Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackerayof the spoon are written the words: “Anno 1609, Bin ickaldus ghekledt gheghaen”—“In the year 1609 I wentthus clad.” The good Dutchman was released from hisAlgerine captivity (I imagine his figure looks like thatof a slave amongst the Moors), and in his thank-offeringto some godchild at home, he thus piously recordshis escape.Was not poor Cervantes also a captive amongst theMoors? Did not Fielding, and Goldsmith, and Smollett,too, die at the chain as well as poor Hood? Think ofFielding going on board his wretched ship in the Thames,with scarce a hand to bid him farewell; of brave TobiasSmollett, and his life, how hard, and how poorly rewarded;of Goldsmith, and the physician whispering,“Have you something on your mind?” and the wild dyingeyes answering, “Yes.” Notice how Boswell speaksof Goldsmith, and the splendid contempt with whichhe regards him. Read Hawkins on Fielding, and the scornwith which Dandy Walpole and Bishop Hurd speak ofhim. Galley-slaves doomed to tug the oar and wear thechain, whilst my lords and dandies take their pleasure,and hear fine music and disport with fine ladies in thecabin!But stay. Was there any cause for this scorn? Had someof these great men weaknesses which gave inferiors advantageover them? Men of letters cannot lay their handson their hearts, and say, “No, the fault was fortune’s,and the indifferent world’s, not Goldsmith’s norFielding’s.” There was no reason why Oliver should alwaysbe thriftless; why Fielding and Steele should spongeupon their friends; why Sterne should make love to hisneighbors’ wives. Swift, for a long time, was as poor asany wag that ever laughed: but he owed no penny tohis neighbors: Addison, when he wore his most threadbarecoat, could hold his head up, and maintain hisdignity: and, I dare vouch, neither of those gentlemen,when they were ever so poor, asked any man alive topity their condition, and have a regard to the weaknessesincidental to the literary profession. Galley-slave,forsooth! If you are sent to prison for some error forwhich the law awards that sort of laborious seclusion,so much the more shame for you. If you are chained to87