|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 56
ut lapsu graviore ruant;
certain it is, she now began to meditate mischief against Wild,
who seems to have come to that period at which all heroes have
arrived, and which she was resolved they never should transcend.
In short, there seems to be a certain measure of mischief and
iniquity which every great man is to fill up, and then Fortune
looks on him of no more use than a silkworm whose bottom is spun,
and deserts him. Mr. Blueskin was convicted the same day of
robbery, by our hero, an unkindness which, though he had drawn on
himself, and necessitated him to, he took greatly amiss: as Wild,
therefore, was standing near him, with that disregard and
indifference which great men are too carelessly inclined to have
for those whom they have ruined, Blueskin, privily drawing a
knife, thrust the same into the body of our hero with such
violence, that all who saw it concluded he had done his business.
And, indeed, had not fortune, not so much out of love to our hero
as from a fixed resolution to accomplish a certain purpose, of
which we have formerly given a hint, carefully placed his guts out
of the way, he must have fallen a sacrifice to the wrath of his
enemy, which, as he afterwards said, he did not deserve; for, had
he been contented to have robbed and only submitted to give him
the booty, he might have still continued safe and unimpeached in
the gang; but, so it was, that the knife, missing noble parts (the
noblest of many) the guts, perforated only the hollow of his
belly, and caused no other harm than an immoderate effusion of
blood, of which, though it at present weakened him, he soon after
recovered.
This accident, however, was in the end attended with worse
consequences: for, as very few people (those greatest of all men,
absolute princes excepted) attempt to cut the thread of human
life, like the fetal sisters, merely out of wantonness and for
their diversion, but rather by so doing propose to themselves the
acquisition of some future good, or the avenging some past evil;
and as the former of these motives did not appear probable, it put
inquisitive persons on examining into the latter. Now, as the vast
schemes of Wild, when they were discovered, however great in their
nature, seemed to some persons, like the projects of most other
such persons, rather to be calculated for the glory of the great
man himself than to redound to the general good of society,
designs began to be laid by several of those who thought it
principally their duty to put a stop to the future progress of our
hero; and a learned judge particularly, a great enemy to this kind
of greatness, procured a clause in an Act of Parliament a trap for
Wild, which he soon after fell into. By this law it was made
capital in a prig to steal with the hands of other people. A law
so plainly calculated for the destruction of all priggish
greatness, that it was indeed impossible for our hero to avoid it.
CHAPTER TWO
A SHORT HINT CONCERNING POPULAR INGRATITUDE. MR. WILD'S ARRIVAL IN
THE CASTLE, WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES TO BE FOUND IN NO OTHER
HISTORY.
If we had any leisure we would here digress a little on that
ingratitude which so many writers have observed to spring up in
the people in all free governments towards their great men; who,
while they have been consulting the good of the public, by raising
their own greatness, in which the whole body (as the kingdom of
France thinks itself in the glory of their grand monarch) was so
deeply concerned, have been sometimes sacrificed by those very
people for whose glory the said great men were so industriously at
work: and this from a foolish zeal for a certain ridiculous
imaginary thing called liberty, to which great men are observed to
have a great animosity.
This law had been promulgated a very little time when Mr. Wild,
having received from some dutiful members of the gang a valuable
piece of goods, did, for a consideration somewhat short of its
original price, re-convey it to the right owner; for which fact,
being ungratefully informed against by the said owner, he was
surprized in his own house, and, being overpowered by numbers, was
hurried before a magistrate, and by him committed to that castle,
which, suitable as it is to greatness, we do not chuse to name too
often in our history, and where many great men at this time
happened to be assembled.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|