THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. I LIKE to meet a sweep-understand menot a grown sweeper-old chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive-but one of those tender novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aërial ascents not seldom anticipating the sun-rise? I have a kindly yearning toward these dim specks-poor blots-innocent blacknesses I reverence these young Africans of our own growth these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys,) in the nipping air of a December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind. When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness their operation! to see a chit no bigger than one's-self, enter, one knew not by what process, into what seemed the fauces Averni-to pursue him in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark stifling caverns, horrid shades! to shudder with the idea that "now, surely, he must be lost forever!"-to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered day-light- and then (O fulness of delight!) running out of doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag waved over a conquered citadel! I seem to remember having been told, that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle certainly; not much unlike the old stage direction in Macbeth, where the " Apparition of a child crowned, with a tree in his hand, rises." Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to give him twopence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a tester. There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have understood to be the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate may relish it; for myself, with every deference to the judicious Mr. Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop (the only one he avers in London) for the vending of this "wholesome and pleasant beverage," on the southside of Fleet-street, as thou approachest Bridge-street- the only Salopian house-I have never yet adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commended ingredients a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise not uninstructed in dietetical elegancies, sup it up with avidity. I know not by what particular conformation of the organ it happens, but I have always found that this composition is surprisingly, gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper-whether the oily particles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften the fuliginous concretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections) to adhere to the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practitioners; or whether Nature, sensible that she had mingled too much of bitter wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth her sassafrass for a sweet lenitive-but so it is, that no possible taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic animals-catswhen they purr over a new-found spring of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy can inculcate. precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and shame enough—yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had happened when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered me. There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob, and to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular, till the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a previous weeping, and Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the only Salopian house; yet be it known to thee, reader-if thou art one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from stalls, and under open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humbler customers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan leaving his bed to resume the premature soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all with labours of the day, jostle, not unfrequently such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that to the manifest disconcerting of the former, Hogarth but Hogarth has got him for the honours of the pavement. It is the already (how could he miss him?) in the time when, in summer, between the expired March to Finchley, grinning at the pieman and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the there he stood, as he stands in the picture, kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever least satisfactory odours. The rake, who with such a maximum of glee, and minimum wisheth to dissipate his o'ernight vapours in of mischief, in his mirth - for the grin of a more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in fume, as he passeth; but the artisan stops to it that I could have been content, if the taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast. honour of a gentleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and his mockery till midnight. I am by theory obdurate to the seductive Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is a casket presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should take leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as when This is saloop-the precocious herb-woman's darling the delight of the early gardener, who transports his smoking cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith to Covent-ness of what are called a fine set of teeth. garden's famed piazzas—the delight, and oh! I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him, shouldst thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the grateful steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost but three-halfpennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an added halfpenny)—so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'er-charged secretions from thy worseplaced hospitalities, curl up a lighter volume to the welkin so may the descending soot never taint thy costly well-ingredienced soups-nor the odious cry, quick-reaching from street to street, of the fired chimney, invite the rattling engines from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation thy peace and pocket! I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than forgiveness. In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with my accustomed A sable cloud Turns forth her silver lining on the night. It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a badge of better days; a hint of nobility: and, doubtless, under the obscuring darkness and double night of their forlorn disguisement, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine and almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many noble Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and the recovery of the young Montague be but a solitary instance of good fortune out of many irreparable and hopeless defiliations. My pleasant friend JEM WHITE was so impressed with a belief of metamorphoses In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, like this frequently taking place, that in some a few years since — under a ducal canopy - sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these (that seat of the Howards is an object of poor changelings, he instituted an annual curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was which the late duke was especially a connois- his pleasure to officiate as host and waiter. seur) encircled with curtains of delicatest It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield, crimson, with starry coronets inwoven upon the yearly return of the fair of St. folded between a pair of sheets whiter and Bartholomew. Cards were issued a week softer than the lap where Venus lulled before to the master-sweeps in and about the Ascanius was discovered by chance, after metropolis, confining the invitation to their all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, younger fry. Now and then an elderly fast asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The stripling would get in among us, and be goodlittle creature, having somehow confounded naturedly winked at; but our main body his passage among the intricacies of those were infantry. One unfortunate wight lordly chimneys, by some unknown aperture indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had alighted upon this magnificent chamber; had intruded himself into our party, but by and, tired with his tedious explorations, was tokens was providentially discovered in time unable to resist the delicious invitement to to be no chimney-sweeper, (all is not soot repose, which he there saw exhibited; so which looks so,) was quoited out of the creeping between the sheets very quietly, presence with universal indignation, as not laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept having on the wedding garment; but in like a young Howard. general the greatest harmony prevailed. The place chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agree‐ able hubbub of that vanity; but remote enough not to be obvious to the interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues dilated at the savour. JAMES WHITE, as head waiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trusty companion BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first table - for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some general expression of thanks for the honour Such is the account given to the visiters at the Castle. But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I had just hinted at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under such a penalty as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far above his pretensions-is this probable, I would ask, if the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, when he was used to be lapped by his mother, or his nurse, in just "The King,"-“ ↑ every sentiment with a "Gentlemen, give the company had done him, his inaugural Golden lads and lasses must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust- A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS, IN THE METROPOLIS. THE all-sweeping besom of societarian re- They were the oldest and the honourablest formation your only modern Alcides' club form of pauperism. Their appeals were to to rid the time of its abuses-is uplift with our common nature; less revolting to an inmany-handed sway to extirpate the last genuous mind than to be a suppliant to the fluttering tatters of the bugbear MENDICITY particular humours or caprice of any fellowfrom the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags-creature, or set of fellow-creatures, parochial staves, dogs, and crutches- the whole men- or societarian. Theirs were the only rates dicant fraternity, with all their baggage, uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in the are fast posting out of the purlieus of this assessment. eleventh persecution. From the crowded crossing, from the corners of streets and turnings of alleys, the parting Genius of Beggary is "with sighing sent." There was a dignity springing from the very depth of their desolation; as to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man, than to go in livery. I do not approve of this wholesale going The greatest spirits have felt this in their to work, this impertinent crusado, or bellum reverses; and when Dionysius from king ad exterminationem, proclaimed against a turned schoolmaster, do we feel anything species. Much good might be sucked from towards him but contempt? Could Vanthese Beggars. dyke have made a picture of him, swaying a ferula for a sceptre, which would have No one properly contemns a Beggar. Poverty affected our minds with the same heroic is a comparative thing, and each degree of pity, the same compassionate admiration, with which we regard his Belisarius begging for an obolum? Would the moral have been more graceful, more pathetic? it is mocked by its "neighbour grice." Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told. Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to The Blind Beggar in the legend-the father save excite a smile. Every scornful comof pretty Bessy-whose story doggrel rhymes panion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse and ale-house signs cannot so degrade or against it. Poor man reproaches poor man attenuate but that some sparks of a lustrous in the street with impolitic mention of his spirit will shine through the disguisements condition, his own being a shade better, - this noble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No was) and memorable sport of fortune, fleeing rascally comparative insults a Beggar, or from the unjust sentence of his liege lord, thinks of weighing purses with him. He is stript of all, and seated on the flowering not in the scale of comparison. He is not green of Bethnal, with his more fresh and under the measure of property. He conspringing daughter by his side, illumining fessedly hath none any more than a dog or his rags and his beggary-would the child a sheep. No one twitteth him with ostentaand parent have cut a better figure doing tion above his means. No one accuses him the honours of a counter, or expiating their fallen condition upon the three-foot eminence of some sempstering shop-board? In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just antipode to your King. The poets and romancical writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would call them,) when they would most sharply and feelingly paint a reverse of fortune, never stop till they have brought down their hero in good earnest to rags and the wallet. The depth of the descent illustrates the height he falls from. There is no medium which can be presented to the imagination without offence. There is no breaking the fall. Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his garments, till he answer "mere nature;" and Cresseid, fallen from a prince's love, must extend her pale arms, pale with other whiteness than of beauty, supplicating lazar arms with bell and clap-dish. The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a converse policy, when they would express scorn of greatness without the pity, they show us an Alexander in the shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis getting up foul linen. How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had declined his affections upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the imagination at all violated when we read the "true ballad," where King Cophetua woos the beggar maid? Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity, but pity alloyed with contempt. of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbour seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes to law with him. If I were not the independent gentleman that I am, rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness of my mind, to be a Beggar. Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required to put on court mourning. He weareth all colours, fearing none. His costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become bail or surety for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe. The Mendicants of this great city were so many of her sights, her lions. I can no more spare them than I could the Cries of London. |