CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
Of Mr Abraham Adams the curate, Mrs Slipslop the
chambermaid, and others.
Mr Abraham Adams was an excellent scholar. He was a perfect
master of the Greek and Latin languages; to which he added a great share of
knowledge in the Oriental tongues; and could read and translate French,
Italian, and Spanish. He had applied many years to the most severe study, and
had treasured up a fund of learning rarely to be met with in a university. He
was, besides, a man of good sense, good parts, and good nature; but was at the
same time as entirely ignorant of the ways of this world as an infant just
entered into it could possibly be. As he had never any intention to deceive, so
he never suspected such a design in others. He was generous, friendly, and
brave to an excess; but simplicity was his characteristick: he did, no more
than Mr Colley Cibber, apprehend any such passions as malice and envy to exist
in mankind; which was indeed less remarkable in a country parson than in a
gentleman who hath passed his life behind the scenes,—a place which hath been
seldom thought the school of innocence, and where a very little observation
would have convinced the great apologist that those passions have a real
existence in the human mind.
His virtue, and his other qualifications, as they rendered
him equal to his office, so they made him an agreeable and valuable companion,
and had so much endeared and well recommended him to a bishop, that at the age
of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty-three pounds a year;
which, however, he could not make any great figure with, because he lived in a
dear country, and was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.
It was this gentleman, who having, as I have said, observed
the singular devotion of young Andrews, had found means to question him
concerning several particulars; as, how many books there were in the New
Testament? which were they? how many chapters they contained? and such like: to
all which, Mr Adams privately said, he answered much better than Sir Thomas, or
two other neighbouring justices of the peace could probably have done.
Mr Adams was wonderfully solicitous to know at what time,
and by what opportunity, the youth became acquainted with these matters: Joey
told him that he had very early learnt to read and write by the goodness of his
father, who, though he had not interest enough to get him into a charity
school, because a cousin of his father's landlord did not vote on the right
side for a churchwarden in a borough town, yet had been himself at the expense
of sixpence a week for his learning. He told him likewise, that ever since he
was in Sir Thomas's family he had employed all his hours of leisure in reading
good books; that he had read the Bible, the Whole Duty of Man, and Thomas a
Kempis; and that as often as he could, without being perceived, he had studied
a great good book which lay open in the hall window, where he had read,
"as how the devil carried away half a church in sermon-time, without
hurting one of the congregation; and as how a field of corn ran away down a
hill with all the trees upon it, and covered another man's meadow." This
sufficiently assured Mr Adams that the good book meant could be no other than
Baker's Chronicle.
The curate, surprized to find such instances of industry and
application in a young man who had never met with the least encouragement,
asked him, If he did not extremely regret the want of a liberal education, and
the not having been born of parents who might have indulged his talents and
desire of knowledge? To which he answered, "He hoped he had profited
somewhat better from the books he had read than to lament his condition in this
world. That, for his part, he was perfectly content with the state to which he
was called; that he should endeavour to improve his talent, which was all
required of him; but not repine at his own lot, nor envy those of his
betters." "Well said, my lad," replied the curate; "and I
wish some who have read many more good books, nay, and some who have written
good books themselves, had profited so much by them."
Adams had no nearer access to Sir Thomas or my lady than
through the waiting-gentlewoman; for Sir Thomas was too apt to estimate men
merely by their dress or fortune; and my lady was a woman of gaiety, who had
been blest with a town education, and never spoke of any of her country
neighbours by any other appellation than that of the brutes. They both regarded
the curate as a kind of domestic only, belonging to the parson of the parish,
who was at this time at variance with the knight; for the parson had for many
years lived in a constant state of civil war, or, which is perhaps as bad, of
civil law, with Sir Thomas himself and the tenants of his manor. The foundation
of this quarrel was a modus, by setting which aside an advantage of several
shillings per annum would have accrued to the rector; but he had not yet been
able to accomplish his purpose, and had reaped hitherto nothing better from the
suits than the pleasure (which he used indeed frequently to say was no small
one) of reflecting that he had utterly undone many of the poor tenants, though
he had at the same time greatly impoverished himself.
Mrs Slipslop, the waiting-gentlewoman, being herself the
daughter of a curate, preserved some respect for Adams: she professed great
regard for his learning, and would frequently dispute with him on points of
theology; but always insisted on a deference to be paid to her understanding,
as she had been frequently at London, and knew more of the world than a country
parson could pretend to.
She had in these disputes a particular advantage over Adams:
for she was a mighty affecter of hard words, which she used in such a manner
that the parson, who durst not offend her by calling her words in question, was
frequently at some loss to guess her meaning, and would have been much less
puzzled by an Arabian manuscript.
Adams therefore took an opportunity one day, after a pretty
long discourse with her on the essence (or, as she pleased to term it, the
incence) of matter, to mention the case of young Andrews; desiring her to
recommend him to her lady as a youth very susceptible of learning, and one
whose instruction in Latin he would himself undertake; by which means he might
be qualified for a higher station than that of a footman; and added, she knew
it was in his master's power easily to provide for him in a better manner. He
therefore desired that the boy might be left behind under his care.
