OR,
THE OLD STORY OVER AGAIN.

It was in the year '39, a little before the "Dog-cart Nuisance," as it used to be called, was abolished in London, that Ingram Wilson had some curious thoughts as he stood looking at a very old and interesting dog, in one of the by-streets of the Borough.—Ingram Wilson, it ought to have been first said, was a young man who had forsaken an engagement on a thriving newspaper in an opulent agricultural district, and had "come up to London," partly through a slight disagreement with his former patron, but chiefly through a vivid persuasion, that London was the only true starting point for "a man of genius," a title to which young Ingram laid claim. Now, this claim had never been questioned by any one in the country, and Ingram thought every one would as readily acknowledge it in the metropolis. How could Ingram Wilson help thinking so, when every body had asked him, for three years, "why he did not go to London, and make his fortune?" But, good-lack! when Ingram arrived in London, and had stared at all the lions for three days, he began to feel himself in a desert, even amidst thousands. He knew nobody, and nobody knew him. He stept into two or three newspaper offices, stationers' shops, and booksellers' little warehouses, asking questions about an engagement; but people looked at him so suspiciously, that he grew afraid of asking further. He looked at the Times, and the Herald, and the Chronicle every morning, in one coffee-house or other—walked to this place and that—or wrote letters of application, in answer to advertisements, but all was in vain: two months fled entirely, and he had not received a single hour's employ, or earned one farthing in London; and he was now reduced to his last sovereign!

Feeling the necessity of an instant resort to the strictest and most prudential economy, he quitted his lodgings, and found one, (a beggarly bed, a chair, and broken table, in a fifth floor,) at eighteen-pence a week. All day he was out, and sometimes dined on threepenn'orth of boiled beef and potatoes, and sometimes he didn't: however, he contrived to make the sovereign last one more month, for he still found no employ. And now he was come to selling or pawning—what he had never been driven to before, in his life. His books none of the pawn-brokers would have: they were an article that could be turned to no account, if not redeemed. So Ingram pawned his watch; but for so small a sum, that though he was still more economical, he could only stretch another month on the "lent money," as he called it, little supposing he would never see the watch again. And then went extra articles of clothing, till he could go no farther. And when six months were gone, part of his books were gone likewise; but they were sold at comparatively waste-paper price at the second-hand booksellers.

It was then, at the expiration of six months' trial of London, without having found one hour's employ, and when he had reduced his clothes till he looked "shabby," and had not half-a-dozen books left that would fetch him the value of another week's subsistence at the book-stalls;—it was then that young Ingram Wilson had "some curious thoughts as he stood looking at a very old and interesting dog, in one of the by-streets of the Borough."

Ingram had been much disgusted with every dog-cart he had seen before; for he was driven to moralise, almost by necessity, as he wandered about from street to street; and he had made many a notch in his mind about costermongers riding on the front of their dog-carts in a morning, "four-in-hand," and all in a row, yelping as they galloped under the lash of the whip; and how much they must resemble Esquimaux emperors and Kamschatka princes, if there were any; and of the wicked glee of the rascally young sweeps who would rattle down Blackfriars' Road, and St. George's Road, and other roads of an evening, racing one against another—"taking home" the one-dog shay of some cat's meat man or dealer in greens, who had thus committed his chariot and animals to these sooty Jehus, while he himself staid at some favourite resort to smoke and tipple "heavy wet" till midnight. I say, young Ingram Wilson had made many a notch in his mind about these, and other dog-cart phenomena; but he had never felt so much melancholy interest in looking at a dog in a cart, as he felt in looking at this "very old and interesting dog."

There might be something in the way in which his attention was first aroused to look at the dog. He had just entered this by-street, and was so much absorbed in reflecting on his own increasingly perilous circumstances, that he had not even noticed the name of the street (though this was a practice he usually attended to so punctually, that he grew quite familiar with numerous localities during the six months):—he merely saw that it was a street of some length, with a ground-story room to every house on the right hand, what would be termed a cellar in the country,—fenced off by neat palisades from the flagged pavement. His reverie was broken suddenly, by the shrill, and peculiarly disagreeable, and well-known cry "Cat's m-e-a-t!" and the man jumped from his vehicle, the dog stood stock still, and almost along the whole line of the street, cats white, and black, and tabby, and tortoiseshell, were suddenly at the palisades, of the houses, setting up their backs and tails, and uttering a shrill "mew!" Ingram was a little struck with this; but still more with a fine large black tom-cat, that leaped from the palisade of the house where the cart was standing, and ran under the old dog's head. Setting up his back and tail, he passed under the head of the dog again and again, so coaxingly and soothingly, and uttered so kindly sympathetic a "purr," every time that he passed backward and forward, and the poor aged dog arched his neck, and hung his ears forward, and bent down to receive the soft rub of the cat's back under his chin, and looked so grateful, that Ingram stood still, and pondered curiously on this display of sympathy between brute creatures—a quality that he began to think scarce among human beings.

The poor old dog looked almost like a bag of leather, with a collection of old bones in it: he was so gaunt and worn, and the hair was so much chafed off, in sundry places with his harness; and, moreover, his back and limbs were so crooked and bent, that Ingram felt sure the dog had known no slight portion of slavery in his day. And, perhaps, he had a hard master, and no one sympathised with him but this black tom-cat, thought the poverty-stricken philosopher—but who sympathises with me? That was his only sour thought, but it did not abide with him. The man returned to the cart, said, "Go on!" and the dog went on; but none of the other cats came to rub under the old dog's head. Ingram felt he was attracting the man's frowning notice, by standing to look at the dog, and so he walked on to think.

"The world is not all misery for that poor old dog," thought Ingram, as he walked on: "very likely, the few minutes' pleasure he receives every morning from the gentle sympathy of the black tom-cat renders him happily forgetful of the labour and hardness of the remaining part of the day. And yet, the poor old dog looked as if he were poorly fed; and what a mortification it must be to be carrying food to the cats, and have so little himself: always in the smell of it, but never or seldom to taste: almost as bad as Tantalus steeped to the very chin, and most likely drenched through the skin, and yet dry as a fish! There is a something that pleases me, however, very much, in this act of the kind, brotherly tom-cat," said Ingram to himself, "and I'll see this sight again."

And Ingram saw the sight again, for he took care to walk in the same neighbourhood for the three mornings following, and felt increasing pleasure in witnessing the black tom-cat rub his back under the poor old dog's chin, while the dog looked each morning as richly gratified as ever. Ingram Wilson was satisfied that if those few minutes' pleasure did not form a compensation for the poor dog's every day's pain, they went very far towards it.

But the circumstance of a pale, handsome young man, though rather seedily dressed, coming through that particular street every morning, for four mornings, at the same hour, and standing to look at that old dog and tom-cat, was an occurrence not likely to go unnoticed in London, where people notice every minute circumstance in a way that much surprised Ingram Wilson, when he first began to find it out, for he had calculated on a very different sort of feeling in that respect. Nothing, indeed, annoyed him so much as the keen impudent stare of strangers, full in his face, and for several seconds: for Ingram did not reflect that he must be staring equally hard, or he would not know that other people were staring at him. And nothing pestered him more than to observe passengers smile and talk to their companions, as they observed Ingram's lips move, when some thought passed through his mind earnestly; and yet he forgot how much he had been struck with that circumstance, above every thing, when he first walked along Cheapside, and Ludgate and Fleet Streets, and the Strand: the very great number of people who talked to themselves as they walked alone, and even motioned with their hands in the most earnest manner.

Ingram had been closely observed, and the observance, on the fourth morning, produced him an adventure. He was turning to move on, at the end of his fourth soliloquy on the dog-and-cat spectacle, when a tall gentlemanly person, with a cane, stepped from the house where the tom-cat ran in, and seemed bent on walking along the street in Ingram's company.

"A fine morning, sir," said the gentleman: "you seemed to be interested with our fine old cat and his way of saying, 'How d'ye do?' to the old dog, every morning."

"Yes, sir, I was," answered Ingram, somewhat pleased with the pretty expression, as he thought it, of the gentleman, and the silvery voice in which he spoke.

"Ay, sir, there's more kindness among dumb creatures than we think of," rejoined the gentleman: "much more, I'm inclined to think, than amongst human beings."

"Do you think so, sir?" asked Ingram; for the observation awoke a vague painfulness that he did not like, at once, to express to a stranger.

"Why, have you found nothing but kindness, young man, in the world, hitherto?" said the stranger, with a look that Ingram thought so benevolent as to be completely melted by it. "Have you found nothing but kindness, now, in London, permit me to ask? You are from the country, I think?"

"Yes," answered Ingram, feeling too much at work with regret within to say more.

"Seeking for a situation, and finding none, perhaps?" continued the gentleman; "and—but I shall, perhaps, be obtruding where I have no right—perhaps, beginning to feel it difficult to subsist?"

Ingram looked volumes, but could not reply: he had lived on two cups of muddy coffee and a roll, daily, for the last month, and this was the first and only human being who had troubled himself to ask him a question relative to his circumstances. Ingram was next invited, very, very kindly, to return to the stranger's house; and he could not muster pride enough to refuse. There was one face at the window, which had been there every one of the four mornings that Ingram had passed, although he had not seen it; but he saw it now, and he thought it the sweetest he had ever seen; and, indeed, it was looking very angelically just then, when he caught the first glimpse of it. 'Twas an expression that said, "Oh! he's come back, just as I wished!"—if Ingram could have read it.

Ingram Wilson had found a friend: not a rich one, as he speedily found, but a human being with a heart—a real heart—and Ingram could not have found any thing more valuable had he searched the world over. After partaking a good plain breakfast—for, although the forenoon was advanced, the poor young fellow had not, till then, broken his fast—Ingram composed his spirits, and, at the request of his new friend—his first London friend—related the cause and intent of his leaving the country. His course of suffering in London he touched upon but slightly at first; but the gentleman gradually and winningly drew the entire truth from him, and then proceeded, with a paternal look, to give Ingram some little advice as to the future.

"You have only erred as hundreds have erred before you," he said:—"hundreds! I might have said thousands; for it is not merely through the persuasion that they shall be able to attain eminence in literature that the young come on adventure to London. A sort of universal romantic idea pervades the minds of most young people with regard to the capital; and, indeed, it is the same almost all over Europe, and, for any thing I know to the contrary, all over the world. I am sure, however, that the feeling is equally strong, and I think stronger in France. All young French people have an idea that Paris is the only place wherein to attain their wishes. With the same impression, all young people imagine, if they can only struggle up to London, they shall make something out in the world. Alas! thousands reach this overgrown hive, merely to starve and die in it; and they are fortunate who can find their way back into the country without falling victims to their own romance. Now, permit me to ask—and yet, your own account of the little rupture of good feeling between your former patron and yourself almost answers the question beforehand—did you bring with you any note of introduction or recommendation to any person in London?"

Ingram answered, that the thought had presented itself before he left the country, that a note of introduction from his patron to certain newspaper offices might be serviceable, but pride and temporary anger had prevented his asking the favour.

Ingram's new friend shook his head, but looked compassionately upon the lad, and told him nothing could be done without an introduction in London: it was what every one looked for who received an application, and what every body must be furnished with who made one.

The youth caught eagerly at the information, and said he could yet obtain a note of introduction—and he thought more than one—from the country:—such notes, too, as he thought must certainly be available in procuring him an engagement on some of the leading periodicals: or, perhaps, an offer for an independent work; and he had several tales and romances begun.

The gentleman smiled, but soon warned Ingram, in a serious tone, not to depend so sanguinely on what he had not tried. "I said that nothing could be done without an introduction," he continued; "but I did not tell you that introductions were always successful in bringing benefits to those who presented them."

However, Ingram's constitution did not permit him to sober down without experience, when once an idea had seized him. The gentleman quickly perceived it; for he had partaken of the same temperament in youth, although he had cooled down by age and disappointment. He did not use further dissuasion, then; but permitted Ingram to retire to his lodgings to write the letters he began to talk about, with hope beaming so lucidly in his face, and only pressed him cordially to sup with him in the evening. Ingram retired, shaking hands fervently and gratefully with the gentleman and his elderly lady, and then with the daughter—and saw nothing, mentally, all the way to his lodgings, but the sweet face of her whose hand he had last shaken. A thousand visions succeeded during that day as he wrote the letters—thought again and again of the beautiful face—took the letters to the post-office—and, in the evening, again saw the sweet face, and talked with the sensible gentleman, and received his kind hospitality.

The gentleman ventured to give a hint that he himself had influence enough to help Ingram to some occasional employs a copyist at the British Museum; but Ingram had, all along, most romantically resolved to aim at something more dignified; and, in his present sanguine mood, in spite of his poverty, he gave no ear to the gentleman's hint. So the gentleman did not repeat his hint; but reserved it, for an occasion when, he feared, it would become but too acceptable to the young man.

A week passed, and Ingram breakfasted at ten, and supped at eight, every morning and evening of the term, with the gentleman and his wife and daughter. The week was one of immense anxiety to Ingram when he was at his own lodgings, or wandering in the street; but it was productive of real pleasure, in the shape of solid information and advice from the kind gentleman; and it gave a commencement to a mutual and avowed attachment between the youth and the gentleman's beautiful and gentle daughter.

At the end of a week, two letters of introduction arrived: one to the M.P. who represented the borough in which Ingram had resided, and to whose cause he had rendered some service in his former newspaper capacity; the other was from a baronet, Ingram had also served in a similar mode, to a literary man of some eminence; in fact, the M.P. was also an eminent littÉrateur, so that Ingram's hopes grew large and fervid. The gentleman advised moderation; but Ingram could not observe it: his constitution, as yet, was master of his reason. He was smilingly received by the literary man; but he could not help observing that the literary man smiled more as he read the baronet's letter, than at his, Ingram's, application. He was begged politely to call again. He did call again—and again—-and again—before he found the literary man once more "at home." The event was a recommendation to wait on a small publisher, who had commenced a small periodical, and wanted a young man of genius, and all that, to edit it. Ingram went to work in that quarter:—helped to bring out four weekly numbers of the periodical—received one sovereign for his month's labour—and then the thing was stopped, like hundreds of similar ephemera, because "it did not sell."

The same literary man was visited again, when this engagement failed; but Ingram left his door in wrath, and never called again; because he saw the literary man enter his own house, while he, Ingram, was but at a dozen yards' distance from it; and yet the servant affirmed "he was not at home."

Ingram's better and more magnificent hopes, however, were yet undissipated. During his month's harassing and ill-paid labour on the unsuccessful magazine, he was awaiting an important decision: at least he believed so. The literary M.P. had also received him with smiles—smiles that Ingram had been inured to at election seasons; but which, as green as he was, he always felt to be assumed; for it is the heart, not the understanding, that really judges of the genuineness of a smile. Yet, on the occasion of Ingram's first call at the town residence of the legislator, the smile was so prolonged, that Ingram conceived it to be more like a real smile, than the evanescent and valvular-like changes of skin and muscle that the M.P. always seemed to have at such delightful and momentary command while "canvassing" or "returning thanks," in the borough he represented. And then the M.P. entered, of his own accord, on the inquiry as to what Ingram had written, and begged he would entrust a little manuscript or two, to his, the M.P.'s, care, and he would place them in the hand of his own publisher, with his own recommendation, if he believed they possessed merit.

The if shook Ingram a little; but he, next day, took his best manuscript, and left it at the M.P.'s house, for he was "not at home," like the other literary man, although Ingram really thought he heard his voice, when the servant took in the name of the caller; but the valet said, "Not at home, sir," when he returned, and so Ingram left the manuscript, and called again next day. To make the story as short as possible, he called fifteen times during the four weeks, but had only one more interview with the literary M.P. during that term; and this was the product of it: the M.P. assured Ingram that his manuscript possessed merit, much merit; that he had left it with his own publisher; and begged Ingram would call again in a few more days, and he would tell him whether the publisher received it.

This seemed to Ingram Wilson a very solid foundation for most magnificent hopes. How could a publisher refuse a manuscript which was so highly recommended? and how could the M.P. fail, very highly, to recommend what he himself said "possessed merit, much merit?" Such were Ingram's questions; and he was a little shocked to see his friend, the kind gentleman, shake his head and give a silent look, when they were proposed in the gentleman's hearing.

Another month passed, and the dream was dissipated! Ingram was always answered, "Not at home," when he called at the M.P.'s: his friend, the kind gentleman, called at the publisher's, and learned, most unequivocally, that the publisher had never had such a manuscript presented to him, either by the M.P. or any other person: Ingram wrote to the M.P., and received his manuscript by a messenger, for an answer; and was only prevented from writing back to tell the M.P. he was a rascal, by the advice, or, rather, authority, for it amounted to that, of his friend, the kind gentleman.

And now, Ingram, spirit-broken and humbled with what he conceived to be his sanguine and foundationless folly, vowed to his friend that he would never believe promises in future, and would copy at the Museum, or "do any thing" as a means of obtaining a mere livelihood, till he could finish one of his works entirely, and try a publisher by his own application, and solely on the merits of his production. The gentleman cheered the youth, as well as he was able, but Ingram drooped from that time.

A winter of heartache, inward grief, mortified pride, colds and coughs, and, eventually, consumption, succeeded. And then the sweet face of his beloved faded; and when the spring returned, it did not bring back the roses to her cheek.

A summer of toil for little pecuniary reward succeeded that winter, and Ingram received, at length, the appalling information from his friend, the kind gentleman, that he had embarrassed himself by entertaining him, for the gentleman was merely a retired half-pay naval officer. A look, depicturing such agony as Ingram never saw before, in the face of man, accompanied this declaration on the part of his friend, and Ingram never felt so truly miserable, since he was born, as he felt while witnessing it.

There was no room for hesitation: Ingram never tasted food in the kind gentleman's house after that avowal. Yet he called every day to exchange words of grateful friendship with the gentleman, words and looks of love with the beautiful being that was fast journeying to the tomb. In mid-winter she died: her delicate constitution, her sensitive fears and griefs for Ingram's fate, combined, were too much for her endurance.

Ingram drooped, and became a dependent on charity, in an hospital for six weeks; and then the kind gentleman and his wife followed his corpse to the grave, which was dug beside that of their daughter—the beloved of the unfortunate young man of genius!

Will the story prevent or check romance and adventure in others? Ah! no: more Chattertons will perish, more Otways be choked with a crust, unless human nature becomes unlike its former and present self; ay, and more Shakespeares will prosper, in the ages to come, or, otherwise, the true glory and vigour of the human mind have all gone by, and the future must feed on its dregs!