Chapter I: Front Matter

THE

ENGLISH SPY:

An Original Work

CHARACTERISTIC, SATIRICAL, AND HUMOROUS.

COMPRISING

SCENES AND SKETCHES IN EVERY RANK OF SOCIETY,

BEING

PORTRAITS

DRAWN FROM THE LIFE

BY BERNARD BLACKMANTLE.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS DESIGNED BY

ROBERT CRUIKSHANK.

By Frolic, Mirth, and Fancy gay, Old Father Time is borne away.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY SHERWOOD, JONES, AND CO.

PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1825.

BERNARD BLACKMANTLE{*} TO THE REVIEWERS.

"But now, what Quixote of the age would care
To wage a war with dirt, and fight with air?"

Messieurs the Critics,

After twelve months of agreeable toil, made easy by unprecedented success, the period has at length arrived when your high mightinesses will be able to indulge your voracious appetites by feeding and fattening on the work of death. Already does my prophetic spirit picture to itself the black cloud of cormorants, swelling and puffing in the fulness of their editorial pride, at the huge eccentric volume which has thus thrust itself into extensive circulation without the usual _cringings_ and _cravings_ to the _pick fault tribe_. But

I dare defy the venal crew that prates,
From tailor Place* to fustian Herald Thwaites.{**}

* The woolly editor of the Breeches Makers', alias the
"Westminster Review."

** The thing who writes the leaden (leading) articles for
the Morning Herald.

Let me have good proof of your greediness to devour my labours, and I will dish up such a meal for you in my next volume, as shall go nigh to produce extermination by _surfeit_. One favour, alone, I crave--give me _abuse_ enough; let no squeamish pretences of respect for my bookseller, or disguised qualms of apprehension for your own sacred persons, deter the _natural_ inclination of your hearts. The slightest deviation from your _usual course_ to independent writers--or one step towards commendation from your _gang_, might induce the public to believe I had _abandoned my character_, and become one of your _honourable fraternity_-the very _suspicion of which_ would (to me) produce irretrievable ruin. _Your masters_, the _trading brotherhood_, will (as usual) direct you in the course you should pursue; whether to approve or condemn, as their _'peculiar interests_ may dictate. Most _sapient_ sirs of the secret _bandit'_ of the screen, inquisitors of literature, raise all your _arms_ and _heels_, your _daggers, masks_, and _hatchets_, to revenge the daring of an _open foe_, who thus boldly defies your _base_ and _selfish views_; for, basking at his ease in the sunshine of public patronage, he feels that his heart is rendered invulnerable to your_ poisoned shafts_. Read, and you shall find I have not been parsimonious of the means to grant you _food_ and _pleasure_: errors there are, no doubt, and plenty of them, grammatical and typographical, all of which I might have corrected by an _errata_ at the end of my volume; but I disdain the wish to rob you of your office, and have therefore left them just where I made them, without a single note to mark them out; for if all the _thistles were rooted up_, what would become of the _asses?_ or of those

"Who pin their easy faith on critic's sleeve,
And, knowing nothing, ev'ry thing believe?"

Fully satisfied that swarms of _literary blow flies_ will pounce upon the errors with delight, and, buzzing with the ecstasy of infernal joy, endeavour to hum their readers into a belief of the profundity of their critic erudition;--I shall nevertheless, with Churchill, laughingly exclaim--"Perish my muse"

"If e'er her labours weaken to refine
The generous roughness of a nervous line."

Bernard Blackmantle.

CONTENTS. Page
INTRODUCTION 3