| | 1 | Author: | Thompson
Daniel P.
(Daniel Pierce)
1795-1868 | Add | | | Title: | The adventures of Timothy Peacock, Esquire, or,
Freemasonry practically illustrated  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Our Hero, the present Thrice Illustrious TIMOTHY
PEACOCK, Esquire, was born in a small village in the
interior of Rhode Island. His father and mother were
deserters from a British fleet. They had, however, once
seen brighter days than this circumstance might seem to
imply; for Mr. Peacock, at one time, had the honor to
write himself Chief Butcher to His Majesty George III.,
London. Mrs. Peacock, before she united her destinies
to those of the honored father of our hero—that union which
was to bestow upon the New World the brightest masonic
star that ever illumined the wondering hemisphere of the
West—Mrs. Peacock, I say, was called the Billingsgate
Beauty. They very mackerels she sold might shrink from
a comparison with the plumpness of her person, and the
claws of her own lobsters were nothing in redness to the
vermillion of her cheeks. She made, as may well be supposed,
sad devastation among the hearts of the gallant
young fish-mongers.—Oystermen, clam-cryers, carpers,
shrimpers and all—all fell before the scorching blaze of
her optical artillery. But she would have mercy on none
of them; she aspired to a higher destiny; and her laudable
ambition was rewarded with the most flattering success;
for she soon saw herself the distinguished lady of
Peletiah Peacock, Chief Butcher to His Majesty. But
how she became the envy of many a dashing butcheress,
by the splendor of her appearance,—how her husband
flourished, and how he fell, and was driven from the stalls
of royalty,—how he took leave of the baffled bum-bailiffs
of his native city, enlisted on board a man of war, and
sailed for America, with permission for his loving rib to accompany
him,—how they both deserted at a New England
port, at which the vessel had touched, and were housed in
a friendly hay-stack in the neighborhood till the search
was over and vessel departed,—and, finally, how they travelled
over land till they reached the smiling village where
they found their abiding domicil, belongs, perhaps, to the
literati of Britain to relate. They have, and of right ought
to have, the first claim on the achievements of their countrymen
with which to fill the bright pages of their country's
biography; and to them then let us graciously yield the
honor of enshrining his memory with those of their Reverend
`Fiddlers' and truth-telling `Trollopes.' Far be it from
me to rob them of the glory of this theme.—Mine is a different
object; and I shall mention no more of the deeds of
the father than I conceive necessary to elucidate the history
of the son, whose brilliant career I have attempted, with
trembling diffidence, to sketch in the following unworthy
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