APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.

ROB ROY.

CHAPTER I.

dow have I sinn'd, that this affliction

Suould light so heavy on me? I have no more sons,
And this no more mine own. My grand curse

Hang o'er his head that thus transform'd thee 1-Travel?
I'll send my horse to travel next.

MONSIEUR THOMAS.

collector) insist upon preferring to that which is re duced to the useful and ordinary form of Memoirs but which I think curious, solely as illustrating how far so great a man as the author was accessible to the foible of self-importance. If I recollect rightly that venerable peer and great statesman had appointed no fewer than four gentlemen of his household to You have requested me, my dear friend, to bestow draw up the events of his life, under the title of Merome of that leisure with which Providence has morials of the Sage and Royal Affairs of State, Doblessed the decline of my life, in registering the ha-mestic, Political, and Military, transacted by Henry zards and difficulties which attended its commence- IV., and so forth. These grave recorders, having made ment. The recollection of those adventures, as you their compilation, reduced the Memoirs containing are pleased to term them, has indeed left upon my all the remarkable events of their master's life into a mind a chequered and varied feeling of pleasure and narrative, addressed to himself in propria persona. of pain, mingled, I trust, with no slight gratitude and And thus, instead of telling his own story, in the veneration to the Disposer of human events, who third person, like Julius Cæsar, or in the first person, guided my early course through much risk and la- like most who, in the hall, or the study, undertake to bour, that the ease with which he has blessed my be the heroes of their own tale, Sully enjoyed the reprolonged life, might seem softer from remembrance fined, though whimsical pleasure, of having the events and contrast. Neither is it possible for me to doubt, of his life told over to him by his secretaries, being what you have often affirmed, that the incidents himself the auditor, as he was also the hero, and prowhich befell me among a people singularly primitive bably the author, of the whole book. It must have in their government and manners, have something been a great sight to have seen the ex-minister, as interesting and attractive for those who love to hear bolt upright as a starched ruff and laced cassock an old man's stories of a past age. could make him. seated in state beneath his canopy,

Still, however, you must remember, that the tale and listening to the recitation of his compilers, while, told by one friend, and listened to by another, loses standing bare in his presence, they informed him half its charms when committed to paper; and that gravely, "Thus said the duke-so did the duke infer the narratives to which you have attended with in--such were your grace's sentiments upon this imterest, as heard from the voice of him to whom they portant point-such were your secret counsels to the occurred, will appear less deserving of attention when king on that other emergency,"-circumstances, all perused in the seclusion of your study. But your of which must have been much better known to their greener age and robust constitution promise longer hearer than to themselves, and most of which could life than will, in all human probability, be the lot of only be derived from his own special communication. your friend. Throw, then, these sheets into some My situation is not quite so ludicrous as that of the secret drawer of your escritoir till we are separated great Sully, and yet there would be something whimfrom each other's society by an event which may sical in Frank Osbaldistone giving Will Tresham a happen at any moment, and which must happen formal account of his birth, education, and connexwithin the course of a few-a very few years. When ions in the world. I will, therefore, wrestle with the we are parted in this world, to meet, I hope, in a bet- tempting spirit of P. P., Clerk of our Parish, as I ter, you will, I am well aware, cherish more than it best may, and endeavour to tell you nothing that is deserves the memory of your departed friend, and will familiar to you already. Some things, however, I find in those details which I am now to commit to must recall to your memory, because, though formerpaper, matter for melancholy but not unpleasing re-ly well known to you, they may have been forgotten flection. Others bequeath to the confidants of their through lapse of time, and they afford the groundbosom portraits of their external features-I put into work of my destiny.

your hands a faithful transcript of my thoughts and You must remember my father well; for as your feelings, of my virtues and of my failings, with the own was a member of the mercantile house, you assured hope, that the follies and headstrong impe- knew him from infancy. Yet you hardly saw him in tuosity of my youth will meet the same kind con- his best days, before age and infirmity had quenched struction and forgiveness which have so often attend- his ardent spirit of enterprise and speculation. He ed the faults of my matured age. would have been a poorer man indeed, but perhaps

One advantage, among the many, of addressing as happy, had he devoted to the extension of science my Memoirs (if I may give these sheets a name so those active energies, and acute powers of observaimposing) to a dear and intimate friend, is, that I tion, for which commercial pursuits found occupamay spare some of the details, in this case unneces- tion. Yet, in the fluctuations of mercantile specusary, with which I must needs have detained a stran- lation, there is something captivating to the adger from what I have to say of greater interest. Why venturer, even independent of the hope of gain. should I bestow all my tediousness upon you, because He who embarks on that fickle sea, requires to posI have you in my power, and have ink, paper, and sess the skill of the pilot and the fortitude of the natime before me? At the same time, I dare not pro-vigator, and after all may be wrecked and lost, unless mise that I may not abuse the opportunity so tempt- the gales of fortune breathe in his favour. This mix ingly offered me, to treat of myself and my own con- ture of necessary attention and inevitable hazard,cerns, even though I speak of circumstances as well the frequent and awful uncertainty whether prudence known to you as to myself. The seductive love of shall overcome fortune, or fortune baffle the schemes narrative, when we ourselves are the heroes of the of prudence, affords full occupation for the powers, as events which we tell, often disregards the attention well as for the feelings of the mind, and trade has all due to the time and patience of the audience, and the the fascination of gambling without its moral guilt. best and wisest have yielded to its fascination. I Early in the 18th century. when I (Heaven inlp me) need only remind you of the singular instance evinced was a youth of some twenty years old, I was sumby the form of that rare and original edition of Sully's moned suddenly from Bourdeux to attend my father Memoirs, which you (with the fond vanity of a book-on business of importance. I shall never forget our first VOL. II. 2 Z

35

interview. You recollect the brief, abrupt and somewhat stern mode in which he was wont to communicate his pleasure to those around him. Methinks I see him even now in my mind's eye;-the firm and upright figure, the step, quick and determined,-the eye, which shot so keen and so penetrating a glance, -the features, on which care had already planted wrinkles, and hear his language, in which he never wasted word in vain, expressed in a voice which had sometimes an occasional harshness, far from the intention of the speaker.

When I dismounted from my post-horse, I hastened to my father's apartment. He was traversing it with an air of composed and steady deliberation, which even my arrival, although an only son unseen for four years, was unabie to discompose. I threw myself into his arms. He was a kind, though not a fond father, and the tear twinkled in his dark eye, but it was only for a moment.

Dubourg writes to me that he is satisfied with you, Frank."

"I am happy, sir"

in the counting-house carefully folded back under the sleeves, that they might remain unstained by the ink which he daily consumed;-in a word, the same grave, formal, yet benevolent cast of features, which continued to his death to distinguish the head clerk of the great house of Osbaldistone and Tresham.

Owen," said my father, as the kind old man shook me affect onately by the hand, "you must dine with us to-day, and hear the news Frank has brought us from our friends in Bourdeaux."

Owen made one of his stiff bows of respectful gratitude; for, in those days, when the distance be tween superiors and inferiors was enforced in a mand ner to which the present times are strangers, such an invitation was a favour of some little consequence. I shall long remember that dinner-party. Deeply affected by feelings of anxiety, not unmingled with displeasure, I was unable to take that active share in the conversation which my father seemed to expect from me; and I too frequently gave unsatisfactory answers to the questions with which he assailed me. Owen, hovering betwixt his respect for

"But I have less reason to be so," he added, sitting his patron, and his love for the youth he had dandled down at his bureau.

"I am sorry, sir' 'Sorry and happy, Frank, are words that, on most occasions, signify little or nothing-Here is your last letter."

on his knee in childhood, like the timorous, yet anxious ally of an invaded nation, endeavoured at every blunder I made to explain my no-meaning, and to cover my retreat; manœuvres which added to my father's pettish displeasure, and brought a share of it upon my kind advocate, instead of protecting me. I had not, while residing in the house of Dubourg, abso

He took it out from a number of others tied up in a parcel of red tape, and curiously labelled and filed. There lay my poor epistle, written on the sub-lutely conducted myself like ject the nearest to my heart at the time, and couched in words which I had thought would work compassion, if not conviction,-there, I say, it lay, squeezed up among the letters on miscellaneous business in which my father's daily affairs had engaged him. I cannot help smiling internally when I recollect the mixture of hurt vanity, and wounded feeling, with which I regarded my remonstrance, to the penning of which there had gone, I promise you, some trouble, as I beheld it extracted from amongst letters of advice, of credit, and all the commonplace lumber, as I then thought them, of a merchant's correspondence, Surely, thought I, a letter of such importance (I dared not say, even to myself, so well written) deserved a separate place, as well as more anxious consideration, than those on the ordinary business of the counting-house.

But my father did not observe my dissatisfaction, and would not have minded it if he had. He proceeded, with the letter in his hand. "This, Frank, is yours of the 21st ultimo, in which you advise me, (reading from my letter,) that in the most important business of forming a plan, and adopting a profession for life, you trust my paternal goodness will hold you entitled to at least a negative voice; that you have insuperable-ay, insuperable is the word-I wish, by the way, you would write a more distinct current hand-draw a score through the tops of your t's, and open the loops of your l's-insuperable objections to the arrangements which I have proposed to you. There is much more to the same effect, occupying four good pages of paper, which a little attention to perspicuity and distinctness of expression might have comprised within as many lines. For, after all, Frank, it amounts but to this, that you will not do as I would have you."

That I cannot, sir, in the present instance; not that I will not."

sion.

"Words avail very little with me, young man," said my father, whose inflexibility always possessed the air of the most perfect calmness and self-posses"Can not may be a more civil phrase than will not, but the expressions are synonymous where there is no moral impossibility. But I am not a friend to doing business hastily; we will talk this matter over after dinner.-Owen !"

Owen appeared, not with the silver locks which ou were used to venerate, for he was then little more than fifty; but he nad the same, or an exactly similar uniform suit of light brown clothes, the same pearl gray silk stockings-the same stock, with its silver buckle,-the same plaited cambric ruffles, drawn down over his knuckles in the parlour, but

A clerk condemn'd his father's soul to cross, Who penn'd a stanza when he should engross ;but, to say truth, I had frequented the counting-house no more than I had thought absolutely necessary to secure the good report of the Frenchman, long a correspondent of our firm, to whom my father had trusted for initiating me into the mysteries of commerce. In fact, my principal attention had been dedicated to literature and manly exercises. My father did not altogether discourage such acquirements whether mental or personal. He had too much good sense not to perceive, that they sate gracefully upon every man, and he was sensible that they relieved and dignified the character to which he wished me to aspire. But his chief ambition was, that I should succeed not merely to his fortune, but to the views and plans by which he imagined he could extend and perpetuate the wealthy inheritance which he designed for me.

Love of his profession was the motive which he chose should be most ostensible, when he urged me to tread the same path; but he had others with which I only became acquainted at a later period. Impetuous in his schemes, as well as skilful and daring, each new adventure, when successful, became at once the incentive, and furnished the means, for further speculation. It seemed to be necessary to him, as to an ambitious conqueror, to push on from achieve ment to achievement, without stopping to secure, far less to enjoy, the acquisitions which he made. Accustomed to see his whole fortune trembling in the scales of chance, and dexterous at adopting expedi ents for casting the balance in his favour, his health and spirits and activity seemed ever to increase with the animating hazards on which he staked his wealth; and he resembled a sailor accustomed to brave the billows and the foe, whose confidence rises on the eve of tempest or of battle. He was not, however, insen sible to the changes which increasing age or super vening malady might make in his own constitution; and was anxious in good time to secure in me an assistant, who might take the helm when his hand grew weary, and keep the vessel's way according to his counsel and instruction. Paternal affection, well as the furtherance of his own plans, determined him to the same conclusion. Your father, though his fortune was vested in the house, was only a sleep, ing partner, as the commercial phrase goes; and Owen, whose probity and skill in the details of arith metic rendered his services invaluable as a head clerk, was not possessed either of information or talents sufficient to conduct the mysteries of the principal management. If my father were suddenly sum

CHAPTER II.

Poetry; with which idle disease if he be infected, there's no hope of him in a state course Actum est of him for a common

I begin shrewdly to suspect the young man of a terrib.e taint

wealth's man, if he go to't in rhyme once.

moned from life, what would become of the world of received in the manner I have already communicated schemes which he had formed, unless his son were to you. moulded into a commercial Hercules, fit to sustain the weight when relinquished by the falling Atlas? and what would become of that son himself, if, a a stranger to business of this description, the found himself at once involved in the labyrinth of mercantile concerns, without the clew of knowledge necessary for his extraction? For all these reasons, avowed and secret, my father was determined I should embrace his profession; and when he was determined, the resolution of no man was more immoveable. I, however, was also a party to be consulted, and with something of his own pertinacity, I had formed a determination precisely contrary.,

It may, I hope, be some palliative for the resist ance which, on this occasion, I offered to my father's wishes, that I did not fully understand upon what they were founded, or how deeply his happiness was involved in them. Imagining myself certain of a large succession in future, and ample maintenance in the meanwhile, it never occurred to me that it might be necessary, in order to secure these blessings, to submit to labour and limitations unpleasant to my taste and temper. I only saw in my father's proposal for my engaging in business, a desire that I should add to those heaps of wealth which he had himself acquired; and imagining myself the best judge of the path to my own happiness, I did not conceive that I should increase that happiness by augmenting a fortune which I believed was already sufficient, and more than sufficient, for every use, comfort, and elegant enjoyment.

Accordingly, I am compelled to repeat, that my time at Bourdeaux had not been spent as my father had proposed to himself. What he considered as the chief end of my residence in that city, I had postponed for every other, and (would had I dared) have neglected it altogether. Dubourg, a favoured and benefited correspondent of our mercantile house, was too much of a shrewd politician to make such reports to the head of the firm, concerning his only child, as would excite the displeasure of both; and he might also, as you will presently hear, have views of selfish advantage in suffering me to neglect the purposes for which I was placed under his charge. My conduct was regulated by the bounds of decency and good order, and thus far he had no evil report to make, supposing him so disposed; but, perhaps, the crafty Frenchman would have been equally complaisant, had I been in the habit of indulging worse feelings than those of indolence and aversion to mercantile business. As it was, while I gave a decent portion of my time to the commercial studies he recommended, he was by no means envious of the hours which I dedicated to other and more classical attainments, nor did he ever find fault with me for dwelling upon Corneille and Boileau, in preference to Postlethwayte, (supposing his folio to have then existed, and Monsieur Dubourg able to have pronounced his name,) or Savary, or any other writer on commercial economy. He had picked up somewhere a convenient expression, with which he rounded off every letter to his correspondent,-"I was all," he said, "that a father could wish."

My father never quarrelled with a phrase, however frequently repeated, provided it seemed to him distinct and expressive; and Addison himself could not have found expressions so satisfactory to him as, Yours received, and duly honoured the bills enclosed, as per margin.'

Knowing, therefore, very well what he desired me to be, Mr. Osbaldistone made no doubt, from the frequent repetition of Dubourg's favourite phrase, that I was the very thing he wished to see me; when, in an evil hour, he received my letter, containing my eloquent and detailed apology for declining a place in the firm, and a desk and stool in the corner of the dark counting-house in Crane-Alley, surmounting in height those of Owen, and the other clerks, and only inferior to the tripod of my father himself. All was wrong from that moment. Dubourg's reports became as suspicious as if his bills had been noted for dishonour I was summoned home in all haste, and

BEN JONSON'S Bartholomew Fair.

My father had, generally speaking, his temper under complete self-command, and his anger rarely indicated itself by words, except in a sort of dry testy manner, to those who had displeased him. He never used threats, or expressions of loud resentment. All was arranged with him on system, and it was his practice to do "the needful" on every occasion, without wasting words about it. It was, therefore, with a bitter smile that he listened to my imperfect answers concerning the state of commerce in France, and unmercifully permitted me to involve myself deeper and deeper in the mysteries of agio, tariffs, tare and tret; nor can I charge my memory with his having looked positively angry, until he found me unable to explain the exact effect which the depreciation of the louis d'or had produced on the negotiation of bills of exchange. "The most remarkable national occurrence in my time," said my father, (who nevertheless had seen the Revolution,)" and he knows no more of it than a post on the quay!"

"Mr. Francis," suggested Owen, in his timid and conciliatory manner, cannot have forgotten, that by an arret of the King of France, dated 1st May, 1700, it was provided that the porteur, within ten days after due, must make demand”

Mr. Francis," said my father, interrupting him, will, I dare say, recollect for the moment any thing you are so kind as hint to him.-But, body o' ine! how Dubourg could permit him!-Hark ye, (wen, what sort of a youth is Clement Dubourg, his nephew there, in the office, the black-haired lad?"

One of he cleverest clerks, sir, in the house; a prodigious young man for his time," answered Owen; for the gaiety and civility of the young Frenchman had won his heart.

"Ay, ay, I suppose he knows something of the nature of exchange. Dubourg was determined I should have one youngster at least about my hand who understood business; but I see his drift, and he shall find that I do so when he looks at the balance-sheet. Owen, let Clement's salary be paid up to next quarterday, and let him ship himself back to Bourdeaux in his father's ship, which is clearing out yonder."

"Dismiss Clement Dubourg, sir?" said Owen, with a faltering voice.

"Yes, sir, dismiss him instantly; it is enough to have a stupid Englishman in the counting-house to make blunders, without keeping a sharp Frenchman there to profit by them."

I had lived long enough in the territories of the Grand Monarque to contract a hearty aversion to arbitrary exertion of authority, even if it had not been instilled into me with my carliest breeding; and I could not refrain from interposing, to prevent an innocent and meritorious young man from paying the penalty of having acquired that proficiency which my father had desired for me.

"I beg pardon, sir," when Mr. Osbaldistone had done speaking, "but I think it but just, that if I have been negligent of my studies, I should pay the forfeit myself. I have no reason to charge Monsieur Dubourg with having neglected to give me opportunities of improvement, however little I may have profitted by them; and, with respect to Monsieur Cle ment Dubourg".

"With respect to him, and to you, I shall take the measures which I see needful," replied my father; "but it is fair in you, Frank, to take your own blame on your own shoulders-very fair, that cannot be denied.-I cannot acquit old Dubourg," he said, looking to Owen, "for having merely affordel Frank the means of useful knowledge, without either seeing that he took advantage of them, or reporting to me if he did not. You see, Owen, he has natural notions of equity becoming a British merchant."