THE MODEL MERCHANT OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

Out into the wide, wide world, where the fancy of high-spirited youth sees fame and fortune awaiting the daring adventurer, trudged the hero of an oft-told romance five hundred years and more ago. But the story of Dick Whittington is not all romance, and for the reason that it is in a great part real history, it is the more interesting.

The son of a gentleman of good birth but of wasted fortune, Richard Whittington was early sent up to London to be apprenticed to a merchant in that city, which even then was among the greatest and wealthiest in Christendom. An apprentice's lot was by no means a happy one. He was bound to his employer by law until he should reach the age of twenty-one years, and his duties were often of the most disagreeable and humble character. He lived in his master's house, and was treated no better than one of the lower kind of servants. It can easily be understood, therefore, how distasteful such a life must have been to a high-spirited boy whose days had been passed in the freedom of the woods and fields. And so, wearied by the tiresome life he led, the North-country boy determined to venture forth into the world to seek his fortune. Doubtless many apprentices had done as Dick Whittington did, but neither history nor legend has preserved their memory.

With a few articles of food and clothing tied up in a bundle, he left his master's house in Cheapside one summer evening, and set his face toward the north. After two or three hours' walking, he sat down to rest before ascending Highgate Hill, which was then far out in the country, though now it is a populous part of the great metropolis. Already he must have been tired and hungry, for he had done a day's work before he started, and had probably saved his supper to swell his little stock of provisions. He had walked several miles, darkness was coming on, and he had met with no adventures. What wonder, then, that, as he rested, the tones of Bow-bells on the soft evening air fitted themselves to words suggested by his lonely situation, and the high hopes that were within him, and bade him return and thrice reign over the city which had hitherto treated him so roughly. The romance of the runaway was over. He obeyed the fancied summons, and returned to fight the dull stern battle of life, and win the victories which destiny had in store for him.

But if young Whittington seems to have shown a faint heart by so soon abandoning the adventure on which he had embarked, he proved that he possessed courage of a more real kind by returning to take his part in that life where, at least as much as elsewhere, fame and fortune were to be won. Restored to his former position in the merchant's household, the strong-willed lad bore his part bravely, and soon gained the confidence of his employer, whose daughter he afterward married. He was taken into partnership, and by a fortunate speculation in cats, if we accept the legend (which, however, though the most picturesque event in his career, is probably the least true), he laid the foundation of the largest fortune of those times gained in commerce.

Bow-bells had promised him that he should be thrice Lord Mayor of London; but fate was even kinder to him than prophecy, for Whittington held that ancient and honorable office no fewer than four times. During one of his terms of office he entertained at a grand banquet King Henry the Fifth, the hero of Agincourt, who, besides being his sovereign, was also his debtor to a very large amount, for kings in those days were not above borrowing from their subjects. After the banquet the Lord Mayor caused a great fire to be made in the hall, and in the presence of the King and Queen and all their noble retinue he threw into the fire the bonds which the King had given him as acknowledgment of the loan, thus releasing his sovereign from the debt. Henry, who was himself a man of generous nature, was greatly moved by this striking act of loyalty, and exclaimed, "Never, surely, had King such a subject!"

"Ah, sire," returned the courtly Lord Mayor, "never had subject such a King!"

It were hard to believe that so noble a prince as Henry the Fifth took advantage of this generous act, and fortunately history does not tell us whether the debt remained unpaid because the evidence of it was destroyed. Let us give the King the benefit of the doubt, and trust that the money was afterward honorably repaid, and went to swell the number of those charities with which the name of Sir Richard Whittington is for all time connected.

No one person of that time has left greater or more varied proofs of benevolence. The sick who lay in the wards of St. Bartholomew's Hospital blessed the memory of its benefactor, the great Lord Mayor; and the felons confined in the cells of Newgate Prison owed their comparative comfort to that kind heart which recognized the fact that even those whom crime has outlawed from society are still our fellow-beings. Scholars owe to the 'prentice lad, whose own schooling was mostly of the sternest practical sort, the foundation of a college and two libraries, which are still in existence; and thanks are due to him in great part for the nave of Westminster Abbey, the cost of building which Whittington bore in common with another London merchant.

But Whittington was above all things a great merchant, and, as such, did much for commerce. Some of our readers may have seen the London Directory, an immense, closely printed book, which contains the names and residences of nearly four millions of people. Five hundred years ago Sir Richard Whittington caused to be prepared a directory of all the trades in London, and thus was the first, so far as we know, to issue what has now become a necessity in our daily business, and as familiar as it is necessary—a City Directory.

Do you not think he is rightly called "the model merchant of the Middle Ages?"