Sketches by Boz | Page 3

better part of whose existence
has passed away, and who drag out the remainder in some inferior
situation, with just enough thought of the past, to feel degraded by, and
discontented with the present. We are unable to guess precisely to our
own satisfaction what station the man can have occupied before; we
should think he had been an inferior sort of attorney's clerk, or else the
master of a national school-- whatever he was, it is clear his present
position is a change for the better. His income is small certainly, as the
rusty black coat and threadbare velvet collar demonstrate: but then he
lives free of house-rent, has a limited allowance of coals and candles,
and an almost unlimited allowance of authority in his petty kingdom.
He is a tall, thin, bony man; always wears shoes and black cotton
stockings with his surtout; and eyes you, as you pass his parlour-
window, as if he wished you were a pauper, just to give you a specimen
of his power. He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant: morose,
brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to his
superiors, and jealous of the influence and authority of the beadle.
Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official. He
has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom
misfortune seems to have set her mark; nothing he ever did, or was
concerned in, appears to have prospered. A rich old relation who had
brought him up, and openly announced his intention of providing for
him, left him 10,000l. in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil.
Thus unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself, he
procured a situation in a public office. The young clerks below him,
died off as if there were a plague among them; but the old fellows over
his head, for the reversion of whose places he was anxiously waiting,
lived on and on, as if they were immortal. He speculated and lost. He
speculated again and won-- but never got his money. His talents were
great; his disposition, easy, generous and liberal. His friends profited
by the one, and abused the other. Loss succeeded loss; misfortune
crowded on misfortune; each successive day brought him nearer the
verge of hopeless penury, and the quondam friends who had been
warmest in their professions, grew strangely cold and indifferent. He
had children whom he loved, and a wife on whom he doted. The former

turned their backs on him; the latter died broken-hearted. He went with
the stream--it had ever been his failing, and he had not courage
sufficient to bear up against so many shocks--he had never cared for
himself, and the only being who had cared for him, in his poverty and
distress, was spared to him no longer. It was at this period that he
applied for parochial relief. Some kind-hearted man who had known
him in happier times, chanced to be churchwarden that year, and
through his interest he was appointed to his present situation.
He is an old man now. Of the many who once crowded round him in all
the hollow friendship of boon-companionship, some have died, some
have fallen like himself, some have prospered--all have forgotten him.
Time and misfortune have mercifully been permitted to impair his
memory, and use has habituated him to his present condition. Meek,
uncomplaining, and zealous in the discharge of his duties, he has been
allowed to hold his situation long beyond the usual period; and he will
no doubt continue to hold it, until infirmity renders him incapable, or
death releases him. As the grey-headed old man feebly paces up and
down the sunny side of the little court-yard between school hours, it
would be difficult, indeed, for the most intimate of his former friends to
recognise their once gay and happy associate, in the person of the
Pauper Schoolmaster.

CHAPTER II
--THE CURATE. THE OLD LADY. THE HALF-PAY CAPTAIN

We commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish, because
we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his office. We
will begin the present, with the clergyman. Our curate is a young
gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and fascinating manners,
that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half the
young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other
half, desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in

our parish church on Sunday before; and never had the little round
angels' faces on Mr. Tomkins's monument in the side aisle, beheld such
devotion on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty
when he first came to astonish the parishioners. He parted his hair on
the centre of his forehead in