| 96 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
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What is experience but the sum
Of incidents and trifles that escape
The heedless eye. But being marked, with care
And conduct, make the thoughtful man a sage.
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In running over two of my early newspaper engagements, I have stepped beyond the dates of several matters of a personal nature, which merely require notice in an autobiographical work.
A narrow escape from an ignoble death occurred to me at the time the grand
theatrical question between Kemble and Cooke divided public opinion, and filled Drury Lane and
Covent Garden theatres every night. The rival Richards was a grand
theme; but on the occasion to which I allude, the competition was between the cast of the
comedy of “Every Man in his
Humour;” both, indeed, performed in a superlative manner, almost every
character being a pattern of dramatic skill and effect. Mr. D.
Pollock and I were on our way to the theatre, and waiting opposite the
narrow passage in Drury Lane which leads to the house, till a waggon passed by; a
post-office light cart galloped up, and endeavouring to clear the waggon, caught the wheel,
and was violently upset. The arm alighted on my head, and from that hour (near seven
o’clock) to long past midnight, all medical efforts to restore sensibility were tried
| PAST TIMES. | 97 |
Another of my exploits was a walk from London to Edinburgh. The fancy took
me; and pretending a wager, to preclude the idea of poverty, I equipped myself very lightly
for the journey, and started early on a Monday morning. I had taken a farewell dinner with
Mr. Kerr, in Golden Square, on the Saturday,
and, curiously enough, met Sir D. Carnegie, who was
about to set out for Scotland with his lady and two children (I think) on the following
day. We, laughingly, said we should see each other on the road; and it turned out that,
after Tuesday, there was not a day that we did not pass and repass each other several
times. His carriage, and led horse, were no match for my pedestrian activity; and yet we
arrived at the Pilgrim Inn, Newcastle, on the same night (Saturday).
| 98 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
I talked with everybody on the road, especially the lower orders of my fellow-travellers on foot; and to this day I have not forgotten the remarkable amount of new intelligence which I gathered. At our first social meeting at the Pilgrim, on Saturday, I perfectly astonished Sir D. Carnegie with the excess of my information over his; as he had been flattering himself with the extent of his inquiries and acquisitions on horseback. To learn what is worth knowing about any country, it may be relied upon that there is nothing like a well-arranged and properly-supported humble walk.
| PAST TIMES. | 99 |
From Newcastle, after seeing the then famous glass-works at Shields, I wandered by Durham and Alnwick, and the delightful Coquet, with its memorable hermit’s cave—
“Turn, Angelina, ever
dear, &c.” |
One of the melancholy recollections of this period is that of my first visit to an East Indiaman, a splendid ship, in which I spent several very happy days. It was the ill-fated Abergavenny, wrecked a week afterwards on the Portland Race, when Captain Wordsworth, a brother of the poet and Dr. Wordsworth, perished with some as noble fellows as ever it was my hap to meet on their own element, and full of every hopeful prospect and generous feeling. One of them, after saving two females, was drowned in attempting to rescue a third from the watery grave he shared with her, when but a stroke or two of his sinewy arms would have oared him to safety.
Another painful incident arose from my finding at the bottom of the
ballusters, in Elm Court, a pocket-book, on examining which I discovered that it belonged
to a letter-carrier. I wrote to a friend in the Post Office to ascertain the owner; but
dreadful was the event to him. His pocket had been picked on his “beat” in
Whitehall, and the book, after being rifled, deposited where I found it. The
| 100 | AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. |
The trial came duly on, and the poor criminal—as decent and respectable-looking a person as I ever saw, was found guilty, condemned, and executed. He was a German, of the name of Nicolai. After the trial, the parties concerned in it, barristers, solicitors, witnesses, &c, adjourned to Lovegrove’s Hotel, in Doctors’ Commons, and spent a convivial evening. I was young then, and thought all the while of the miserable being in the condemned cell.
“But some must laugh and some must weep, So wags the world away.” |
In enumerating misfortunes, I will close this chapter with the publication of banns, and the commission of matrimony; which, belonging rather to private affairs, need not be obtruded on my readers, especially to the bachelor class:
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“Who, dull to every finer tie,
To every soft affection cold,
Live on in cheerless apathy,
And in their very youth seem old.”
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