I shall trouble you with one Excerpt more, from a "Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation;" because the style of it is solemn and weighty; and because it was written by More in his last imprisonment in the Tower, preparatory to his sentence. After witnessing his treatment of Sir John Hytton, and his brethren, we shall be inclined to mitigate some of our remorse, that More should have suffered death himself for conscience sake. The reader will not do this passage justice, if he do not read it as part of a sermon; and as putting himself into the feelings of an auditory of More's Creed and Times.
——"But some men now when this calling of God [any tribulation] causeth them to be sad, they be loth to leave their sinful lusts that hang in their hearts, and specially if they have any such kind of living, as they must needs leave off, or fall deeper in sin: or if they have done so many great wrongs, that they have many 'mends to make, that must (if they follow God) 'minish much their money, then are these folks (alas) woefully bewrapped, for God pricketh upon them of his great goodness still, and the grief of this great pang pincheth them at the heart, and of wickedness they wry away, and fro this tribulation they turn to their flesh for help, and labour to shake off this thought, and then they mend their pillow, and lay their head softer, and assay to sleep; and when that will not be, then they find a talk awhile with them that lie by them. If that cannot be neither, then they lie and long for day, and then get them forth about their worldly wretchedness, the matter of their prosperity, the self-same sinful things with which they displease God most, and at length with many times using this manner, God utterly casteth them off. And then they set nought neither by God nor Devil. * * * But alas! when death cometh, then cometh again their sorrow, then will no soft bed serve, nor no company make him merry, then must he leave his outward worship and comfort of his glory, and lie panting in his bed as if he were on a pine-bank, then cometh his fear of his evil life and his dreadful death. Then cometh the torment, his cumbered conscience and fear of his heavy judgment. Then the devil draweth him to despair with imagination of hell, and suffereth him not then to take it for a fable. And yet if he do, then findeth it the wretch no fable. * * * Some have I seen even in their last sickness set up in their death-bed underpropped with pillows take their play-fellows to them, and comfort themselves with cards, and this they said did ease them well to put fantasies out of their heads; and what fantasies trow you? such as I told you right now of, their own lewd life and peril of their soul, of heaven and of hell that irked them to think of, and therefore cast it out with cards' play as long as ever thy might, till the pure pangs of death pulled their heart fro their play, and put them in the case they could not reckon their game. And then left them their gameners, and slily slunk away, and long was it not ere they galped up the ghost. And what game they came then to, that God knoweth and not I. I pray God it were good, but I fear it very sore."
THE CONFESSIONS OF H. F. V. H. DELAMORE, Esq.
(1821)
Sackville-street, 25th March, 1821.
Mr. Editor—A correspondent in your last number,[41] blesses his stars, that he was never yet in the pillory; and, with a confidence which the uncertainty of mortal accidents but weakly justifies, goes on to predict that he never shall be. Twelve years ago, had a Sibyl prophesied to me, that I should live to be set in a worse place, I should have struck her for a lying beldam. There are degradations below that which he speaks of.
[41] Elia:—Chapter on Ears.
I come of a good stock, Mr. Editor. The Delamores are a race singularly tenacious of their honour; men who, in the language of Edmund Burke, feel a stain like a wound. My grand uncle died of a fit of the sullens for the disgrace of a public whipping at Westminster. He had not then attained his fourteenth year. Would I had died young!
For more than five centuries, the current of our blood hath flowed unimpeachably. And must it stagnate now?
Can a family be tainted backwards?—can posterity purchase disgrace for their progenitors?—or doth it derogate from the great Walter of our name, who received the sword of knighthood in Cressy field, that one of his descendants once sate * * * * * * * * * * *?
Can an honour, fairly achieved in quinto Edwardi Tertii, be reversed by a slip in quinquagesimo Georgii Tertii?—how stands the law?—what dictum doth the college deliver?—O Clarencieux! O Norroy!
Can a reputation, gained by hard watchings on the cold ground, in a suit of mail, be impeached by hard watchings on the cold ground in other circumstances—was the endurance equal?—why is the guerdon so disproportionate?
A priest mediated the ransom of the too valorous Reginald, of our house, captived in Lord Talbot's battles. It was a clergyman, who by his intercession abridged the period of my durance.
Have you touched at my wrongs yet, Mr. Editor?—or must I be explicit as to my grievance?
Hush, my heedless tongue.
Something bids me—"Delamore, be ingenuous."
Once then, and only once——
Star of my nativity, hide beneath a cloud, while I reveal it!
Ancestors of Delamore, lie low in your wormy beds, that no posthumous hearing catch a sound!
Let no eye look over thee, while thou shalt peruse it, reader!
Once————
these legs, with Kent in the play, though for far less ennobling considerations, did wear "cruel garters."
Yet I protest it was but for a thing of nought—a fault of youth, and warmer blood—a calendary inadvertence I may call it—or rather a temporary obliviousness of the day of the week—timing my Saturnalia amiss.——
Streets of Barnet, infamous for civil broils, ye saw my shame!—did not your Red Rose rise again to dye my burning cheek?
It was but for a pair of minutes, or so—yet I feel, I feel, that the gentry of the Delamores is extinguished for ever.——
Try to forget it, reader.——
(Signed) Henry Francis Vere Harrington
Delamore.
THE GENTLE GIANTESS
(1822)
The widow Blacket, of Oxford, is the largest female I ever had the pleasure of beholding. There may be her parallel upon the earth, but surely I never saw it. I take her to be lineally descended from the