'Who are they?'

'Enquire for the father at St. Stephen's; and for the mother at Westminster-hall. I a.s.sure you they are both enraptured at their own offspring. The old lady sits in state, and daily praises her babes with the most doating loquacity. And she does this with so grave a face that it is impossible to forbear laughing, when you hear her. She is so serious, so solemn, so convinced that every thing she utters is oracular, and so irascible if she does but so much as smell a doubt concerning the beauty and perfection of her brats, that there is no scene in the world which tickles my imagination so irresistibly as to watch her maternal visage during her eulogiums, while the big-wigs are nodding approbation; or the contortions of her physiognomy, when any cross incident happens to impede the torrent of her fondness. With all due respect to her motherly functions, she is a very freakish and laughable old lady.'

'You have a turn for ridicule: but I confess, if I thought your picture were true, I do not believe my sensations would be so pleasant as yours appear to be.'

'And why, in the name of common sense?'

'How can one laugh at the mistakes and miseries of mankind?'

'For a very simple reason: because it is the only way that can render them endurable. None but a fool would cry at what cannot be corrected.'

The colloquy between my companions here took another direction, less interesting to me, and left me to pause and ruminate. This picture, said I, is satirical I own: but surely it is unjust. Blackstone, beyond all doubt, understood the science profoundly; and his account of it is very different indeed.

I turned back to the pa.s.sage I have quoted.

'It distinguishes the criterions of right and wrong; teaches us to establish the one and prevent punish or redress the other; employs in its theory the n.o.blest faculties of the soul, and exerts in its practice the cardinal virtues of the heart: it is universal in its use and extent, is accommodated to each individual, and yet comprehends the whole community.'

How just, how enn.o.bling, how sublime is this praise! To compare it to the doatings of an old woman is extremely false: nay is pernicious; for, by exciting laughter, it misleads the judgment.

My companions being silent, I was impelled to address myself to Trottman. 'I wonder, sir,' said I, 'that you should be such an enemy to law.'

'I an enemy! You totally mistake. I am its fast friend. And with good reason: I find it a very certain source of ease and affluence even to the most stupid blockheads, if they will but drudge on; and of riches, honours, and hereditary fame, to men of but very moderate talents.

I may surely expect to come in for my share; and therefore should be a rank fool indeed were I its enemy. I leave that to innovating fanatics. Let them dream, and rave, and write: while I mind my own affairs, take men as they are and ever must be, profit by supporting present establishments, and look down with contempt on the puppies who prate philosophy, and bawl for reform.'

I was stung. Conscious of the turn my own thoughts had taken, I suspected that he had divined this from some words which I might have dropped, and that his attack was personal: I therefore eagerly replied--'Your language, sir, is unqualified.'

'I meant no offence. If you are a reformer, I beg your pardon. I never quarrel about what I have heard certain pompous gentlemen call principles.'

'Then all those persons, who differ in opinion from you, are puppies; and pompous gentlemen?'

'Oh dear, no, sir! Only all those that are absent. The company, you know, according to the received rule, is excepted.'

There was something impudently humble and satirical in his look, while he uttered this: yet so contrived as to make the man appear a pettish angry blockhead, who should take offence at it; and I certainly was not inclined to quarrel with my new comrades, the first day of our acquaintance.

Beside, Trottman was a little insignificant man, in appearance; pot-bellied, of a swarthy complexion, but with keenness, cunning, and mockery in his eye; and whose form and figure, as well as his turn of mind, must have made it ridiculous to have quarrelled with him. I therefore waited for some more fortunate opportunity, to repay him in his own coin: for I was as unwilling to be vanquished by wit, and satire, as by force of argument, or of arms.

Rudge, whose temper was more placid but who had an enquiring mind, said, 'You do not know my friend Trottman yet, Mr. Trevor. He cares but little who has the most reason, so that he may have the most laughter.'

'Life is a journey,' added Trottman; 'and, if I can travel on terra firma, with a clear sky, and a smiling landscape, let those that please put to sea in a butcher's tray, and sail in quest of foul weather.'

'Yes, sir, but the search of ease is the loss of happiness; and to fly from danger is the likeliest way to meet it: that is, when you either seek or fly without a guide.'

'And who is this guide to safety?'

'It is, what you appear to hold in contempt, Principle.'

'Ha, ha, ha! Right! The blind leading the blind. Conjure up one phantom to seek for another. How prodigiously we improve!'

'From what you have said, I am not surprised that you should consider principle as a phantom. But you only quarrel with the word: for, as principle can mean nothing more than a rule of action, deduced from past experience and influencing our present conduct, you, certainly, like other men, act from principle. It is a moral duty to shun pain, and keep your fingers out of the fire.'

'Not if I want to sear up a wound.'

'You are excellent at a shifting blow. But why would you apply the cautery? Because principle, guided by experience, has previously told you that to cauterize is in some cases the way to heal.'

'But empirics, who cauterize without healing, are daily multiplying upon us.'

'Were that granted, it is but empiric opposed to empiric. Men have been groaning under their sufferings for ages; and, since ages have proved that the old prescriptions were insufficient, I can neither see the danger nor the blame of following new.'

'Zeal may be purblind, and perhaps could not see a guillotine: but her neck might chance to feel it.'

'Then you think a guillotine a more terrible thing than a halter, an axe, or perhaps even a rack?'

'It will do more work in less time.'

'And you suppose it to be principle, or if you please innovation, that has given this machine its momentum?'

'Suppose! Is there any doubt?'

'Infinite. I imagine it to be given, if we may be allowed to personify, neither by Innovation nor Establishment; but by the rashness and ill temper with which these heroines have mutually maintained their positions. Innovation struck the ball at first too impetuously: but Establishment took it at the rebound, and returned it with triple violence. Brunswickian manifestoes, and exterminating wars, were not ill adapted to raise the diabolical spirit of revenge.

An endeavour to starve a nation, which it was found difficult to exterminate by fire and sword, was not a very charitable act in Madam Establishment. Her swindling forgeries were little better; and that her turn should come, to be starved and swindled, is not miraculous: though it is deplorable. Heaven avert her claims to the guillotine!'

My antagonist had no immediate reply; and Rudge exclaimed, with some satisfaction, 'Why, Trottman, you have met with your match!'

'Not I, indeed,' answered he, peevishly. 'I am only lost in a labyrinth of words; and am waiting for Principle to come and be my guide. But I am afraid she carries a dark lanthorn, which will but blind those that look.'

'I suspect, sir,' said I, 'you are less at loss for a joke than an argument; and that you prefer bush-fighting. For my own part, I love the fair and open field of enquiry.'

'As this is a field that has no limits, nor any end to its cross roads, I am content, as you say, to sit down under my hedge and be quiet.'

'No, no; I did not say that: for I see you love to draw a sly bow at pa.s.sengers.'

'I have now and then brought down a gull, or an owl.'

'Have you shot any of those birds to-day?'

I felt no compunction in making this triumphant retort to his sneer.

And here our dialogue ended. Though it was a kind of declaration of war; I mean a war of words; which, as we became more acquainted, was occasionally waged with some asperity.

But, in one respect, Trottman was my superior. To sneer was habitual to him: but it was always done in a manner which seemed to indicate that he himself had no suspicion of any such intent. So that he continually appeared to keep his temper; and never triumphed so effectually as when he could provoke me to lose mine. On which occasions his additional conciliatory sarcasms, accompanied with smiles denoting the enjoyment of his victory, never failed to make me feel my own littleness. And this is a lesson for which I consider myself as very highly in his debt.

I now pursued my reading; and employed the rest of the day in beginning to copy the ma.n.u.script precedents, that were to capacitate me for the practice of law: for the number of which, that were in his possession, Mr. Ventilate was famed.

My ardour however had felt some trifling abatement, by the very different picture and panegyric of the law as given by Trottman, opposed to that I had been contemplating. But I had this very powerful consolation: that, as Trottman knew very little of what I supposed to be the true principles of politics, it was highly probable he was no better acquainted with those of law.

CHAPTER XV