Journal as a Pedlar, 1789-90
With a mixture of grief and indignation struggling in my breast, I returned to the sale-room, and leaving my comrade for a short time to manage affairs himself, retired to a corner of the room, where, having pondered a while on this fresh disappointment, I started to myself, resolved to think no more of the matter. During the rest of the time we staid here, nothing interesting happened. As soon as the Fair was finished, we made up our budgets, and taking separate courses, agreed to meet at night in Musselburgh, which lies on the shore, about three miles distant.
In this day's excursion I met with little worthy remarking, and found but indifferent sale for my goods. Though in the bosom of a rich and luxuriant country, yet the houses were but thinly scattered, and those few I met with, were either miserable hovels, or lordly farms; their possessors deprest with hard labour and poverty, or rendered haughty by pride, luxury, and absolute power over their vassals. The farms here being portioned out in large tracts, the poor peasant must be the farmer's slave, or remove to the town; and I have often observed among them a spiritless resignation to their drudgeries and mean servitude. Almost unconscious that they were born for any other thing, but to be perpetual servants, from father to son and from mother to daughter, they struggle with want, and rear up their offspring in the service of their insolent superiors.
I am very far from affirming that these poor people are less happy than their opulent masters, whose houses exhibit a continual scene of extravagant feasting and other luxuries, copied from the laudable fashions of the great, those patterns of prudence and leaders of mankind. I am persuaded, that the humble, parsimonious peasant, eats his simple meal with as much satisfaction, rises refreshed from his few hours of sleep with as much cheerfulness, and experiences more real happiness, peace of mind, and bodily health, than those overgorged superiors, who treat their dependents as slaves, and look down on them as beings made of an inferior mould. Yet I cannot forbear regretting, that the pernicious and increasing custom of extensive farms, is not abolished, and a lesser portion of land allotted to each; by which means, the extremities of want and luxury would be equally avoided, the poor put on a footing to do something for themselves and offspring, and the country, more honestly supplied with its own product, than it is at this present day.
About the dusk of the evening I entered Musselburgh, and proceeding to the appointed rendezvous, found my comrade newly arrived, whose success, by the smiles that sat on his face, I understood to have been equal to his wishes. Having ate nothing since the morning (for the country people are becoming too fashionable, to affront a pedlar by offering him victuals), we ordered our landlady to make ready some eatables, and sat down to dinner with an appetite that gave double relish to our small but refreshing repast.
I had, when in this town, about nine months before, obtained subscriptions from several people of the place, and as our stay was intended to be short, I took a few copies along with me, and set out in search of some of those gentlemen, whose promises I had been persuaded positively to depend on. The first I found out, was a little, hunch-backed dominie, who had formerly professed a singular esteem for me, and had not only subscribed himself, but also, cheerfully engaged to procure me a numerous list among his friends. That the reader may have a better idea of this important teacher, I shall beg leave to represent him here, to his eye, as he exactly appeared to mine. His height was something less than that of an ordinary walking staff. His head (which far exceeded the proportion of his bulk, and seemed to be, “Of more than mortal size”) was fixed between two huge eminencies, the one jutting out before and the other heaped up behind like a mountain. His eyes were large, and rolled for ever with a kind of jealous pride and self-importance, on all around him. The rest of his figure was spun out into a pair of legs and thighs, that, extended outwards on each side, supported his shapeless frame; like the long feet of a clerk's writing-stool. This strange phenomenon, gazing up to my face for a considerable time, declared he had never seen me in his life-time before.
I mentioned some circumstances in our last conversation, namely, the proposed publication and subscription paper, with some other particulars; and with difficulty brought the affair to his remembrance, which, he said, “Was like a dream to him.”
Having surveyed the book for some time, he enquired the price, and being told it, returned the copy immediately, saying, he would take none of it at that price. I replied, that the price was no more than what was signified in the Proposals. This he flatly denied; on which, pulling out a copy of the conditions, “I'll take it on no conditions,” said the impertinent dwarf. “What!” replied I, “did you not subscribe for the book!” “It might be so,” said he, “but show me my name! No law can oblige me to take it unless you can show me my hand-write.” I told him, that I trusted as much to people's honour as their formal subscription, and reminded him of putting the paper to which he had subscribed in his pocket, with a kind promise of doing something for the author. It was in vain that I endeavoured to expostulate the matter with him; his wife joined him, exclaiming, that they knew better how their money came, than to throw it away on nonsense; and the deformed creature itself, continually squeaked out, “Shew me my name! shew me my name! No law can oblige me, sir, unless you shew me my individual hand-write.” Although I was secretly exasperated at this diminutive wretch, yet I concealed my indignation, and telling him, that Nature had indeed been very unkind to him, in giving him a crazy body with such an insignificant soul, left the house immediately. I proceeded next to another, of the same tribe, who had promised to take a copy, with this proviso, that I should sacrifice one-half of its price with him at the shrine of Bacchus. I found him at home, and was civilly received. He looked over the book some time, but told me with an honest frankness, I had taken him in a wrong time, and hoped that I would not interpret his inability to a want of willingness to take the poems. Poverty, he said, had frozen up his pockets, and effectually prevented him from performing his engagement, but if at any future period I had occasion to pass that way, he begged that I would not neglect to call. I promised to do so, and again proceeded to another quarter of the town. To relate all the different receptions, and describe the various characters I met with in this place, would be tedious, and perhaps uninteresting. By some I was treated with the most extreme kindness; others had entirely forgot the affair, and the greatest part, either could or would not, accept of it. Tired of this fruitless expedition and sick of their mean excuses, I returned to my lodgings, and concealing the nature of my success from my comrade, joined in the mirth that seemed to circle round the hearth.