B. That's a small matter. As the world goes one must practise a little knavery, or resolve to leave the world. Dost thou know that religious cheats are licensed by a law? and shall I live and die without taking advantage of it? Believe me, friend, Nature has fitted me pretty well to be one of these godly mountebanks, and a little art, together with a few months' conversation with that sort of people will supply all natural defects. Cannot I put on, when I please, a grave and serious countenance, and with head depending on one shoulder a little more than on the other, sigh for the iniquities of the time and corruptions of the Church? Cannot I wipe mine eyes with the fair pocket-cloth, as if I wept for all your abominations? Cannot I grieve in spirit as if ready to burst with grief and compassion. And cannot I likewise, when time serves, and company is disposed to be kindly affected with it, smile and fleer as takingly? And what hurt is there in this? Sure I may use my own face as I please.
We need scarcely say that Brown failed in his shrewd scheming; and he was soon fain to take the humble position of a schoolmaster at Kingston upon Thames, for which his acquirements qualified him. But his literary ambition would not allow him to remain long at this drudgery, and we soon find him wandering up again to town, where he was again unfortunate. At this time, men of letters expected little from the sale of books; but often obtained patrons who conferred valuable appointments upon them. Brown's temper and position rendered him ineligible for this sort of promotion. Not being a gentleman by birth, he had no good introductions, nor would he have been very acceptable in the houses of the great. His coarseness in writing—excessive even in that day—was probably reflected in his manners and language, and he had so little prudence that he ridiculed not only the clergy, but was always ready to lose a friend rather than a joke. Mere literary talent will not procure success in society.
Brown wrote a variety of essays, generally rather admonitory than humorous. His "Pocket-book of Common Places" resembles a collection of Proverbs or good sayings. It commences,
"To see the number of churches and conventicles open every Sunday, a stranger would fancy London all religion. But to see the number of taverns, ale-houses, &c., he would imagine Bacchus was the only God that is worshipped there. If no trades were permitted but those which were useful and necessary, Lombard Street, Cheapside, and the Exchange might go a-begging. For more are fed by our vanities and vices than by our virtues, and the necessities of Nature."
But his favourite and characteristic mode of writing was under the form of letters. We have "Letters Serious and Comical," "Diverting Letters to Gentlemen." One letter is to four ladies with whom the author was in love at the same time.
He probably took his idea of "Letters from the Dead to the Living," from Lucian. He never spares Dissenters, and comically makes a Quaker relate his warm reception in the lower world:—
"A parcel of black spiritual Janissaries saluted me as intimately as if I had been resident in these parts during the term of an apprenticeship; at last, up comes a swinging, lusty, overgrown, austere devil, armed with an ugly weapon like a country dung-fork, looking as sharp about the eyes as a Wood Street officer, and seemed to deport himself after such a manner that discovered he had ascendancy over the rest of the immortal negroes, and as I imagined, so 'twas quickly evident; for as soon as he espied me leering between the diminutive slabbering-bib and the extensive rims of my coney-wood umbrella, he chucks me under the chin with his ugly toad-coloured paw, that stunk as bad of brimstone as a card-match new-lighted, saying, 'How now, Honest Jones, I am glad to see thee on this side the river Styx, prithee, hold up thy head, and don't be ashamed, thou art not the first Quaker by many thousands that has sworn allegiance to my government; besides, thou hast been one of my best benefactors on earth, and now thou shalt see, like a grateful devil, I'll reward thee accordingly.' 'I thank your excellence kindly,' said I, 'pray, what is it your infernal protectorship will be pleased to confer upon me?' To which his mighty ugliness replied, 'Friend Naylor, I know thou hast been very industrious to make many people fools in the upper world, which has highly conduced to my interest.' Then turning to a pigmy aërial, who attended his commands as a running footman, 'Haste, Numps,' says he, 'and fetch me the painted coat,' which was no sooner brought, but by Lucifer's command I was shoved into it, neck and shoulders, by half a dozen swarthy valets de chambre, and in a minute's time found myself tricked up in a rainbow-coloured coat, like a merry-Andrew. 'Now, friend,' says the ill-favoured prince of all the hell-born scoundrels, 'for the many fools you have made above, I now ordain you mine below;' so all the reward truly of my great services was to be made Lucifer's jester, or fool in ordinary to the devil; a pretty post, thought I, for a man of my principles, that from a Quaker in the outer world I should be metamorphosed into a jack-adam in the lower one."
The occupation of people in the Nether world is described after Rabelais, thus:—"Cardinal Mazarin keeps a nine-holes; Mary of Medicis foots stockings; and Katharine of Sweden cries 'Two bunches a penny card-matches—two bunches a penny!' Henry the Fourth of France carries a raree-show, and Mahomet sells mussels. Seneca keeps a fencing-school, and Julius Cæsar a two-penny ordinary."
At the present day it is rather amusing to read, "A Comical View of London and Westminster"—a weekly prophecy intended to ridicule the increasing use of barometers and other scientific instruments for predicting changes of weather.
"Wednesday October 16th. Cloudy, foggy weather at Garraway's and Jonathan's, and at most coffee-houses at about twelve. Crowds of people gather at the Exchange by one; disperse by three. Afternoon, noisy and bloody at her Majesty's bear-garden at Hockly-in-the-Hole. Night—sober with broken chaplains and others that have neither credit nor money. This week's transactions censured by the virtuosos at Child's from morning till night.