CHAPTER CXIV.

THE AUTHOR HINTS AT CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE LIFE OF THOMAS GENT ON WHICH HE DOES NOT THINK IT NECESSARY TO DWELL.

Round white stones will serve they say,
As well as eggs, to make hens lay.
                                                            BUTLER.

If I were given to prolixity, and allowed myself to be led away from the subject before me, I might here be tempted to relate certain particulars concerning Thomas Gent; how under his first London master, Mr. Midwinter, whose house was a ballad-house, “he worked many times from five in the morning till twelve at night, and frequently without food from breakfast till five or six in the evening, through their hurry with hawkers.” And how in that same service he wrote, which is to say in modern language reported, Dr. Sacheverel's sermon after his suspension, for which his master gave him a crown piece, and a pair of breeches,—not before they were wanted;—and by which the said master gained nearly thirty pounds in the course of the week. And how he once engaged with Mr. Francis Clifton, who having had a liberal education at Oxford proved a Papist, set up a press, printed a newspaper, and getting in debt moved his goods into the liberty of the Fleet and there became entered as a prisoner; and how Gent sometimes in extreme weather worked for him under a mean shed adjoining to the prison walls, when snow and rain fell alternately on the cases, yet, he says, the number of wide mouthed stentorian hawkers, brisk trade, and very often a glass of good ale, revived the drooping spirits of him and his fellow workmen: and he often admired the success of this Mr. Clifton in his station, for whether through pity of mankind or the immediate hand of Divine Providence to his family, advantageous jobs so often flowed upon him as gave him cause to be merry under his heavy misfortunes.

And how while in this employ a piece of work came in which he composed and helped to work off, but was not permitted to know who was the author. It was a vindication of an honest clergyman who had been committed to the King's Bench upon an action of scandalum magnatum: however says he, “when finished the papers were packed up, and delivered to my care; and the same night, my master hiring a coach we were driven to Westminster, where we entered into a large sort of monastic building. Soon were we ushered into a spacious hall, where we sate near a large table covered with an ancient carpet of curious work, and whereon was soon laid a bottle of wine for our entertainment. In a little time we were visited by a grave gentleman in a black lay habit, who entertained us with one pleasant discourse or other. He bid us be secret; for, said he, the imprisoned divine does not know who is his defender; and if he did, I know his temper; in a sort of transport he would reveal it, and so I should be blamed for my good office: and whether his intention was designed to show his gratitude, yet if a man is hurt by a friend, the damage is the same as if done by an enemy: to prevent which is the reason I desire this concealment. You need not fear me, Sir, said my master; ‘and I, good sir,’ added I, ‘you may be less afraid of; for I protest I do not know where I am, much less your person, nor heard where I should be driven, or if I shall not be driven to Jerusalem before I get home again. Nay I shall forget I ever did the job by tomorrow, and consequently shall never answer any questions about it, if demanded. Yet sir, I shall secretly remember your generosity, and drink to your health with this brimfull glass.’ Thereupon this set them both a laughing, and truly I was got merrily tipsy, so merry that I hardly knew how I was driven homewards. For my part I was ever inclined to secresy and fidelity; and therefore I was nowise inquisitive concerning our hospitable entertainer.—But happening afterwards to behold a state prisoner in a coach, guarded from Westminster to the Tower, God bless me, thought I, it was no less than the Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Atterbury, by whom my master and I had been treated!”

Were I to ramble from my immediate purpose I might relate how Gent saw Mr. John Mathews, a young printer, drawn on a sledge to the place of execution where he suffered for high treason; and how Mathews's clothes were exceeding neat, the lining of his coat a rich Persian silk, and every other thing as befitted a gentleman; and how he talked of death like a philosopher to some young ladies who came to take their farewell. This poor youth was but in his nineteenth year, and not out of his apprenticeship to his mother and brother. He had been under misfortunes before, and through the favour of the government at that time was discharged, at which time his brother had given public orders to the people in his employ that if ever they found John either doing or speaking any thing against the government, they would inform him that he might take a proper method to prevent it. Nevertheless for ten guineas, he with the assistance of another apprentice and a journeyman printed a treasonable paper intitled Vox Populi Vox Dei, containing direct incitement to rebellion. I might relate also how this journeyman Lawrence Vezey, who went by the name of old gentleman in the printing office, and who had not the character of an honest man about his printing; and who moreover had gone to the criminal's mother and offered to go out of the way if she would give him money, and accordingly had gone to St. Albans, and staid there nine days, but no money coming, he could not stay out of the way longer, but seems rather to have been suspected of putting himself in the way,—I might, I say, relate, how this Vezey did not long survive the ill-fated youth; and how at his burial in an obscure part of Islington church-yard, many of the printers boys called devils, made a noise like such, with their ball stocks carried thither for that purpose, and how the minister was much interrupted thereby in the burial service, and shameful indignities were committed at the grave: and how the printers who had been at Islington that day, had their names sent off to the Courts of Westminster, where it cost their pockets pretty well before their persons were discharged from trouble. But Gent, who desired to be out of harm's way, had shunned what he called the crew of demons with their incendiaries to a mischief.

I might also relate how he once carried skull caps made of printing balls stuffed with wool to his brother printers, who were to exhibit their faces in that wooden frame called the pillory; in which frame nevertheless he seems to think they were properly set; and the mob were of the same opinion, for these skull caps proved but weak helmets against the missiles wherewith they were assailed. Moreover further to exemplify the perils which in those days environed the men who meddled with printer's types, I might proceed to say how, after a strange dream, poor Gent was in the dead of the night alarmed by a strange thundering noise at the door, and his door broken open, and himself seized in his bed by two king's messengers upon a false information that he had been engaged in printing some lines concerning the imprisoned Bishop of Rochester, which had given offence; and how he was carried to a public house near St. Sepulchre's Church, whither his two employers Mr. Midwinter and Mr. Clifton were also brought prisoners, and how they were taken to Westminster and there imprisoned in a very fine house in Manchester Court which had nevertheless within the fusty smell of a prison; and how from the high window of his humble back apartment he could behold the Thames, and hear the dashing of the flowing waters against the walls that kept it within due bounds: and how in the next room to him was confined that unhappy young Irish clergyman Mr. Neynoe, (not Naypoe as the name in these memoirs is erroneously given.) “I used,” says Gent, “to hear him talk to himself when his raving fits came on; and now and then would he sing psalms with such a melodious voice as produced both admiration and pity from me, who was an object of commiseration myself, in being awhile debarred from friends to see me, or the use of pen, ink, and paper to write to them.” And how after five days he was honourably discharged, and took boat from Palace Yard stairs, in which he says “my head seemed to be affected with a strange giddiness; and when I safely arrived at home, some of my kinder neighbours appeared very joyful at my return. And my poor linnet, whose death I very much feared would come to pass, saluted me with her long, pleasant, chirping notes; and indeed the poor creature had occasion to be the most joyful, for her necessary stock was almost exhausted, and I was come just in the critical time to yield her a fresh supply.” It was some compensation for his fright on this occasion that he printed the Bishop of Rochester's Effigy “with some inoffensive verses that pleased all parties,” which sold very well; and that he formed some observations upon the few dying words of Counsellor Layer, in nature of a large speech, which for about three days had such a run of sale that the unruly hawkers were ready to pull his press in pieces for the goods.

Farther I might say of Gent that in January 1739 when the Ouse at York was frozen, he set up a press on the ice, and printed names there, to the great satisfaction of young gentlemen, ladies, and others, who were very liberal on the occasion. And how having been unjustly as he thought ejected from a house in Stonegate which was held under a prebendal lease and which fell to Mr. Laurence Sterne, (to whom however it was in vain to apply for redress, it not being in his power to relieve him,) he bought a house in Petergate and built a tower upon it; “by which addition,” said he “my house seems the highest in the city and affords an agreeable prospect round the country: we have a wholesome air whenever we please to ascend, especially the mornings and evenings, with great conveniency for my business when overcrowded in the narrow rooms below; and several gentlemen have occasionally taken a serious pipe there, to talk of affairs in printing, as well as neighbours to satisfy their curiosity in viewing the flowers that grow almost round about upon the walls.”

This, and much more than this, might be said of Thomas Gent, and would have been deemed not uninteresting by the collectors of English topography, and typographic curiosities, Gent being well known to them for his “famous history of the City of York, its magnificent Cathedral, St. Mary's Abbey, &c.;” his “History of the Loyal Town of Ripon, Fountains Abbey, Beverley, Wakefield, &c.;” and his “History of the Royal and Beautiful Town of Kingston-upon-Hull.” He entered upon a different province when he wrote his Treatise, entitled “Divine Justice and Mercy displayed in the Life of Judas Iscariot.” But though it was because of his turn for books and antiquities that the Doctor employed him to hunt the stalls at York, as Browne Willis did to collect for him epitaphs and tradesmen's halfpence, what I had to say of him arises out of his connection with Richard Guy, and must therefore be confined to his dilatory courtship and late marriage.