Such now bedew my cheek-but mine Can only be by tears exprest, THE TANNER'S WIDOW. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee. Hamlet. MR. and Mrs. Pitman would have been the best assorted and happiest couple in all Leighton-Buzzard, -in fact, they might have successfully claimed the Dunmow flitch of bacon,-but for certain natural differences of temper, habits, and pursuits; and their perpetual squabbles on the subject of dress, housekeeping, amusements, and all that regarded pecuniary disbursements. He stoutly determined not to die a beggar, she as sturdily declared that she would not live like one; and both kept their words. It certainly did not become a thriving tanner's wife, as she very justly observed, to go draggling about in rags and ubbish; but then it was equally unseemly, as he very pertinently rejoined, to flaunt through the town in scarlet velvet pelisses that set all the place in a blaze, and wear such a variety of plume-crowned bonnets, that more people went to church to look at her single head, than to mark the three into which the clergyman regularly divided his Cerberus sermons. Whether this was the fault of the lady, the congregation, or the Reverend Mr. Snuffleton, he did not presume to decide; but all those who were poorer than Mr. Pitman joined in condemning his wife's extravagance, while all those who were richer contented themselves with laughing at it. Certain it is, that she introduced unheard-of luxuries among the good tradespeople of Leighton-Buzzard. She it was who first put a livery upon one of the apprentices, and made him wait at table when there was company, to the great clamour of the whole town and tan-yard; and she it was who first placed before her guests gooseberry wine ennobled with the title of Champagne, which, being in lank narrow-shouldered bottles, wellsealed down and secured at the mouth, and very sparkling, frothy, and vapid when it found vent, might well have passed off, even with travellers, as a genuine native of France. The neighbours, who came eagerly to taste this rarity, were quite as eager, when they went away, to abuse the donor; and Mr. Pitman, anxious for his double credit as a manufacturer of gooseberry-wine and a frugal tanner, burnt with impatience to reveal the secret; but his wife having sworn that she would order a new velvet pelisse from Bond-street the moment he divulged, he kept his tongue between his teeth, and his money in his pocket. To do this the more effectually, he had repeatedly declared to the tradespeople that he would not pay one farthing of his wife's extravagant debts; and he was a man of such firmness and decision of character, that Mrs. Pitman was constantly obliged to go to him, and insist upon having the money immediately, that she might discharge them herself. The gravedigger in Hamlet assures us that a tanner will considerably outlast others under ground: though they should not therefore outlive their fellows upon earth, they may consider themselves gainers in the long run. There is no quarrelling about tastes, but for my own part I would rather be a lively young man, than a mummy, however old. Mr. Pitman might have made the same decision, had a choice been afforded him; but it was not. He quitted us all without notice, evaporating as it were, without any visible motive for becoming invisible; and when I inquired the particulars of my friend, the schoolmaster at Leighton-Buzzard, he could only exclaim in the words of Cicero," Abiit-evasit-excessit-erupit !" Mrs. Pitman was as inconsolable as bombazeen could make her;-her cap was a perfect pattern of grief, and nobody could have suspected her of laughing in her sleeve when they saw the depth of its weepers. And yet as a lover of expense, and not of her husband, she might well have been justified in some ebullition of pleasant surprise, when she found that, owing to a prize in the Lottery, which he had kept a secret, and certain usurious transactions which he had no great temptation to reveal, he had left her one of the richest widows in the whole neighbourhood. Her acquaintance, with their usual determination to make others share their own envy, or at all events to excite astonishment, instantly doubled the amount of her fortune, which rumour soon tripled and quadrupled, until, upon the authority of some friends and connexions who "happened to know the fact," it was finally and accurately set down at only three times the real amount. "Now we shall have fine doings," cried the good gossips of Leighton-Buzzard—“ a rare dashing coach, and liveries of light blue, and scarlet, I warrant me, with as many plumes in the head as her husband had at his funeral, (which was, after all, a scandalous shabby one,) and as fine rings upon her finger as if she were a lady mayoress. Ay, ay, Madam Pitman is a proper one to make the money fly." Now, with all proper deference to these good gossips, I am inclined to think that a sudden accession of unexpected wealth is just as likely to make a niggard as a spendthrift. C'est le premier pas qui coute in hoarding; the difficulty is to make a beginning worthy of your future efforts to increase it. What can a person do with a few pounds? It is too little to put in the stocks, or buy a house; it is even dangerous to keep in your house; you must spend it in your own defence. Such is our treatment of small sums, large ones seldom pay us a visit, and the consequence is that few people in common life save money. Let a foundation be once laid, and we feel such a pride and pleasure in building up our fortune, that we rarely abandon the enterprise. Few who have felt the difficulty of acquiring, and the gratification of possessing property, ever fall into extravagance. This is the great merit of the Savings Banks; they form a nucleus for the humblest ambition, and are sure to become powerful stimulants of frugal and moral habits. The fact is, that Mrs. Pitman no sooner felt the dignity of wealth, the consequence of possession, and the pleasure of the homage which they procure, than she very naturally concluded that her dignity, consequence, and pleasure, would increase with the accumulation of her riches; and began economizing with great vigour and perseverance. No more fine pelisses and bonnets: these were very well to procure her the reputation of affluence; she now had the reality, and rather affected shabbiness of attire, not so much from parsimony, as to excite attention by the contrast of her present with her former self, and so recall the cause of the change. Though the habit of frugality finally stole upon her, so far as to degenerate into penuriousness, and procure for her the appellation of the old female miser, she could at times emancipate herself from its influence. As it was said of a certain bard, that he threw about his dung with an air of dignity, it might be affirmed of her, that there was sometimes a magnificence in her meanness. She contributed largely to public subscriptions; made handsome donations to the parish; and frequently gave fifty pounds at a time to her nephew Frank Millington, though it was never known that they did him any good, or relieved him in the smallest degree from his embarrassments. |