Rank and Talent; A Novel, Vol. 1 (of 3)

by William Pitt Scargill

“But did not you sometimes send letters to your family, and can you not tell how you addressed your letters to them? Perhaps if you were to consider a little while, you might be able to call to mind something that might assist in discovering the place of their abode. If you had letters, most likely some account was given of the place where they lived: or if it were a small village, they may have mentioned the name of the nearest post-town.”

“Oh yes, it was very pretty place. It was thirty or forty mile from London. It was very beautiful place. There was large, very fine palace called Abbey. There was very fine lake.”

This description reminded Philip Martindale of the place of his own residence, and he therefore asked if the name of the place was at all like Brigland. The foreigner looked thoughtful, and attempted to repeat the word, saying: “Breeklan! Breeklan!” Then, after a pause of a few seconds, his features underwent a complete change, and with a kind of hysteric laugh or screech of exultation, he cried out:

“Oh, that was it! that was it! Oh, good sare, it was Breeklan—oh, tell me where is Breeklan, and I will see my child and my dear wife—oh, I will see them once again—oh, you have save me from great misery.”

Then he seized Philip Martindale’s hand and pressed it with great emotion, repeating his solicitations; and the tears rolled down his cheeks, and he smiled with such an expression of delight, that the young gentleman was moved; and after he had given some charitable donations to the rest of the unhappy ones in the miserable apartment, he proceeded to conduct the newly-arrived stranger where he might find a conveyance to take him to Brigland.

Philip Martindale then returned to the house where the game-cocks were to be seen, and there he met his friend Stephen the guard, and some other friends of the fancy, by the fascinations of whose sweet society he was detained in the metropolis somewhat longer than he designed, and by whose winning ways he found himself poorer than was quite convenient. The opinion he expressed concerning the fighting birds—the particulars of the exhibition with which he was afterwards favoured at the Westminster-pit—the brilliant conversation in which he there engaged—the bets which there he laid and lost—the flattering homage which he there received—the satisfaction which resulted from it—all these and many other matters of a like nature we pass over unrecorded; trusting that, where one reader blames the omission, fifty will commend it.

But though we describe not these scenes, it does not follow that we should pass them over without reflection. One very natural reflection is, that gentlemen of high birth and estate are much to be envied for the pleasure which they enjoy in those scenes. There must be a peculiar delight in such pursuits, or the superfine part of our species could not possibly condescend, for the sake of them, to associate on most familiar terms with persons whose birth is most miserably low, whose understandings are most grievously defective, whose manners are abominably coarse. Take from the side of one of these honorables the jockey, the boxer, the feeder, or the coachman, with whom he is all courtesy and good humor and familiarity, and place there a man of middle rank in society, respectable in every point of view, with what cool contempt would the dignity of high birth regard him. One other reflection is, that such pursuits ought to be calculated to raise these said gentle and noble ones very high in their own esteem, inasmuch as they are not thereby raised in the esteem of others. Their disinterested generosity is also much to be applauded, seeing that by thus lavishing their wealth on those whose only support is the gambling propensity of men of wealth, they take away from the public a large number of such as might otherwise have exercised their wits in picking pockets or breaking into houses. They who would suppress gambling deserve the thanks of the ninnies who would be thus preserved from being plundered in an honorable and gentlemanly manner; but what would become of the rogues and sharpers who live upon the folly of right honorable and high-born simpletons? Politic morality is perhaps one of the greatest difficulties which legislators have to contend with. Begging pardon for these reflections, we proceed with our story.

We have stated that the Hon. Philip Martindale suffered in his purse from his visit to the Westminster-pit. The following morning he meditated much upon the subject; and he also applied the powers of his mind to the ring, and recollected that he had there oftentimes suffered as much in his purse as some of the pummeled heroes had in their persons. Then while he was in the humor for thinking, he endeavoured to calculate how much these amusements had cost him; and in the course of that calculation it most unaccountably came into his mind that many of the frequenters of these exhibitions had no ostensible means of living, and that they yet lived well, and that of course they must have lived upon him and others of high rank and birth. Following that train of thought, and finding that several of the superfine ones who had formerly patronised these sports had for some reason or other gradually fallen off from them, he began to think that he would also abstain from them, and confine himself to the more respectable and gentleman-like avocations of the race-course and the hazard-table: for there he should meet with a more numerous assemblage of persons of his own rank; and as he had three horses entered to run at Newmarket, and as one of these was an especial favorite, he had some expectation of retrieving his losses, at least in part. He fully determined that he would no longer associate with the vulgar ones of the ring and the pit. Oh, what an excellent homily is an empty purse!