The management of our young gentlemen is equally absurd: in most of our schools, if a lad is discovered in a scrape, the impeachment of an accomplice, as at the Old Bailey is made the condition of a pardon. I remember a boy, engaged in robbing an orchard, who was unfortunately taken prisoner in an apple-tree, and conducted, under a strong guard of the farmer and his dairy-maid, to the master’s house. Upon his absolute refusal to discover his associates, the pedagogue undertook to lash him out of his fidelity, but finding it impossible to scourge the secret out of him, he at last gave him up for an obstinate villain, and sent him to his father, who told him he was ruined, and was going to disinherit him for not betraying his school-fellows. I must own I am not fond of thus drubbing our youth into treachery; and am much more pleased with the request of Ulysses, when he went to Troy, who begged of those who were to have the charge of Telemachus, that they would, above all things, teach him to be just, sincere, faithful, and to keep a secret.
Every man’s experience must have furnished him with instances of confidantes who are not to be relied on, and friends who are not to be trusted; but few perhaps have thought it a character so well worth their attention, as to have marked out the different degrees into which it may be divided, and the different methods by which Secrets are communicated.
Ned Trusty is a tell-tale of a very singular kind. Having some sense of his duty, he hesitates a little at the breach of it. If he engages never to utter a syllable, he most punctually performs his promise; but then he has the knack of insinuating by a nod and a shrug well-timed, or a seasonable leer, as much as others can convey in express terms. It is difficult, in short, to determine, whether he is more to be admired for his resolution in not mentioning, or his ingenuity in disclosing a Secret. He is also excellent at a "doubtful phrase," as Hamlet calls it, or "an ambiguous giving out"; and his conversation consists chiefly of such broken innuendos, as
Well, I know--or, I could--an if I would--Here he generally stops; and leaves it to his hearers to draw proper inferences from these piece-meal premises. With due encouragement, however, he may be prevailed on to slip the padlock from his lips, and immediately overwhelms you with a torrent of secret history, which rushes forth with more violence for having been so long confined. Poor Meanwell, though he never fails to transgress, is rather to be pitied than condemned. To trust him with a Secret, is to spoil his appetite, to break his rest, and to deprive him, for a time, of every earthly enjoyment. Like a man who travels with his whole fortune in his pocket, he is terrified if you approach him, and immediately suspects, that you come with a felonious intent to rob him of his charge. If he ventures abroad, it is to walk in some unfrequented place, where he is least in danger of an attack. At home, he shuts himself up from his family, paces to and fro in his chamber, and has no relief but from muttering over to himself what he longs to publish to the world; and would gladly submit to the office of town-cryer, for the liberty of proclaiming it in the market-place. At length, however, weary of his burden, and resolved to bear it no longer, he consigns it to the custody of the first friend he meets, and returns to his wife with a cheerful aspect, and wonderfully altered for the better.
Or, if I list to speak--or, there be, an if there might, &c.
Careless is perhaps equally undesigning, though not equally excusable. Entrust him with an affair of the utmost importance, on the concealment of which your fortune and happiness depend: he hears you with a kind of half-attention, whistles a favourite air, and accompanies it with the drumming of his fingers upon the table. As soon as your narration is ended, or perhaps in the middle of it, he asks your opinion of his sword-knot, damns his tailor for having dressed him in a snuff-coloured coat, instead of a pompadour, and leaves you in haste to attend an auction; where, as if he meant to dispose of his intelligence to the best bidder, he divulges it, with a voice as loud as the auctioneers; and when you tax him with having played you false, he is heartily sorry for it, but never knew that it was to be a Secret.
To these I might add the character of the open and unreserved, who thinks it a breach of friendship to conceal any thing from his intimates; and the impertinent, who having by dint of observation made himself master of your secret, imagines he may lawfully publish the knowledge it has cost him so much labour to obtain, and considers that privilege as the reward due to his industry. But I shall leave these, with many other characters, which my reader’s own experience may suggest to him, and conclude with prescribing, as a short remedy for this evil,--That no man may betray the counsel of his friend, let every man keep his own.
William Cowper's essay was first published in 1756 in issue number 119 of The Connoisseur, a weekly newspaper in London.
