“Take care of him!” That sentence has been my ruin; from my cradle upwards it has dogged my steps and proved my bane! Fatal injunction! Little did my parents think of the miseries those four small monosyllables have entailed upon their hapless son!
My first assertion of infantine existence, that innocent and feeble wail that claimed the name of life, was met by the command, “Take care of him! take care of him!” said my mother to the doctor; “Take care of him!” said the doctor to the nurse; and “Take care of him!” added my delighted father to every individual of the rejoicing household.
The doctor’s care manifested itself in an over-dose of castor oil; the nurse, in the plenitude of her bounty, nearly parboiled me in an over-heated bath; my mother drugged me with a villanous decoction of soothing syrup, which brought on a slumber so sound that the first had very nearly proved my last; and the entire household dandled me with such uncommon vigour that I was literally tossed and “Catchee-catchee’d” into a fit of most violent convulsions. As I persisted in surviving, so did I become the heir to fresh torments from the ceaseless care of those by whom I was surrounded. My future symmetry was superinduced by bandaging my infant limbs until I looked like a miniature mummy. The summer’s sun was too hot and the winter’s blast too cold; wet was death, and dry weather was attended with easterly winds. I was “taken care of.” I never breathed the fresh air of Heaven, but lived in an artificial nursery atmosphere of sea-coal and logs.
Young limbs are soon broken, and young children will fall, if not taken care of; consequently upon any instinctive attempt at a pedestrian performance I was tied round the middle with a broad ribbon, my unhappy little feet see-sawing in the air, and barely brushing the ruffled surface of the Persian carpet, while I appeared like a tempting bait, with which my nurse, after the manner of an experienced angler, was bobbing for some of the strange monsters worked into the gorgeous pattern.
Crooked legs were “taken care of” by a brace of symmetrical iron shackles, and Brobdignag walnut-shells, decorated with flaming bows of crimson ribbon, were attached to each side of my small face, to prevent me from squinting. When old enough to mount a pony, I was “taken such care of,” by being secured to the saddle, that the restive little brute, feeling inclined for a tumble, deliberately rolled over me some half-dozen times before the astonished stable-boy could effect my deliverance! while the corks with which I was provided to learn to swim in some three feet square of water, slipped accidentally down to my toes, and left me submerged so long that the total consumption of all the salt, and wetting in boiling water of all the blankets, in the house was found absolutely necessary to effect my resuscitation.
At school I was once more to be “taken care of;” consequently I pined to death in a wretched single-bedded room, shuddering with inconceivable horror at the slightest sound, and conjuring up legions of imaginary sprites to haunt my couch during my waking hours of dread and misery. O how I envied the reckless laughter of the gleeful urchins whose unmindful parents left them to the happy utterance of their own and participation in their young companions’ thoughts!
As a parlour boarder, which I was of course, “to be taken care of,” I was not looked upon as one of the “fellows,” but merely as a little upstart—one who most likely was pumped by the master and mistress, and peached upon the healthy rebels of the little world.
Christmas brought me no joys. “Taking care of my health” prevented me from skating and snow-balling; while perspective surfeits deprived me of the enjoyments of the turkeys, beef, and glorious pudding.
At eighteen I entered as a gentleman commoner at —— College, Cambridge; and at nineteen a suit of solemn black, and the possession of five thousand a year, bespoke me heir to all my father left; and from that hour have I had cause to curse the title of this paper. Young and inexperienced, I entered wildly into all the follies wealth can purchase or fashion justify; but I was still to be the victim of the phrase. “We’ll take care of him,” said a knot of the most determined play-men upon town; and they did. Two years saw my five thousand per annum reduced to one, but left me with somewhat more knowledge of the world. Even that was turned against me; and prudent fathers shook their heads, and sagely cautioned their own young scapegraces “to take care of me.”
All was not yet complete. A walk down Bond Street was interrupted by a sudden cry, “That’s him—take care of him!” I turned by instinct, and was arrested at the suit of a scoundrel whose fortune I had made, and who in gratitude had thus pointed me out to the myrmidon of the Middlesex sheriff. I was located in a lock-up house, and thence conveyed to jail. In both instances the last words I heard in reference to myself were “Take care of him.” I sacrificed almost my all, and once more regained my liberty. Fate seemed to turn! A friend lent me fifty pounds. I pledged my honour for its repayment. He promised to use his interest for my future welfare. I kept my word gratefully; returned the money on the day appointed. I did so before one who knew me by report only, and looked upon me as a ruined, dissipated, worthless Extravagant. I returned to an adjoining room to wait my friend’s coming. While there, I could not avoid hearing the following colloquy—