Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right.——The fortunes of thy house shall totter,—thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it,—thy faith questioned,—thy works belied,—thy wit forgotten,—thy learning trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and COWARDICE, twin ruffians, hired and set on by MALICE in the dark, shall strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes:——The best of us, my dear lad, lie open there,——and trust me,——trust me, _Yorick, when to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an helpless creature shall be sacrificed, ’tis an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with._
_Yorick_ scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read over to him, but with a tear stealing from his eye, and a promissory look attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride his tit with more sobriety.—But, alas, too late!—a grand confederacy with ***** and ***** at the head of it, was formed before the first prediction of it.—The whole plan of the attack, just as _Eugenius_ had foreboded, was put in execution all at once,—with so little mercy on the side of the allies,—and so little suspicion in _Yorick_, of what was carrying on against him,—that when he thought, good easy man! full surely preferment was o’ripening,—they had smote his root, and then he fell, as many a worthy man had fallen before him.
_Yorick_, however, fought it out with all imaginable gallantry for some time; till, overpowered by numbers, and worn out at length by the calamities of the war,—but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which it was carried on,—he threw down the sword; and though he kept up his spirits in appearance to the last, he died, nevertheless, as was generally thought, quite broken-hearted.
What inclined _Eugenius_ to the same opinion was as follows:
A few hours before _Yorick_ breathed his last, _Eugenius_ stept in with an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his drawing _Yorick_’s curtain, and asking how he felt himself, _Yorick_ looking up in his face took hold of his hand,—and after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter,—he would thank him again and again,—he told him, he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever.—I hope not, answered _Eugenius_, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke.—I hope not, _Yorick_, said he.——_Yorick_ replied, with a look up, and a gentle squeeze of _Eugenius_’s hand, and that was all,—but it cut _Eugenius_ to his heart.—Come,—come, _Yorick_, quoth _Eugenius_, wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him,—my dear lad, be comforted,—let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this crisis when thou most wants them;——who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee!——_Yorick_ laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head;—For my part, continued _Eugenius_, crying bitterly as he uttered the words,—I declare I know not, _Yorick_, how to part with thee, and would gladly flatter my hopes, added _Eugenius_, chearing up his voice, that there is still enough left of thee to make a bishop, and that I may live to see it.—I beseech thee, _Eugenius_, quoth _Yorick_, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left hand,—his right being still grasped close in that of _Eugenius_,—I beseech thee to take a view of my head.—I see nothing that ails it, replied _Eugenius._ Then, alas! my friend, said _Yorick_, let me tell you, that ’tis so bruised and mis-shapened with the blows which ***** and *****, and some others have so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with _Sancho Pança_, that should I recover, and “Mitres thereupon be suffered to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit it.”——_Yorick_’s last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips ready to depart as he uttered this:——yet still it was uttered with something of a _Cervantick_ tone;——and as he spoke it, _Eugenius_ could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes;——faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as _Shakespeare_ said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar!
_Eugenius_ was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was broke: he squeezed his hand,——and then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he walked. _Yorick_ followed _Eugenius_ with his eyes to the door,—he then closed them, and never opened them more.
tombstone
He lies buried in the corner of his church-yard, in the parish of ———, under a plain marble slab, which his friend _Eugenius_, by leave of his executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy.
Alas, poor YORICK!
Ten times a day has _Yorick_’s ghost the consolation to hear his monumental inscription read over with such a variety of plaintive tones, as denote a general pity and esteem for him;——a foot-way crossing the church-yard close by the side of his grave,—not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon it,—and sighing as he walks on,
Alas, poor YORICK!
C H A P. XIII
IT is so long since the reader of this rhapsodical work has been parted from the midwife, that it is high time to mention her again to him, merely to put him in mind that there is such a body still in the world, and whom, upon the best judgment I can form upon my own plan at present, I am going to introduce to him for good and all: But as fresh matter may be started, and much unexpected business fall out betwixt the reader and myself, which may require immediate dispatch;——’twas right to take care that the poor woman should not be lost in the mean time;—because when she is wanted, we can no way do without her.
I think I told you that this good woman was a person of no small note and consequence throughout our whole village and township;—that her fame had spread itself to the very out-edge and circumference of that circle of importance, of which kind every soul living, whether he has a shirt to his back or no,——has one surrounding him;—which said circle, by the way, whenever ’tis said that such a one is of great weight and importance in the _world_,——I desire may be enlarged or contracted in your worship’s fancy, in a compound ratio of the station, profession, knowledge, abilities, height and depth (measuring both ways) of the personage brought before you.
In the present case, if I remember, I fixed it about four or five miles, which not only comprehended the whole parish, but extended itself to two or three of the adjacent hamlets in the skirts of the next parish; which made a considerable thing of it. I must add, That she was, moreover, very well looked on at one large grange-house, and some other odd houses and farms within two or three miles, as I said, from the smoke of her own chimney:——But I must here, once for all, inform you, that all this will be more exactly delineated and explain’d in a map, now in the hands of the engraver, which, with many other pieces and developements of this work, will be added to the end of the twentieth volume,—not to swell the work,—I detest the thought of such a thing;—but by way of commentary, scholium, illustration, and key to such passages, incidents, or innuendos as shall be thought to be either of private interpretation, or of dark or doubtful meaning, after my life and my opinions shall have been read over (now don’t forget the meaning of the word) by all the _world_;——which, betwixt you and me, and in spite of all the gentlemen-reviewers in _Great Britain_, and of all that their worships shall undertake to write or say to the contrary,—I am determined shall be the case.—I need not tell your worship, that all this is spoke in confidence.
C H A P. XIV
UPON looking into my mother’s marriage settlement, in order to satisfy myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we could proceed any farther in this history;—I had the good fortune to pop upon the very thing I wanted before I had read a day and a half straight forwards,—it might have taken me up a month;—which shews plainly, that when a man sits down to write a history,—tho’ it be but the history of _Jack Hickathrift_ or _Tom Thumb_, he knows no more than his heels what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his way,—or what a dance he may be led, by one excursion or another, before all is over. Could a historiographer drive on his history, as a muleteer drives on his mule,—straight forward;——for instance, from _Rome_ all the way to _Loretto_, without ever once turning his head aside, either to the right hand or to the left,——he might venture to foretell you to an hour when he should get to his journey’s end;——but the thing is, morally speaking, impossible: For, if he is a man of the least spirit, he will have fifty deviations from a straight line to make with this or that party as he goes along, which he can no ways avoid. He will have views and prospects to himself perpetually soliciting his eye, which he can no more help standing still to look at than he can fly; he will moreover have various Accounts to reconcile: Anecdotes to pick up: Inscriptions to make out: Stories to weave in: Traditions to sift: Personages to call upon: Panegyricks to paste up at this door;