273 



ANECDOTE OF A HIGHWAYMAN. 



A Clergyman on his way from London to the parish in which 

 he resided, within twenty miles of the metropolis, as the 

 evening was closing^, overtook a traveller on horseback, and as 

 the road had been long notorious for frequent robberies, begged 

 leave to join company, which was agreed to. 



The appearance of the stranger, half-suppressed sighs, and a 

 rooted melancholy stamped on his countenance, against which 

 he seemed to be ineffectually struggling, interested the old gen- 

 tleman in his favour. They conversed on various subjects, and 

 soon dissipated that unsocial reserve, which has sometimes been 

 considered the characteristic mark of an Englishman. Politics, 

 the weather, and the danger of travelling near London at night, 

 with other extemporaneous topics of new acquaintance, were 

 successively the subject of their conversation. *'I am surprised,'' 

 said the ecclesiastic, " that any reasonable being should expose 

 himself to the infamy and destruction which sooner or later 

 always follow the desperate adventures of a highwayman ; and 

 my astonishment at the infatuation increases when I recollect 

 several instances of wanderers in this dangerous path, who were 

 men of sound intellect, and previous to the fatal act, of sober life 

 and conversation ; they must have known that in this our Christian 

 country, there were inexhaustible resources of pity and relief, in 

 the hands and hearts of the charitable and humane, many of 

 whom make it the business of their lives, to seek for, and assist 

 real distress in any form." 



" I agree to the truth of y^ur description generally speakins;,''* 

 replied the traveller; " the princely revenues and bulky magni- 

 ficence of our various public hospitals; the vast subscriptions on 

 every occasion of general calamity or individual distress; the 

 thousands, and tens of thousands, fed, cloathed,and instructed; 

 the Gallic fugitives, and the shoals of exiles from every part of the 

 continent, confirm the justice of your panegyrics on British bene- 

 volence ar.d hospitality ; but there is a species of suffering, which 

 shrinking from public notice, and brooding in silence over its 

 sorrows, often escapes the benignant but rapid glance of modem 

 charity. There are spirits, Sir," continued the stranger, in an 

 elevated tone of voice, his eyes flashing at the moment with 

 ferocious pride, and tortured sensibility, *' there are spirits which 

 would rather perish by inches than attempt to waken the ge- 

 nerosity, or expose themselves to the neglect or contempt of the 



VOL. VII.— 1836. LL 



