Part 3

As soon as we had lifted up the latch to enter into the next apartment, we were immediately alarmed by a horrid howling; which upon opening the door we discovered to be the savage musick of a lusty young wolf, who looked as fierce as if he would have torn every one of us to pieces. But a strong chain confined his fury to one corner of the room; so that we could venture pretty near him without any danger of feeling the strength of his jaws. "This plundering and voracious animal, said the Bramin, who has been accustomed to gratify his appetite at the expense of all the farmers in the neighbourhood, is inhabited by the soul of the late Master _Filch_, who, as you will find by the sequel of the story, is now placed in a station which is perfectly suitable to his character. His very infancy was disgraced by a natural propensity to fraud and rapine; for as soon as he could talk plain enough to be understood, the chief employment of his tongue was to tell as many stories as his little head was capable of inventing; and that his hands might come in for their share of mischief, he never failed to make a property of all the sugar, fruit, tarts, &c. which the carelessness of the servants had left within his reach. If his parents had been wise enough to chastise him for his little roguery, they might have nipped it in the bud; but they were so imprudently fond, that they not only neglected to administer the discipline of the rod, but made his falsehood and pilferings the constant subject of their merriment. They considered his faults as trivial, because they were the faults of a child; not reflecting that if the seeds of vice are suffered to grow, they will in a shorter time than is commonly imagined, take such deep root in the heart, that it will be scarcely possible to eradicate them. Experience, however, soon undeceived them; for when little _Filch_ was eight or nine years old, though he had plenty of fruit at home, they had the mortification to be informed that he was making daily incursions into every poor man's garden in the neighbourhood. The consequence of these repeated complaints was sometimes a severe reprimand, and sometimes as severe a flogging; but neither the one nor the other were able to produce a reformation, though it is very probable, that if they had been applied in time, they might have been applied to better purpose. From robbing orchards he soon proceeded to the raising private contributions on his school fellows. Sometimes he defrauded them at play: sometimes he picked their pockets; and very frequently he stole their books, or money, out of their desks and boxes: and, as it is the study of every wicked boy to maintain the appearance of honesty as long as he is able, as soon as the robbery was discovered he was the first person to exclaim against it, which he did in the bitterest terms, and to prevent a long and circumstantial inquiry after the author of it (which he suspected would not terminate in his favour) he impudently pretended to have been an eye witness of the fact, and then boldly charged it upon one or another of his school mates, who he knew had neither skill nor spirit enough to contradict his evidence in a satisfactory manner. By this means the bashful innocent was frequently punished instead of the guilty. But as bad boys are seldom able to conceal their faults long from the eye of justice, young _Filch_ was soon detected in his wickedness, and being considered as a dangerous person, whose bad example might have a pernicious effect upon his play fellows, he was first corrected with all the severity he deserved, and then sent home to his parents. In this disgraceful manner he was dismissed from every school in the country, 'till at last, though he was only thirteen years old, there was not a single academy into which he could be admitted upon any terms whatever. But this was not the worst effect of the ill character he had acquired: for as no one is willing to introduce a lad of bad reputation into his house, there was not a tradesman of any credit to be found who would venture to take him as an apprentice, though a large premium was offered for that purpose. His parents, therefore, were under the disagreeable necessity of keeping him at home; but having little or nothing for him to do, he soon fell into bad company, who in as short a time gave him a perfect relish for the scandalous and expensive amusement of gaming and tippling. His finances, though sufficiently plentiful for a youth of his age, were by these destructive means so much encumbered with little debts, that to maintain a worthless credit among his worthless companions, he formed the wicked resolution of taking money from his father and mother without their knowledge. The success of his first attempt (in which he was not discovered, because he was not suspected to be capable of so much baseness) encouraged him to a second; and the success of his second attempt encouraged him to greater extravagances and more expensive risk than he had ventured upon before. But his wickedness, which in the former instances had been wrongfully charged upon the servants of the family, being at last detected, and his parents taking him very severely to task on account of such an abandoned and depraved conduct, he left them in a fit of anger and remorse, and became a thoughtless and unhappy wanderer; in this situation falling one evening into a company whose mirth and gaiety greatly delighted him, and whose genteel appearance led him to suppose they were gentlemen, though in reality they were no other than highwaymen, he was prevailed on in an unguarded moment, when heated with liquor, to make an incursion with this infamous banditti, and actually stopped a gentleman and demanded his money; fortunately, however for this unhappy youth, the gentleman was an old school fellow, and making himself known to him, with much intreaty prevailed on him immediately to leave the company of those desperate adventurers, and totally to abandon a mode of life so shockingly wicked in itself, and so dreadfully fatal in its consequences.

"But from the idle and dissipated manner in which he had spent his time, he had contracted an unconquerable habit of indolence, and a rooted aversion to business; in this frame of mind, the army became his last resource, into which he entered as a common soldier, but after a short time his itch for pilfering returning, he could not refrain from making free with some money with which he was intrusted by his officer; being detected, he was punished with that rigorous severity with which thefts in the army usually are, and being afterwards thrown into the Savoy prison, to prevent a repetition of his crime, he died there in a few days of his wounds in the utmost misery. When the Bramin had finished this melancholy tale, the poor wolf, as if he was conscious how nearly it concerned him, heightened the horrour with which it had filled us by such a mournful and terrifying howl, as made us heartily glad to quit the room."

CHAP. VII.

_Of the wonderful Transmigration of Master_ RICHARD RUSTICK _into the Body of a Bear._

In the next apartment into which Mr. _Wiseman_ conducted us, we saw the cub of a bear, who lay upon the floor to which he was chained, without having the good manners to rise when we entered; but when the Bramin applied his wand to young Bruin's buttocks, he heaved up his shaggy hide with a kind of lazy resentment, and saluted us with a reluctant grin and a savage growl, which plainly intimated that he did not think himself much beholden to us for our company. "This young brute, said our conductor, is animated by the soul of the late matter _Rustick_, of clownish memory. His father was a gentleman of rank and fortune, and greatly beloved and respected by all his acquaintance; and if his son Richard had possessed the same virtues and accomplishments, he might afterwards have enjoyed his title and estate with equal comfort and reputation. But as merit does not go by inheritance, like house and land, young _Rustick's_ character was entirely the reverse of his father's. He was of an awkward clumsy make; and the heaviness of his disposition, and the coarseness of his manners perfectly corresponded with the shape of his body. Though he was sent to school very early, and put under the care of the best instructors which the country afforded, he was a considerable time before he could tell his letters, and much longer before he could read with tolerable accuracy: and even then he pronounced every thing with such a clownish accent and such a drawling tone, that any stranger would have taken him for a young country bumkin, who had been used to follow the plow tail, and not for the son and heir of a wealthy gentleman. He was equally eminent for his neatness and dexterity in the art of penmanship; for, even when he was twelve years old, if you had seen the letter which he then sent to his mamma without the knowledge of his master, it was wrote so crooked (i.e. not from side to side as it ought to have been, but from corner to corner) and the strokes were all so coarse and uneven, and the whole of the letter so awkwardly spelt, and so unmercifully blotted and bedawbed, that you would have thought it had been the elegant epistle of _Tony Clodhopper_ to his grandmother _Goody Linsey Woolsey_. As for his mamma, poor gentlewoman! when she first opened it, she thought it had been sent to her by some impudent shoe black or chimney sweeper; but when she had directed her eyes to the bottom and read (though not, I assure you, without the greatest difficulty)--"_from yr, loven ind respactfle sun, Rickard Rostick_" she was so much oppressed with shame and vexation, that she tore the letter into a thousand pieces, and was ready to burst into tears. He was alike remarkable for the politeness of his manners, and his agreeable address; for he had such a treacherous memory, though he had been frequently reminded of the propriety and indeed the necessity of observing those little punctilios of good behaviour, that he seldom remembered when any company entered the room in which he happened to be sitting, either to rise from his chair or take off his hat; and when he was told of it either by his parents or his master, he would bounce up, and snatch of his hat in such an awkward hurry, grinning and leering the whole time, that you would have thought he had just started from a dream; and even then he would generally forget to finish the rude ceremony by making one of his ducking bows. It is true, indeed, he had been under the hands of a dancing master; but notwithstanding the utmost care and assiduity of his teacher, who was esteemed a very excellent one; he was never able to perform a whit better than he does in his present shape. In short, you might as well have kept a hog in training for Newmarket races, or an ox for his majesty to ride upon at a grand review, as have attempted to initiate master _Dicky Rustick_ in the elements of politeness and good breeding. With such a delicate disposition, and such amiable talents, you will readily perceive that he must have been a most agreeable play fellow. His favorite diversion was that which has been distinguished by the vulgar, by the well known name of _Pully Hawly_, in which he so much excelled that whenever he was invited by the young gentlemen and ladies in the neighbourhood to play with them, he generally rewarded their civility by tearing their coats or pulling their clothes off their backs before he returned home; so that at last they bestowed upon him, by general consent, the honourable title of _'Squire Bruin_. It must, however, be acknowledged that he was a youth of such impartial justice, that he shewed as little favour to his own clothes as to those of _other_ people; for what with climbing up old trees, and rambling over hedges and ditches, to seek for birds nests, he commonly appeared by dinner time, how well soever he had been dressed in the morning, in as ragged a coat as he wears at present. It must also be remarked, that if the young gentlemen and ladies soon grew weary, as indeed they did, of such a rough play fellow, he, in _his_ turn, was as willing to leave _their_ company, as they were to be rid of _his_; for his chief delight was to associate with such vulgar boys and girls as were of the same rugged disposition as himself. With these he could pull and hawl and romp and tear as long as he pleased; and the more active he became in this raggamuffin species of diversion, the more they relished his company. But, upon occasion, he could fight as well as play: I mean when he either was provoked to it by his equals, or tempted to it by the hopes of defrauding of their little property those who he knew had neither strength enough nor courage to resist him. But whatever was his motive either for _beginning_ or suffering himself to be _drawn_ into an engagement, he was very far from confining himself to any rules of honour, or to the established laws of war; for instead of boxing fairly, he would kick, pull hair, bite, and scratch most unmercifully, and never fail to take every advantage of his antagonist after he had brought him to the ground. For these reasons he was soon dignified with the nick name of _Dick Bear_, even by the vulgar boys in the streets; and most of them afterwards took care never to engage with him unless when there were several other boys present to see fair play. One would think that such a rough hewn and slovenly mortal as we have been describing would have had little regard for any delicacies in the eating way. But whoever draws such a conclusion in favour of our hero, _Dicky Rustick_, is greatly mistaken; for I can assure you that he had as nice and dainty a tooth as any lady in the land. Though his father always kept a handsome table, it afforded scarcely any thing which was good enough for the palate of Master _Richard_. Nothing would go down with him but tarts, custards, and the most costly cakes and puddings; for as to good roast and boiled meat and plain and wholesome pies or dumplings, he would turn up his nose at them as if they were fit only for vagabonds and beggars. Nay, even to this very hour, and in his present clumsy shape, he is almost as dainty as ever; for he is remarkably fond of honey, and if permitted would often expose his shaggy head and his eyes to the resentment of the bees, by disturbing their hives to rob them of their delicious store. It was his fondness for niceties of every kind which shortened his days, and eased his parents of their apprehensions for a son who, if he had lived, would have been a continual plague and disgrace to them; for on the day when he entered into the fourteenth year of his age, being indulged rather more than common, he devoured such a quantity of the richest tarts, that his stomach could not digest them; so that he soon fell into a violent fever, which in a few days hurried his unworthy soul out of the body of a young country 'squire (for such he would have been) into the carcass of this hairy and awkward young monster which now stands before you. He so well understands what I have been saying, and is so much vexed at the character I have given of him, which he knows to be a very just one, that if you will promise to quit the room and leave him to himself he will pleasure you with one of his best dances before you go."--Accordingly after thanking the Bramin for the account he had given us, we all promised to leave Mr. _Bruin_ to his own meditation; upon which, after taking two or three sulkey rounds, the young savage reared himself upon his buttocks, and shuffled a saraband which lasted a few minutes. When he had finished his dance he swaggered down again upon his fore paws, and by a sullen growl seemed to claim the performance of our promise, an indulgence which we very readily granted him.

CHAP. VIII.

_Of the astonishing Transmigration of Miss_ ABIGAIL EVILTONGUE _into the Body of a Serpent._

In the next apartment we saw a large wire cage, in which the Bramin told us he had a bird which was something different from the common ones; and so indeed it was, for upon my eldest daughter's going near to see it, she was startled by a large serpent which darted itself against the wires, and hissed and sissed as if it would have stung us all to death in an instant. It was however, a very beautiful creature of the kind, and as the sun then shone very bright, the golden and silver streaks upon its azure skin made a very splendid appearance. My youngest son wanting to go and stroke it;--"No, my pretty boy, said the good Bramin; if you have any value for yourself, you will always keep out of the reach of such creatures as these, and of all such who resemble the young lady by whose soul this serpent is animated. I say _young lady_, because the serpent before you is indeed animated by the soul of the late Miss _Abigail Eviltongue_. The family of the _Eviltongue_, (I dare say you have heard of them) is extremely numerous; for there are some, and indeed too many of them, in every town, and, I believe in every village in the country. Miss _Abigail_, the young lady I am speaking of, had as just a title to the name, and supported the character of her family with as much exactness as any one amongst them; for her tongue was remarkably active, and spared the reputation neither of friend nor foe. She was, it is true, a very handsome girl, and the charms of her person would have procured her many admirers if they had not been disgraced by her natural propensity to slander and defamation. In her very infancy, as soon as she could speak to be understood, she began with telling fibs of the servants, and very frequently of her brothers and sisters; for which, you may be certain, they all despised her very heartily. But as she was too much encouraged in this hateful practice by her parents, instead of being severely flogged for it, as she ought to have been, she set the frowns and sneers of the others at open defiance; and the more they resented her little malice the more eager she was to gratify it by loading them with all the falsehoods she was capable of inventing. In proportion as she grew older, this mischievous habit increased upon her; and when she was big enough to go a visiting, she indulged it abroad with as much freedom as she had been used to do at home; so that, in a short time, there was scarcely a young miss or master in the neighbourhood whose character she had not attempted to injure. What made her slanders the more odious was, that she generally vented them under a pretence of the greatest friendship and respect for the persons to whom she related them, and with great seeming pity for those whose reputation they were intended to destroy. She had likewise the malicious cunning to say many trifling things in praise of the objects of her censure; that by thus assuming an appearance of the strictest impartiality, and of the sincerest good nature, she might more easily gain credit to the bad things she said afterwards. By such artifices as these she frequently succeeded with the innocent and the unwary, and set one acquaintance and even one friend against another, without any sort of advantage to herself but the mere pleasure of making mischief. Another trick which she often employed for that purpose, was to examine into a young gentleman or lady's constitutional foibles (for we all have some) and when she had discovered these, to go immediately to the person and tell him or her, that master or miss _such a one_ had publickly ridiculed him for those very failings; by these means she was almost certain to be believed without any farther inquiry; for every one, even upon the slightest hint, will readily suspect that those things have been said of him, which he most wishes to be concealed, because he is conscious they are _really_ true; he will seldom trouble himself to inquire into the veracity of the tale bearer, lest he should be reduced to the necessity of defending himself on his weakest side. For a similar reason, when Miss _Abigail_ had a mind to flatter any person (which she frequently would, to answer the purposes of her malice) she always commended him for those particular good qualities, or accomplishments which she knew he most valued himself for, or chiefly wished to have the credit of; because she was sensible that by this method she effectually retained his own vanity as her advocate for whatever she said afterwards. Nay, I have been informed by one who knew her perfectly well, that, young as she was, she sometimes carried her artifice so far as to begin a dispute with the person she intended to deceive, and after a little sharp altercation _pro and con_ to flatter his vanity by gradually giving up the argument, and at last yielding him a victory, which gave him the more pleasure, because he thought it to be entirely owing to the invincible strength of his judgment. But she had another fault, which, if possible, was still more odious, than any of those already mentioned--viz. to revile and backbite those from whom she had received the greatest favours; for as she was too proud to own herself to be under obligations to any person, so to prevent others from taking notice of them, as she imagined to her disadvantage, she would represent every obligation she had received from her friends to be either of the most trifling consequence, or to have been bestowed from selfish and despicable motives. Such was the temper and behaviour of Miss _Abigail_, who was a wretched complication of malice, low cunning and ingratitude: It is therefore no wonder that every person of sense and character was careful to avoid her company, and that she was detested by many, and despised even by those who wished her well. In short, the general contempt to which she had exposed herself, and the severe mortifications she met with from time to time, gave such killing wounds to her pride, that after pining and wasting away with shame and vexation for the space of several months, she at last broke her heart and gave up the ghost, in the seventeenth year of her age. After her death her contemptible soul was immediately hurried into the body of this venomous serpent, where it still retains its former malice and cunning."--When the Bramin had finished his story, the serpent, as if she understood and resented what had been said, writhed about and hissed at him as if she could have stung his eyes out.

We afterwards visited several other apartments, and saw a young tyger, a fox, a badger, &c. each of which was animated by the soul of some naughty child, who very nearly resembled him in temper. But as I have perhaps, already carried my treatise to such a length as will tire the eyes and the patience of my little readers, it is proper to bring it to a conclusion. I will, therefore, take my leave of them for the present, with observing that in one of the rooms we visited, we saw a pretty little parrot, in a gilt cage, who was perpetually talking, but did not understand the meaning of one single word he said. "This noisy bird, said the good Bramin, is inhabited by the soul of the late master _Gabble_, who was remarkable for two faults. He always spoke without thinking, and read a great deal with so little attention, that he made no farther improvement in knowledge than if he had never read at all. He devoured every thing, but digested nothing." If any of my readers happen to be of the same disposition, they may survey the gilt covers of this little treatise with as much advantage as they will peruse the contents of it.

FINIS.