, that there is a crowd oftener in one year at Tyburn, than on Towerhill in a century.' Mr. Wild with much solemnity rejoined, That the same capacity which qualifies a millken,* a bridle-cull,† or a buttock and file.‡ to arrive at any degree of eminence in his profession, would likewise raise a man in what the world esteem a more honourable calling, I do not deny; nay, in many of your instances it is evident, that more ingenuity, more art is necessary to the lower, than the higher proficients. If therefore you had only contended, that every prig might be a statesman if he pleased, I had readily agreed to it; but when you conclude, that it is his interest to be so, that ambition would bid him take that alternative, in a word, that a statesman is greater or happier than a prig, I must deny my assent. But, in comparing these two together, we must carefully avoid being misled by the vulgar erroneous estimation of things: for mankind err in disquisitions of this nature, as physicians do, who, in considering the ope→→ rations of a disease, have not a due regard to the age and complexion of the patient. The same degree of heat, which is common in this constitution, may be a fever in that; in the same manner that which may be riches or honour to me, may be poverty or disgrace to another: for all those things are to be estimated by relation to the person who possesses them. A booty of 10l. looks as great in the eye of a bridle-cull, and gives as much real happiness to his fancy, as that of as many thousands to the statesman; and doth not the former lay out his acquisitions, in whores and fiddles, with much greater joy and mirth, than the latter in palaces and pictures? What are the flattery, the false compliments of his gang, to the statesman, when he himself must condemn his own blunders, and is obliged against his will to give fortune the whole honour of his success? what is the pride, resulting + A highwayman. Terms used in the cant Dictionar. A housebreaker. |