THE TWO AUTHORS.
A man of six feet in height, of seedy exterior, and most melancholious physiognomy—principal contributor of bawdry and balderdash to the "Rambler's Magazine;" sixpence-a-sheet translator of the "Adventures of Chevalier Faublas," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera—was brought up in custody, to show cause why he should not be prosecuted for obtaining money under false pretences from one Mr. Robert Wedderburn—tailor and breeches-maker, field-preacher, radical reformer, romance-writer, circulatory-librarian, and ambulatory dealer in drugs, deism, and demoralisation in general.
Mr. Robert Wedderburn—or Robertus Wedderburn, as he delighteth to designate himself, is a man of colour—something of the colour of a toad's back, plump and puffy as a porpoise, and the magnitude of his caput makes it manifest that nature cut him out for a counsellor, had not the destinies decreed that he should cut out cloth. He therefore became a tailor and flourished (his shears), but age and fatty infirmity at length unfitted him for the operative department of his profession; his back would no longer bend to the board; his legs refused to let him cross them as he was wont to do; his eyes declined seeing a needle unless it was close to his nose; and though he got spectacles of all sorts, and let go his braces to their utmost limits, he could not manage it any how; and so, since he could no longer sew, he joined the radicals of the day, and, from mending breeches, took to mending the state. His doings in this way made some noise in the world. He it was who had the honour of first inoculating the invincible Carlile with pure Deism; he it was who suffered pains, penalties, prosecutions, and imprisonments for his too liberal promulgation of too liberal politico-theological preachings; and he it will be that will have a place in the list of patriot martyrs of the nineteenth century—if a list of them should ever be published. Shelved, with the rest of the radicals, he turned his thoughts to literature; literature brought him acquainted with the prisoner; his acquaintance with the prisoner brought the prisoner to the bar of this office; and that brings us to the immediate matter at issue.
It appeared by the evidence, that Mr. Robertus Wedderburn—being a man, as he himself said, "fruitful in imagination, but no great scholar," was in the habit of cutting out pretty little sixpenny romances, and employing the prisoner to touch them up grammatically. This caused a kind of literary intercourse between them; and at one of their interviews lately—on the subject of a new romance, to be called "Beatrice, or the Bleeding Beauty," the prisoner tendered a pawnbroker's ticket to Mr. Robertus Wedderburn, requesting him to buy it. This ticket purported to be a pledging of thirteen volumes of new novels for the trifling sum of ten shillings, and Mr. Robertus Wedderburn willingly undertook to purchase it for three shillings—wisely considering that these thirteen volumes would be a handsome addition to his little circulating library, and that at a shilling a-piece they were certainly "dog cheap." He therefore paid the prisoner the three shillings; and as soon as he could raise the money, he went to the pawnbroker's to redeem the books; when, to his utter astonishment, he found instead of thirteen there were only three!—that the prisoner had taken the liberty of placing a 1 before the 3 on the ticket, thereby converting 3 into 13; that the three books were thus pledged for their full value; and that Mr. Robertus Wedderburn was of course bamboozled of his blunt—in the vulgar, "cheated of his money."
The magistrate, having listened with great patience to the premises, asked the prisoner what he had to say for himself; and, as he only played with his hat-band in reply, he was remanded until the evening, in order that the pawnbroker might attend.
In the evening he was again placed at the bar; but there was no pawnbroker in attendance; and Mr. Wedderburn begged leave to withdraw the prosecution—he having been satisfied by the bounty of the prisoner's patron.
The magistrate then commented severely on the conduct of all the parties, and reluctantly consented to the prisoner's discharge.