William Pitt Scargill

Tales of my time William Pitt Scargill

Extract: CHAPTER X. "Les vrais evènements de la Vie sont quelquefois, beaucoup plus incroyable que ceux que l'Imagination presente à l'Esprit." L'Abbe Prevôt. There are some whose lot it is to pace the dull and beaten round of daily life like a sort of moral turn-spit, unconscious of the stages by which they travel from the cradle to the tomb. To these the extraordinary accidents and romantic coincidences, which occasionally chequer and diversify the flat road of human existence in the history of other men, appear incredible as the Arabian Nights' Entertainment; yet Fiction, in her most fantastic mood, does not leave the common average of events farther behind than reality is continually doing. Zorilda's was no common fate, and it pursued her to the grave. Rachel's schemes had prospered so entirely that, by the time that she and her young mistress reached the great northern line, no farther anxiety attended their progress, and they journied onwards without apprehension. They stopped in the first large town, and found no difficulty in procuring pecuniary supplies at the Bank..... SCARGILL, WILLIAM PITT (1787-1836), unitarian minister and author, was born in London in 1787. Originally intended for a business life, he attracted the notice of Hugh Worthington, minister at Salters' Hall, under whose advice he studied for the ministry at Wymondley academy. For six months (March to August 1811) he was assistant to James Tayler at High Pavement Chapel, Nottingham. In 1812 he succeeded Thomas Madge as minister of Churchgate Street Chapel, Bury St. Edmunds, and held this charge for twenty years. His ministry was not successful, and he turned to literature as a means of augmenting a narrow income, contributing to periodicals, and producing original tales and sketches. He had been a liberal in politics, but displeased his congregation by becoming a writer for the tory press. Resigning his charge in 1832, he became an adherent of the established church. At the end of 1834 he published anonymously 'The Autobiography of a Dissenting Minister, ' in which he plays the part of a candid friend to his former co-religionists. The book is often classed with the anonymous 'Particulars of the Life of a Dissenting Minister' [1813], by Charles Lloyd; but Lloyd's is a genuine autobiography, Scargill's a romance, though possibly based on his early life and education. He made a precarious living by his pen, yet his sketches are brisk and readable, with a curious vein of paradox. An essay on 'The Blessings of Biography' opens with the advice, 'If you think a man to be a devil, and want to make him an angel, sit down to write a biography of him.' He was famed as a punster. He died of brain fever at Bury St. Edmunds on 24 Jan. 1836. He married Mary Anne, daughter of Robert Cutting of Chevington, Suffolk, who survived him with two children.