The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great Part 14

JONATHAN. Ay, who indeed? I a.s.sure you, doctor, I had much rather be happy than miserable. But [Footnote: This part was so blotted that it was illegible.]

ORDINARY. Nothing can be plainer. St. . . .

Jonathan. . . . . If once convinced . . . . no man . . lives of .

. . . . whereas sure the clergy . . opportunity . better informed . . . . . all manner of vice

ORDINARY. . are. atheist. . . deist ari.. cinian. hanged.. burnt..

oiled. oasted. . . . dev . . his an . ... ell fire . . ternal da... tion.

JONATHAN. You ... to frighten me out of my wits. But the good ...

is, I doubt not, more merciful than his wicked.. If I should believe all you say, I am sure I should die in inexpressible horrour.

ORDINARY. Despair is sinful. You should place your hopes in repentance and grace; and though it is most true that you are in danger of the judgment, yet there is still room for mercy; and no man, unless excommunicated, is absolutely without hopes of a reprieve.

JONATHAN. I am not without hopes of a reprieve from the cheat yet.

I have pretty good interest; but if I cannot obtain it, you shall not frighten me out of my courage. I will not die like a pimp. D-- n me, what is death? It is nothing but to be with Platos and with Caesars, as the poet says, and all the other great heroes of antiquity. ...

ORDINARY. Ay, all this is very true; but life is sweet for all that; and I had rather live to eternity than go into the company of any such heathens, who are, I doubt not, in h.e.l.l with the devil and his angels; and, as little as you seem to apprehend it, you may find yourself there before you expect it. Where, then, will be your tauntings and your vauntings, your boastings and your braggings? You will then be ready to give more for a drop of water than you ever gave for a bottle of wine.

JONATHAN. Faith, doctor! well minded. What say you to a bottle of wine?

ORDINARY. I will drink no wine with an atheist. I should expect the devil to make a third in such company, for, since he knows you are his, he may be impatient to have his due.

JONATHAN. It is your business to drink with the wicked, in order to amend them.

ORDINARY. I despair of it; and so I consign you over to the devil, who is ready to receive you.

JONATHAN. You are more unmerciful to me than the judge, doctor. He recommended my soul to heaven; and it is your office to shew me the way thither.

ORDINARY. No: the gates are barred against all revilers of the clergy.

JONATHAN. I revile only the wicked ones, if any such are, which cannot affect you, who, if men were preferred in the church by merit only, would have long since been a bishop. Indeed, it might raise any good man's indignation to observe one of your vast learning and abilities obliged to exert them in so low a sphere, when so many of your inferiors wallow in wealth and preferment.

ORDINARY. Why, it must be confessed that there are bad men in all orders; but you should not censure too generally. I must own I might have expected higher promotion; but I have learnt patience and resignation; and I would advise you to the same temper of mind; which if you can attain, I know you will find mercy. Nay, I do now promise you you will. It is true you are a sinner; but your crimes are not of the blackest dye: you are no murderer, nor guilty of sacrilege. And, if you are guilty of theft, you make some atonement by suffering for it, which many others do not.

Happy is it indeed for those few who are detected in their sins, and brought to exemplary punishment for them in this world. So far, therefore, from repining at your fate when you come to the tree, you should exult and rejoice in it; and, to say the truth, I question whether, to a wise man, the catastrophe of many of those who die by a halter is not more to be envied than pitied. Nothing is so sinful as sin, and murder is the greatest of all sins. It follows, that whoever commits murder is happy in suffering for it.

If, therefore, a man who commits murder is so happy in dying for it, how much better must it be for you, who have committed a less crime!

JONATHAN. All this is very true; but let us take a bottle of wine to cheer our spirits.

ORDINARY. Why wine? Let me tell you, Mr. Wild, there is nothing so deceitful as the spirits given us by wine. If you must drink, let us have a bowl of punch--a liquor I the rather prefer, as it is nowhere spoken against in Scripture, and as it is more wholesome for the gravel, a distemper with which I am grievously afflicted.

JONATHAN (having called for a bowl). I ask your pardon, doctor; I should have remembered that punch was your favourite liquor. I think you never taste wine while there is any punch remaining on the table.

ORDINARY. I confess I look on punch to be the more eligible liquor, as well for the reasons I before mentioned as likewise for one other cause, viz., it is the properest for a DRAUGHT. I own I took it a little unkind of you to mention wine, thinking you knew my palate.

JONATHAN. You are in the right; and I will take a swinging cup to your being made a bishop.

ORDINARY. And I will wish you a reprieve in as large a draught.

Come, don't despair; it is yet time enough to think of dying; you have good friends, who very probably may prevail for you. I have known many a man reprieved who had less reason to expect it.

JONATHAN. But if I should flatter myself with such hopes, and be deceived--what then would become of my soul?

ORDINARY. Pugh! Never mind your soul--leave that to me; I will render a good account of it, I warrant you. I have a sermon in my pocket which may be of some use to you to hear. I do not value myself on the talent of preaching, since no man ought to value himself for any gift in this world. But perhaps there are not many such sermons. But to proceed, since we have nothing else to do till the punch comes. My text is the latter part of a verse only:

---To the Greeks FOOLISHNESS.

The occasion of these words was princ.i.p.ally that philosophy of the Greeks which at that time had overrun great part of the heathen world, had poisoned, and, as it were, puffed up their minds with pride, so that they disregarded all kinds of doctrine in comparison of their own; and, however safe and however sound the learning of the others might be, yet, if it anywise contradicted their own laws, customs, and received opinions, AWAY WITH IT--IT IS NOT FOR US. It was to the Greeks FOOLISHNESS.

In the former part, therefore, of my discourse on these words, I shall princ.i.p.ally confine myself to the laying open and demonstrating the great emptiness and vanity of this philosophy, with which these idle and absurd sophists were so proudly blown up and elevated.

And here I shall do two things: First, I shall expose the matter; and, secondly, the manner of this absurd philosophy.

And first, for the first of these, namely, the matter. Now here we may retort the unmannerly word which our adversaries have audaciously thrown in our faces; for what was all this mighty matter of philosophy, this heap of knowledge, which was to bring such large harvests of honour to those who sowed it, and so greatly and n.o.bly to enrich the ground on which it fell; what was it but FOOLISHNESS? An inconsistent heap of nonsense, of absurdities and contradictions, bringing no ornament to the mind in its theory, nor exhibiting any usefulness to the body in its practice. What were all the sermons and the savings, the fables and the morals of all these wise men, but, to use the word mentioned in my text once more, FOOLISHNESS? What was their great master Plato, or their other great light Aristotle? Both fools, mere quibblers and sophists, idly and vainly attached to certain ridiculous notions of their own, founded neither on truth nor on reason. Their whole works are a strange medley of the greatest falsehoods, scarce covered over with the colour of truth: their precepts are neither borrowed from nature nor guided by reason; mere fictions, serving only to evince the dreadful height of human pride; in one word, FOOLISHNESS. It may be perhaps expected of me that I should give some instances from their works to prove this charge; but, as to transcribe every pa.s.sage to my purpose would be to transcribe their whole works, and as in such a plentiful crop it is difficult to chuse; instead of trespa.s.sing on your patience, I shall conclude this first head with a.s.serting what I have so fully proved, and what may indeed be inferred from the text, that the philosophy of the Greeks was FOOLISHNESS.

Proceed we now, in the second place, to consider the manner in which this inane and simple doctrine was propagated. And here--But here the punch by entring waked Mr. Wild, who was fast asleep, and put an end to the sermon; nor could we obtain any further account of the conversation which pa.s.sed at this interview.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WILD PROCEEDS TO THE HIGHEST CONSUMMATION OF HUMAN GREATNESS.

The day now drew nigh when our great man was to exemplify the last and n.o.blest act of greatness by which any hero can signalise himself. This was the day of execution, or consummation, or apotheosis (for it is called by different names), which was to give our hero an opportunity of facing death and d.a.m.nation, without any fear in his heart, or, at least, without betraying any symptoms of it in his countenance. A completion of greatness which is heartily to be wished to every great man; nothing being more worthy of lamentation than when Fortune, like a lazy poet, winds up her catastrophe aukwardly, and, bestowing too little care on her fifth act, dismisses the hero with a sneaking and private exit, who had in the former part of the drama performed such notable exploits as must promise to every good judge among the spectators a n.o.ble, public, and exalted end.

But she was resolved to commit no such error in this instance. Our hero was too much and too deservedly her favourite to be neglected by her in his last moments; accordingly all efforts for a reprieve were vain, and the name of Wild stood at the head of those who were ordered for execution.

From the time he gave over all hopes of life, his conduct was truly great and admirable. Instead of shewing any marks of dejection or contrition, he rather infused more confidence and a.s.surance into his looks. He spent most of his hours in drinking with his friends and with the good man above commemorated. In one of these compotations, being asked whether he was afraid to die, he answered, "D--n me, it is only a dance without music." Another time, when one expressed some sorrow for his misfortune, as he termed it, he said with great fierceness--"A man can die but once." Again, when one of his intimate acquaintance hinted his hopes, that he would die like a man, he c.o.c.ked his hat in defiance, and cried out greatly--"Zounds! who's afraid?"

Happy would it have been for posterity, could we have retrieved any entire conversation which pa.s.sed at this season, especially between our hero and his learned comforter; but we have searched many pasteboard records in vain.

On the eve of his apotheosis, Wild's lady desired to see him, to which he consented. This meeting was at first very tender on both sides; but it could not continue so, for unluckily, some hints of former miscarriages intervening, as particularly when she asked him how he could have used her so barbarously once as calling her b--, and whether such language became a man, much less a gentleman, Wild flew into a violent pa.s.sion, and swore she was the vilest of b--s to upbraid him at such a season with an unguarded word spoke long ago. She replied, with many tears, she was well enough served for her folly in visiting such a brute; but she had one comfort, however, that it would be the last time he could ever treat her so; that indeed she had some obligation to him, for that his cruelty to her would reconcile her to the fate he was to- morrow to suffer; and, indeed, nothing but such brutality could have made the consideration of his shameful death (so this weak woman called hanging), which was now inevitable, to be borne even without madness. She then proceeded to a recapitulation of his faults in an exacter order, and with more perfect memory, than one would have imagined her capable of; and it is probable would have rehea.r.s.ed a complete catalogue had not our hero's patience failed him, so that with the utmost fury and violence he caught her by the hair and kicked her, as heartily as his chains would suffer him, out of the room.

At length the morning came which Fortune at his birth had resolutely ordained for the consummation of our hero's GREATNESS: he had himself indeed modestly declined the public honour she intended him, and had taken a quant.i.ty of laudanum, in order to retire quietly off the stage; but we have already observed, in the course of our wonderful history, that to struggle against this lady's decrees is vain and impotent; and whether she hath determined you shall be hanged or be a prime minister, it is in either case lost labour to resist. Laudanum, therefore, being unable to stop the breath of our hero, which the fruit of hemp- seed, and not the spirit of poppy-seed, was to overcome, he was at the usual hour attended by the proper gentleman appointed for that purpose, and acquainted that the cart was ready. On this occasion he exerted that greatness of courage which hath been so much celebrated in other heroes; and, knowing it was impossible to resist, he gravely declared he would attend them. He then descended to that room where the fetters of great men are knocked off in a most solemn and ceremonious manner. Then shaking hands with his friends (to wit, those who were conducting him to the tree), and drinking their healths in a b.u.mper of brandy, he ascended the cart, where he was no sooner seated than he received the acclamations of the mult.i.tude, who were highly ravished with his GREATNESS.

The cart now moved slowly on, being preceded by a troop of horse- guards bearing javelins in their hands, through streets lined with crowds all admiring the great behaviour of our hero, who rode on, sometimes sighing, sometimes swearing, sometimes singing or whistling, as his humour varied.

When he came to the tree of glory, he was welcomed with an universal shout of the people, who were there a.s.sembled in prodigious numbers to behold a sight much more rare in populous cities than one would reasonably imagine it should be, viz., the proper catastrophe of a great man.

But though envy was, through fear, obliged to join the general voice in applause on this occasion, there were not wanting some who maligned this completion of glory, which was now about to be fulfilled to our hero, and endeavoured to prevent it by knocking him on the head as he stood under the tree, while the ordinary was performing his last office. They therefore began to batter the cart with stones, brick-bats, dirt, and all manner of mischievous weapons, some of which, erroneously playing on the robes of the ecclesiastic, made him so expeditious in his repet.i.tion, that with wonderful alacrity he had ended almost in an instant, and conveyed himself into a place of safety in a hackney-coach, where he waited the compulsion with a temper of mind described in these verses:

Suave mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis, E terra alterius magnum spectare laborem.