The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

THE EXPEDITION OF HUMPHRY CLINKER 49
projectors, philosophers, wits, poets, players, chemists, fiddlers, and
buffoons. If he makes any considerable stay in the place, he is sure
of meeting with some particular friend, whom he did not expect
to see; and to me there is nothing more agreeable, than such casual
rencounters—Another entertainment, peculiar to Bath, arises from
the general mixture of all degrees assembled in our public rooms,
without distinction of rank or fortune. This is what my uncle
reprobates, as a monstrous jumble of heterogeneous principles;
a vile mob of noise and impertinence, without decency or sub-
ordination. But this chaos is to me a source of infinite amusement.
I was extremely diverted, last ball-night, to see the Master of
the Ceremonies leading, with great solemnity, to the upper end of
the room, an antiquated Abigail, dressed in her lady’s cast-clothes;
whom he (I suppose) mistook for some countess just arrived at the
Bath. The ball was opened by a Scotch lord, with a mulatto heiress
from St. Christopher’s; and the gay colonel Tinsel danced all the
evening with the daughter of an eminent tinman from the borough
of Southwark—Yesterday morning, at the Pump-room, I saw a
broken-winded Wapping landlady squeeze through a circle of
peers, to salute her brandy-merchant, who stood by the window,
prop’d upon crutches; and a paralytic attorney of Shoe-lane, in
shuffling up to the bar, kicked the shins of the chancellor of
England, while his lordship, in a cut bob, drank a glass of water
at the pump. I cannot account for my being pleased with these
incidents, any other way than by saying, they are truly ridiculous
in their own nature, and serve to heighten the humour in the farce
of life, which I am determined to enjoy as long as I can.—
Those follies, that move my uncle’s spleen, excite my laughter.
He is as tender as a man without a skin; who cannot bear the
slightest touch without flinching. What tickles another would give
him torment; and yet he has what we may call lucid intervals, when
he is remarkably facetious—Indeed, I never knew a hypochondriac
so apt to be infected with good-humour. He is the most risible
misanthrope I ever met with. A lucky joke, or any ludicrous
incident, will set him a-laughing immoderately, even in one of his
most gloomy paroxysms; and, when the laugh is over, he will curse
his own imbecillity. In conversing with strangers, he betrays no
marks of disquiet—He is splenetic with his familiars only; and not
even with them, while they keep his attention employed; but when
his spirits are not exerted externally, they seem to recoil and prey