The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

  Produced by Tapio Riikonen

  THE ADVENTURES OF PEREGRINE PICKLE

  In which are included Memoirs of a Lady of Quality

  By Tobias Smollett

  VOLUME I.

  CHAPTER I.

  An Account of Mr. Gamaliel Pickle--The Disposition of his Sisterdescribed--He yields to her Solicitations, and returns to the Country.

  In a certain county of England, bounded on one side by the sea, and atthe distance of one hundred miles from the metropolis, lived GamalielPickle, esq.; the father of that hero whose fortunes we propose torecord. He was the son of a merchant in London, who, like Rome, fromsmall beginnings had raised himself to the highest honours of the city,and acquired a plentiful fortune, though, to his infinite regret, hedied before it amounted to a plum, conjuring his son, as he respectedthe last injunction of a parent, to imitate his industry, and adhere tohis maxims, until he should have made up the deficiency, which was a sumconsiderably less than fifteen thousand pounds.

  This pathetic remonstrance had the desired effect upon hisrepresentative, who spared no pains to fulfil the request of thedeceased: but exerted all the capacity with which nature had endowedhim, in a series of efforts, which, however, did not succeed; for by thetime he had been fifteen years in trade, he found himself five thousandpounds worse than he was when he first took possession of his father'seffects; a circumstance that affected him so nearly, as to detach hisinclinations from business, and induce him to retire from the world tosome place where he might at leisure deplore his misfortunes, and, byfrugality, secure himself from want, and the apprehensions of a jail,with which his imagination was incessantly haunted. He was often heardto express his fears of coming upon the parish; and to bless God, that,on account of his having been so long a housekeeper, he was entitledto that provision. In short, his talents were not naturally active, andthere was a sort of inconsistency in his character; for, with all thedesire of amassing which any citizen could possibly entertain, he wasencumbered by a certain indolence and sluggishness that prevailed overevery interested consideration, and even hindered him from profiting bythat singleness of apprehension, and moderation of appetites, which haveso frequently conduced to the acquisition of immense fortunes;qualities which he possessed in a very remarkable degree. Nature, in allprobability, had mixed little or nothing inflammable in his composition;or, whatever seeds of excess she might have sown within him, wereeffectually stifled and destroyed by the austerity of his education.

  The sallies of his youth, far from being inordinate or criminal, neverexceeded the bounds of that decent jollity which an extraordinary pot,on extraordinary occasions, may be supposed to have produced in a clubof sedate book-keepers, whose imaginations were neither very warm norluxuriant. Little subject to refined sensations, he was scarce everdisturbed with violent emotions of any kind. The passion of love neverinterrupted his tranquility; and if, as Mr. Creech says, after Horace,

  Not to admire is all the art I know; To make men happy, and to keep them so;

  Mr. Pickle was undoubtedly possessed of that invaluable secret; atleast, he was never known to betray the faintest symptom of transport,except one evening at the club, where he observed, with somedemonstrations of vivacity, that he had dined upon a delicate loin ofveal.

  Notwithstanding this appearance of phlegm, he could not help feeling hisdisappointments in trade; and upon the failure of a certain underwriter,by which he lost five hundred pounds, declared his design ofrelinquishing business, and retiring to the country. In this resolutionhe was comforted and encouraged by his only sister, Mrs. Grizzle, whohad managed his family since the death of his father, and was now inthe thirtieth year of her maidenhood, with a fortune of five thousandpounds, and a large stock of economy and devotion.

  These qualifications, one would think, might have been the means ofabridging the term of her celibacy, as she never expressed any aversionto wedlock; but, it seems, she was too delicate in her choice, to finda mate to her inclination in the city: for I cannot suppose that sheremained so long unsolicited; though the charms of her person werenot altogether enchanting, nor her manner over and above agreeable.Exclusive of a very wan (not to call it sallow) complexion, which,perhaps, was the effects of her virginity and mortification, she hada cast in her eyes that was not at all engaging; and such an extent ofmouth, as no art or affectation could contract into any proportionabledimension; then her piety was rather peevish than resigned, and didnot in the least diminish a certain stateliness in her demeanour andconversation, that delighted in communicating the importance and honourof her family, which, by the bye, was not to be traced two generationsback by all the power of heraldry or tradition.

  She seemed to have renounced all the ideas she had acquired before herfather served the office of sheriff; and the eye which regulated thedates of all her observation, was the mayoralty of her papa. Nay, sosolicitous was this good lady for the support and propagation of thefamily name, that, suppressing every selfish motive, she actuallyprevailed upon her brother to combat with his own disposition, andeven surmount it so far, as to declare a passion for the person whom heafterwards wedded, as we shall see in the sequel. Indeed, she was thespur that instigated him in all his extraordinary undertakings; and Iquestion, whether he would or not have been able to disengage himselffrom that course of life in which he had so long mechanically moved,unless he had been roused and actuated by her incessant exhortations.London, she observed, was a receptacle of iniquity, where an honest,unsuspecting man was every day in danger of falling a sacrifice tocraft; where innocence was exposed to continual temptations, and virtueeternally persecuted by malice and slander; where everything was ruledby caprice and corruption, and merit utterly discouraged and despised.This last imputation she pronounced with such emphasis and chagrin, asplainly denoted how far she considered herself as an example of what sheadvanced; and really the charge was justified by the constructions thatwere put upon her retreat by her female friends, who, far from imputingit to the laudable motives that induced her, insinuated, in sarcasticcommendations, that she had good reason to be dissatisfied with a placewhere she had been so overlooked; and that it was certainly herwisest course to make her last effort in the country, where, in allprobability, her talents would be less eclipsed, and her fortune moreattractive.

  Be this as it will, her admonitions, though they were powerful enough toconvince, would have been insufficient to overcome the languor andvis inertiae of her brother, had she not reinforced her arguments, bycalling in question the credit of two or three merchants, with whom hewas embarked in trade.

  Alarmed at these hints of intelligence, he exerted himself effectually;he withdrew his money from trade, and laying it out in Bank-stock, andIndia-bonds, removed to a house in the country, which his father hadbuilt near the sea-side, for the convenience of carrying on a certainbranch of traffic in which he had been deeply concerned.

  Here then Mr. Pickle fixed his habitation for life, in thesix-and-thirtieth year of his age; and though the pangs he felt atparting with his intimate companions, and quitting all his formerconnections, were not quite so keen as to produce any dangerous disorderin his constitution, he did not fail to be extremely disconcerted at hisfirst entrance into a scene of life to which he was totally a stranger.Not but that he met with abundance of people in the country, who, inconsideration of his fortune, courted his acquaintance, and breathednothing but friendship and hospitality; yet, even the trouble ofreceiving and returning these civilities was an intolerable fatigue toa man of his habits and disposition. He therefore left the care ofthe ceremonial to his sister, who indulged herself in all the pride offormality; while he himself, having made a discovery of a public-housein the neighbo
urhood, went thither every evening and enjoyed his pipeand can; being very well satisfied with the behaviour of the landlord,whose communicative temper was a great comfort to his own taciturnity;for he shunned all superfluity of speech, as much as he avoided anyother unnecessary expense.