Paul Clifford

e, my godlike g

ratagems - the

rgil, AEne

thence, t

b

s, gayly quoting Horace, gravely flanking a fly from the leader of Lord Dunshunner. Now a more serious yet not a less supercilious air had settled upon his features; the pretence of fashion had given way to the pretence of wisdom; and from the man of

area in quest of a silver spoon; but houses of correction are not made for men who have received an enlightened education - who abhor your petty thefts as much as a justice of peace. can do - who ought never to be termed dishonest in their dealings, but, if they are found out, 'unlucky in their speculations'! A pretty thing, indeed, that there should be distinctions of rank among other members of the community, and none among us! Where's your boasted B

s moderate Whig run on for the hour together during those long nights, c

is eloquence, our hero, desirous of a change in the conversation, reminded Augustus of his promise to communic

e! My first ancestor was Tommy Linn (his heir became Tom L

n is a Scot

ald and his b

p made of a

man is To

y ancestor's descendants darkly insinuated

d his wife, and

l into the f

undermost go

nough!" said

ues and to moderate Whigs; for both are undermost in the worl

d to become a bishop - Greek being, next to interest, the best road to the mitre. These two achievements were liberally paid; so I took a lodging in a first floor, and resolved to make a bold stroke for a wife. What do you think I did? - nay, never guess; it would be hopeless. First, I went to the best tailor, and had my clothes sewn on my back; secondly, I got the peerage and its genealogies by heart; thirdly, I marched one night, with the coolest deliberation possible, into the house of a duchess, who was giving an immense rout! The newspapers had inspired me with this idea. I had read of the vast crowds which a lady 'at home' sought to win to her house. I had read of staircases impassable, and ladies carried out in a fit; and common-sense told me how impossible it was that the fair receiver should be acquainted with the legality of every importation. I therefore resolved to try my chance, and - entered the body of Augustus Tomlinson, as a piece of stolen goods. Faith! the first night I was shy - I stuck to the staircase, and ogled an old maid of quality, whom I had heard announced as Lady Margaret Sinclair. Doubtless she had never been ogled before; and she was evidently enraptured with my glances. The next night I read of a ball at the Countess of ----'s. My heart beat as if I were going to be whipped; but I plucked up courage, and repaired to her ladyship's. There I again beheld the divine Lady Margaret; and observ

head to go to a great dinner-party at the Duke of Dashwell's. I went, dined

most fashionable parties - nobody knows - Duke of Dashwell's ye

to Lord A---'s. The fact is, my affairs were in confusion - I was greatly in debt. I knew it was necessary to finish my conquest over Lady Margaret as soon as possible; and Lord A---'s seemed the best place for the purpose. Nay, I thought delay so dangerous, after the cursed paragraph, that a day might unmask me, and it would be better therefore not to lose an hour in finishing the play of 'The Stranger' with the farce of 'The Honey Moon.' Behold me then at Lord A---'s, leading off Lady Margaret t

d of a ballroom, I could have talked loudly enough; but I was under a spell.

ding me with a grave sternne

aret, dropping my palsied arm, and gazing on

e room seemed turned into burning-glasses, and blistered the very skin on my face. I heard a gentle shriek, as I lef

ary dupes must have felt when the discovery was made! What a pill for the good matrons who had coupled my image with that of some filial Mary or Jane - ha, ha, ha! The triumph was almost worth the mortification. However, as I said before, I fell melancholy on it, especially as my duns became menacing. So I went to consult with my cousin the bookseller. He recommended me to compose for the journals, and obtained me an offer. I went to work very patiently for a short time, and contracted some agreeable friendships with gentlemen whom I met at an ordinary in St. James's. Still, my duns, though I paid them by driblets, were the plague of my life. I confessed as much to one of my new friends. 'Come to Bath with me,' quoth he, 'for a week, and you shall return as rich as a Jew.' I accepted the offer, and went to Bath in my friend's chariot. He took the name of Lord Dunshunner, an Irish peer who had never been out of Tipperary, and was not therefore likely to be known at Bath.

ondon rather precipitately. Lord Dunshunner joined me in Edinburgh. D-- it, instead of doing anything there, we were done! The veriest urchin that ever crept through the High Street is more than a match fo

he employed me in the confidential capacity of finding quotations for him. I classed these alphabetically and under three heads - 'Parliamentary, Literary, Dining-out.' These were again subdivided into 'Fine,' 'Learned,' and 'Jocular;' so that my master knew at once where to refer for genius, wisdom, and wit. He was delighted with my management of his intellects. In compliment to him, I paid more attention to politics than I had done before; for he was a 'g

o you

eet. The Tory papers got hold of it; and my master, in a change of ministers, was declared by George the Third to be 'too gay for a Chancellor of the Exchequer.' An old gentleman who had had fifteen childr

the strictest inquiry, found

ards. I especially disaffected the inequality of riches; I looked moodily on every carriage that passed; I even frowned like a second Catiline at the steam of a gentle man's kitchen

suddenly encountered one of the fine friends I had picked up at

!" crie

bottle together. Wine made me communicative; it also opened my comrade's heart. He aske

rtunate

pick up any more purses. Fate favoured me, and I lived for a long time the life of the blessed. Oh, Paul, you know not - yo

sort, I rode once into a country town, and saw a crowd assembled in one corner; I joined it, and my feelings! - beheld my poor friend Viscount Dunshunner just about to be hanged! I rode off as fast as I could - I thought I saw Jack Ketch at my heels. My horse threw me at a hedge, and I broke my collar-bone. In the confinement that ensued gloomy ideas floated before me. I did not like to

little man with a fine, bald, benevolent head; and after a long conversation which he was pleased to hold with me, I became one of his quill-drivers. I don't know how it was, but by little and little I rose in my master's good graces. I propitiated him, I fancy, by disposing of my L500 according to his advice; he laid it out for me, on what he said was famous security, on a landed estate. Mr. Asgrave was of social habits - he had a capital house and excellent wines. As he was not very particular in his company, nor ambitious of visiting the great, he often suffered me to make one of his table, and was pleased to hold long arguments with me about the ancients. I soon found out that my master was a great moral philosopher; and being myself in weak health, sated with the ordinary pursuits of the world, in which my experience had forestalled my years, and naturally of a contemplative temperament, I turned my attention to the moral studies which so fascinated my employer. I read through nine shelves full of metaphysicians, and knew exactly the points in which those illustrious thinker

my daughter was the plague of my life, and I wanted some one to take her off my hands; secondly, because I required your assistance

I, falling on my knees

t a shilling! You will put in just as much as I do. You will put in rather more; for you once put in L500, which has been

con 'On the Advancement of Learning,' and made no reply till I was cooled by explosion. You will perceive that when passion subsided, I necessarily saw that nothing was left for me but adopting my father-inlaw's proposal. Thus, by the fatality which attended me at the very time I meant to reform, I was forced into scoundrelism, and

as 'the stranger' or 'the adv

ll, we went on splendidly enough for about a year. Meanwhile I was wonderfully improved in philosophy. You have no idea how a scolding wife sublimes and rarefies one's intellect. Thunder clears the air, you know! At length, unhappily for my fame (for I contemplated a magnificent moral history of man, which, had she lived a year longer, I should have completed), my wife died in child-bed. My father-inlaw and I were talking over the event,

on as my mind had made the grand discovery which Mr. Asgrave had made before me, that one should live according to a system - for if you do wrong, it is then your system that errs, not you - I took to the road, without any of those stings of conscience which had hitherto annoyed me in such adventures. I formed one of a capital knot of 'Free Agents,' whom I will introduce to you some day or other, and I soon rose to distinction among them. But about six weeks ago, not less than formerly preferring byways to highways, I attempted to possess myself of a carriage, and sell it at discount. I was acquitted on the felony, but sent hither by Justice Burnflat on the misdemeanour. Thus far, my young friend, hath as yet proceeded the life of Augustus Tomlinson." The history of this gentleman made a deep impression on Paul. The impression was strengthened by the conversations subsequently holden with Augustus. That worthy was a dangerous and s

e regulations against frequent visitors were not then so strictly enforced as we understand them t

only say, as a proof of Paul's tenderness of heart, that when he took leave of the good matron, and bade "God bless her," his voice faltered, and the tears sto

r my parents, I believe I have little to be grateful for or proud of in that quarter. My poor mother, by all accounts, seems scarcely to have had even the brute virtue of maternal tenderness; and in all human likelihood I shall never know whether I had one

philosophical complexion from the conversations he had lately h

we quarrel

to his customa

his Tomlinson proposed to escape; for to the pipe which reached from the door to the wall, in a slanting and easy direction, there was a sort of skirting-board; and a dexterous and nimble man might readily, by the help of this board, convey himself along the pipe, until the progress of that useful conductor (which was happily very brief) was stopped by the sum

, which I noted especially last week, when we were set to work in the garden, and which has n

imb the stubbornest wall in Christendom, if one has but th

rving his comrade did no

sage Augustus replied; he

tent with virtue, and that strict code of morals by whi

" cried Paul,

emnly, without regard to the exclamation, "th

the other end of the stone box - for i

eded not the uncourteous interruption - "but opinion does not always influence conduct; and although it may be virtuous to murder the watchman, I have not the heart t

ed to further conversation with Augustus; and it was only from the belief that the

tchman stood, overturned its contents. The watchman was good-natured enough to assist him in refilling the barrow; and Tomlinson profited so well by the occasion that that night he informed Paul that they would have nothing to dread from the watchman's vigilance. "He has

that, I think we may manage the first ascent with less danger than you imagine. The mornings of late have been very foggy; they are almost dark at the hour we go to chapel. Let you and I close the fil

little difficulty in gaining the garden. The only precautions we need use are, to wait for a very dar

" added Augustus. "You counsel admirably; and one of these days, if you are

f all the negroes of Africa had been stewed down into air." "You might have cut the fog with a knife,"

ong its sinuous course, gained the wall before he had even fetched his breath. Rather more clumsily, Augustus followed his friend's example. Once his foot slipped, and he was all but over. He extended his hands involuntarily, and caught Paul by the leg. Happily our hero had then gained the wall, to whic

hoarse whisper, before he descended fro

those ill

thers that he

ecaution in his power, was the answer

om his dress a thickish cord, which he procured some days before from the turnkey, and fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over the wall. Now the wall had (as walls of great strength mostly have) an overhanging sort of battlement on either side; and the stone, when flung over and drawn to the tether of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were fastened to the wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw himself up to the top of the barrier. He performed this feat with gymnastic address, like one who had often practised it; albe

and diligently avoiding the highroad, they continued to fly onward, until they had advanced several miles into "the bowels of the land." At that time "the bowels" of Augustus Tomlinson began to remind him of their demands; and he accordingly suggested the desirability of their seizing the first peasant they encountered, and causing him to exchange clothes with one of the fugitives, who would thus be enabled to enter a public-house and provide for their mutual necessities. Paul agreed to this proposition, and accordingly they watched their opportunity and caught a ploughman. Augustus stripped him of his frock, hat, and worst