intance, to whom I would entrust
my life and my character; there are some, not of my acquaintance, but of
my knowledge, into whose hands, if I had one spark of Christian feeling
left, I would not see my enemy delivered. There is little difference
between one class of men and another as to natural disposition; and
whether you take one or another, you must find the shady character. But
where the opportunities for mischief are so great as they are in the
practice of the Law, it is necessary that the utmost care should be
exercised in committing one's interests to the keeping of another. Had
Mr. Bumpkin been a man of the world he would have suspected that under
the most ostentatious piety very often lurked the most subtle fraud.
Good easy man, had he been going to buy a hay-stack, he would not have
judged by the outside but have put his "iron" into it; he could not put
his iron into Mr. Prigg, I know, but he need not have taken him by his
appearance alone. I may observe that if Mr. Bumpkin had consulted his
sensible and affectionate spouse, or a really respectable solicitor, this
book would not have been written. If he had consulted the Vicar,
possibly another book might have been written; but, as it was, he
resolved to consult Mr. Prigg in the first instance. Now Mrs. Bumpkin,
except as the mother of the illustrious Bull, has very little to do with
this story. Mr. Prigg is one of its leading characters; but in my
description of that gentleman I am obliged to be concise: I must minimize
Prigg, great as he is, and I trust that in doing so I shall prospectively
minimize all future Priggs that may ever appear on the world's stage. I
do not attempt to pulverize him, that would require the crushing pestle
of the legislature; but merely to make him as little as I can, with due
consideration for the requirements of my story.

I should be thought premature in mentioning Prigg, but that he was a
gentleman of great pretensions in the little village of Yokelton.
Gentleman by Act of Parliament, and in his own estimation, you may be
sure he was respected by all around him. That was not many, it is true,
for his house was the last of the straggling village. He was a man of
great piety and an extremely white neck-cloth; attended the parish church
regularly, and kept his white hair well brushed upwards--as though, like
the church steeple, it was to point the way at all times. He was the
most amiable of persons in regard to the di