Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
And I know not why we may not be pleased with prosperitie, as well as
patient under adversitie; as long as we say, "Thou, Lord, hast made our
hill soe strong." 'Tis more difficult to bear with comelinesse,
doubtlesse; and envious folks there will be; and we know alle things
have an end, and everie sweet hath its sour, and everie fountain its
fall; but ... 'tis very pleasant for all that.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
REMINISCENCES OF AN ATTORNEY.
THE CHEST OF DRAWERS.
I am about to relate a rather curious piece of domestic history, some of
the incidents of which, revealed at the time of their occurrence in
contemporary law reports, may be in the remembrance of many readers. It
took place in one of the midland counties, and at a place which I shall
call Watley; the names of the chief actors who figured in it must also,
to spare their modesty or their blushes, as the case may be, be changed;
and should one of those persons, spite of these precautions, apprehend
unpleasant recognition, he will be able to console himself with the
reflection, that all I state beyond that which may be gathered from the
records of the law courts will be generally ascribed to the fancy or
invention of the writer. And it is as well, perhaps, that it should be
so.
Caleb Jennings, a shoemender, cobbler, snob--using the last word in its
genuine classical sense, and by no means according to the modern
interpretation by which it is held to signify a genteel sneak or
pretender--he was any thing but that--occupied, some twelve or thirteen
years ago, a stall at Watley, which, according to the traditions of the
place, had been hereditary in his family for several generations. He may
also be said to have flourished there, after the manner of cobblers; for
this, it must be remembered, was in the good old times, before the
gutta-percha revolution had carried ruin and dismay into the
stalls--those of cobblers--which in considerable numbers existed
throughout the kingdom. Like all his fraternity whom I have ever fallen
in with or heard of, Caleb was a sturdy Radical of the Major Cartwright
and Henry Hunt school; and being withal industrious, tolerably
skillful, not inordinately prone to the observance of Saint Mondays,
possessed, moreover, of a neatly-furnished sleeping and eating apartment
in the house of which the projecting first floor, supported on stone
pillars, overshadowed his humble workplace, he vaunted himself to be as
really rich as an estated squire, and far more independent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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