morning the two strangers in their hiding place. Setting up a dismal yell, they surrounded them, and advancing nearer and nearer with a kind of clubs, seemed determined to dispatch them, without sense of hospitality or mercy. Here the gentleman began to discover, that the superiority of his blood was imaginary; for, between a consciousness of shame and cold, under the nakedness he had never been used to, a fear of the event from the fierceness of the savages approach, and the want of an idea whereby to soften or divert their asperity, he fell behind the poor sharer of his calamity; and with an unsinewed, apprehensive, unmanly sneakingness of mein, gave up the post of honour, and made a leader of the very man whom he had thought it a disgrace to consider as a companion. The basket-maker, on the contrary, to whom the poverty of his condition had made nakedness habitual, to whom a life of pain and mortification represented death as not dreadful, and whose remembrance of his skill in arts, of which these savages were ignorant, gave hich hopes of becom ing safe, from demonstrating that he could be useful, moved with bolder and more open freedom; and having plucked a handful of flags, sat down without emotion, and making signs he would show them something worthy their attention, fell to work with smiles and noddings, while the sa vages drew near and gazed in expectation of the consequence.. B It was not long before he had wreathed a kind of coronet of pretty workmanship, and rising, with respect approached the savage who appeared the chief, and placed it gently on his head; whose figure under this new ornament so charmed his followers, that they threw down their clubs, and formed a dance of welcome and congratulation. There was not one but showed the marks of his impatience to be made as fine as his captain; so that the poor basket-maker had his hands full of employment: and the savages observing one quite idle, while the other was so busy in their service, took up arms in behalf of natural justice, and began to beat him. The basket-maker's pity now effaced the remembrance of his sufferings. He arose, and rescued his oppressor, by making signs that he was ignorant of the art; but might, if they thought fit, be usefully employed in waiting on the work, and fetching flags to his supply as fast as he should want them. This proposition luckily fell in with a desire the savages expressed to keep themselves at leisure that they might croud round, and mark the progress of a work they took such pleasure in. They left the gentleman therefore to his duty in the basket-maker's service, considering him, from that time forward, as one who was, and ought to be treated as inferior to the artist. Men, women and children, from all corners of the island, came in droves for coronets; and setting the gentleman to work to gather boughs and poles, I poles, they made a fine hut to lodge the basketmaker; and brought down daily from the country such provisions as they lived upon themselves; but never offered the imagined servant any thing till. his master had done eating. Three months reflection in this mortified condition gave a new and just turn to our gentleman's * mind, insomuch, that lying awake one night, he thus confessed his error to the basket-maker : "I "have been to blame," says he, "and wanted "judgment to distinguish between accident and "excellence. When I should have measured na ture, I looked only at vanity. The preference " which fortune gives is empty and imaginary; " and I perceive too late, that only things of use " are naturally honourable. I am ashamed when " I compare my malice with your humanity. But " if the gods should please to call me to a repos"session of my rank and happiness, I would di"vide all with you in atonement of my justly " punished arrogance." He promised, and performed his promise. For the king soon after sent the captain who landed them, with presents to the savages, and ordered him to bring them both back again. And it continues to this day a custom in that island, to degrade all gentlemen who cannot give a better reason for their pride, than that they were born to do nothing: on which occasion they usually cry out, Send him to the Basket-Maker's. LONDON MAGAZINE, for the year 1736. 82 THE following story used to be told by King George the First. About the year 1615, there was a nobleman in Germany, whose daughter was courted by another young lord. When he had made such progress in this affair, as is usual by the interposition of friends, the old lord had a conference with him, asking him, how he intended, if he married his daughter, to maintain her? He replied, equal to her quality. To which the father replied, that was no answer to his question; he desired to know, what he had to maintain her with? To which the young lord then answered, he hoped that was no question; for his inheritance was as public as his name. The old lord owned his possessions to be great, but still asked if he had nothing more secure than land, wherewith to maintain his daughter? The question was strange, but ended in this: that the father of the young lady gave his positive resolve, never to marry his daughter, though his heir, and would have two such great estates, but to a man that had a manual trade, by which he might subsist if drove from his country. The young lord was master of none at present, but rather than lose his mistress, he requested only a year's time, in which he promised to acquire one: in order to which, he got a basket-maker, the most ingenious he could meet with, and in six months became master of his trade of basketmaking, with far greater improvements than even his teacher himself; and as a proof of his ingenuity, and extraordinary proficiency in so short a time, time, he brought to his young lady a piece of workmanship of his own performance, being a white twig basket, which, for many years after, became a general fashion among the ladies by the name of dressing baskets, brought hither to England from Germany and Holland. To complete the singularity of this relation, it happened some years after this nobleman's marriage, that he and his father-in-law, sharing in the misfortunes of the wars of the Palatinate, were drove naked out of their estates; and in Holland, for some years, did this young lord maintain both his father-in-law and his own family, by making baskets of white twigs, to such an unparalleled excellency as none could attain: and it is from this young German lord the Hollanders derive those curiosities, which are still made in the United Provinces, of twig work. POSTLETHWAYT. Dictionary of Trade and Commerce. Introd、p. vii. My child learn a trade! make my son a mechanic! consider, sir, what you advise. I do, madam, I consider this matter better than you, who would reduce your child to the necessity of being a lord, a marquis or a prince, or perhaps one day or other to be less than nothing. I am desirous of investing him with a title that cannot be taken from him; that will in all times and places command respect, and I can tell you, whatever you may think of it, he will have fewer equals in this rank than in that he may derive from you. |