Previous Essay |
| 
Index |
| 
Next Essay |
|
THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS
I like to meet a sweep -- understand
me -- not a grown sweeper -- old chimney-sweepers are by no means
attractive -- but one of those tender novices, blooming through
their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced
from the cheek -- such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat
earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the
peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should
I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating
the sun-rise?
I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks
-- poor blots -- innocent blacknesses -
I reverence these young
Africans of our own growth -- these almost clergy imps, who sport
their cloth without assumption; and from their little pulpits
(the tops of chimneys), in the nipping air of a December morning,
preach a lesson of patience to mankind.
When a child, what a
mysterious pleasure it was to witness their operation! to see
a chit no bigger than one's-self enter, one knew not by what process,
into what seemed the fauces Averni -- to pursue him in imagination,
as he went sounding on through so many dark stifling caverns,
horrid shades -- to shudder with the idea that "now, surely,
he must be lost for ever! " -- to revive at hearing his feeble
shout of discovered day-light -- and then (O fulness of delight)
running out of doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon
emerge in safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious
like some flag waved over a conquered citadel! I seem to remember
having been told, that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with
his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. It was an awful
spectacle certainly; not much unlike the old stage direction in
Macbeth, where the "Apparition of a child crowned with a
tree in his hand rises."
Reader, if thou meetest
one of these small gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to
give him a penny. It is better to give him two-pence. If it be
starving weather, and to the proper troubles of his hard occupation,
a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) be superadded,
the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a tester.
There is a composition,
the ground-work of which I have understood to be the sweet wood
`yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and
tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes
a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate
may relish it; for myself, with every deference to the judicious
Mr. Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop (the only
one he avers in London) for the vending of this "wholesome
and pleasant beverage, on the south side of Fleet-street, as thou
approachest Bridge-street -- the only Salopian house, -- I have
never yet adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of
his commended ingredient -- a cautious premonition to the olfactories
constantly whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly,
with all due courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise
not uninstructed in dietetical elegances, sup it up with avidity.
I know not by what particular
conformation of the organ it happens, but I have always found
that this composition is surprisingly gratifying to the palate
of a young chimney-sweeper --- whether the oily particles (sassafras
is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften the fuliginous
concretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections) to adhere
to the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practitioners or whether
Nature, sensible that she had mingled too much of bitter wood
in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth
her sassafras for a sweet lenitive but so it is, that no possible
taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey
a delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless,
they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam,
to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than
those domestic animals -- cats -- when they purr over a new-found
sprig of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies
than philosophy can inculcate.
Now albeit Mr. Read
boasteth, not without reason, that his is the only Salopion house;
yet he it known to thee, reader -- if thou art one who keepest
what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact
-- he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from stalls, and
under open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humbler customers,
at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake,
reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard- handed artisan
leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle,
not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former,
for the honours of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer,
between the expired and the not yet relumined kitchen- fires,
the kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory
odours. The rake, who wisheth to dissipate his o'ernight vapours
in more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he passeth;
but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast.
This is Saloop -- the
precocious herb-woman's darling -- the delight of the early gardener,
who transports his smoking cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith
to Covent-garden's famed piazzas -- the delight, and, oh I fear,
too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him shouldest thou
haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the grateful
steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee but
three halfpennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an
added halfpenny) -- so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'er-charged
secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lighter
volume to the welkin -- so may the descending soot never taint
thy costly well-ingredienced soups -- nor the odious cry, quick-reaching
from street to street, of the fired chimney, invite the rattling
engines from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation
thy peace and pocket!
I am by nature extremely
susceptible of street affronts; the jeers and taunts of the populace;
the low-bred triumph they display over the casual trip, or splashed
stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a
young sweep with something more than forgiveness. In the last
winter but one, pacing along Cheap-side with my accustomed precipitation
when I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon my back
in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and shame enough -- yet
outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had happened --
when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered me.
There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob,
and to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular, till
the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it)
worked themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red
from many a previous weeping, and soot- inflamed, yet twinkling
through all with such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that
Hogarth -- but Hogarth has got him already (how could he miss
him?) in the March to Finchley, grinning at the pye-man -- there
he stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, as if the
jest was to last for ever -- with such a maximum of glee, and
minimum of mischief, in his mirth -- for the grin of a genuine
sweep hath absolutely no malice in it -- that I could have been
content, if the honour of a gentleman might endure it, to have
remained his butt and his mockery till midnight.
I am by theory obdurate
to the seductiveness of what are called a fine set of teeth. Every
pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is a casket, presumably
holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should take leave to
"air " them as frugally as possible. The fine lady,
or fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet
must I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display
(even to ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications,
strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable
piece of foppery. It is, as when
A sable cloud
Turns forth her silver lining on the night.
It is like some remnant of gentry not
quite extinct; a badge of better days; a hint of nobility -- and,
doubtless, under the obscuring darkness and double night of their
forlorn disguisement, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle
conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedigree.
The premature apprenticements of these tender victims give but
too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and almost infantile
abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, so often
discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be accounted
for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many noble Rachels
mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the
fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity,
and the recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance
of good fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless defiliations.
In one of the state-beds
at Arundel castle, a few years since under a ducal canopy -- (that
seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly
for its beds, in which the late duke was especially a connoisseur)
encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets
inwoven -- folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than
the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius was discovered by chance,
after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast asleep,
a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow confounded
his passage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys, by
some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber;
and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to resist
the delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited;
so, creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head
upon the pillow, and slept. like a young Howard.
Such is the account
given to the visitors at the Castle. -- But I cannot help seeming
to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted at in this
story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am mistaken.
Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with whatever
weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under such
a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets
of a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between
them, when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch,
still far above his pretension -- is this probable, I would ask,
if the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been
manifested within him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this
young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me that he must be)
was allured by some memory, not amounting to full consciousness,
of his condition in infancy, when be was used to be lapt by his
mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets as he there found, into
which he was now but creeping back as into his proper incunabula,
and resting-place. -- By no other theory, than by this sentiment
of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), can I explain a deed
so venturous, and, indeed, any other system, so indecorous, in
this tender, but unseasonable sleeper.
My pleasant friend Jem
White was so impressed with a belief of metamorphoses like this
frequently taking place, that in some sort to reverse the wrongs
of fortune in these poor changelings, he instituted an annual
feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure to officiate
as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield,
upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew. Cards were
issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the metropolis,
confining the invitation to their younger fry. Now and then an
elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good-naturedly
winked at; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight,
indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself
into our party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in
time to be no chimney.sweeper (all is not soot which looks so),
was quoited out of the presence with universal indignation, as
not having on the wedding garment; but in general the greatest
harmony prevailed. The place chosen was a convenient spot among
the pens, at the north side of the fair, not so far distant as
to be impervious to the agreeable hub-hub of that vanity; but
remote enough not to be obvious to the interruption of every gaping
spectator in it. The guests assembled about seven. In those little
temporary parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so
fine as substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided
with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues
dilated at the savour. James White, as head waiter, had charge
of the first table; and myself, with our trusty companion Bigod,
ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was clambering and
jostling, you may he sure, who should get at the first table --
for Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the humours
of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some general
expression of thanks for the honour the company had done him,
his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame
Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting,
half-blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and imprint
upon her chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host
would set up a shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of
grinning teeth startled the night with their brightness. O it
was a pleasure to see the sable younkers lick in the unctuous
meat, with his more unctuous sayings -- how he would fit the tit
bits to the puny mouths, reserving the lengthier links for the
seniors -- how he would intercept a morsel even in the jaws of
some young desperado, declaring it "must to the pan again
to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's eating"
-- how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or that piece
of kissing-crust, to a tender juvenile, advising them all to have
a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best patrimony,
how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it were
wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good,
he should lose their custom; with a special recommendation to
wipe the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts -- "
The King," -- the "Cloth," -- which, whether they
understood or not, was equally diverting and flattering; -- and
for a crowning sentiment, which never failed, "May the Brush
supersede the Laurel!" All these, and fifty other fancies,
which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, would
he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment
with a "Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so,"
which was a prodigious comfort to those young orphans; every now
and then stuffing into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish
on these occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages,
which pleased them mightily, and was the savouriest part, you
may believe, of the entertainment.
Golden lads and lasses must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust -
James White is extinct,
and with him these suppers have long ceased. He carried away with
him half the fun of the world when he died -- of my world at least.
His old clients look for him among the pens; and, missing him,
reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of
Smithfield departed for ever.
Previous Essay |
|
|
Next Essay |
|