Stockdale

“ Old Stockdale, the somewhat notorious publisher of his day, who, like the hero of the last picture, had the honour of standing in the pillory, is shown at his forge, surrounded by hammers and horseshoes, and with a tethered jackass waiting his attentions, as soon as the Bookselling Blacksmith shall have completed the work he has in hand, the somewhat incongruous occupation of hammering out folio volumes on an anvil. ”

“ Stockdale pursued his way without hearing a sound beyond that of his own footsteps; and in due time he passed beneath the trees of the plantation which surrounded the Warm’ell Cross-road. Before he had reached the point of intersection he heard voices from the thicket.
‘Hoi-hoi-hoi! Help, help!’
The voices were not at all feeble or despairing, but they were unmistakably anxious. Stockdale had no weapon, and before plunging into the pitchy darkness of the plantation he pulled a stake from the hedge, to use in case of need. ”

“ Newberry’s from the carrier’s, where he had taken shelter, and in the evening walked up to his temporary home.
As he now lived there, Stockdale felt it unnecessary to knock at the door; and entering quietly he had the pleasure of hearing footsteps scudding away like mice into the back quarters. He advanced to the parlour, as the front room was called, though its stone floor was scarcely disguised by the carpet, which only over-laid the trodden areas, leaving sandy deserts under the bulging mouldings of the table-legs, playing with brass furniture. But the room looked snug and cheerful. ”

“ Stockdale turned pale, but he spoke quietly. ‘Then, Lizzy, we must part. I cannot go against my principles in this matter, and I cannot make my profession a mockery. You know how I love you, and what I would do for you; but this one thing I cannot do.’
‘But why should you belong to that profession?’ she burst out. ‘I have got this large house; why can’t you marry me, and live here with us, and not be a Methodist preacher any more? I assure you, Richard, it is no harm, and I wish you could only see it as I do! We only carry it on in winter: in summer it is never done at all. ”

“ Stockdale's name was altogether unknown to honest folks before Shelley gave it currency and introduced the owner of it to polite society—at all events on paper. He owes his notoriety, therefore, entirely to the boy-poet, into whose way the good man was thrown by one of those inexplicable freaks of chance which often bring about such strange results both to subject and object. ”

“ The noise of the cartwheels had stopped, and given place to another sort of sound.
‘’Tis a scuffle!’ said Stockdale. ‘There’ll be murder! Lizzy, let go my arm; I am going on. On my conscience, I must not stay here and do nothing!’
‘There’ll be no murder, and not even a broken head,’ she said. ‘Our men are thirty to four of them: no harm will be done at all.’
‘Then there is an attack!’ exclaimed Stockdale ”

“ Stockdale recognized this lady’s voice as Owlett’s.
‘Why not?’ said Stockdale. ‘This is the public highway.’
‘Now look here, youngster,’ said Owlett. ‘O, ’tis the Methodist parson!—what, and Mrs. Newberry! Well, you’d better not go up that way, Lizzy. They’ve all run off, and folks have got their own again.’
The miller then hastened on and joined his comrades. Stockdale and Lizzy also turned back. ‘I wish all this hadn’t been forced upon us,’ she said regretfully. ”

“ Instead of being conducted by four men, as had happened when they went out of the village, the horses and carts were now accompanied by a body of from twenty to thirty, all of whom, as Stockdale perceived to his astonishment, had blackened faces. Among them walked six or eight huge female figures, whom, from their wide strides, Stockdale guessed to be men in disguise. As soon as the party discerned Lizzy and her companion four or five fell back, and when the carts had passed, came close to the pair. ”

“ The little building was full to overflowing, and he took up the subject which all had expected, that of the contraband trade so extensively practised among them. His hearers, in laying his words to their own hearts, did not perceive that they were most particularly directed against Lizzy, till the sermon waxed warm, and Stockdale nearly broke down with emotion. In truth his own earnestness, and her sad eyes looking up at him, were too much for the young man’s equanimity. ”

“ Stockdale, a lonely young fellow, who had for weeks felt a great craving for somebody on whom to throw away superfluous interest, and even tenderness, was not sorry to join her; ”

“ STOCKDALE, JOHN (1749?–1814) , publisher, born in Cumberland about 1749, was brought up, it is said, as a blacksmith, then became valet to John Astley of Dukinfield, Cheshire, and eventually removed, about 1780, to London, where he was engaged as porter to John Almon [q. v.] , the publisher. When Almon retired from business in favour of John Debrett [q. v.] , Stockdale opened an opposition shop; and, ‘being a man of natural parts, he soon became conspicuous in business in spite of much eccentricity of conduct and great coarseness of manners’ (Gent. Mag. June 1815) . ”

“ It is unfair of him to impose so upon you, and get your good name into danger by his smuggling tricks. Promise me that the next time he wants to leave his tubs here you will let me roll them into the street?’
She shook her head. ‘I would not venture to offend the neighbours so much as that,’ said she, ‘or do anything that would be so likely to put poor Owlett into the hands of the excisemen.’
Stockdale sighed, and said that he thought hers a mistaken generosity when it extended to assisting those who cheated the king of his dues. ”

“ My father’s understanding was clear and strong, and he could penetrate human nature. He already saw that I had natural advantages above those of common men.”
But it seems that, at some earlier period even than his twelfth year, some good-natured Pythian had predicted that Stockdale would be “a poet.” This ambiguous oracle was still listened to, after a lapse of more than half a century, and the decree is still repeated with fond credulity:—“Notwithstanding,” he exclaims, “all that is past, O thou god of my mind! ”

“ Stockdale did not stop to argue the matter, but went quickly in the direction of the noise, Lizzy keeping at his side. ‘Don’t you interfere, will you, dear Richard?’ she said anxiously, as they drew near. ‘Don’t let us go any closer: ’tis at Warm’ell Cross where they are seizing ’em. You can do no good, and you may meet with a hard blow!’
‘Let us see first what is going on,’ he said. But before they had got much further the noise of the cartwheels began again; and Stockdale soon found that they were coming towards him. ”

“ It is not only Owlett who is concerned.'
'This is too bad,' said Stockdale impatiently.
'On my honour, I won't encourage him as my lover,' Lizzy answered earnestly. 'A reasonable man will be satisfied with that.'
'Well, so I am,' said Stockdale, his countenance clearing.
III-THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT
Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the life of his fair landlady, which he had casually observed but scarcely ever thought of before. It was that she was markedly irregular in her hours of rising. ”

“ Thus they still lived on as indefinitely affianced lovers, each of whom hardly acknowledged the other’s claim to the name of chosen one. Stockdale persuaded himself that his hesitation was owing to the postponement of the ordained minister’s arrival, and the consequent delay in his own departure, which did away with all necessity for haste in his courtship; but perhaps it was only that his discretion was reasserting itself, and telling him that he had better get clearer ideas of Lizzy before arranging for the grand contract of his life with her. ”

“ Stockdale sat in the deep chair about twenty minutes sipping and meditating, till he at length took warmer views of things, and longed for the morrow, when he would see Mrs. Newberry again. He then felt that, though chronologically at a short distance, it would in an emotional sense be very long before to-morrow came, and walked restlessly round the room. His eye was attracted by a framed and glazed sampler in which a running ornament of fir-trees and peacocks surrounded the following pretty bit of sentiment:-
‘Rose-leaves smell when roses thrive,
Here’s my work while I’m alive ”

“ Her course was different from that of the preceding night, branching off to the left over Lord’s Barrow as soon as they had got out of the lane and crossed the highway. By the time they reached Chaldon Down, Stockdale, who had been in perplexed thought as to what he should say to her, decided that he would not attempt expostulation now, while she was excited by the adventure, but wait till it was over, and endeavour to keep her from such practices in future. ”

“ His tragedy of ‘Ximenes,’ in five acts and in verse, was printed in 1788, but was not acted, as the manager of Covent Garden Theatre declined to accept it. After paying a visit to Tangier for the sake of his health, Stockdale returned to Lesbury in 1790. ”

“ The book duly appeared in four small volumes in 1825 as ‘Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, written by Herself,’ and created such a sensation that Stockdale's door was thronged ten deep on the mornings announced for the publication of a new volume, and a special barrier had to be erected to direct the passage of the applicants. Over thirty editions were stated to have been issued within the year. A French version, in six volumes, was published ‘chez L'Huillier, Rue Poupée, Paris,’ in 1825. ”

“ In 1782 he wrote ‘An Examination of the Important Question whether Education at a Great School or by Private Tuition is preferable,’ London, 1782, 8vo. In 1783 Lord-chancellor Thurlow presented him to the vicarage of Lesbury, Northumberland, and to this the Duke of Northumberland added the vicarage of Long Houghton in the same county. There Stockdale composed an ‘Essay on Misanthropy,’ 1783. ”

“ As for Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited capacity for backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not denied to Dissenters. He set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for the space of one hour and a half, after which he found it was useless to struggle further, and gave himself up to the situation. ‘The other minister will be here in a month,’ he said to himself when sitting over the fire. ‘Then I shall be off, and she will distract my mind no more! . . . And then, shall I go on living by myself for ever? No ”

“ On she tripped at a quickening pace till the lane turned into the turnpike-road, which she crossed, and got into the track for Ringsworth. Here she ascended the hill without the least hesitation, passed the lonely hamlet of Holworth, and went down the vale on the other side. Stockdale had never taken any extensive walks in this direction, but he was aware that if she persisted in her course much longer she would draw near to the coast, which was here between two and three miles distant from Nether-Moynton ”

“ Now we will go across to Owlett’s orchard, and see what we can find there.’
Stockdale, who heard this discussion from the garden-gate, over which he had been leaning, was rather alarmed, and thought it a mistake of the villagers to keep so completely out of the way. He himself, like the excisemen, had been wondering for the last half-hour what could have become of them. Some labourers were of necessity engaged in distant fields, but the master-workmen should have been at home ”

“ Farmer, Ann London
Fentum, Benjamin Ditto 10 Oct. 1783 7
Ferguson, John Exeter 20 March, 1786 7
Fillesey, Thomas Bristol 29 April, 1783 7
Fitzgerald, Jane, alias Phillips Ditto 4 April, 1786 7
Field, William
Finlow, John, alias Hervey
Field, Jane London
Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Ditto 13 Decem. 1786 7
Flyn, Edward
Flarty, Phebe London 21 Feb. 1787 7
Fowkes, Francis Ditto 13 Decem. 1785 7
Forrester, Robert Ditto 10 Sept. ”

“ They are many a league away."
"Aye, man," said Ben, "and all the Yorkshire men know that Douglas of Liddesdale was here. All Scotland may march behind him some day."
"Then I may say to thee," said Richard, "and to every man of this company, speak not upon the way one word of the Knight of Liddesdale. Closed lips, safe head. We are on the king's errand."
"Even so!" exclaimed Ben. "I was right. I deemed the Scottish captain a bird of ill omen. Thou mayest trust thy men, Lord Richard of Wartmont. We of the greenwood are well used to keeping a silent tongue. Else were our necks worth but little." ”

“ We white folk stood inside to watch the fun. Priscilla threw out a handful of pennies, and the darkeys just piled themselves up in the road on top of the money. You could see nothing but madly waving legs. The mass heaved and tossed and moved from one side of the road to the other. The Lord High Chancellor was at the bottom of the heap, while the Hof-rath wiggled his bare feet high in the air. Every fellow who grabbed a penny had ten fellows pulling at [176] him. ”

“ He ran down the road for a quarter of a mile, then climbed a fence again, but not a human being was in sight. In about half an hour he hastily returned.
“Chap,” said he, “is that boy gone?”
“Yes,” answered Chap. “I let him go after I had given you plenty of time to get to the bridge. He said he came from town, and was in an awful hurry to get back. I made him go by the path along the river, so that I’d be sure he wouldn’t interfere with you. Did you see your uncle?”
“No,” replied Phil. “Did the boy say anything about the person who sent him with the note,—what kind of man he was?” ”

“ As for Desire Edwards, she had the whole army. If I have hitherto spoken of her in a manner as if she were the only "young lady" in Stockbridge, that is no more than the impression which she gave. Although there were several families in the village which had a claim to equal gentility, their daughters somehow felt that they failed to make good that claim in Desire's presence. They owned, though they found less flattering terms in which to express it, the same air of distinction and dainty aloofness about her, which the farmers' daughters, too humble for jealousy, so admiringly admitted. ”