Chapter 2
What befel Mr. Jones on his arrival in London
The learned Dr. Misaubin used to say, that the proper direction to
him was To Dr. Misaubin, in the World; intimating that there were
few people in it to whom his great reputation was not known. And,
perhaps, upon a very nice examination into the matter, we shall find
that this circumstance bears no inconsiderable part among the many
blessings of grandeur.
The great happiness of being known to posterity, with the hopes of
which we so delighted ourselves in the preceding chapter, is the
portion of few. To have the several elements which compose our
names, as Sydenham expresses it, repeated a thousand years hence, is a
gift beyond the power of title and wealth; and is scarce to be
purchased, unless by the sword and the pen. But to avoid the
scandalous imputation, while we yet live, of being one whom nobody
knows (a scandal, by the bye, as old as the days of Homer*), will
always be the envied portion of those, who have a legal title either
to honour or estate.
*See Odyssey II.
From that figure, therefore, which the Irish peer, who brought
Sophia to town, hath already made in this history, the reader will
conclude, doubtless, it must have been an easy matter to have
discovered his house in London without knowing the particular street
or square which he inhabited, since he must have been one whom
everybody knows. To say the truth, so it would have been to any of
those tradesmen who are accustomed to attend the regions of the great;
for the doors of the great are generally no less easy to find than
it is difficult to get entrance into them.
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