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Title: The doctor, &c., vol. 4 (of 7)
Author: Southey, Robert
Language: English
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THE DOCTOR, &c.
There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in
the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what
to expect from the one as the other.
BUTLER'S REMAINS.
THE DOCTOR, &c.
[Illustration: a tetrahedron]
VOL. IV.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN AND LONGMAN.
1837.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. NICOL, 51, PALL-MALL.
PRELUDE OF MOTTOES.
TO THE READER IN ORDINARY.
The Muses forbid that I should restrain your meddling, whom I see
already busy with the title, and tricking over the leaves: it is your
own. I departed with my right, when I let it first abroad; and now so
secure an interpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise nor
dispraise from you can affect me.—The commendation of good things may
fall within a many, the approbation but in a few; for the most commend
out of affection, self-tickling, an easiness or imitation; but men
judge only out of knowledge. That is the trying faculty; and to those
works that will bear a judge, nothing is more dangerous than a foolish
praise. You will say, I shall not have yours therefore; but rather the
contrary, all vexation of censure. If I were not above such
molestations now, I had great cause to think unworthily of my studies,
or they had so of me. But I leave you to your exercise. Begin.
BEN JONSON.
_Je n'adresse point ce Livre à un Grand, sur une vaine opinion que
j'aurois de le garantir ou de l'envie, ou de le faire vivre contre les
rudes assauts du temps, d'autant que sa principale recommendation doit
deriver de son propre fonds, et non de l'appuy de celuy à qui je le
dedierois: car rien ne l'auctorisera, s'il n'est remply de belles
conceptions, et tissu d'un langage bref, nerveux, et escrit d'une
plume franche, resoluë et hardie. La rondeur d'escrire plaist; ces
choses sont pour donner prix et pointe à nos escrits, et dépiter le
temps et la mort. Je prie Dieu que ces Tomes ressemblent à la beauté
d'un jardin, duquel l'un cueille une belle rose, l'autre une violette,
ou une giroflée; ainsi souhaitay-je qu'en ceste diversité de sujects,
dont elles sont plaines, chacun tire dequoy resveiller, resjouyr et
contenter son esprit._
NICOLAS PASQUIER.
_Non ego me methodo astringam serviliter ullâ,
Sed temeré Hyblææ more vagabor apis,
Quò me spes prædæ, et generandi gloria mellis,
Liberaque ingenii quo feret ala mei._
COWLEY.
Take not too much at once, lest thy brain turn edge; Taste it first as
a potion for physic, and by degrees thou shalt drink it as beer for
thirst.
FULLER.
_Qui l'a fait? Quiconque il soit, en ce a esté prudent, qu'il n'y a
point mis son nom._
RABELAIS.
_Io me n' andrò con la barchetta mia,
Quanto l' acqua comporta un picciol legno;
E ciò ch' io penso con la fantasia,
Di piacere ad ognuno è 'l mio disegno:
Convien che varie cose al mondo sia,
Come son varj volti e vario ingegno,
E piace a l' uno il bianco, a l' altro il perso,
O diverse materie in prosa o in verso._
_Forse coloro ancor che leggeranno,
Di questa tanto piccola favilla
La mente con poca esca accenderanno
De' monti o di Parnaso o di Sibilla:
E de' miei fior come ape piglieranno
I dotti, s' alcun dolce ne distilla;
Il resto a molti pur darà diletto,
E lo autore ancor fia benedetto._
PULCI.
Most Prefaces are effectually apologies, and neither the Book nor the
Author one jot the better for them. If the Book be good, it will not
need an apology; if bad it will not bear one: for where a man thinks
by calling himself noddy in the epistle, to atone for shewing himself
to be one in the text, he does, with respect to the dignity of an
author, but bind up two fools in one cover.
SIR ROGER D'ESTRANGE.
_Inter cuncta leges,—
Quâ ratione queas traducere leniter ævum;
Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cupido,
Ne pavor, et rerum mediocriter utilium spes;—
Quid minuat curas; quid te tibi reddat amicum;
Quid purè tranquillet, honos, an dulce lucellum,
An secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitæ._
HORACE.
_Si ne suis je toutesfois hors d'esperance, que si quelqu'un daigne
lire, et bien gouster ces miens escrits, (encores que le langage n'en
soit eslevé, ny enflé) il ne les trouvera du tout vuides de saveur; ny
tant desgarniz d'utilité, qu'ils n'en puissent tirer plaisir et
profit, pourveu que leurs esprits ne soyent auparavant saisiz de mal
vueillance, ou imbuz de quelques autres mauvaises opinions. Je prie
doncques tous Lecteurs entrer en la lecture des presents discours,
delivres de toute passion et emulation. Car quand l'amertume d'envie
ou mal vueillance, est detrempee en desir de contredire, elle ne
laisse jamais le goust que depravé et mal jugeant._
PIERRE DE ST. JULIEN.
Here are no forced expressions, no rack'd phrase,
No Babel compositions to amaze
The tortured reader, no believed defence
To strengthen the bold Atheist's insolence,
No obscene syllable that may compel
A blush from a chaste maid.
MASSINGER.
Read, and fear not thine own understanding; this book will create a
clear one in thee; and when thou hast considered thy purchase, thou
wilt call the price of it a charity to thyself.
SHIRLEY.
One caveat, good Reader, and then God speed thee!——Do not open it at
adventures, and by reading the broken pieces of two or three lines,
judge it; but read it through, and then I beg no pardon if thou
dislikest it. Farewell.
THOMAS ADAMS.
Listen while my tongue
Reveals what old Harmodius wont to teach
My early age; Harmodius, who had weigh'd
Within his learned mind whate'er the schools
Of Wisdom, or thy lonely whispering voice,
O faithful Nature, dictate of the laws
Which govern and support this mighty frame
Of universal being.
AKENSIDE.
_Δεῦρ᾽ ἒλθ᾽, ὃπως ἂν καὶ σοφώτερος γένῃ._
EURIPIDES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER CVI.—p. 1.
THE AUTHOR APOSTROPHIZES SOME OF HIS FAIR READERS; LOOKS FARTHER THAN
THEY ARE LIKELY TO DO, AND GIVES THEM A JUST THOUGH MELANCHOLY
EXHORTATION TO BE CHEERFUL WHILE THEY MAY.
Hark how the birds do sing,
And woods do ring!
All creatures have their joy, and Man hath his:
Yet if we rightly measure,
Man's joy and pleasure
Rather hereafter, than in present is.
HERBERT.
CHAPTER CVII.—p. 7.
THE AUTHOR INTRODUCES HIS READERS TO A RETIRED DUCHESS, AND SUGGESTS A
PARALLEL BETWEEN HER GRACE AND THE RETIRED TOBACCONIST.
In midst of plenty only to embrace
Calm patience, is not worthy of your praise;
But he that can look sorrow in the face
And not be daunted, he deserves the bays.
This is prosperity, where'er we find
A heavenly solace in an earthly mind.
HUGH CROMPTON.
CHAPTER CVIII.—p. 31.
PERCY LODGE. THAXTED GRANGE. RAPIN THE JESUIT AND SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
It seems that you take pleasure in these walks Sir.
_Cleanthes_. Contemplative content I do, my Lord;
They bring into my mind oft meditations
So sweetly precious, that in the parting
I find a shower of grace upon my cheeks,
They take their leave so feelingly.
MASSINGER.
INTERCHAPTER XIV.—p. 42.
CONCERNING INTERCHAPTERS.
If we present a mingle-mangle, our fault is to be excused, because the
whole world is become a hodge-podge.
LYLY.
CHAPTER CIX.—p. 59.
INCIDENTAL MENTION OF HAMMOND, SIR EDMUND KING, JOANNA BAILLIE, SIR
WILLIAM TEMPLE, AND MR. THOMAS PEREGRINE COURTENAY. PETER COLLINSON AN
ACQUAINTANCE OF MR. ALLISON'S. HOLIDAYS AT THAXTED GRANGE.
And sure there seem of human kind
Some born to shun the solemn strife;
Some for amusive tasks design'd
To soothe the certain ills of life,
Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose,
New founts of bliss disclose,
Call forth refreshing shades and decorate repose.
SHENSTONE.
CHAPTER CX.—p. 74.
A TRANSITIONAL CHAPTER, WHEREIN THE AUTHOR COMPARES HIS BOOK TO AN
OMNIBUS AND A SHIP, QUOTES SHAKESPEARE, MARCO ANTONIO DE CAMOS,
QUARLES, SPENSER, AND SOMEBODY ELSE, AND INTRODUCES HIS READERS TO
SOME OF THE HEATHEN GODS, WITH WHOM PERHAPS THEY WERE NOT ACQUAINTED
BEFORE.
We are not to grudge such interstitial and transitional matter as may
promote an easy connection of parts and an elastic separation of them,
and keep the reader's mind upon springs as it were.
HENRY TAYLOR'S Statesman.
CHAPTER CXI.—p. 81.
CONCERNING MAGAZINES, AND THE FORMER AND PRESENT RACE OF ALPHABET-MEN.
_Altri gli han messo nome Santa Croce,
Altri lo chiaman l' A. B. C. guastando
La misura, gl' accenti, et la sua voce._
SANSOVINO.
CHAPTER CXII.—p. 86.
HUNTING IN AN EASY CHAIR. THE DOCTOR'S BOOKS.
That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes for variety I confer
With Kings and Emperors, and weigh their counsels,
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account, and in my fancy
Deface their ill placed statues.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
CHAPTER CXIII.—p. 92.
THOMAS GENT AND ALICE GUY, A TRUE TALE, SHOWING THAT A WOMAN'S
CONSTANCY WILL NOT ALWAYS HOLD OUT LONGER THAN TROY TOWN, AND YET THE
WOMAN MAY NOT BE THE PARTY WHO IS MOST IN FAULT.
_Io dico, non dimando
Quel che tu vuoi udir, perch' io l'ho visto
Ove s' appunta ogni ubi, e ogni quando._
DANTE.
CHAPTER CXIV.—p. 112.
THE AUTHOR HINTS AT CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE LIFE OF THOMAS GENT
ON WHICH HE DOES NOT THINK IT NECESSARY TO DWELL.
Round white stones will serve they say,
As well as eggs, to make hens lay.
BUTLER.
CHAPTER CXV.—p. 123.
THE READER IS REMINDED OF PRINCE ABINO JASSIMA AND THE FOX-LADY. GENT
NOT LIKE JOB, NOR MRS. GENT LIKE JOB'S WIFE.
_A me parrebbe a la storia far torto,
S' io non aggiungo qualche codicillo;
Acciò che ognun chi legge, benedica
L' ultimo effetto de la mia fatica._
PULCI.
CHAPTER CXVI.—p. 132.
DR. SOUTHEY. JOHN BUNYAN. BARTHOLOMÆUS SCHERÆUS. TERTULLIAN. DOMENICO
BERNINO. PETRARCH. JEREMY TAYLOR. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. DIEGO DE SAN
PEDRO, AND ADAM LITTLETON.
Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.
Titty, Tiffin, keep it stiff in!
Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky!
Liard, Robin, you must bob in!
Round, around, around, about, about!
All _good_ come running in, all _ill_ keep out.
MIDDLETON.
CHAPTER CXVII.—p. 145.
CONCERNING JOB'S WIFE.
This insertion is somewhat long, and utterly impertinent to the
principal matter, and makes a great gap in the tale; nevertheless is
no disgrace, but rather a beauty and to very good purpose.
PUTTENHAM.
CHAPTER CXVIII.—p. 159.
POINTS OF SIMILITUDE AND DISSIMILITUDE BETWEEN SIR THOMAS BROWN AND
DOCTOR DOVE.
But in these serious works designed
To mend the morals of mankind,
We must for ever be disgraced
With all the nicer sons of taste,
If once the shadow to pursue
We let the substance out of view.
Our means must uniformly tend
In due proportion to their end,
And every passage aptly join
To bring about the one design.
CHURCHILL.
INTERCHAPTER XV.—p. 168.
THE AUTHOR RECOMMENDS A CERTAIN WELL-KNOWN CHARACTER AS A CANDIDATE
FOR HONOURS, BOTH ON THE SCORE OF HIS FAMILY AND HIS DESERTS. HE
NOTICES ALSO OTHER PERSONS WHO HAVE SIMILAR CLAIMS.
_Thoricht, auf Bessrung der Thoren zu harren!
Kinder der klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehort._
GOETHE.
CHAPTER CXIX.—p. 176.
THE DOCTOR IN HIS CURE. IRRELIGION THE REPROACH OF HIS PROFESSION.
Virtue, and that part of philosophy
Will I apply, that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
TAMING OF THE SHREW.
CHAPTER CXX.—p. 184.
EFFECT OF MEDICAL STUDIES ON DIFFERENT DISPOSITIONS. JEW PHYSICIANS,
ESTIMATION AND ODIUM IN WHICH THEY WERE HELD.
_Confiesso la digression; mas es facil al que no quisiere leerla,
passar al capitulo siguiente, y esta advertencia sirva de disculpa._
LUIS MUNOZ.
CHAPTER CXXI.—p. 197.
WHEREIN IT APPEARS THAT SANCHO'S PHYSICIAN AT BARATARIA ACTED
ACCORDING TO PRECEDENTS AND PRESCRIBED LAWS.
_Lettor, tu vedi ben com' io innalzo
La mia materia, e però con piu arte
Non ti maravigliar s' i' la rincalzo._
DANTE.
CHAPTER CXXII.—p. 208.
A CHAPTER WHEREIN STUDENTS IN SURGERY MAY FIND SOME FACTS WHICH WERE
NEW TO THEM IN THE HISTORY OF THEIR OWN PROFESSION.
If I have more to spin
The wheel shall go.
HERBERT.
CHAPTER CXXIII.—p. 220.
SOME ALLUSION TO, AND SOME USE OF THE FIGURE OF SPEECH CALLED
PARENTHESIS.
_J'ecrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre, et non pas peut-étre dans une
confusion sans dessein; c'est le veritable ordre, et qui marquera
toujours mon objet par le desordre même._
PASCAL.
CHAPTER CXXIV.—p. 232.
THE AUTHOR MORALIZES UPON THE VANITY OF FAME; AND WISHES THAT HE HAD
BOSWELLIZED WHILE IT WAS IN HIS POWER TO HAVE DONE SO.
_Mucho tengo que llorar,
Mucho tengo que reir._
GONGORA.
CHAPTER CXXV.—p. 245.
FAME IN THE BOROUGH ROAD. THE AUTHOR DANIELIZES.
_Duc, Fama,—
Duc me insolenti tramite; devius
Tentabo inaccessos profanis
Invidiæ pedibus recessus._
VINCENT BOURNE.
CHAPTER CXXVI.—p. 258.
MR. BAXTER'S OFFICES. MILLER'S CHARACTER OF MASON; WITH A FEW REMARKS
IN VINDICATION OF GRAY'S FRIEND AND THE DOCTOR'S ACQUAINTANCE.
_——Te sonare quis mihi
Genîque vim dabit tui?
Stylo quis æquor hocce arare charteum,
Et arva per papyrina
Satu loquace seminare literas?_
JANUS DOUSA.
CHAPTER CXXVII.—p. 278.
THE DOCTOR'S THEORY OF PROGRESSIVE EXISTENCE.
_Quam multæ pecudes humano in corpore vivunt!_
PALINGENIUS.
CHAPTER CXXVIII.—p. 286.
ELUCIDATIONS OF THE COLUMBIAN THEORY.
Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
CHAPTER CXXIX.—p. 312.
WHEREIN THE AUTHOR SPEAKS OF A TRAGEDY FOR THE LADIES, AND INTRODUCES
ONE OF WILLIAM DOVE'S STORIES FOR CHILDREN.
_Y donde sobre todo de su dueño
El gran tesoro y el caudal se infiere,
Es que al grande, al mediano, y al pequeño,
Todo se da de balde á quien lo quiere._
BALBUENA.
THE STORY OF THE THREE BEARS.
A tale which may content the minds
Of learned men and grave philosophers.
GASCOYNE.
CHAPTER CXXX.—p. 327.
CHILDREN AND KITTENS. APHORISMS ASCRIBED TO THE LAUREATE, DR. SOUTHEY.
MORE COLUMBIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Oh! if in after life we could but gather
The very refuse of our youthful hours!
CHARLES LLOYD.
CHAPTER CXXXI.—p. 334.
THE DOCTOR ABSTAINS FROM SPECULATING ON PERILOUS SUBJECTS. A STORY OF
ST. ANSELM.
This field is so spacious, that it were easy for a man to lose himself
in it; and if I should spend all my pilgrimage in this walk, my time
would sooner end than my way.
BISHOP HALL.
CHAPTER CXXXII.—p. 340.
DR. CADOGAN. A REMARKABLE CASE OF HEREDITARY LONGEVITY. REMARKS ON THE
ORDINARY TERM OF HUMAN LIFE.
Live well, and then how soon so e'er thou die,
Thou art of age to claim eternity.
RANDOLPH.
CHAPTER CXXXIII.—p. 348.
MORE THOUGHTS CONCERNING LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY.
_Clericus es? legito hæc. Laicus? legito ista libenter.
Crede mihi, invenies hic quod uterque voles._
D. DU.-TR. MED.
CHAPTER CXXXIV.—p. 360.
A TRANSITION, AN ANECDOTE, AN APOSTROPHE, AND A PUN, PUNNET, OR
PUNDIGRION.
_Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures;
Et sermone opus est, modo tristi, sæpe jocoso._
HORACE.
CHAPTER CXXXV.—p. 362.
REGINALD HEBER. A MISTAKE OBVIATED, WHICH MIGHT OTHERWISE EASILY BE
MADE.
Perhaps some Gull, as witty as a Goose,
Says with a coy skew look, “it's pretty, pretty!
But yet that so much wit he should dispose
For so small purpose, faith” saith he, “'tis pity!”
DAVIES OF HEREFORD.
CHAPTER CXXXVI.—p. 367.
THE PEDIGREE AND BIRTH OF NOBS, GIVEN IN REPLY TO THE FIRST QUERY IN
THE SECOND CHAPTER P. I.
_Theo._ Look to my Horse, I pray you, well.
_Diego._ He shall Sir.
_Inc._ Oh! how beneath his rank and call was that now!
Your Horse shall be entreated as becomes
A Horse of fashion, and his inches.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
INTERCHAPTER XVI.—p. 373.
THE AUTHOR RELATES SOME ANECDOTES, REFERS TO AN OPINION EXPRESSED BY A
CRITIC ON THE PRESENT OPUS, AND DESCANTS THEREON.
Every man can say B to a battledore, and write in praise of virtue and
the seven liberal sciences; thresh corn out of full sheaves, and fetch
water out of the Thames. But out of dry stubble to make an
after-harvest, and a plentiful crop without sowing, and wring juice
out of a flint, that is Pierce a God's name, and the right trick of a
workman.
NASH.
THE DOCTOR, &c.
CHAPTER CVI.
THE AUTHOR APOSTROPHIZES SOME OF HIS FAIR READERS; LOOKS FARTHER THAN
THEY ARE LIKELY TO DO, AND GIVES THEM A JUST THOUGH MELANCHOLY
EXHORTATION TO BE CHEERFUL WHILE THEY MAY.
Hark how the birds do sing,
And woods do ring!
All creatures have their joy, and Man hath his:
Yet, if we rightly measure,
Man's joy and pleasure
Rather hereafter, than in present is.
HERBERT.
Bertha, Arabella, Sarah, Mary, Caroline, Dorothea, Elizabeth, Kate,
Susan,—how many answer to these names, each thinking that peradventure
she may be the individual especially addressed—
_Alcun' è che risponde a chi nol chiama;_[1]
you are looking with impatience for Deborah's wedding day, and are
ready to inveigh against me for not immediately proceeding to that
part of my story. Well has Sir William Davenant said,
Slow seems their speed whose thoughts before them run;
but it is true in one sense as applied to you, and in another as
applied to myself. To you my progress appears slow because you are
eager to arrive at what, rightly considering it the most important
point upon the whole journey of life, you may perhaps expect to prove
the most interesting in this volume. Your thoughts have sped forward
to that point and no farther. Mine travel beyond it, and this, were
there no other motive, would retard me now. You are thinking of the
bride and bridegroom, and the bridesmaid, and the breakfast at the
vicarage, and the wedding dinner at the Grange, and the Doncaster
bells which rung that day to the Doctor's ears the happiest peal that
ever saluted them, from St. George's tower. My thoughts are of a
different complexion; for where now are the joys and the sorrows of
that day, and where are all those by whom they were partaken! The
elder Allisons have long since been gathered to their fathers. Betsey
and her husband (whom at that day she had never seen) are inhabitants
of a distant church-yard. Mr. Bacon's mortal part has mouldered in the
same grave with Margaret's. The Doctor has been laid beside them; and
thither his aged widow Deborah was long ago brought home, earth to
earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
[Footnote 1: PETRARCH.]
“The deaths of some, and the marriages of others,” says Cowper, “make
a new world of it every thirty years. Within that space of time the
majority are displaced, and a new generation has succeeded. Here and
there one is permitted to stay longer, that there may not be wanting a
few grave Dons like myself to make the observation.”
Man is a self-survivor every year;
Man like a stream is in perpetual flow.
Death's a destroyer of quotidian prey:
My youth, my noontide his, my yesterday;
The bold invader shares the present hour,
Each moment on the former shuts the grave.
While man is growing, life is in decrease,
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun,
As tapers waste that instant they take fire.[2]
Yet infinitely short as the term of human life is when compared with
time to come, it is not so in relation to time past. An hundred and
forty of our own generations carry us back to the Deluge, and nine
more of ante-diluvian measure to the Creation,—which to us is the
beginning of time; for “time itself is but a novelty, a late and
upstart thing in respect of the Ancient of Days.”[3] They who remember
their grandfather and see their grandchildren, have seen persons
belonging to five out of that number; and he who attains the age of
threescore has seen two generations pass away. “The created world,”
says Sir Thomas Browne, “is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a
short interposition for a time, between such a state of duration as
was before it, and may be after it.” There is no time of life after we
become capable of reflection, in which the world to come must not to
any considerate mind appear of more importance to us than this;—no
time in which we have not a greater stake there. When we reach the
threshold of old age all objects of our early affections have gone
before us, and in the common course of mortality a great proportion of
the later. Not without reason did the wise compilers of our admirable
liturgy place next in order after the form of matrimony, the services
for the visitation and communion of the sick, and for the burial of
the dead.
[Footnote 2: YOUNG.]
[Footnote 3: SAMUEL JOHNSON the elder.]
I would not impress such considerations too deeply upon the young and
happy. Far be it from me to infuse bitters into the cup of hope!
_Dum fata sinunt
Vivite læti: properat cursu
Vita citato, volucrique die
Rota præcipitis vertitur anni.
Duræ peragunt pensa sorores,
Nec sua retro fila revolvunt._[4]
What the Spaniards call _desengaño_ (which our dictionaries render
“discovery of deceit, the act of undeceiving, or freeing from
error,”—and for which if our language has an equivalent word, it is
not in my vocabulary,)—that state of mind in which we understand
feelingly the vanity of human wishes, and the instability of earthly
joys,—that sad wisdom comes to all in time; but if it came too soon it
would unfit us for this world's business and the common intercourse of
life. When it comes in due season it fits us for a higher intercourse
and for a happier state of existence.
[Footnote 4: SENECA.]
CHAPTER CVII.
THE AUTHOR INTRODUCES HIS READERS TO A RETIRED DUCHESS, AND SUGGESTS A
PARALLEL BETWEEN HER GRACE AND THE RETIRED TOBACCONIST.
In midst of plenty only to embrace
Calm patience, is not worthy of your praise;
But he that can look sorrow in the face
And not be daunted, he deserves the bays.
This is prosperity, where'er we find
A heavenly solace in an earthly mind.
HUGH CROMPTON.
There is a very pleasing passage in a letter of the Duchess of
Somerset's, written in the unreserved intimacy of perfect friendship,
without the slightest suspicion that it would ever find its way to the
press. “'Tis true my dear Lady Luxborough,” she says, “times are
changed with us, since no walk was long enough, or exercise painful
enough to hurt us, as we childishly imagined; yet after a ball, or a
masquerade, have we not come home very well contented to pull off our
ornaments and fine clothes, in order to go to rest? Such methinks is
the reception we naturally give to the warnings of our bodily decays;
they seem to undress us by degrees, to prepare us for a rest that will
refresh us far more powerfully than any night's sleep could do. We
shall then find no weariness from the fatigues which either our bodies
or our minds have undergone; but all tears shall be wiped from our
eyes, and sorrow and crying and pain shall be no more: we shall then
without weariness move in our new vehicles, and transport ourselves
from one part of the skies to another, with much more ease and
velocity, than we could have done in the prime of our strength, upon
the fleetest horses, the distance of a mile. This cheerful prospect
enables us to see our strength fail, and await the tokens of our
approaching dissolution with a kind of awful pleasure. I will
ingenuously own to you, dear Madam, that I experience more true
happiness in the retired manner of life that I have embraced, than I
ever knew from all the splendour or flatteries of the world. There was
always a void; they could not satisfy a rational mind: and at the most
heedless time of my youth I well remember that I always looked forward
with a kind of joy to a decent retreat when the evening of life should
make it practicable.”
“If one only anticipates far enough, one is sure to find comfort,”
said a young moralizer, who was then for the first time experiencing
some of the real evils of life. A sense of its vanities taught the
Duchess that wisdom, before she was visited with affliction. Frances,
wife and widow of Algernon seventh Duke of Somerset, was a woman who
might perhaps have been happier in a humbler station, but could not
have been more uncorrupted by the world. Her husband inherited from
his father the honours of the Seymour, from his mother those of the
Percy family: but Lord Beauchamp,—
Born with as much nobility as would,
Divided, serve to make ten noblemen
Without a herald; but with so much spirit
And height of soul, as well might furnish twenty,—[1]
Lord Beauchamp I say, the son thus endowed, who should have succeeded
to these accumulated honours, died on his travels at Bologna of the
small-pox, in the flower of his youth. His afflicted mother in reply
to a letter of consolation expressed herself thus: “The dear lamented
son I have lost was the pride and joy of my heart: but I hope I may be
the more easily excused for having looked on him in this light, since
he was not so from the outward advantages he possessed, but from the
virtues and rectitude of his mind. The prospects which flattered me in
regard to him, were not drawn from his distinguished rank, or from the
beauty of his person; but from the hopes that his example would have
been serviceable to the cause of virtue, and would have shown the
younger part of the world that it was possible to be cheerful without
being foolish or vicious, and to be religious without severity or
melancholy. His whole life was one uninterrupted course of duty and
affection to his parents, and when he found the hand of death upon
him, his only regret was to think on the agonies which must rend their
hearts: for he was perfectly contented to leave the world, as his
conscience did not reproach him with any presumptuous sins, and he
hoped his errors would be forgiven. Thus he resigned his innocent soul
into the hands of his merciful Creator, on the evening of his
birthday, which completed him nineteen.”
[Footnote 1: SHIRLEY.]
In another letter she says, “when I lost my dear, and by me
ever-lamented son, every faculty to please (if ever I were possessed
of any such) died with him. I have no longer any cheerful thoughts to
communicate to my friends; but as the joy and pride of my heart
withers in his grave, my mind is continually haunting those mansions
of the dead, and is but too inattentive to what passes in a world
where I have still duties and attachments which I ought to be, and I
hope I may truly say, I am, thankful for. But I enjoy all these
blessings with trembling and anxiety, for after my dear Beauchamp,
what human things can appear permanent? Youth, beauty, virtue, health,
were not sufficient to save him from the hand of death, and who then
can think themselves secure? These are the melancholy considerations
which generally entertain my waking hours; though sometimes I am able
to view the bright side of my fate, and ask myself for whom I grieve?
only for myself? how narrow an affection does this imply! Could he
have lived long as my fondest wish desired, what could I have asked at
the end of that term more than the assurance that he should be placed
where I humbly hope, and confidently trust, he is, beyond the reach of
sorrow, sin, or sickness?”
I have said that this Duchess, the Eusebia of Dr. Watts' Miscellanies,
and once more known as the Cleora of her then famous friend Mrs.
Rowe's Letters, might perhaps have been happier in a humbler station;
but she could not have been more meek and more amiable, nor have
possessed in a greater degree the christian virtue of humility. She
was one of the daughters and coheiresses of the Honourable Henry
Thynne, and was of the bed-chamber to the Princess of Wales, in which
office she continued after that Princess became Queen Caroline. It was
through her intercession that Savage's life was spared. When the Queen
being prejudiced against that wretched man had refused to hear any
application in his behalf, “she engaged in it,” says Johnson, “with
all the tenderness that is excited by pity, and all the zeal that is
kindled by generosity; an advocate,” he calls her, “of rank too great
to be rejected unheard, and of virtue too eminent to be heard without
being believed.” Her husband's father was commonly called the proud
Duke of Somerset,—an odious designation, which could not have been
obtained unless it had been richly deserved: but there are some evil
examples which incidentally produce a good effect, and Lord Beauchamp
whose affability and amiable disposition endeared him to all by whom
he was known, was perhaps more carefully instructed in the principles
of Christian humility, and more sensible of their importance and their
truth, because there was in his own family so glaring an instance of
the folly and hatefulness of this preposterous and ridiculous sin. “It
is a most terrible thing for his parents,” says Horace Walpole, “Lord
Beauchamp's death; if they were out of the question, one could not be
sorry for such a mortification to the pride of old Somerset. He has
written the most shocking letter imaginable to poor Lord Hartford,
telling him that it is a judgment upon him for all his undutifulness,
and that he must always look upon himself as the cause of his son's
death. Lord Hartford is as good a man as lives, and has always been
most unreasonably ill-treated by that old tyrant.” The Duke was brute
enough to say that his mother had sent him abroad to kill him. It was
not his mother's fault that he had not been secured, as far as human
precautions avail against the formidable disease of which he died.
Three years before that event she said in one of her letters,
“Inoculation is at present more in fashion than ever; half my
acquaintance are shut up to nurse their children, grandchildren,
nephews or nieces. I could be content notwithstanding the fine weather
to stay in town upon the same account, if I were happy enough to see
my son desire it; but that is not the case, and at his age it must
either be a voluntary act or left undone.”
The proud Duke lived to the great age of eighty-six, and his son died
little more than twelvemonths after him, leaving an irreproachable
name. The Duchess survived her son ten years, and her husband four.
Upon the Duke's death the Seymour honours were divided between two
distant branches of that great and ancient house; those of the Percys
devolved to his only daughter and heiress the Lady Elizabeth, then
wife of Sir Hugh Smithson, in whom the Dukedom of Northumberland was
afterwards revived. The widow passed the remainder of her days at a
seat near Colnbrook, which her husband had purchased from Lord
Bathurst, and had named Percy Lodge: Richkings was its former
appellation. Pope in one of his letters calls it “Lord Bathurst's
_extravagante bergerie_,” in allusion to the title of an old
mock-romance. “The environs,” says the Duchess, “perfectly answer to
that title, and come nearer to my idea of a scene in Arcadia than any
place I ever saw. The house is old but convenient, and when you are
got within the little paddock it stands on, you would believe yourself
an hundred miles from London, which I think a great addition to its
beauty.” Moses Brown wrote a poem upon it, the Duke and Duchess having
appointed him their laureate for the nonce; but though written by
their command, it was not published till after the death of both, and
was then inscribed to her daughter, at that time Countess of
Northumberland. If Olney had not a far greater poet to boast of, it
might perhaps have boasted of Moses Brown. Shenstone's Ode on Rural
Elegance, which is one of his latest productions, related especially
to this place. He inscribed it to the Duchess, and communicated it to
her in manuscript through their mutual friend Lady Luxborough, sister
to Bolingbroke, who possessed much of her brother's talents, but
nothing of his cankered nature.
The Duchess was a great admirer of Shenstone's poetry, but though
pleased with the poem, and gratified by the compliment, she told him
that it had given her some pain, and requested that wherever her name
or that of Percy Lodge occurred, he would oblige her by leaving a
blank, without suspecting her of an affected or false modesty, for to
that accusation she could honestly plead not guilty. The idea he had
formed of her character, he had taken, she said, from a partial friend
whose good nature had warped her judgment. The world in general since
they could find no fault in his poem, would blame the choice of the
person to whom it was inscribed, and draw mortifying comparisons
between the ideal lady, and the real one. “But I,” said she, “have a
more impartial judge to produce than either my friend or the
world,—and that is my own heart, which though it may flatter me I am
not quite so faulty as the world would represent, at the same time
loudly admonishes me that I am still further from the valuable person
Lady Luxborough has drawn you in to suppose me. I hope you will accept
these reasons as the genuine and most sincere sentiments of my mind,
which indeed they are, though accompanied with the most grateful sense
of the honour you designed me.”
I have said something, and have yet more to say of a retired
Tobacconist; and I will here describe the life of a retired Duchess,
of the same time and country, drawn from her own letters. Some of
Plutarch's parallels are less apposite, and none of them in like
manner equally applicable to those of high station and those of low
degree.
The duchess had acquired that taste for landscape gardening, the
honour of introducing which belongs more to Shenstone than to any
other individual, and has been properly awarded to him by D'Israeli,
one of the most just and generous of critical authors. Thus she
described the place of her retreat when it came into their possession:
“It stands in a little paddock of about a mile and a half round; which
is laid out in the manner of a French park, interspersed with woods
and lawns. There is a canal in it about twelve hundred yards long, and
proportionably broad, which has a stream continually running through
it, and is deep enough to carry a pleasure-boat. It is well stocked
with carp and tench; and at its upper end there is a green-house,
containing a good collection of orange, myrtle, geranium, and oleander
trees. This is a very agreeable room, either to drink tea, play at
cards, or sit in with a book on a summer's evening. In one of the
woods (through all which there are winding paths), there is a cave;
which though little more than a rude heap of stones, is not without
charms for me. A spring gushes out at the back of it; which, falling
into a basin (whose brim it overflows), passes along a channel in the
pavement where it loses itself. The entrance to this recess is
overhung with periwinkle, and its top is shaded with beeches, large
elms, and birch. There are several covered benches, and little arbours
interwoven with lilacs, woodbines, seringas and laurels; and seats
under shady trees, disposed all over the park. One great addition to
the pleasure of living here, is the gravelly soil; which after a day
of rain (if it holds up only for two or three hours), one may walk
over without being wet through one's shoes: and there is one gravel
walk that encompasses the whole. We propose to make an improvement, by
adding to the present ground a little pasture farm which is just
without the pale, because there is a very pretty brook of clear water
which runs through the meadows to supply our canal, and whose course
winds in such a manner that it is almost naturally a serpentine river.
I am afraid I shall have tired you with the description of what appear
to me beauties in our little possession; yet I cannot help adding one
convenience that attends it:—this is, the cheap manner in which we
keep it: since it only requires a flock of sheep, who graze the lawns
fine; and whilst these are feeding, their shepherd cleans away any
weeds that spring up in the gravel, and removes dry leaves or broken
branches that would litter the walks.”
“On the spot where the green-house now stands, there was formerly a
chapel, dedicated to St. Leonard; who was certainly esteemed as a
tutelar saint of Windsor Forest and its purlieus, for the place we
left was originally a hermitage founded in honour of him. We have no
relics of the saint; but we have an old covered bench with many
remains of the wit of my lord Bathurst's visitors, who inscribed
verses upon it. Here is the writing of Addison, Pope, Prior, Congreve,
Gay, and, what he esteemed no less, of several fine ladies. I cannot
say that the verses answered my expectation from such authors; we have
however all resolved to follow the fashion, and to add some of our own
to the collection. That you may not be surprized at our courage for
daring to write after such great names, I will transcribe one of the
old ones, which I think as good as any of them:
Who set the trees shall he remember
That is in haste to fell the timber?
What then shall of thy woods remain,
Except the box that threw the main?
There has been only one added as yet by our company, which is
tolerably numerous at present. I scarcely know whether it is worth
reading or not:
By Bathurst planted, first these shades arose;
Prior and Pope have sung beneath these boughs:
Here Addison his moral theme pursued,
And social Gay has cheer'd the solitude.
There is one walk that I am extremely partial to, and which is rightly
called the Abbey-walk, since it is composed of prodigiously high
beech-trees, that form an arch through the whole length, exactly
resembling a cloister. At the end is a statue; and about the middle a
tolerably large circle, with Windsor chairs round it: and I think, for
a person of contemplative disposition, one would scarcely find a more
venerable shade in any poetical description.”
She had amused herself with improving the grounds of Percy Lodge
before her husband's death, as much for his delight as her own.
“Those shady elms, my favourite trees,
Which near my Percy's window grew,
(Studious his leisure hours to please)
I decked last year for smell and shew;
To each a fragrant woodbine bound,
And edged with pinks the verdant mound.
Nor yet the areas left ungraced
Betwixt the borders and each tree;
But on them damask roses placed,
Which rising in a just degree,
Their glowing lustre through the green
Might add fresh beauties to the scene.”
Afterwards when it became her own by the Duke's bequest, and her home
was thereby fixed upon the spot of earth which she would have chosen
for herself, the satisfaction which she took in adding to it either
beauty or convenience was enhanced by the reflection that in adorning
it she was at the same time shewing her value for the gift, and her
gratitude to the lamented giver. “Every thing,” said she, “both within
and without the house reminds me of my obligations to him; and I
cannot turn my eyes upon any object which is not an object of his
goodness to me.—And as I think it a duty while it pleases God to
continue us here, not to let ourselves sink into a stupid and
unthankful melancholy, I endeavour to find out such entertainments as
my retirement, and my dear Lord's unmerited bounty will admit of.”
And oh the transport, most allied to song,
In some fair villa's peaceful bound,
To catch soft hints from nature's tongue
And bid Arcadia bloom around:
Whether we fringe the sloping hill,
Or smoothe below the verdant mead;
Whether we break the falling rill,
Or thro' meandering mazes lead;
Or in the horrid bramble's room
Bid careless groups of roses bloom;
Or let some sheltered lake serene
Reflect flowers, woods, and spires, and brighten all the scene.
O sweet disposal of the rural hour!
O beauties never known to cloy!
While worth and genius haunt the favoured bower,
And every gentle breast partakes the joy.
While Charity at eve surveys the swain,
Enabled by these toils to cheer
A train of helpless infants dear,
Speed whistling home across the plain;
Sees vagrant Luxury, her handmaid grown,
For half her graceless deeds atone,
And hails the bounteous work, and ranks it with her own.[2]
[Footnote 2: SHENSTONE.]
The Duchess was too far advanced in life to find any of that enjoyment
in her occupations, which her own poet described in these stanzas, and
which he felt himself only by an effort of reflection. But if there
was not the excitement of hope, there was the satisfaction of giving
useful employment to honest industry. “When one comes,” said she, “to
the last broken arches of Mirza's bridge, rest from pain must bound
our ambition, for pleasure is not to be expected in this world. I have
no more notion of laying schemes to be executed six months, than I
have six years hence; and this I believe helps to keep my spirits in
an even state of cheerfulness to enjoy the satisfactions that present
themselves, without anxious solicitude about their duration. As our
journey seems approaching towards the verge of life, is it not more
natural to cast our eyes to the prospect beyond it, than by a
retrospective view to recall the troublesome trifles that ever made
our road difficult or dangerous? Methinks it would be imitating Lot's
wife (whose history is not recorded as an example for us to follow) to
want to look back upon the miserable scene we are so near escaping
from.”
In another letter to the same old friend she says, “I have a regular,
and I hope a religious family. My woman, though she has not lived with
me quite three years, had before lived twenty-three betwixt Lord
Grantham's and Lady Cowper's: my housekeeper has been a servant as
long: the person who takes in my accounts, pays my bills, and
overlooks the men within doors, has been in the family thirteen years;
and the other, who has lived ten, has the care of the stables and
every thing without. I rise at seven, but do not go down till nine
when the bell rings and my whole family meet me at chapel. After
prayers we go to breakfast; any friend who happens to be there,
myself, and my chaplain, have ours in the little library; the others
in their respective eating rooms. About eleven if the weather permits,
we go to walk in the park, or take the air in the coach; but if it be
too bad for either we return to our various occupations. At three we
dine, sit perhaps near an hour afterwards, then separate till we meet
at eight for prayers; after which we adjourn again to the library,
where somebody reads aloud (unless some stranger comes who chooses
cards), until half past nine, when we sup, and always part before
eleven. This to the fine would sound a melancholy monastic life; and I
cannot be supposed to have chosen it from ignorance of the splendour
and gaiety of a court, but from a thorough experience that they can
give no solid happiness; and I find myself more calmly pleased in my
present way of living, and more truly contented, than I ever was in
the bloom and pomp of my youth. I am no longer dubious what point to
pursue. There is but one proper for the decline of life, and indeed
the only one worth the anxiety of a rational creature at any age: but
how do the fire of youth, and flattery of the world blind our eyes,
and mislead our fancies, after a thousand imaginary pleasures which
are sure to disappoint us in the end!”
The Duchess was a person whose moral constitution had not been injured
by the atmosphere of a court. But though she kept aloof from its
intrigues and had acquired even a distaste for its vanities, she
retained always an affectionate regard for Queen Caroline's memory. “I
should have been glad,” she says to Lady Pomfret, “to have shared your
reverence and have indulged my own at Blansfelden, whilst you were
overlooking the fields and the shades where our late mistress had
passed the first scenes of her life, before the cares of royalty had
clouded the natural vivacity of her temper, or the disguise which
greatness is often forced to wear had veiled any of her native
goodness; and certainly she had a greater stock of both than is often
found in any rank.” She could never think of her without a sigh, she
said. The most amiable mistress she calls her that ever adorned a
court, and so fitted to charm in society, that it was impossible not
to grudge her to that life which involved her in cares and encompassed
her with such a cloud of different people, that her real lustre could
not always reach those who perhaps had the most pleasure in it.
Before the loss of her son (from which the Duchess never entirely
recovered), her spirits had been affected by the state of her
husband's health. “The many solitary hours I pass in a day,” she says,
“and the melancholy employment of attending a person in his
sufferings, to whom I owe every happiness I enjoy, cannot furnish me
with many smiling ideas relating to this world.” The country in its
wintry appearances accorded with her feelings, “where,” said she,
“every thing around instructs me that decay is the lot of all created
beings; where every tree spreads out its naked arms to testify the
solemn truth, which I thank heaven I feel no pain in assenting to. It
has long been my fixed opinion, that in the latter part of life, when
the duties owing to a family no longer call upon us to act on the
public stage of life, it is not only more decent, but infinitely more
eligible to live in an absolute retirement. However this is not the
general opinion of the world, and therefore I conclude that it is
better it is not so, since Providence undoubtedly orders better for us
than we are able to do for ourselves.”
During the latter years of her life, however, she enjoyed that
absolute retirement which was her heart's desire. But the peaceful
mansion in which this wise and amiable woman passed her latter years
was, after her decease, inhabited by one of those men who insulted
public decency by the open and ostentatious profligacy of their lives.
Mrs. Carter writing from the Castle Inn at Marlborough, which had not
long before been one of the residences of the Seymour family, says,
“this house I consider with great respect and veneration, not without
a strong mixture of regret, that what was once the elegant abode of
virtue and genius, and honoured by the conversation of the Duchess of
Somerset and Mrs. Rowe, should now resound with all the disorderly and
riotous clamour of an inn. And yet its fate is more eligible than that
of Percy Lodge, as it stands the chance of receiving indifferently
good and bad people, and is not destined to be the constant reception
of shocking profligate vice.”
CHAPTER CVIII.
PERCY LODGE. THAXTED GRANGE. RAPIN THE JESUIT AND SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
It seems that you take pleasure in these walks Sir.
_Cleanthes_. Contemplative content I do, my Lord.
They bring into my mind oft meditations
So sweetly precious, that in the parting
I find a shower of grace upon my cheeks,
They take their leave so feelingly.
MASSINGER.
The difference was very great between Thaxted Grange and Percy Lodge,
though somewhat less than that between Northumberland House and the
Tobacconists at No. 113 Bishopsgate Street. Yet if a landscape painter
who could have embodied the spirit of the scene had painted both, the
Grange might have made the more attractive picture, though much had
been done to embellish the Lodge by consulting picturesque effect,
while the Allisons had aimed at little beyond comfort and convenience
in their humble precincts.
From a thatched seat in the grounds of the Lodge, open on three sides
and constructed like a shepherd's hut, there was a direct view of
Windsor Castle, seen under the boughs of some old oaks and beeches.
Sweet Williams, narcissuses, rose-campions, and such other flowers as
the hares would not eat, had been sown in borders round the foot of
every tree. There was a hermitage, absurdly so called, in the wood,
with a thatched covering, and sides of straw; and there was a rosary,
which though appropriately named, might sound as oddly to the ears of
a Roman Catholic. A porter's lodge had been built at the entrance; and
after the Duke's death the long drawing room had been converted into a
chapel, in Gothic taste, with three painted windows, which, having
been bespoken for Northumberland House, but not suiting the intended
alterations in that mansion, were put up here. The Duchess and her
servant had worked cross-stitch chairs for this chapel in fine
crimson, the pattern was a Gothic mosaic, and they were in Gothic
frames.
_Se o mundo nos nao anda a' vontade
Naō he pera estranhar, pois he hum sonho
Que nunca con ninguem tratou verdade.
Se quando se nos mostra mais risonho,
Mais brande, mais amigo, o desprezemos,
He graō virtude, e á sua conta o ponho.
Mais se, (o que he mais certo) o desprezamos
Depois que nos engeita e nos despreza,
Que premio, ou que louvor disso esperamos?_[1]
All here however was as it should be: Percy Lodge was the becoming
retreat of a lady of high rank, who having in the natural course of
time and things outlived all inclination for the pomps and vanities of
the world, and all necessity for conforming to them, remembered what
was still due to her station; and doing nothing to be seen of men, had
retired thither to pass the remainder of her days in privacy and
religious peace.
[Footnote 1: DIOGO BERNARDES.]
All too was as it should be at Thaxted Grange. Picturesque was a term
which had never been heard there; and taste was as little thought of
as pretended to; but the right old English word comfort, in its good
old English meaning, was nowhere more thoroughly understood. Nor
anywhere could more evident indications of it be seen both within and
without.
A tradesman retiring from business in these days with a fortune
equivalent to what Mr. Allison had made, would begin his improvements
upon such a house as the Grange by pulling it down. Mr. Allison
contented himself with thoroughly repairing it. He had no dislike to
low rooms, and casement windows. The whole furniture of his house cost
less than would now be expended by a person of equal circumstances in
fitting up a drawing-room. Every thing was for use, and nothing for
display, unless it were two fowling pieces, which were kept in good
order over the fire place in the best kitchen, and never used but when
a kite threatened the poultry, or an owl was observed to frequent the
dove-cote in preference to the barn.
But out of doors as much regard was shown to beauty as to utility.
Miss Allison and Betsey claimed the little garden in front of the
house for themselves. It was in so neglected a state when they took
possession, that between children and poultry and stray pigs, not a
garden flower was left there to grow wild: and the gravel walk from
the gate to the porch was overgrown with weeds and grass, except a
path in the middle which had been kept bare by use. On each side of
the gate were three yew trees, at equal distances. In the old days of
the Grange they had been squared in three lessening stages, the
uppermost tapering pyramidally to a point. While the house had been
shorn of its honours, the yews remained unshorn; but when it was once
more occupied by a wealthy habitant, and a new gate had been set up
and the pillars and their stone-balls cleaned from moss and lichen and
short ferns, the unfortunate evergreens were again reduced to the
formal shape in which Mr. Allison and his sister remembered them in
their childhood. This was with them a matter of feeling, which is a
better thing than taste. And indeed the yews must either have been
trimmed, or cut down, because they intercepted sunshine from the
garden and the prospect from the upper windows. The garden would have
been better without them, for they were bad neighbours; but they
belonged to old times, and it would have seemed a sort of sacrilege to
destroy them.
Flower-beds used, like beds in the kitchen garden, to be raised a
little above the path, with nothing to divide them from it, till about
the beginning of the seventeenth century the fashion of bordering them
was introduced either by the Italians or the French. Daisies,
periwinkles, feverfew, hyssop, lavender, rosemary, rue, sage,
wormwood, camomile, thyme and box, were used for this purpose: a
German horticulturist observes that hyssop was preferred as the most
convenient; box however gradually obtained the preference. The Jesuit
Rapin claims for the French the merit of bringing this plant into use,
and embellishes his account of it by one of those school-boy fictions
which passed for poetry in his days, and may still pass for it in his
country. He describes a feast of the rural gods:
_Adfuit et Cybele, Phrygias celebrata per urbes;
Ipsaque cum reliquis Flora invitata deabus
Venit, inornatis, ut erat neglecta, capillis;
Sive fuit fastus, seu fors fiducia formæ.
Non illi pubes ridendi prompta pepercit,
Neglectam risere. Deam Berecynthia mater
Semotam à turba, casum miserata puellæ,
Exornat, certâque comam sub lege reponit,
Et viridi imprimis buxo (nam buxifer omnis
Undique campus erat) velavit tempora nymphæ.
Reddidit is speciem cultus, cœpitque videri
Formosa, et meruit: novus hinc decor additus ori._
_Ex illo, ut Floram decuit cultura, per artem
Floribus ille decor posthac quæsitus, et hortis:
Quem tamen Ausonii cultores, quemque Pelasgi
Nescivere, suos nullâ qui lege per hortos
Plantabant flores, nec eos componere norant
Areolis, tonsâque vias describere buxo.
Culta super reliquas Francis topiaria gentes,
Ingenium seu mite soli cœlique benigni
Temperies tantam per sese adjuverit artem;
Sive illam egregiæ solers industria gentis
Extuderit, seris seu venerit usus ab annis._
The fashion which this buxom Flora introduced had at one time the
effect of banishing flowers from what should have been the flower
garden: the ground was set with box in their stead disposed in
patterns more or less formal, some intricate as a labyrinth and not a
little resembling those of Turkey carpets, where mahometan laws
interdict the likeness of any living thing, and the taste of Turkish
weavers excludes any combination of graceful forms. One sense at least
was gratified when fragrant herbs were used in these “rare figures of
composures,” or knots as they were called, hyssop being mixed in them
with thyme, as aiders the one to the other, the one being dry, the
other moist. Box had the disadvantage of a disagreeable odour; but it
was greener in winter and more compact in all seasons. To lay out
these knots and tread them required the skill of a master-gardener:
much labour was thus expended without producing any beauty. The walks
between them were sometimes of different colours, some would be of
lighter or darker gravel, red or yellow sand; and when such materials
were at hand, pulverised coal and pulverised shells.
Such a garden Mr. Cradock saw at Bordeaux no longer ago than the year
1785; it belonged to Monsieur Rabi, a very rich Jew merchant, and was
surrounded by a bank of earth, on which there stood about two hundred
blue and white flower-pots; the garden itself was a scroll work cut
very narrow, and the interstices filled with sand of different colours
to imitate embroidery; it required repairing after every shower, and
if the wind rose the eyes were sure to suffer. Yet the French admired
this and exclaimed, _superbe! magnifique!_
Neither Miss Allison nor her niece, would have taken any pleasure in
gardens of this kind, which had nothing of a garden but the name. They
both delighted in flowers; the aunt because flowers to her were
“redolent of youth,” and never failed to awaken tender recollections;
Betsey for an opposite reason; having been born and bred in London, a
nosegay there had seemed always to bring her a foretaste of those
enjoyments for which she was looking forward with eager hope. They had
stocked their front garden therefore with the gayest and the sweetest
flowers that were cultivated in those days; larkspurs both of the
giant and dwarf species, and of all colours; sweet-williams of the
richest hues; monks-hood for its stately growth; Betsey called it the
dumbledore's delight, and was not aware that the plant in whose
helmet- rather than cowl-shaped flowers that busy and best-natured of
all insects appears to revel more than in any other, is the deadly
aconite of which she read in poetry: the white lily, and the
fleur-de-lis; peonies, which are still the glory of the English
garden; stocks and gilly flowers which make the air sweet as the gales
of Arabia; wall-flowers, which for a while are little less fragrant,
and not less beautiful; pinks and carnations added their spicy odours;
roses red and white peeped at the lower casements, and the jessamine
climbed to those of the chambers above. You must nurse your own
flowers if you would have them flourish, unless you happen to have a
gardener who is as fond of them as yourself. Eve was not busier with
her's in Paradise, her “pleasant task injoined,” than Betsey Allison
and her aunt, from the time that early spring invited them to their
cheerful employment, till late and monitory autumn closed it for the
year.
“Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these;” and
Solomon in all his wisdom never taught more wholesome lessons than
these silent monitors convey to a thoughtful mind and an
“understanding heart.” “There are two books,” says Sir Thomas Browne,
“from whence I collect my divinity; besides that written one of God,
another of his servant Nature, that universal and public manuscript
that lies expansed unto the eyes of all. Those that never saw him in
the one, have discovered him in the other. This was the scripture and
theology of the heathens: the natural motion of the sun made them more
admire him than its supernatural station did the children of Israel;
the ordinary effects of nature wrought more admiration in them, than
in the other all his miracles. Surely the heathens knew better how to
join and read these mystical letters, than we Christians who cast a
more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck
divinity from the flowers of nature.”
INTERCHAPTER XIV.
CONCERNING INTERCHAPTERS.
If we present a mingle-mangle, our fault is to be excused, because the
whole world is become a hodge-podge.
LYLY.
It occurs to me that some of my readers may perhaps desire to be
informed in what consists the difference between a Chapter and an
Inter Chapter; for that there is a difference no considerate person
would be disposed to deny, though he may not be able to discover it.
Gentle readers,—readers after my own heart, you for whom this _opus_
was designed long before it was an _opus_, when as Dryden has said
concerning one of his own plays, “it was only a confused mass of
thoughts, tumbling over one another in the dark; when the fancy was
yet in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things towards
the light, there to be distinguished, and then either chosen or
rejected by the judgement,”—good-natured readers, you who are willing
to be pleased, and whom therefore it is worth pleasing,—for your
sakes,
And for because you shall not think that I
Do use the same without a reason why,[1]
I will explain the distinction.
[Footnote 1: ROBERT GREEN.]
It is not like the difference between a Baptist and an Anabaptist,
which Sir John Danvers said, is much the same as that between a
Whiskey and a Tim-Whiskey, that is to say no difference at all. Nor is
it like that between Dryads and Hamadryads, which Benserade once
explained to the satisfaction of a learned lady by saying _qu'il avait
autant de difference qu'entre les Evêques et les Archevêques_. Nor is
it like the distinction taken by him who divided bread into white
bread, brown bread, and French rolls.
A panegyrical poet said of the aforesaid Benserade that he possessed
three talents which posterity would hardly be persuaded to believe;
_De plaisanter les Grands il ne fit point scrupule,
Sans qu'ils le prissent de travers;
Il fut vieux et galant sans être ridicule,
Et s'enrichit à composer des vers._
He used to say, that he was descended and derived his name from the
Abencerrages. Upon a similar presumption of etymological genealogy it
has been said that Aulus Gellius was the progenitor of all the Gells.
An Englishman may doubt this, a Welshman would disbelieve, and a Jew
might despise it. So might a Mahommedan, because it is a special
prerogative of his prophet to be perfectly acquainted with his whole
pedigree; the Mussulmen hold that no other human being ever possessed
the same knowledge, and that after the resurrection, when all other
pedigrees will be utterly destroyed, this alone will be preserved in
the archives of Eternity.
Leaving however Sir William Gell to genealogize, if he pleases, as
elaborately as he has topographized, and to maintain the authenticity
and dignity of his Roman descent against all who may impugn it,
whether Turk, Jew, or Christian, I proceed with my promised
explanation.
The Hebrews call chapters and sections and other essential or
convenient divisions, the bones of a book. The Latins called them
_nodi_, knots or links; and every philologist knows that articles,
whether grammatical, conventional, or of faith, are so denominated as
being the joints of language, covenants and creeds.
Now reader, the chapters of this book are the bones wherewith its body
is compacted; the knots or links whereby its thread or chain of
thoughts is connected; the articulations, without which it would be
stiff, lame and disjointed. Every chapter has a natural dependence
upon that which precedes, and in like manner a relation to that which
follows it. Each grows out of the other. They follow in direct
genealogy; and each could no more have been produced without relation
to its predecessor, than Isaac could have begotten Jacob unless
Abraham had begotten Isaac.
Sometimes indeed it must of necessity happen that a new chapter opens
with a new part of the subject, but this is because we are arrived at
that part in the natural prosecution of our argument. The disruption
causes no discontinuance; it is, (to pursue the former illustration,)
as when the direct line in a family is run out, and the succession is
continued by a collateral branch; or as in the mineral world, in which
one formation begins where another breaks off.
In my chapters, however, where there is no such natural division of
the subject matter, I have ever observed that “one most necessary
piece of mastership, which is ever performed by those of good skill in
music, when they end a suit of lessons in any one key, and do intend
presently to begin another in a differing key.” Upon which piece of
mastership, the worthy old “Remembrancer of the best practical music,
both divine and civil, that has ever been known to have been in the
world,” thus instructs his readers.
“They do not abruptly and suddenly begin such new lessons, without
some neat and handsome interluding-voluntary-like playing; which may
by degrees (as it were) steal into that new and intended key.
“Now that you may be able to do it handsomely, and without blemish, or
incompleteness, (for you must know it is a piece of quaintness so to
do), you must take notice, that always, when you have made an end of
playing upon any one key, (if discourse or some other occasion do not
cause a cessation of play for some pretty time, so as the remembrance
of that former key may, in a manner, be forgotten), it will be very
needful that some care be taken that you leave that key handsomely,
and come into that other you intend next to play upon without
impertinency.
“For such impertinencies will seem to be very like such a thing as
this, which I shall name—to wit—
“That when two or more persons have been soberly and very intently
discoursing upon some particular solid matter, musing and very
ponderously considering thereof; all on the sudden, some one of them
shall abruptly (without any pause) begin to talk of a thing quite of
another nature, nothing relating to the aforesaid business.
“Now those by-standers (who have judgement), will presently apprehend
that although his matter might be good, yet his manner and his wit
might have been better approved of in staying some certain convenient
time, in which he might have found out some pretty interluding
discourse, and have taken a handsome occasion to have brought in his
new matter.
“Just so is it in music, and more particularly in this
last-recited-matter; as to chop different things of different natures,
and of different keys, one upon the neck of another, impertinently.
“For I would have it taken notice of, that music is (at least) as a
language, if it will not be allowed a perfect one; because it is not
so well understood as it might be.—
“Having thus far prepared you with an apprehension of the needfulness
of the thing, I will now show you how it is to be done without
abruption and absurdness.
“First, (as abovesaid) it may be that discourse may take off the
remembrance of the last key in which you played, or some occasion of a
leaving off for some pretty time, by a string breaking or the like; or
if not, then (as commonly it happens) there may be a need of examining
the tuning of your lute, for the strings will alter a little in the
playing of one lesson, although they have been well stretched. But if
lately put on, or have been slacked down by any mischance of pegs
slipping, then they will need mending, most certainly.
“I say some such occasion may sometimes give you an opportunity of
coming handsomely to your new intended key: but if none of these shall
happen, then you ought, in a judicious and masterly way, to work from
your last key which you played upon, in some voluntary way till you
have brought your matter so to pass that your auditors may be
captivated with a new attention; yet so insinuatingly, that they may
have lost the remembrance of the foregoing key they know not how; nor
are they at all concerned for the loss of it, but rather taken with a
new content and delight at your so cunning and complete artifice.”
With strict propriety then may it be said of these my chapters as
Wordsworth has said of certain sonnets during his tour in Scotland and
on the English border, that they
Have moved in order, to each other bound
By a continuous and acknowledged tie
Tho' unapparent, like those shapes distinct
That yet survive ensculptured on the walls
Of Palace, or of Temple, 'mid the wreck
Of famed Persepolis; each following each,
As might beseem a stately embassy
In set array; these bearing in their hands
Ensign of civil power, weapon of war,
Or gift to be presented at the Throne
Of the Great King; and others as they go
In priestly vest, with holy offerings charged,
Or leading victims dressed for sacrifice.
For an ordinary book then the ordinary division into chapters might
very well have sufficed. But this is an extraordinary book. Hath not
the Quarterly Review—that Review which among all Reviews is properly
accounted _facile Princeps_,—hath not that great critical authority
referred to it _κατ᾽ εξοχην_ as “the extraordinary book called the
Doctor?” Yes reader;
All things within it
Are so digested, fitted and composed
As it shows Wit had married Order.[2]
And as the exceptions in grammar prove the rule, so the occasional
interruptions of order here are proofs of that order, and in reality
belong to it.
[Footnote 2: B. JONSON.]
Lord Bacon (then Sir Francis) said in a letter to the Bishop of Ely
upon sending him his writing intitled _Cogitata et Visa_, “I am forced
to respect as well my times, as the matter. For with me it is thus,
and I think with all men in my case; if I bind myself to an argument
it loadeth my mind; but if I rid my mind of the present cogitation it
is rather a recreation. This hath put me into these miscellanies,
which I purpose to suppress if God give me leave to write a just and
perfect volume of philosophy.”
That I am full of cogitations like Lord Bacon the judicious reader
must ere this time have perceived; though he may perhaps think me not
more worthy on that score to be associated with Bacon, than beans or
cabbage or eggs at best. Like him however in this respect I am,
however unlike in others; and it is for the reader's recreation as
well as mine, and for our mutual benefit, that my mind should be
delivered of some of its cogitations as soon as they are ripe for
birth.
I know not whence thought comes; who indeed can tell? But this we
know, that like the wind it cometh as it listeth. Happily there is no
cause for me to say with Sir Philip Sydney,
If I could think how these my thoughts to leave;
Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good end;
If rebel Sense would Reason's law receive,
Or Reason foiled would not in vain contend;
Then might I think what thoughts were best to think,
Then might I wisely swim, or gladly sink.
Nor with Des-Portes,
_O pensers trop pensez, que rebellez mon ame!
O debile raison! O lacqs! O traits!_
thanks to that kind Providence which has hitherto enabled me through
good and evil fortune to maintain an even and well-regulated mind.
Neither need I say with the pleasant authors of the “Rejected
Addresses” in their harmless imitation of a most pernicious author,
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is every thing and every thing is nought.
I have never worked in an intellectual treadmill, which as it had
nothing to act on was grinding the wind.
“He that thinks _ill_,” says Dean Young, (the poet's father,)
“_prevents_ the Tempter, and does the Devil's business for him; he
that thinks _nothing, tempts_ the Tempter, and offers him possession
of an empty room; but he that thinks _religiously, defeats_ the
Tempter, and is proof and secure against all his assaults.” I know not
whether there be any later example where the word _prevent_ is used as
in the Collect in its Latin sense.
It is a man's own fault if he excogitate vain thoughts, and still more
if he enunciate and embody them; but it is not always in his power to
prevent their influx. Even the preventative which George Tubervile
recommends in his monitory rhymes, is not infallible;
Eschew the idle life!
Flee, flee from doing nought!
For never was there idle brain
But bred an idle thought.
Into the busiest brain they will sometimes intrude; and the brain that
is over-busy breeds them. But the thoughts which are not of our own
growth or purchase, and which we receive not from books, society, or
visible objects, but from some undiscovered influence, are of all
kinds.
Who has a breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law days, and in session sit
With meditations lawful?[3]
I dare not affirm that some are suggestions of the enemy; neither dare
I deny it: from all such _tela ignea_ and _tela venenata_, whatever be
their origin, or whencesoever they come, God preserve us! But there
are holy inspirations, which philosophy may teach us to expect, and
faith to pray for.
[Footnote 3: OTHELLO.]
My present business is not with these, but it is with those
conceptions which float into the solitary mind, and which if they are
unrecorded pass away, like a dream or a rainbow, or the glories of an
evening sky. Some of them are no better than motes in the sunbeams, as
light, as fleeting, and to all apprehension as worthless. Others may
be called seminal thoughts, which if they light not upon a thorny, or
stoney, or arid field of intellect, germinate, and bring forth
flowers, and peradventure fruit. Now it is in the Interchapters that
part of this floating capital is vested; part of these waifs and
strays impounded; part of this treasure-trove lodged; part of these
chance thoughts and fancies preserved: part I say, because
_J'ay mille autres pensers, et mille et mille et mille,
Qui font qu'incessamment mon esprit se distile._[4]
[Footnote 4: DES-PORTES.]
“There are three things,” says a Welsh triad, “that ought to be
considered before some things should be spoken; the manner, the place,
and the time.” Touching the manner, I see none whereby they could more
conveniently or agreeably be conveyed; and for the place and time
these must be allowed to be at my own discretion.
And howsoever, be it well or ill
What I have done, it is mine own; I may
Do whatsoever therewithal I will.[5]
(Be it remarked in passing that these lines bear a much greater
resemblance to Italian poetry than any of those English sonnets which
have been called Petrarcal.) One place being (generally speaking) as
suitable as another, it has not been necessary for me to deliberate,
_Desta antigua preñez de pensamientos
Qual el primero hare, qual el segundo._[6]
I have interspersed them where I thought fit, and given them the
appellation which they bear, to denote that they are no more a
necessary and essential part of this _opus_, than the voluntary is of
the church service.
_Εισὶν δὲ περι του;
Περὶ Αθηνων, περι Πύλου,
Περι σοῦ, περι ἐμοῦ, περὶ απαντων πραγματων._[7]
[Footnote 5: DANIEL.]
[Footnote 6: BALBUENA.]
[Footnote 7: ARISTOPHANES.]
A Chapter is, as has been explained, both procreated and procreative:
an Interchapter is like the hebdomad, which profound philosophers have
pronounced to be not only _παρθένος_, but _αμητωρ_, a motherless as
well as a virgin number.
Here too the exception illustrates the rule. There are at the
commencement of the third volume four Interchapters in succession, and
relating to each other, the first gignitive but not generated; the
second and third both generated and gignitive, the fourth generated
but not gignitive. They stand to each other in the relation of Adam,
Seth, Enoch, Kenan. These are the exceptions. The other chapters are
all Melchizedekites.
The gentle Reader will be satisfied with this explanation; the curious
will be pleased with it. To the captious one I say in the words of
John Bunyan, “Friend, howsoever thou camest by this book, I will
assure thee thou wert least in my thoughts when I writ it. I tell
thee, I intended the book as little for thee as the goldsmith intended
his jewels and rings for the snout of a sow!”
If any be not pleased, let them please themselves with their own
displeasure. _Je n'ay pas enterpris de contenter tout le monde: mesme
Jupiter n'aggree à tous._[8]
[Footnote 8: BOUCHET.]
CHAPTER CIX.
INCIDENTAL MENTION OF HAMMOND, SIR EDMUND KING, JOANNA BAILLIE, SIR
WILLIAM TEMPLE, AND MR. THOMAS PEREGRINE COURTENAY. PETER COLLINSON AN
ACQUAINTANCE OF MR. ALLISON'S. HOLIDAYS AT THAXTED GRANGE.
And sure there seem of human kind
Some born to shun the solemn strife;
Some for amusive tasks design'd
To soothe the certain ills of life,
Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose,
New founts of bliss disclose,
Call forth refreshing shades and decorate repose.
SHENSTONE.
Dr. Hammond says he had “heard say of a man who, upon his death-bed,
being to take his farewell of his son, and considering what course of
life to recommend that might secure his innocence, at last enjoined
him to spend his time in making verses, and in dressing a garden; the
old man thinking no temptation could creep into either of these
employments.” As to the former part of this counsel, a certain Sir
Edmund King was of a different opinion; for meeting with Watts in his
youth, he said to him, “Young man, I hear that you make verses! Let me
advise you never to do it but when you can't help it.” If there were
ever a person who could not help it, Joanna Baillie would have said
nothing more than what was strictly true, when she observed that
“surely writing verses must have some power of intoxication in it, and
can turn a sensible man into a fool by some process of mental
alchemy.”
“Gardening,” says Mr. Courtenay, in his Life of Sir William Temple,
“is a pursuit peculiarly adapted for reconciling and combining the
tastes of the two sexes, and indeed of all ages. It is therefore of
all amusements the most retentive of domestic affection. It is perhaps
most warmly pursued by the very young, and by those who are far
advanced in life,—before the mind is occupied with worldly business,
and after it has become disgusted with it. There is nothing in it to
remind of the bustle of political life; and it requires neither a
sanguine disposition nor the prospect of a long life, to justify the
expectation of a beautiful result from the slight and easy care which
it exacts. Is it too much to say that the mind which can with genuine
taste occupy itself in gardening, must have preserved some portion of
youthful purity; that it must have escaped, during its passage through
the active world its deeper contaminations; and that no shame nor
remorse can have found a seat in it.”
Certainly it is not too much to say this of Sir William Temple; nor
would it be too much to say it of his biographer, whether he occupy
himself, or not, in gardening as well as in literature, after many
laborious years honourably passed in political and official life.
Peter Collinson, whose pious memory ought to be a standing toast at
the meetings of the Horticultural Society, used to say that he never
knew an instance in which the pursuit of such pleasure as the culture
of a garden affords, did not either find men temperate and virtuous,
or make them so. And this may be affirmed as an undeniable and not
unimportant fact relating to the lower classes of society, that
wherever the garden of a cottage or other humble dwelling, is
carefully and neatly kept, neatness and thrift and domestic comfort
will be found within doors.
When Mr. Allison settled at Thaxted Grange, English gardens were
beginning generally to profit by the benevolent and happy endeavours
of Peter Collinson to improve them. That singularly good man availed
himself of his mercantile connections, and of the opportunities
afforded him by the Royal Society, of which he was one of the most
diligent and useful members, to procure seeds and plants from all
parts of the world, and these he liberally communicated to his
friends. So they found their way first into the gardens of the
curious, then of the rich, and lastly, when their beauty recommended
them, spread themselves into those of ordinary persons. He divided his
time between his counting-house in Gracechurch street, and his country
house and garden at Mill Hill, near Hendon: it might have grieved him
could he have foreseen that his grounds there would pass after his
death into the hands of a purchaser who in mere ignorance rooted out
the rarest plants, and cut down trees which were scarcely to be found
in perfection anywhere else in the kingdom at that time.
Mr. Collinson was a man of whom it was truly said that not having any
public station, he was the means of procuring national advantages for
his country, and possessed an influence in it which wealth cannot
purchase, and which will be honoured when titles are forgotten. For
thirty years he executed gratuitously the commissions of the
Philadelphian Subscription Library, the first which was established in
America; he assisted the directors in their choice of books, took the
whole care of collecting and shipping them, and transmitted to the
directors the earliest accounts of every improvement in agriculture
and the arts, and of every philosophical discovery.
Franklin, who was the founder of that library, made his first
electrical experiments with an apparatus that had been sent to it as a
present by Peter Collinson. He deemed it therefore a proper mark of
acknowledgement to inform him of the success with which it had been
used, and his first Essays on Electricity were originally communicated
in letters to this good man. They were read in the Royal Society,
“where they were not thought worth so much notice as to be printed in
their Transactions;” and his paper in which the sameness of lightning
with electricity was first asserted, was laughed at by the
connoisseurs. Peter Collinson however gave the letters to Cave for the
Gentleman's Magazine; Cave forming a better judgment than the Royal
Society had done, printed them separately in a pamphlet, for which Dr.
Fothergill wrote a preface; the pamphlet by successive additions
swelled to a volume in quarto which went through five editions, and as
Franklin observes, “cost Cave nothing for copy money.”
What a contrast between this English Quaker and Monsieur Le Cour,
(observe, reader, I call him Monsieur, lest you should mistake him for
a Dutchman, seeing that he lived at Leyden,) who having raised a
double tuberose from the seed, and propagated it by the roots, till he
had as many as he could find room to plant, destroyed the rest as fast
as they were produced, that he might boast of being the only person in
Europe who possessed it. Another French florist of the same stamp, M.
Bachelier was his name, kept in like manner some beautiful species of
the anemone to himself, which he had procured from the East Indies,
and succeeded in withholding them for ten years from all who wished to
possess them likewise. A counseller of the Parliament however one day
paid him a visit when they were in seed, and in walking with him round
the garden, contrived to let his gown fall upon them; by this means he
swept off a good number of the seeds, and his servant who was apprized
of the scheme, dexterously wrapt up the gown and secured them. Any one
must have been a sour moralist who should have considered this to be a
breach of the eighth commandment.
Mr. Allison was well acquainted with Peter Collinson; he and his
sister sometimes visited him at Mill Hill, and upon their removal into
Yorkshire they were supplied from thence with choice fruit trees, and
fine varieties of the narcissus and polyanthus, which were the good
Quaker's favourite tribes. The wall fruits were under Mr. Allison's
especial care; he called himself indeed First Lord of the Fruit
Department; and if the first lords of certain other departments had
taken as much pains to understand their business and to perform it,
the affairs of the state would have been better managed than they were
in his days, and than they are in ours. Some part also he took in
directing the business of the kitchen garden; but the flowers were
left entirely to Betsey and her aunt.
The old poet who called himself Shepherd Tonie, and whom Sir Egerton
with much likelihood supposes to have been Anthony Munday, gives in
his Woodman's Walk an unfavourable representation of provincial
morals, when after forsaking the court and the city because he had
found nothing but selfishness and deceit in both, he tried the
country.
There did appear no subtle shows,
But yea and nay went smoothly:
But Lord! how country folks can glose
When they speak most untruly!
More craft was in a buttoned cap
And in the old wives' rail,
Than in my life it was my hap
To see on down or dale.
There was no open forgery,
But underhanded gleaning,
Which they call country policy
But hath a worser meaning.
Some good bold face bears out the wrong,
Because he gains thereby;
The poor mans back is crackt ere long,
Yet there he lets him lie:
And no degree among them all
But had such close intending,
That I upon my knees did fall
And prayed for their amending.
If the author of these verses, or any one who entertained the same
opinion, had been a guest of Mr. Allison's at Thaxted Grange, and had
remained under his roof long enough to see the way of life there, and
the condition of the hamlet, he would have gone away with a very
different persuasion. It was a remark of Bishop Percy's that you may
discern in a country parish whether there is a resident clergyman or
not, by the civil or savage manners of the people. The influence of
the clergyman, however exemplary he may be, is materially impaired if
his benefice is so poor and his means so straitened that his own
necessities leave him little or nothing to spare; but when such a
parish priest as Mr. Bacon has for his neighbour such a resident
landholder as his friend at the Grange, happy are—not the cottagers
only, but all who live within their sphere.
There was no alehouse in the hamlet, and as the fashion of preserves
had not yet been introduced, there were no poachers, the inhabitants
being thus happily exempted from two of the great temptations with
which in our days men of that class are continually beset. If a
newspaper ever found its way among them, newspapers were at that time
harmless; and when a hawker came he had no pestiferous tracts either
seditious or sectarian for sale, or for gratuitous distribution: a
scurvy jest-book was the worst article in his assortment. Mr. Bacon
had nothing to counteract his pastoral labours except the pravity of
human nature. Of this there must every where be but too much; but
fortunate indeed is the parish priest who finds himself in like manner
stationed where there are no external circumstances to aggravate and
excite it.
Wherever more than ordinary pains were bestowed upon a cottager's or
farmer's garden, Mr. Allison supplied the housewife with seed of a
better kind than she might otherwise have been able to procure, and
with grafts from his most serviceable fruit trees. No one who behaved
well in his employ was ever left in want of employment; he had always
some work going on, the cost of which was allowed for as charity, in
his accounts: and when he observed in a boy the diligence and the
disposition which made it likely that an opportunity of bettering his
condition would not be thrown away upon him, he advised, or if need
were, enabled the parents to educate him for trade, and at a proper
age provided a situation for him in London. If any of their daughters
desired to acquire those useful arts which might qualify them for
domestic service, they came to assist and learn from Miss Allison when
she distilled her waters, made her cowslip, elder, and gooseberry
wines, prepared her pickles and preserves, dried her medicinal plants,
or constructed the great goose-pye, which in the Christmas week was
always dispatched by the York coach to Bishopsgate Street, for the
honour of Yorkshire, and the astonishment of the Londoners. They came
also when preparations were making for a holiday, for old observances
of this kind were maintained as duly there as by the Romans when the
Laws of the Twelve Tables were in use, and every man constantly
observed his family festivals as thereby enjoined.
Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday are still in general usage; indeed I do not
know that it was ever deemed malignant and idolatrous to eat them on
that day even under the tyranny of the Puritans. But in Mr. Allison's
days Mid-lent Sunday was not allowed to pass without a wholesome and
savoury bowl of furmity on the social board: and Easter day brought
with it not only those coloured eggs which are the friendly offering
of that season throughout the whole north of Europe, but the tansy
pudding also,—originally perhaps introduced, (and possibly by some
compulsory converts from Judaism,) as a representative of the bitter
herbs with which the Paschal Lamb was to be eaten.
Both Christmas-days were kept at the Grange. There were people in
those times who refused to keep what they called Parliament Christmas.
But whether the old computation or the new were right, was a point on
which neither the master nor mistress of this house pretended to form
an opinion. On which day the Glastonbury Thorn blossomed they never
thought it necessary to enquire, nor did they go into the byre or the
fields to see upon which midnight the oxen were to be found on their
knees. They agreed with Mr. Bacon that in other respects it was a
matter of indifference, but not so that Christmas should be celebrated
on the same day throughout Christendom: and he agreed with them that
as the ritual ought to be performed at the time appointed by
authority, so the convivial observances might be regulated by the old
kalendar, or still more fitly, repeated according to the old
reckoning, in deference to old feelings and recollections which time
had consecrated.
In Bishopsgate Street it had been found convenient to set down the
children and their young guests on these occasions at Pope-Joan, or
snip-snap-snorum, which was to them a more amusing because a noisier
game. But here was room for more legitimate gambols; and when a young
party had assembled numerous enough for such pastime, hunt the
slipper, hot cockles, or blind-man's buff were the sports of a
Christmas evening. These had been days of high enjoyment to Betsey for
a few years after their removal into the country; they ceased to be so
when she saw that her aunt's hair was passing from the steel to the
silver hue, and remembered that her father had reached the term of
life, beyond which, in the ordinary course of nature our strength is
but labour and sorrow;—that the one was at an age
When every day that comes, comes to decay
A day's work in us;[1]
the other,—
Even in the downfall of his mellowed years
When Nature brought him to the door of Death.[1]
[Footnote 1: SHAKESPEARE.]
CHAPTER CX.
A TRANSITIONAL CHAPTER, WHEREIN THE AUTHOR COMPARES HIS BOOK TO AN
OMNIBUS AND A SHIP, QUOTES SHAKESPEARE, MARCO ANTONIO DE CAMOS,
QUARLES, SPENSER, AND SOMEBODY ELSE, AND INTRODUCES HIS READERS TO
SOME OF THE HEATHEN GODS, WITH WHOM PERHAPS THEY WERE NOT ACQUAINTED
BEFORE.
We are not to grudge such interstitial and transitional matter as may
promote an easy connection of parts and an elastic separation of them,
and keep the reader's mind upon springs as it were.
HENRY TAYLOR'S Statesman.
Dear impatient readers,—you whom I know and who do not know me,—and
you who are equally impatient, but whom I cannot call equally dear,
because you are totally strangers to me in my out-of-cog
character,—you who would have had me hurry on
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought,—[1]
you will not wonder, nor perhaps will you blame me now, that I do not
hasten to the wedding day. The day on which Deborah left her father's
house was the saddest that she had ever known till then; nor was there
one of the bridal party who did not feel that this was the first of
those events, inevitable and mournful all, by which their little
circle would be lessened, and his or her manner of life or of
existence changed.
[Footnote 1: SHAKESPEARE.]
There is no checking the course of time. When the shadow on Hezekiah's
dial went back, it was in the symbol only that the miracle was
wrought: the minutes in every other horologe held their due course.
But as Opifex of this opus, I when it seems good unto me, may take the
hour-glass from Time's hand and let it rest at a stand-still, till I
think fit to turn it and set the sands again in motion. You who have
got into this my omnibus, know that like other omnibusses, its speed
is to be regulated not according to your individual and perhaps
contrariant wishes, but by my discretion.
Moreover I am not bound to ply with this omnibus only upon a certain
line. In that case there would be just cause of complaint, if you were
taken out of your road.
_Mas estorva y desabre en el camino
Una pequeña legua de desvio
Que la jornada larga de contino._
Whoever has at any time lost his way upon a long journey can bear
testimony to the truth of what the Reverend Padre Maestro Fray Marco
Antonio de Camos says in those lines. (I will tell you hereafter
reader (for it is worth telling), why that namesake of the Triumvir,
when he wrote the poem from whence the lines are quoted, had no
thoughts of dedicating it as he afterwards did to D. Juan Pimentel y
de Requesens.) But you are in no danger of being bewildered, or driven
out of your way. It is not in a stage coach that you have taken your
place with me, to be conveyed to a certain point, and within a certain
time, under such an expectation on your part, and such an engagement
on mine. We will drop the metaphor of the omnibus,—observing however
by the bye, which is the same thing in common parlance as by the way,
though critically there may seem to be a difference, for by the bye
might seem to denote a collateral remark and by the way a direct one;
observing however as I said, that as Dexter called his work, or St.
Jerome called it for him, _Omnimoda Historia_, so might this opus be
not improperly denominated. You have embarked with me not for a
definite voyage, but for an excursion on the water; and not in a
steamer, nor in a galley, nor in one of the post-office packets, nor
in a man-of-war, nor in a merchant-vessel; but in
A ship that's mann'd
With labouring Thoughts, and steer'd by Reason's hand.
My Will's the seaman's card whereby she sails;
My just Affections are the greater sails,
The top sail is my fancy.[2]
Sir Guyon was not safer in Phædria's “gondelay bedecked trim” than
thou art on “this wide inland sea,” in my ship
That knows her port and thither sails by aim;
Ne care, ne fear I how the wind do blow;
Or whether swift I wend, or whether slow,
Both slow and swift alike do serve my turn.[3]
My turn is served for the present, and yours also. The question who
was Mrs. Dove? propounded for future solution in the second Chapter
P. I., and for immediate consideration at the conclusion of the 71st
Chapter and the beginning of the 72nd, has been sufficiently answered.
You have been made acquainted with her birth, parentage and education;
and you may rest assured that if the Doctor had set out upon a tour,
like Cœlebs, in search of a wife, he could never have found one who
would in all respects have suited him better. What Shakespeare says of
the Dauphin and the Lady Blanch might seem to have been said with a
second sight of this union:
Such as she is
Is this our Doctor, every way complete;
If not complete, O say, he is not she:
And she again wants nothing, to name want,
If want it be not, that she is not he.
He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such a she;
And she a fair divided excellence
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
[Footnote 2: QUARLES: _mutatis mutandis_.]
[Footnote 3: SPENSER.]
You would wish me perhaps to describe her person. Sixty years had
“written their defeatures in her face” before I became acquainted with
her; yet by what those years had left methinks I could conceive what
she had been in her youth. Go to your looking glasses, young
ladies,—and you will not be so well able to imagine by what you see
there, how you will look when you shall have shaken hands with
Threescore.
One of the Elizabethan minor-poets, speaking of an ideal beauty says,
Into a slumber then I fell,
When fond Imagination
Seemed to see, but could not tell,
Her feature, or her fashion.
But even as babes in dreams do smile,
And sometimes fall a weeping,
So I awaked, as wise this while,
As when I fell a-sleeping.
Just as unable should I feel myself were I to attempt a description
from what Mrs. Dove was when I knew her, of what Deborah Bacon might
be supposed to have been,—just as unable as this dreaming rhymer
should I be, and you would be no whit the wiser. What the disposition
was which gave her face its permanent beauty you may know by what has
already been said. But this I can truly say of her and of her husband,
that if they had lived in the time of the Romans when Doncaster was
called Danum, and had been of what was then the Roman religion, and
had been married, as consequently they would have been, with the
rights of classical Paganism, it would have been believed both by
their neighbours and themselves that their nuptial offerings had been
benignly received by the god Domicius and the goddesses Maturna and
Gamelia; and no sacrifice to Viriplaca would ever have been thought
necessary in that household.
CHAPTER CXI.
CONCERNING MAGAZINES, AND THE FORMER AND PRESENT RACE OF ALPHABET-MEN.
_Altri gli han messo nome Santa Croce,
Altri lo chiaman l' A. B. C. guastando
La misura, gl' accenti, et la sua voce._
SANSOVINO.
The reader has now been informed who Mrs. Dove was, and what she was
on that day of mingled joy and grief when the bells of St. George's
welcomed her to Doncaster as a bride. Enough too has been related
concerning the Doctor in his single state, to show that he was not
unworthy of such a wife. There is, however, more to be told; for any
one who may suppose that a physician at Doncaster must have been
pretty much the same sort of person in the year 1761 as at present,
can have reflected little upon the changes for better and worse which
have been going on during the intervening time. The fashions in dress
and furniture have not altered more than the style of intellectual
upholstery.
Our Doctor flourished in the Golden Age of Magazines, when their pages
were filled with voluntary contributions from men who never aimed at
dazzling the public, but came each with his scrap of information, or
his humble question, or his hard problem, or his attempt in verse.
In those days A was an Antiquary, and wrote articles upon Altars and
Abbeys and Architecture. B made a blunder, which C corrected. D
demonstrated that E was in error, and that F was wrong in Philology,
and neither Philosopher nor Physician, though he affected to be both.
G was a Genealogist: H was an Herald, who helped him. I was an
inquisitive inquirer, who found reason for suspecting J to be a
Jesuit. M was a mathematician. N noted the weather. O observed the
stars. P was a poet, who piddled in pastorals, and prayed Mr. Urban to
print them. Q came in the corner of the page with his query. R
arrogated to himself the right of reprehending every one who differed
from him. S sighed and sued in song. T told an old tale, and when he
was wrong U used to set him right. V was a virtuoso. W warred against
Warburton. X excelled in algebra. Y yearned for immortality in rhyme;
and Z in his zeal was always in a puzzle.
Those were happy times when each little star was satisfied with
twinkling in his own sphere. No one thought of bouncing about like a
cracker, singeing and burning in the mere wantonness of mischief, and
then going out with a noise and a stink.
But now
——‘when all this world is woxen daily worse,’[1]
see what a change has taken place through the whole Chriscross Row! As
for A, there is Alaric Watts with his Souvenir, and Ackerman with his
Forget-me-not, and all the rest of the Annual Albumers. B is a
blackguard, and blusters in a popular Magazine. C is a coxcomb who
concocts fashionable novels for Colburn; and D is a dunce who admires
him. E being empty and envious, thinks himself eminently qualified for
Editor of a Literary Gazette. F figures as a fop in Knight's
Quarterly. G is a general reformer, and dealer in Greek scrip. H is
Humbug and Hume; and for my I, it may always be found with Mr. Irving
and Mrs. Elizabeth Martin. J jeers at the Clergy in Mr. Jeffery's
journal. K kicks against the pricks with his friend L, who is Leigh
Hunt, the Liberal. M manufactures mischief for the Morning Chronicle.
N is nobody knows who, that manufactures jokes for John Bull, and
fathers them upon Rogers. O is an obstreperous orator. P was Peter
Pindar, and is now Paul Pry. Q is the Quarterly Review, and R S Robert
Southey, who writes in it. T tells lies in the Old Times. U is a
Unitarian who hopes to be Professor of Theology at the London
University. V is Vivian Grey. W is Sir Walter Scott. X the Ex-Sheriff
Parkins. Y was the Young Roscius; and Z,—Zounds, who can Z be, but
Zachary Macauley?
[Footnote 1: SPENSER.]
Oh,—
——_se oggidi vivesse in terra
Democrito, (perchè di lagrimare
Io non son vago, e però taccio il nome
D' Eraclito dolente;) or, se vivesse
Fra' mortali Democrito, per certo
Ei si smascellerebbe della risa,
Guardando le sciocchezze de' mortali._[2]
[Footnote 2: CHIABRERA.]
CHAPTER CXII.
HUNTING IN AN EASY CHAIR. THE DOCTOR'S BOOKS.
That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes for variety I confer
With Kings and Emperors, and weigh their counsels,
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account, and in my fancy
Deface their ill placed statues.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
A certain Ludovicus Bosch, instead of having his coat of arms, or his
cypher engraved to put in his books, had a little print of himself in
his library. The room has a venerable collegiate character; there is a
crucifix on the table, and a goodly proportion of folios on the
shelves. Bosch in a clerical dress is seated in an easy chair,
cogitabund, with a manuscript open before him, a long pen in his hand,
and on his head a wig which with all proper respect for the dignity
and vocation of the wearer, I cannot but honestly denominate a caxon.
The caxon quizzifies the figure, and thereby mars the effect of what
would otherwise have been a pleasing as well as appropriate design.
Underneath in the scrolled framing is this verse
_In tali nunquam lassat venatio sylvâ._
Dr. Charles Balguy of Peterborough had for the same purpose a design
which though equally appropriate, was not so well conceived. His
escutcheon, with the words
_Jucunda oblivia vitæ_
above, and his name and place of abode below, is suspended against an
architectural pile of books. It was printed in green. I found it in
one of our own Doctor's out-of-the-way volumes, a thin foolscap
quarto, printed at Turin, 1589, being a treatise _della natura de'
cibi et del bere_, by Baldassare Pisanelli, a physician of Bologna.
Dr. Balguy's motto would not have suited our Doctor. For though books
were among the comforts and enjoyments of his life from boyhood to old
age, they never made him oblivious of its business. Like Ludovicus
Bosch,—but remember I beseech you Ladies! his wig was not a caxon; and
moreover that when he gave an early hour to his books, it was before
the wig was put on, and that when he had a leisure evening for them,
off went the wig, and a velvet or silken cap according to the season,
supplied its place:—like Bosch, I say, when he was seated in his
library,—but in no such conventual or collegiate apartment, and with
no such assemblage of folios, quartos, and all inferior sizes,
substantially bound, in venerable condition, and “in seemly order
ranged;” nor with that atmospheric odour of antiquity and books which
is more grateful to the olfactories of a student than the fumes of any
pastille; but in a little room, with a ragged regiment upon his
shelves, and an odour of the shop from below, in which rhubarb
predominated, though it was sometimes overpowered by valerian, dear to
cats, or assafœtida which sprung up, say the Turks, in Paradise, upon
the spot where the Devil first set his foot:—like Bosch I say once
more and without farther parenthesis,
_περισσοὶ Παντες ὁι ᾿ν μεσῳ λογοι_,[1]
like Bosch the Doctor never was weary with pursuing the game that
might be started in a library. And though there was no forest at hand,
there were some small preserves in the neighbourhood, over which he
was at liberty to range.
[Footnote 1: EURIPIDES.]
Perhaps the reader's memory may serve him, where mine is just now at
fault, and he may do for himself, what some future editor will do for
me, that is supply the name of a man of letters who in his second
childhood devised a new mode of book-hunting: he used to remove one of
the books in his library from its proper place, and when he had
forgotten as he soon did, where it had been put, he hunted the shelves
till he found it. There will be some who see nothing more in this
affecting anecdote than an exemplification of the vanity of human
pursuits; but it is not refining too much, if we perceive in it a
consolatory mark of a cheerful and philosophical mind, retaining its
character even when far in decay. For no one who had not acquired a
habit of happy philosophy would have extracted amusement from his
infirmities, and made the failure of his memory serve to beguile some
of those hours which could then no longer be profitably employed.
Circulating libraries, which serve for the most part to promote
useless reading, were not known when Daniel Dove set up his rest at
Doncaster. It was about that time that a dissenting minister, Samuel
Fancourt by name, opened the first in London, of course upon a very
contracted scale. Book clubs are of much later institution. There was
no bookseller in Doncaster till several years afterwards: sometimes an
itinerant dealer in such wares opened a stall there on a market day,
as Johnson's father used to do at Birmingham; and one or two of the
trade regularly kept the fair. A little of the live stock of the
London publishers found its way thither at such times, and more of
their dead stock, with a regular supply of certain works popular
enough to be printed in a cheap form for this kind of sale. And when
at the breaking up of a household such books as the deceased or
removing owner happened to possess were sold off with the furniture,
those which found no better purchaser on the spot usually came into
the hands of one of these dealers, and made the tour of the
neighbouring markets. It was from such stragglers that the Doctor's
ragged regiment had been chiefly raised. Indeed he was so frequent a
customer, that the stall-keepers generally offered to his notice any
English book which they thought likely to take his fancy, and any one
in a foreign language which had not the appearance of a school book.
And when in one book he found such references to another as made him
desirous of possessing, or at least consulting it, he employed a
person at York to make enquiry for it there.
CHAPTER CXIII.
THOMAS GENT AND ALICE GUY, A TRUE TALE, SHOWING THAT A WOMAN'S
CONSTANCY WILL NOT ALWAYS HOLD OUT LONGER THAN TROY TOWN, AND YET THE
WOMAN MAY NOT BE THE PARTY WHO IS MOST IN FAULT.
_Io dico, non dimando
Quel che tu vuoi udir, perch' io l'ho visto
Ove s' appunta ogni ubi, e ogni quando._
DANTE.
The person whom the Doctor employed in collecting certain books for
him, and whom Peter Hopkins had employed in the same way, was that
Thomas Gent of whom it was incidentally said in the 47th Chapter that
he published the old poem of Flodden Field from a transcript made by
Daniel's kind hearted schoolmaster Richard Guy, whose daughter he
married. Since that chapter was written an account of Gent's life,
written by himself in 1746, when he was in his 53d year, and in his
own handwriting, was discovered by Mr. Thorpe the bookseller among a
collection of books from Ireland, and published by him, with a
portrait of the author copied from a fine mezzotinto engraving by
Valentine Green, which is well known to collectors. Gent was a very
old man when that portrait was taken; and his fine loose-flowing
silver hair gave great effect to a singularly animated and cheerful
face. His autobiography is as characteristic as John Dunton's, and
like it contains much information relating to the state of the press
in his days, and the trade of literature. A few curious notices occur
in it of the manners and transactions of those times. But the portion
pertinent to the business of these volumes is that which in its
consequences led him to become the Doctor's purveyor of old books in
the ancient city of York.
Gent, though descended, he says, from the Gents of Staffordshire, was
born in Dublin: his parents were good people in humble life, who
trained him up in the way he should go, gave him the best education
their means could afford and apprenticed him to a printer, from whom
after three years' service he ran away, because of the brutal usage
which he received. He got on board ship with little more than a
shilling in his pocket, and was landed at Parkgate to seek his
fortune. But having made good use of the time which he had served with
his tyrannical master, he obtained employment in London, and made
himself useful to his employers. After having been four years there,
he accepted an offer from Mr. White, who, as a reward for printing the
Prince of Orange's Declaration when all the printers in London refused
to undertake so dangerous a piece of work, was made King's printer for
York and five other counties. Mr. White had plenty of business, there
being few printers in England, except in London, at that time; “None,”
says Gent, “I am sure, at Chester, Liverpool, Whitehaven, Preston,
Manchester, Kendal, and Leeds. The offer was eighteen pounds a year,
with board, washing and lodging, and a guinea to bear his charges on
the road. Twenty shillings of this I offered,” he says, “to Crofts the
carrier, a very surly young fellow as ever I conversed with, but he
would have five or six shillings more; finding him so stiff with me, I
resolved to venture on foot. He set out with his horses on Monday, and
the next morning, being the 20th of April, 1714, I set forward and had
not, I think, walked three miles, when a gentleman's servant with a
horse ready saddled and himself riding another overtook me, and for a
shilling, with a glass or so on the road, allowed me to ride with him
as far as Caxton, which was the period of his journey.”
Having reached York about twelve o'clock on the Sunday following, and
found the way to Mr. White's house the door was opened by the
head-maiden. “She ushered me,” says Gent, “into the chamber where Mrs.
White lay something ill in bed; but the old gentleman was at his
dinner, by the fire side, sitting in a noble arm-chair, with a good
large pie before him, and made me partake heartily with him. I had a
guinea in my shoe lining, which I pulled out to ease my foot; at which
the old gentleman smiled, and pleasantly said, it was more than he had
ever seen a journeyman save before. I could not but smile too, because
my trunk, with my clothes and eight guineas, was sent, about a month
before to Ireland, where I was resolved to go and see my friends had
his place not offered to me as it did.”
Gent was as happy as he could wish here, and as he earned money bought
clothes to serve him till he should rejoin his trunk in Dublin, which
at the year's end he determined to do, refusing to renew his
engagement till he had visited his parents. “Yet,” says he, “what made
my departure somewhat uneasy, I scarce then well knew how, was through
respect of Mrs. Alice Guy, the young woman who I said, first opened
the door to me, upper maiden to Mrs. White, who I was persuaded to
believe had the like mutual fondness for me—she was the daughter of
Mr. Richard Guy, schoolmaster at Ingleton, near Lancashire; had very
good natural parts, quick understanding, was of a fine complexion, and
very amiable in her features. Indeed I was not very forward in love,
or desire of matrimony, till I knew the world better, and consequently
should be more able to provide such a handsome maintenance as I
confess I had ambition enough to desire; but yet my heart could not
absolutely slight so lovely a young creature as to pretend I had no
esteem for her charms, which had captivated others, and particularly
my master's grandson, Mr. Charles Bourne, who was more deserving than
any. However I told her (because my irresolution should not anticipate
her advancement,) that I should respect her as one of the dearest of
friends; and receiving a little dog from her as a companion on the
road, I had the honour to be accompanied as far as Bramham Moor by my
rival.”
He was received by his parents like the Prodigal son, and had engaged
himself as journeyman in Dublin, when his old master Powell employed
officers to seize him for leaving his apprenticeship. It was in vain
that his father and a friendly brother-in-law offered a fair sum for
his release, while he concealed himself; more was demanded than would
have been proper for them to give; there was no other remedy than to
leave Ireland once more, and as about that time he had received a
letter from his dearest at York, saying that he was expected there,
thither purely again to enjoy her company, he resolved to direct his
course. His friends were much concerned at their parting, “but my
unlucky whelp,” says he, “that a little before while taking a glass
with Mr. Hume (the printer with whom I had engaged), had torn my new
hat in pieces, seemed nowise affected by my taking boat; so I let the
rascal stay with my dear parents who were fond of him for my sake, as
he was of them for his own; nor was he less pleasant by his tricks to
the neighbourhood, who called him Yorkshire, from the country whence I
brought him.”
There is a chasm in this part of the manuscript: it appears, however,
that he remained some months at York, and then went to London, where
he was as careful as possible in saving what he had earned, “but yet,”
says he, “could not perceive a prospect of settlement whereby to
maintain a spouse like her as I judged she deserved, and I could not
bear the thoughts to bring her from a good settlement, without I could
certainly make us both happy in a better.” He went on, however,
industriously and prosperously, had “the great happiness” in the year
1717 of being made freeman of the company of Stationers, and in the
same year commenced citizen of London, his share of the treat that day
with other expences coming to about five pounds. Now that he was
beyond his reach, his old tyrant in Dublin was glad to accept of five
pounds for his discharge; this money he remitted, and thus became
absolutely free both in England and Ireland, for which he gave sincere
thanks to the Almighty.
“And now,” says he, “I thought myself happy, when the thoughts of my
dearest often occurred to my mind: God knows it is but too common, and
that with the best and most considerate persons, that something or
other gives them disquietude or makes them seek after it.” A
partnership at Norwich was offered him, and he accepted it; but a few
hours afterwards there came a mournful letter from his parents, saying
that they were very infirm, and extremely desirous to see him once
more before they died. It is to Gent's honour that he immediately gave
up his engagement at Norwich, though the stage coach had been ordered
to receive him. The person whom he recommended in his stead, was Mr.
Robert Raikes, who when Gent wrote these memoirs was settled as a
master in Gloucester; he became the father of a singularly prosperous
family, and one of his sons his successor in the printing office is
well known as the person who first established Sunday schools.
Yet though Gent acted under an impulse of natural duty on this
occasion, he confesses that he was not without some cause for self
reproach: “I wrote,” said he, “a lamenting letter to my dear in York,
bewailing that I could not find a proper place as yet to settle in,
told her that I was leaving the kingdom, and reminded her by what had
past that she could not be ignorant where to direct if she thought
proper so to do; that I was far from slighting her, and resigned her
to none but the protection of Heaven. But sure never was poor creature
afflicted with such melancholy as I was upon my journey, my soul did
seem to utter within me, ‘wretch that I am, what am I doing, and
whither going?’ My parents, it's true, as they were constantly most
affectionate, so indeed they are, especially in far advanced years,
peculiar objects of my care and esteem; but am I not only leaving
England, the Paradise of the world, to which as any loyal subject I
have now an indubitable right, but am I not also departing, for aught
I know for ever, from the dearest creature upon earth? from her that
loved me when I knew not well how to respect myself; who was wont to
give me sweet counsel in order for my future happiness, equally
partook of those deep sorrows which our tender love had occasioned,
was willing to undergo all hazards with me in this troublesome life,
whose kind letters had so often proved like healing balm to my
languishing condition, and whose constancy, had I been as equally
faithful and not so timorous of being espoused through too many
perplexing doubts, would never have been shaken, and without question
would have promoted the greatest happiness for which I was created.”
These self-reproaches, which were not undeserved, made him ill on the
road. He reached Dublin, however, and though the employment which he
got there was not nearly so profitable as what he had had in London,
love for his parents made him contented, “and took,” he says, “all
thoughts of further advantages away, till Mr. Alexander Campbell, a
Scotchman in the same printing office with me, getting me in liquor,
obtained a promise that I should accompany him to England, where there
was a greater likelihood of prosperity. Accordingly he so pressed me,
and gave such reasons to my dear parents that it was not worth while
to stay there for such small business as we enjoyed, that they
consented we should go together: but alas! their melting tears made
mine to flow, and bedewed my pillow every night after that I lodged
with them. ‘What Tommy,’ my mother would sometimes say, ‘this English
damsel of yours, I suppose, is the chiefest reason why you slight us
and your native country!’ ‘Well,’ added she, ‘the ways of Providence I
know are unsearchable; and whether I live to see you again or no, I
shall pray God to be your defender and preserver!’—I thought it not
fit to accumulate sorrows to us all, by returning any afflictive
answers; but taking an opportunity whilst she was abroad on her
business, I embarked with my friend once more for England.”
Tommy, however, made the heart of his English damsel sick with hope
long deferred. He was provident overmuch; and this he acknowledges
even when endeavouring to excuse himself:—“all that I had undergone I
must confess,” he says, “I thought were but my just deserts for being
so long absent from my dear,” (it had now been an absence of some
years,) “and yet I could not well help it. I had a little money it is
very true, but no certain home wherein to invite her. I knew she was
well fixed; and it pierced me to the very heart to think, if through
any miscarriage or misfortune I should alter her condition for the
worse instead of the better. Upon this account my letters to her at
this time were not so amorously obliging as they ought to have been
from a sincere lover; by which she had reason, however she might have
been mistaken, to think that I had failed in my part of those tender
engagements which had passed between us.”
Gent had sometimes the honour of being the Bellman's poet, and used to
get heartily treated for the Christmas verses which he composed in
that capacity. One lucky day he happened to meet his friend Mr. Evan
Ellis, who was the Bellman's printer in ordinary: “Tommy,” said his
friend, “I am persuaded that sometime or other you'll set up a press
in the country, where I believe you have a pretty northern lass at
heart; and as I believe you save money and can spare it, I can help
you to a good pennyworth preparatory to your design.” Accordingly upon
this recommendation he purchased at a cheap price a considerable
quantity of old types, which Mr. Mist, the proprietor of a journal
well known at that time by his name, had designed for the furnace. To
this he added a font almost new, resolving to venture in the world
with his dearest, who at first, he says, gave him encouragement. He
does not say that she ever discouraged him, and his own resolution
appears to have been but half-hearted. His purse being much exhausted
by these purchases, he still worked on for further supplies; by and by
he bought a new font, and so went on increasing his stock, working for
his old first master and for himself also, and occasionally employing
servants himself, though the fatigue was exceedingly great and almost
more than he could go through. Alas the while for Alice Guy, who was
now in the tenth year of her engagement to lukewarm Thomas!
Lukewarm Thomas imagined “things would so fall out that after some
little time he should have occasion to invite his dear to London.” But
let him tell his own story. “One Sunday morning, as my shoes were
japanning by a little boy at the end of the lane, there came Mr. John
Hoyle, who had been a long time in a messenger's custody on suspicion
for reprinting _Vox Populi Vox Dei_, under direction of Mrs. Powell
with whom he wrought as journeyman; ‘Mr. Gent,’ said he, ‘I have been
at York to see my parents, and am but just as it were returned to
London. I am heartily glad to see you, but sorry to tell you that you
have lost your old sweetheart; for I assure you that she is really
married to your rival Mr. Bourne!’ I was so thunderstruck that I could
scarcely return an answer,—all former thoughts crowding into my mind,
the consideration of spending my substance on a business I would not
have engaged in as a master but for her sake, my own remissness that
had occasioned it, and withal that she could not in such a case be
much blamed for mending her fortune,—all these threw me under a very
deep concern.”
He consoled himself as Petrarch had done: and opening his old vein of
poetry and bell-metal, gave some vent to his passion by writing a copy
of verses to the tune of “Such charms has Phillis!” then much in
request, and proper for the flute. He entitled it “The Forsaken
Lover's Letter to his former Sweetheart.” “When I had done,” says he,
“as I did not care that Mr. Midwinter (his master) should know of my
great disappointment, I gave the copy to Mr. Dodd, who printing the
same sold thousands of them, for which he offered me a price; but as
it was on my own proper concern, I scorned to accept of anything
except a glass of comfort or so.” If the Forsaken Lover's Lamentation
had been sung about the streets of York, Mrs. Bourne might have
listened to it without suspecting that she was the treacherous maid,
who for the sake of this world's splendour had betrayed her only sweet
jewel, left him to languish alone, and broken his heart,
Proving that none could be falser than she.
Conscience would never have whispered to her that it was lukewarm
Thomas who closed his complaint with the desperate determination
expressed in the ensuing stanza.
Now to the woods and groves I'll be ranging,
Free from all women I'll vent forth my grief:
While birds are singing and sweet notes exchanging
This pleasing concert will yield me relief.
Thus like the swan before its departing
Sings forth its elegy in melting strains,
My dying words shall move all the kind powers above
To pity my fate, the most wretched of swains.
He neither went to the woods, nor died; but entered into an engagement
with Mr. Dodd's widow to manage her printing business, being the more
willing to enter into the service of this gentlewoman since he was
disappointed of his first love. The widow was a most agreeable person,
daughter to a sea captain, and had been educated at the boarding
school at Hackney: Dodd was her second husband, and she had been left
with a child by each. “I thought her,” says Gent, “worthy of the best
of spouses; for sure there never could be a finer economist or sweeter
mother to her dear children, whom she kept exceedingly decent. I have
dined with her; but then as in reason I allowed what was fitting for
my meals, and her conversation, agreeably to her fine education,
almost wounded me with love, and at the same time commanded a becoming
reverence. What made her excellent carriage the more endearing was,
that I now must never expect to behold my first love at York: though I
heard by travellers that not only she, but her husband used to enquire
after me. Indeed I was sensible that Mr. Bourne, though a likely young
man, was not one of the most healthful persons; but far from imagining
otherwise then that he might have outlived me who then was worn to a
shadow. But, see the wonderful effects of Divine Providence in all
things!
“It was one Sunday morning that Mr. Philip Wood, a quondam partner at
Mr. Midwinter's, entering my chambers where I sometimes used to employ
him too when slack of business in other places—‘Tommy,’ said he, ‘all
these fine materials of yours, must be moved to York!’ At which
wondering, ‘what mean you?’ said I. ‘Aye,’ said he, ‘and you must go
too, without its your own fault; for your first sweetheart is now at
liberty, and left in good circumstances by her dear spouse, who
deceased but of late.’ ‘I pray heaven,’ answered I, ‘that his precious
soul may be happy: and for aught I know it may be as you say, for
indeed I think I may not trifle with a widow as I have formerly done
with a maid.’ I made an excuse to my mistress that I had business in
Ireland, but that I hoped to be at my own lodgings in about a month's
time; if not, as I had placed every thing in order, she might easily
by any other person carry on the business. But she said she would not
have any beside me in that station I enjoyed, and therefore should
expect my return to her again: but respectfully taking leave, I never
beheld her after, though I heard she was after very indifferently
married. I had taken care that my goods should be privately packed up,
and hired a little warehouse and put them in ready to be sent, by sea
or land, to where I should order: and I pitched upon Mr. Campbell my
fellow traveller, as my confidant in this affair, desiring my cousins
to assist him; all of whom I took leave of at the Black Swan in
Holborn, where I had paid my passage in the stage coach, which brought
me to York in four days time. Here I found my dearest once more,
though much altered from what she was about ten years before that I
had not seen her. There was no need for new courtship; but decency
suspended the ceremony of marriage for some time: till my dearest at
length, considering the ill consequence of delay in her business, as
well as the former ties of love that passed innocently between us by
word and writing, gave full consent to have the nuptials
celebrated,”—and performed accordingly they were, “in the stately
cathedral,” the very day of Archbishop Blackburne's installation.
CHAPTER CXIV.
THE AUTHOR HINTS AT CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE LIFE OF THOMAS GENT
ON WHICH HE DOES NOT THINK IT NECESSARY TO DWELL.
Round white stones will serve they say,
As well as eggs, to make hens lay.
BUTLER.
If I were given to prolixity, and allowed myself to be led away from
the subject before me, I might here be tempted to relate certain
particulars concerning Thomas Gent; how under his first London master,
Mr. Midwinter, whose house was a ballad-house, “he worked many times
from five in the morning till twelve at night, and frequently without
food from breakfast till five or six in the evening, through their
hurry with hawkers.” And how in that same service he wrote, which is
to say in modern language _reported_, Dr. Sacheverel's sermon after
his suspension, for which his master gave him a crown piece, and a
pair of breeches,—not before they were wanted;—and by which the said
master gained nearly thirty pounds in the course of the week. And how
he once engaged with Mr. Francis Clifton, who having had a liberal
education at Oxford proved a Papist, set up a press, printed a
newspaper, and getting in debt moved his goods into the liberty of the
Fleet and there became entered as a prisoner; and how Gent sometimes
in extreme weather worked for him under a mean shed adjoining to the
prison walls, when snow and rain fell alternately on the cases, yet,
he says, the number of wide mouthed stentorian hawkers, brisk trade,
and very often a glass of good ale, revived the drooping spirits of
him and his fellow workmen: and he often admired the success of this
Mr. Clifton in his station, for whether through pity of mankind or the
immediate hand of Divine Providence to his family, advantageous jobs
so often flowed upon him as gave him cause to be merry under his heavy
misfortunes.
And how while in this employ a piece of work came in which he composed
and helped to work off, but was not permitted to know who was the
author. It was a vindication of an honest clergyman who had been
committed to the King's Bench upon an action of _scandalum magnatum_:
however says he, “when finished the papers were packed up, and
delivered to my care; and the same night, my master hiring a coach we
were driven to Westminster, where we entered into a large sort of
monastic building. Soon were we ushered into a spacious hall, where we
sate near a large table covered with an ancient carpet of curious
work, and whereon was soon laid a bottle of wine for our
entertainment. In a little time we were visited by a grave gentleman
in a black lay habit, who entertained us with one pleasant discourse
or other. He bid us be secret; for, said he, the imprisoned divine
does not know who is his defender; and if he did, I know his temper;
in a sort of transport he would reveal it, and so I should be blamed
for my good office: and whether his intention was designed to show his
gratitude, yet if a man is hurt by a friend, the damage is the same as
if done by an enemy: to prevent which is the reason I desire this
concealment. You need not fear me, Sir, said my master; ‘and I, good
sir,’ added I, ‘you may be less afraid of; for I protest I do not know
where I am, much less your person, nor heard where I should be driven,
or if I shall not be driven to Jerusalem before I get home again. Nay
I shall forget I ever did the job by tomorrow, and consequently shall
never answer any questions about it, if demanded. Yet sir, I shall
secretly remember your generosity, and drink to your health with this
brimfull glass.’ Thereupon this set them both a laughing, and truly I
was got merrily tipsy, so merry that I hardly knew how I was driven
homewards. For my part I was ever inclined to secresy and fidelity;
and therefore I was nowise inquisitive concerning our hospitable
entertainer.—But happening afterwards to behold a state prisoner in a
coach, guarded from Westminster to the Tower, God bless me, thought I,
it was no less than the Bishop of Rochester, Dr. Atterbury, by whom my
master and I had been treated!”
Were I to ramble from my immediate purpose I might relate how Gent saw
Mr. John Mathews, a young printer, drawn on a sledge to the place of
execution where he suffered for high treason; and how Mathews's
clothes were exceeding neat, the lining of his coat a rich Persian
silk, and every other thing as befitted a gentleman; and how he talked
of death like a philosopher to some young ladies who came to take
their farewell. This poor youth was but in his nineteenth year, and
not out of his apprenticeship to his mother and brother. He had been
under misfortunes before, and through the favour of the government at
that time was discharged, at which time his brother had given public
orders to the people in his employ that if ever they found John either
doing or speaking any thing against the government, they would inform
him that he might take a proper method to prevent it. Nevertheless for
ten guineas, he with the assistance of another apprentice and a
journeyman printed a treasonable paper intitled _Vox Populi Vox Dei_,
containing direct incitement to rebellion. I might relate also how
this journeyman Lawrence Vezey, who went by the name of _old
gentleman_ in the printing office, and who had not the character of an
honest man about his printing; and who moreover had gone to the
criminal's mother and offered to go out of the way if she would give
him money, and accordingly had gone to St. Albans, and staid there
nine days, but no money coming, he could not stay out of the way
longer, but seems rather to have been suspected of putting himself in
the way,—I might, I say, relate, how this Vezey did not long survive
the ill-fated youth; and how at his burial in an obscure part of
Islington church-yard, many of the printers boys called devils, made a
noise like such, with their ball stocks carried thither for that
purpose, and how the minister was much interrupted thereby in the
burial service, and shameful indignities were committed at the grave:
and how the printers who had been at Islington that day, had their
names sent off to the Courts of Westminster, where it cost their
pockets pretty well before their persons were discharged from trouble.
But Gent, who desired to be out of harm's way, had shunned what he
called the crew of demons with their incendiaries to a mischief.
I might also relate how he once carried skull caps made of printing
balls stuffed with wool to his brother printers, who were to exhibit
their faces in that wooden frame called the pillory; in which frame
nevertheless he seems to think they were properly set; and the mob
were of the same opinion, for these skull caps proved but weak helmets
against the missiles wherewith they were assailed. Moreover further to
exemplify the perils which in those days environed the men who meddled
with printer's types, I might proceed to say how, after a strange
dream, poor Gent was in the dead of the night alarmed by a strange
thundering noise at the door, and his door broken open, and himself
seized in his bed by two king's messengers upon a false information
that he had been engaged in printing some lines concerning the
imprisoned Bishop of Rochester, which had given offence; and how he
was carried to a public house near St. Sepulchre's Church, whither his
two employers Mr. Midwinter and Mr. Clifton were also brought
prisoners, and how they were taken to Westminster and there imprisoned
in a very fine house in Manchester Court which had nevertheless within
the fusty smell of a prison; and how from the high window of his
humble back apartment he could behold the Thames, and hear the dashing
of the flowing waters against the walls that kept it within due
bounds: and how in the next room to him was confined that unhappy
young Irish clergyman Mr. Neynoe, (not Naypoe as the name in these
memoirs is erroneously given.) “I used,” says Gent, “to hear him talk
to himself when his raving fits came on; and now and then would he
sing psalms with such a melodious voice as produced both admiration
and pity from me, who was an object of commiseration myself, in being
awhile debarred from friends to see me, or the use of pen, ink, and
paper to write to them.” And how after five days he was honourably
discharged, and took boat from Palace Yard stairs, in which he says
“my head seemed to be affected with a strange giddiness; and when I
safely arrived at home, some of my kinder neighbours appeared very
joyful at my return. And my poor linnet, whose death I very much
feared would come to pass, saluted me with her long, pleasant,
chirping notes; and indeed the poor creature had occasion to be the
most joyful, for her necessary stock was almost exhausted, and I was
come just in the critical time to yield her a fresh supply.” It was
some compensation for his fright on this occasion that he printed the
Bishop of Rochester's Effigy “with some inoffensive verses that
pleased all parties,” which sold very well; and that he formed some
observations upon the few dying words of Counsellor Layer, in nature
of a large speech, which for about three days had such a run of sale
that the unruly hawkers were ready to pull his press in pieces for the
goods.
Farther I might say of Gent that in January 1739 when the Ouse at York
was frozen, he set up a press on the ice, and printed names there, to
the great satisfaction of young gentlemen, ladies, and others, who
were very liberal on the occasion. And how having been unjustly as he
thought ejected from a house in Stonegate which was held under a
prebendal lease and which fell to Mr. Laurence Sterne, (to whom
however it was in vain to apply for redress, it not being in his power
to relieve him,) he bought a house in Petergate and built a tower upon
it; “by which addition,” said he “my house seems the highest in the
city and affords an agreeable prospect round the country: we have a
wholesome air whenever we please to ascend, especially the mornings
and evenings, with great conveniency for my business when overcrowded
in the narrow rooms below; and several gentlemen have occasionally
taken a serious pipe there, to talk of affairs in printing, as well as
neighbours to satisfy their curiosity in viewing the flowers that grow
almost round about upon the walls.”
This, and much more than this, might be said of Thomas Gent, and would
have been deemed not uninteresting by the collectors of English
topography, and typographic curiosities, Gent being well known to them
for his “famous history of the City of York, its magnificent
Cathedral, St. Mary's Abbey, &c.;” his “History of the Loyal Town of
Ripon, Fountains Abbey, Beverley, Wakefield, &c.;” and his “History of
the Royal and Beautiful Town of Kingston-upon-Hull.” He entered upon a
different province when he wrote his Treatise, entitled “Divine
Justice and Mercy displayed in the Life of Judas Iscariot.” But though
it was because of his turn for books and antiquities that the Doctor
employed him to hunt the stalls at York, as Browne Willis did to
collect for him epitaphs and tradesmen's halfpence, what I had to say
of him arises out of his connection with Richard Guy, and must
therefore be confined to his dilatory courtship and late marriage.
CHAPTER CXV.
THE READER IS REMINDED OF PRINCE ABINO JASSIMA AND THE FOX-LADY. GENT
NOT LIKE JOB, NOR MRS. GENT LIKE JOB'S WIFE.
_A me parrebbe a la storia far torto,
S' io non aggiungo qualche codicillo;
Acciò che ognun chi legge, benedica
L' ultimo effetto de la mia fatica._
PULCI.
I cannot think so meanly of my gentle readers as to suppose that any
of them can have forgotten the story of the Japanese Prince Abino
Jassima, and the gradual but lamentable metamorphosis of his beautiful
wife. But perhaps it may not have occurred to them that many a poor
man, and without any thing miraculous in the case, finds himself in
the same predicament,—except that when he discovers his wife to be a
vixen he is not so easily rid of her.
Let me not be suspected of insinuating that Alice Gent, formerly
Bourne, formerly Guy, proved to be a wife of this description, for
which, I know not wherefore, an appellation has been borrowed from the
she-fox. Her husband who found that ten years had wrought a great
change in her appearance, complained indeed of other changes. “I
found,” he says, “her temper much altered from that sweet natural
softness and most tender affection that rendered her so amiable to me
while I was more juvenile and she a maiden. Not less sincere I must
own; but with that presumptive air and conceited opinion (like Mrs.
Day in the play of the Committee) which made me imagine an epidemical
distemper prevailed among the good women to ruin themselves and
families, or if not prevented by Divine Providence to prove the sad
cause of great contention and of disquietude. However as I knew I was
but then a novice in the intricate laws of matrimony, and that nothing
but a thorough annihilation can disentangle or break that chain which
often produces a strange concatenation for future disorders, I
endeavoured to comply with a sort of stoical resolution to some very
harsh rules that otherwise would have grated my human understanding.
For as by this change I had given a voluntary wound to my wonted
liberty, now attacked in the maintenance partly of pretended friends,
spunging parasites, and flatterers who imposed on good nature to our
great damage; so in this conjugal captivity, as I may term it, I was
fully resolved, likewise in a Christian sense, to make my yoke as easy
as possible, thereby to give no offence to custom or law of any kind.
The tender affection that a good husband naturally has to the wife of
his bosom is such as to make him often pass by the greatest insults
that can be offered to human nature: such I mean as the senseless
provoking arguments used by one who will not be awakened from delusion
till poverty appears, shows the ingratitude of false friends in
prosperity, and brings her to sad repentance in adversity: she will
then wish she had been foreseeing as her husband, when it is too late;
condemn her foolish credulity, and abhor those who have caused her to
differ from her truest friend, whose days she has embittered with the
most undutiful aggravations, to render every thing uncomfortable to
him!”
I suspect that Thomas Gent was wrong in thinking thus of his wife; I
am sure he was wrong in thus writing of her, and that I should be
doing wrong in repeating what he has written, if it were not with the
intention of showing that though he represents himself in this passage
as another Job, Socrates, or Jerry Sneak, it must not be concluded
that his wife resembled the termagant daughter of Sir Jacob Jollup,
Xantippe, Rahamat the daughter of Ephraim, her cousin Makher the
daughter of Manasseh, or Queen Saba, whichever of these three latter
were the wife of Job.
And here let me observe that although I follow the common usage in
writing the last venerable name, I prefer the orthography of Junius
and Tremellius who write Hiob, because it better represents the sound
of the original Hebrew, and is moreover more euphonous than Job, or
Jobab, if those commentators err not who identify that King of Edom
with the man of Uz. Indeed it is always meet and right to follow the
established usage unless there be some valid reason for departing from
it; and moreover there is this to be said in favour of retaining the
usual form and pronunciation of this well known name, that if it were
denaturalized and put out of use, an etymology in our language would
be lost sight of. For a _job_ in the working or operative sense of the
word is evidently something which it requires patience to perform; in
the physical and moral sense, as when for example in the language of
the vulgar a personal hurt or misfortune is called a bad _job_, it is
something which it requires patience to support; and in the political
sense it is something which it requires patience in the public to
endure: and in all these senses the origin of the word must be traced
to Job, who is the proverbial exemplar of this virtue. This derivation
has escaped Johnson; nor has that lexicographer noticed the
substantives _jobing_ and _jobation_, and the verb to _jobe_, all from
the same root, and familiar in the mouths of the people.
For these reasons therefore, and especially the etymological one, I
prefer the common though peradventure, and indeed perlikelihood,
erroneous manner of writing the name to Iob, Hiob, Ajob, Ajoub, or
Jjob, all which have been proposed. And I do not think it worth while,
(that is my while or the reader's,) to enquire into the derivation of
the name, and whether it may with most probability be expounded to
mean sorrowful, jubilant, persecuted, beloved, zealous, or wise in the
sense of sage, seer, or magician. Nor whether Job was also called
Jasub, Jaschub, Jocab, Jocam, Jobal, Jubab, Hobab, or Uz of that ilk,
for this also has been contended. Nor to investigate the position of a
territory the name of which has been rendered so famous by its
connection with him, and of which nothing but the name is known. This
indeed has occasioned much discussion among biblical chorographers.
And not many years have elapsed since at a late hour of the night, or
perhaps an early one of the morning, the watchman in Great Russel
Street found it necessary in the discharge of his duty to interpose
between two learned and elderly gentlemen, who returning together from
a literary compotation, had entered upon this discussion on the way,
and forgetting the example of the Man of Uz, quarrelled about the
situation of his country. The scene of this dispute,—the only one upon
that subject that ever required the interference of the watch in the
streets of London at midnight,—was near the Museum Gate, and the
Author of the Indian Antiquities was one of the disputants.
Returning however to the matter which these last parenthetical
paragraphs interrupted, I say that before luke-warm Thomas represented
himself as another Job for matrimonial endurance, he ought to have
asked himself whether the motives for which he married the widow
Bourne, were the same as those for which he wooed the fair maiden
Alice Guy; and whether, if Mrs. Gent suspected that as she had been
obliged to her first husband for her money, she was obliged to the
money for her second, it was not very natural for her to resent any
remonstrances on his part, when she entertained or assisted those whom
she believed to be her friends, and who peradventure had claims upon
her hospitality or her bounty for her late husband's sake.
A woman's goodness, when she is a wife,
Lies much upon a man's desert; believe it Sir.
If there be fault in her, I'll pawn my life on't
'Twas first in him, if she were ever good.[1]
If there be any reader so inconsiderate as to exclaim, “what have we
to do with the temper and character of a low-lived woman who was dead
and buried long before we were born, whom nobody ever heard of before,
and for whom nobody cares a straw now! What can have induced this most
unaccountable of authors to waste his time and thoughts upon such
people and such matter!”—Should there I say, be persons, as in all
likelihood there may, so impatient and so unreasonable as to complain
in this manner, I might content myself with observing to them in the
words of that thoughtful and happy-minded man Mr. Danby of Swinton,
that if Common Sense had not a vehicle to carry it abroad, it must
always stay at home.
[Footnote 1: BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.]
But I am of the school of Job, and will reply with Uzzite patience to
these objectors, as soon as I shall have related in a few words the
little more that remains to be said of Thomas Gent, printer of York,
and Alice his wife. They had only one child, it died an infant of six
months, and the father speaks with great feeling of its illness and
death. “I buried its pretty corpse,” he says, “in the Church of St.
Michael le Belfrey where it was laid on the breast of Mr. Charles
Bourne, my predecessor, in the chancel on the south side of the
altar.” This was in 1726; there he was buried himself more than half a
century afterwards, in the 87th year of his age; and Alice who opened
the door to him when he first arrived in York was no doubt deposited
in the same vault with both her husbands.
CHAPTER CXVI.
DR. SOUTHEY. JOHN BUNYAN. BARTHOLOMÆUS SCHERÆUS. TERTULLIAN. DOMENICO
BERNINO. PETRARCH. JEREMY TAYLOR. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. DIEGO DE SAN
PEDRO, AND ADAM LITTLETON.
Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.
Titty, Tiffin, keep it stiff in!
Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky!
Liard, Robin, you must bob in!
Round, around, around, about, about!
All _good_ come running in, all _ill_ keep out.
MIDDLETON.
Nine years after the convention of Cintra a representation was made to
the Laureate in favour of some artillery horses employed in Sir Arthur
Wellesley's army. They were cast-off Irish cavalry, and their
efficiency had been called in question; indeed it had been affirmed
that they were good for nothing; attestations to disprove this were
produced, and the Laureate was requested to set this matter right in
his History of the Peninsular War. The good-natured historian has
given accordingly a note to the subject, saying that he thought
himself bound to notice the representation were it only for the
singularity of the case. If Dr. Southey thought it became him for that
reason and for truth's sake, to speak a good word of some poor horses
who had long ago been worked to death and left to the dogs and wolves
by the way side, much more may I feel myself bound for the sake of Dr.
Dove to vindicate the daughter of his old schoolmaster from a
splenetic accusation brought against her by her husband. The reader
who knows what the Doctor's feelings were with regard to Mr. Guy, and
what mine are for the Doctor, would I am sure excuse me even if on
such an occasion I had travelled out of the record.
Gent when he penned that peevish page seems to have thought with Tom
Otter, that a wife is a very scurvy clogdogdo! And with John Bunyan
that “Women, whenever they would perk it and lord it over their
husbands, ought to remember that both by creation and transgression
they are made to be in subjection to them.” “Such a thing,” says the
Arch-tinker, “may happen, as that the woman, not the man, may be in
the right, (I mean when both are godly) but ordinarily it is
otherwise!”
Authors of a higher class than the York printer and topographist have
complained of their wives. We read in Burton that Bartholomæus
Scheræus, Professor of Hebrew at Wittenberg, whom he calls “that
famous Poet Laureate,” said in the introduction to a work of his upon
the Psalms, he should have finished it long before, but amongst many
miseries which almost broke his back (his words were _inter alia dura
et tristia, quæ misero mihi pene tergum fregerunt_,) he was yoked to a
worse than Xantippe. A like lamentation is made more oddly and with
less excuse, by Domenico Bernino, the author of a large history of All
Heresies, which he dedicated to Clement XI. Tertullian, he says, being
ill advised in his youth, and deceived by that shadow of repose which
the conjugal state offers to the travellers in this miserable world,
threw himself into the troubled sea of matrimony. And no sooner had he
taken a wife, than being made wise by his own misfortunes, he composed
his laborious treatise _de molestiis nuptiarum_, concerning the
troubles of marriage, finding in this employment the only relief from
those continual miseries, to which, he adds, we who now write may bear
our present and too faithful testimony,—_delle quali Noi ancora che
queste cose scriviamo, siamo per lui testimonio pur troppo vero e
presente._
The Historian of Heresy and the Hebrew Professor might have learnt a
lesson from Petrarch's Dialogue _de importunâ Uxore_, in that work of
his _de Remediis Utriusque Fortunæ_. When DOLOR complains of having a
bad wife, RATIO reminds him that he might blame his ill fortune for
any other calamity, but this he had brought upon himself and the only
remedy was patience.
_Est mala crux, conjux mala; crux tamen illa ferenda est
Quâ nemo nisi Mors te relevare potest._
“It is the unhappy chance of many,” says Jeremy Taylor, “that finding
many inconveniences upon the mountains of single life, they descend
into the valleys of marriage to refresh their troubles, and there they
enter into fetters, and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or
woman's peevishness; and the worst of the evil is, they are to thank
their own follies, for they fell into the snare by entering an
improper way.” To complain of the consequences, which are indeed the
proper punishment, is to commit a second folly by proclaiming the
first, and the second deserves the ridicule it is sure to meet with.
Hartley Coleridge has well said, that there must always be something
defective in the moral feelings or very unfortunate in the
circumstances of a man who makes the public his confidant!
If Thomas Gent had read Lord Berners' Castle of Love, which might
easily, rare as it has now become, have fallen in his way a hundred
years ago, he would there have seen fifteen reasons why men do wrong
when they speak ill of women, and twenty reasons why they ought to
speak well of them. All lovers of our old literature know how greatly
we are beholden to John Bouchier, Knight, Lord Berners, who when
Deputy General of the Kings Town of Calais and Marches of the same,
employed his leisure in translating books out of French into English.
But he must have been one of those persons who with a great appetite
for books have no discriminating taste, or he would not have
translated Arthur of Little Britain, when Gyron le Courtoys and
Meliadus were not extant in his own language; nor would he, even at
the instance of Lady Elizabeth Carew, if he had known a good book from
a bad one, have englished from its French version the Carcel de Amor,
which Diego de San Pedro composed at the request of the Alcayde de los
Donzelles, D. Diego Hernandez, and of other Knights and Courtiers.
The reader will please to observe that though all worthless books are
bad, all bad books are not necessarily worthless. A work however bad,
if written, as the Carcel de Amor was, early in the sixteenth century,
and translated into Italian French and English, must be worth reading
to any person who thinks the history of literature (and what that
history includes) a worthy object of pursuit. If I had not been one of
those who like Ludovicus Bosch—(my friend in the caxon)—are never
weary of hunting in those woods, I could not, gentle reader, have set
before you as I shall incontinently proceed to do, the fifteen
above-mentioned and here following reasons, why you will commit a sin
if you ever speak in disparagement of womankind.
First then, Leriano, the unhappy hero of Diego de San Pedro's tragic
story, says that all things which God has made are necessarily good;
women therefore being his creatures, to calumniate them is to
blaspheme one of his works.
Secondly, there is no sin more hateful than ingratitude; and it is
being ungrateful to the Virgin Mary if we do not honour all women for
her sake.
Thirdly, it is an act of cowardice for man who is strong, to offend
woman who is weak.
Fourthly, the man who speaks ill of woman brings dishonour upon
himself, inasmuch as every man is of woman born.
Fifthly, such evil speaking is, for the last mentioned reason, a
breach of the fifth commandment.
Sixthly, it is an obligation upon every noble man to employ himself
virtuously both in word and deed; and he who speaks evil incurs the
danger of infamy.
Seventhly, because all knights are bound by their order to show
respect and honour to all womankind.
Eighthly, such manner of speech brings the honour of others in
question.
Ninthly, and principally, it endangers the soul of the evil speaker.
Tenthly, it occasions enmities and the fatal consequences resulting
therefrom.
Eleventhly, husbands by such speeches may be led to suspect their
wives, to use them ill, to desert them, and peradventure to make away
with them.
Twelfthly, a man thereby obtains the character of being a slanderer.
Thirteenthly, he brings himself in jeopardy with those who may think
themselves bound to vindicate a lady's reputation or revenge the wrong
which has been done to it.
Fourteenthly, to speak ill of women is a sin because of the beauty
which distinguishes their sex, which beauty is so admirable that there
is more to praise in one woman than there can be to condemn in all.
Fifteenthly, it is a sin because all the benefactors of mankind have
been born of women, and therefore we are obliged to women for all the
good that has ever been done in the world.
Such are the fifteen reasons which Diego de San Pedro excogitated to
show that it is wrong for men to speak ill of women; and the twenty
reasons which he has superinduced to prove that they are bound to
speak well of them are equally cogent and not less curious. I have a
reason of my own for reserving these till another opportunity. Not
however to disappoint my fair readers altogether of that due praise
which they have so properly expected, I will conclude the present
chapter with a few flowers taken from the pulpit of my old
acquaintance Adam Littleton. There is no impropriety in calling him
so, though he died before my grandfathers and grandmothers were born;
and when I meet him in the next world I hope to improve this one sided
acquaintance by introducing myself and thanking him for his Dictionary
and his Sermons.
The passage occurs in a sermon preached at the obsequies of the Right
Honourable the Lady Jane Cheyne. The text was “Favour is deceitful,
and Beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be
praised:” in which proposition, says the Preacher, we have first the
subject, _Woman_, with her qualification _that fears the Lord_:
Secondly the predicate, _she shall be praised_.
“WOMAN, in the primitive design of Nature, God's master-piece, being
the last work of creation, and made with a great deal of deliberation
and solemnity.
“For to look upon her as a supernumerary creature, and one brought
into the world by the bye, besides the Creator's first intention, upon
second thoughts,—is to lay a foul imputation upon Divine Wisdom, as if
it had been at a stand, and were to seek.
“Wherefore, as we use to argue that all things were made for the use
and service of man, because he was made last of all; I do not see, if
that argument be good, why the same consequences should not be of like
force here too, that Man himself was made for the affectionate care of
Woman, who was framed not only _after_ him, but _out of_ him too, the
more to engage his tenderest and dearest respects.
“Certainly this manner of production doth plainly evince the equality
of the Woman's merits and rights with Man; she being a noble cyon
transplanted from his stock, and by the mystery of marriage implanted
into him again, and made one with him.
“She is then equally at least partaker with him of all the
_advantages_ which appertain to human nature, and alike capable of
those _improvements_ which by the efforts of reason, and the methods
of education and the instincts of the Blessed Spirit, are to be made
upon it,—
“Hence it was that all Arts and Sciences, all Virtues and Graces, both
divine and moral, are represented in the shape and habit of Women. Nor
is there any reason for fancying Angels themselves more of our sex
than of the other, since amongst them there is no such distinction,
but they may as well be imagined female as male.
“Above all for Piety and Devotion, which is the top-perfection of our
nature, and makes it most like angelical; as the capacity of Women is
as large, so their inclinations are generally more vigorous, the
natural bias and tendency of their spirits lying that way, and their
softer temper more kindly receiving the supernatural impression of
God's Spirit.
“This is _that_, if any thing, which gives their sex the pre-eminence
above us men and gains them just advantages of praise; that whereas
those who have only a handsome shape and good features to commend
them, are adored and idolized by persons of slight apprehensions and
ungoverned passions, pious and virtuous women command the veneration
of the most judicious, and are deservedly admired by holy men and
Angels.”
Thus saith that Adam of whom even Adam Clarke might have been proud as
a namesake; and whose portrait the Gentlemen of the name of Adam who
meet and dine together at a tavern in London, once a year, ought to
have in their club room.
CHAPTER CXVII.
CONCERNING JOB'S WIFE.
This insertion is somewhat long, and utterly impertinent to the
principal matter, and makes a great gap in the tale; nevertheless is
no disgrace, but rather a beauty and to very good purpose.
PUTTENHAM.
It has been a custom in popish countries, when there were no censors
of the press civil or ecclesiastical to render it unnecessary, for an
author to insert at the beginning of his work a protestation
declaring, that if the book contained any thing contrary to the
established faith, he thereby revoked any such involuntary error of
opinion. Something similar has sometimes been done in free countries,
and not then as a mere form, nor for prudential considerations, but in
the sincerity of an upright intention and a humble mind.—“Who can tell
how oft he offendeth? O cleanse thou me from my secret faults!”
To be sure what I am about to say is upon a matter of less import, and
may seem neither to require nor deserve so grave a prelude. But it is
no part of my philosophy to turn away from serious thoughts when they
lie before me.
_Φράσω γὰρ δὴ ὅσον μοι
Ψυχᾷ προσφιλές ἐστιν εἰπεῖν._[1]
I had no intention of quoting scripture when I began, but the words
came to mind and I gave them utterance, and thou wilt not be
displeased, good reader, at seeing them thus introduced.—Good reader,
I have said:—if thou art not good, I would gladly persuade thee to
become so;—and if thou art good, would fain assist thee in making
thyself better. _Si de tout ce que je vous ai dit, un mot peut vous
être utile, je n'aurai nul regret à ma peine._[2]
[Footnote 1: EURIPIDES.]
[Footnote 2: MAD. DE MAINTENON.]
Well then benevolent and patient reader, it is here my duty to confess
that there is a passage in the last chapter which I am bound to
retract. For since that chapter was written I have found cause to
apprehend that in vindicating Guy's daughter I have wronged Job's
wife, by accrediting a received calumny founded upon a mistranslation.
I did not then know, what I have now learnt, that a judicious and
learned writer, modest enough to conceal his name and designate
himself only as a private gentleman, had many years ago, in a Review
of the History of Job, stated his reasons for regarding her as a much
injured woman.
Every one knows that the wife of Job in our Bible says to her husband,
“Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die!” Now this
writer asserts that the Hebrew verb which our translators render in
this place _to curse_, means also _to bless, to salute, or give the
knee_, and that there are but four more places in all the Bible where
it can be supposed to have an opposite meaning, and that even in those
places it may admit of the better signification. It is not surprizing
that many verbal difficulties should occur in a book, which if of
later date than the books of Moses, is next to them in antiquity. Such
difficulties might be expected whether we have it in its original
language, or whether it were written, as many have opined, by Job
himself in Syriac, Arabic or Idumean, and translated into Hebrew; much
more if the opinion of Dr. Wall could be admitted, that it was written
at first in hieroglyphics, against which the length of the book is a
conclusive objection. “I should imagine,” says the anonymous defender,
“she had so high an opinion of her husband's innocence that she might
mean to advise him, seeing notwithstanding his uprightness he was thus
amazingly afflicted, to go and kneel or bow down before God, and plead
or as it were expostulate with him concerning the reason of these
dreadful calamities,—even though he should die. If this sense of her
expressions be allowed, it will justify Job's wise rebuke for her
inconsiderateness, while, as he still possessed his soul in submissive
patience, crying out—‘Thou speakest as a rash, thoughtless, or foolish
woman: what, shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we
not receive evil?’ Indeed it should seem that God himself did not
behold her as an impious or blasphemous woman, inasmuch as we find she
was made a great instrument in Job's future and remarkable prosperity,
becoming after their great calamity the mother of seven sons and three
most beautiful daughters. I say she was their mother, because we have
no intimation that Job had any other wife.”
Now upon consulting such authorities as happen to be within my reach,
I find that this interpretation is supported by the Vulgate,—_benedic
Deo, et morere;_ and also by the version of Junius and
Tremellius—“_adhuc tu retines integritatem tuam, benedicendo Deum
atque moriendo._” Piscator too renders the word in its better sense,
as I learn from the elder Wesley's elaborate collation of this most
ancient book, from which I collect also that the Chaldee version gives
the good meaning, the Arabian and Syriac the bad one; and that the
words of the Septuagint _ἀλλὰ εἰπόν τι ῥῆμα εἰς κύριον καὶ τελεύτα_,
are interpreted by the Scholiast _κατάρασον τον θέον_.
Moreover a passage of some length which is in no other translation
except that of St. Ambrose, is found in three manuscripts of the
Septuagint, one of them being that from which the text of the Oxford
edition of 1817 is taken. It is as follows. “But after much time had
elapsed, his wife said unto him, ‘how long wilt thou endure thus
saying, “I will expect yet a little while, awaiting the hope of my
salvation?” Behold thy memory hath past away from the earth, the sons
and daughters of my womb, whom I have with pain and sorrow brought
forth in vain. Thou thyself sittest among filthy worms, passing the
night under the open sky; and I am a wanderer and a servant, from
place to place and from house to house, looking for the sun to go down
that I may rest from the grief and labour that oppress me. Speak then
a word against the Lord, and die!’”
If the text were to be considered singly, without reference to any
thing which may assist in determining its meaning, it would perhaps be
impossible now to ascertain among these contrariant interpretations
which is the true one. But the generous Englishman who in this country
first in our language undertook the vindication of this Matriarch and
by whom I have been led to make the present pertinent enquiry, has
judiciously (as has been seen) observed in confirmation of his
opinion, that the circumstance of her having been made a partaker in
her husband's subsequent prosperity is proof that she also had been
found righteous under all their trials. This is a valid argument
deduced from the book itself.
It would be invalidated were there any truth in what certain
Talmudists say, that Job came into the world only to receive his good
things in it; that when Satan was permitted to afflict him he began to
blaspheme and to revile his Maker, and that therefore the Lord doubled
his measure of prosperity in this life, that he might be rejected from
the world to come. But when we remember that he is called “a perfect
and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil,” we may
say with the great Cistercian Rabbinomastix “_hæc est magna blasphemia
et convicium in Iob._” Other Rabbis represent him as a fatalist, put
into his mouth the common argument of that false and impious
philosophy, and affirm that there is no hope of his salvation: what
they say concerning him may safely be rejected. Others of the same
school assert that there never was any such person as Job, in the
teeth of the Prophet Ezekiel,—and that his whole history is only a
parable: if their opinion were right it would be useless to enquire
into the character of his wife; _sed isti redarguuntur_ says
Bartolocci, _ex nomine ipsius et nomine civitatis ejusdem._ Just as,
whatever inconsiderate readers may suppose who take these my
reminiscences of the Doctor for a work of fiction, Daniel Dove was
Daniel Dove nevertheless, and Doncaster is Doncaster.
There is nothing then among the Jewish traditions, so far as my guides
lead me, that can throw any light upon the subject of this enquiry.
But there is among the Arabian, where it was more likely to be found;
and though the Arabic translation supports the evil meaning of the
equivocal text, the tradition on the contrary is in favour of Job's
wife. It is indeed a legend, a mere figment, plainly fabulous; but it
is founded upon the traditional character of Job's wife in Job's own
country. There are two versions of the legend. The one Sale has given
as a comment upon the text of the Koran,—“Remember Job when he cried
unto his Lord, saying, Verily evil hath afflicted me; but Thou art the
most merciful of those who show mercy!”
When Job, says this legend, was in so loathsome a condition that as he
lay on a dunghill none could bear to come near him, his wife alone
attended him dutifully with great patience, and supported him with
what she earned by her labour. One day the Devil appeared to her,
reminded her of their former prosperity, and promised to restore all
they had lost if she would worship him. He had overcome Eve by a less
temptation; the Matriarch did not yield like the Mother of Mankind,
but neither did she withstand it; she took a middle course, and going
to her husband repeated to him the proposal, and asked his consent:
whereat he was so indignant that he swore if he recovered to give her
an hundred stripes; and then it was that he uttered the ejaculation
recorded in the Koran. Immediately the Lord sent Gabriel, who took him
by the hand and raised him up; a fountain sprung up at his feet, he
drank of it, and the worms fell from his wounds, and he washed in it,
and his health and beauty were restored. What his wife had done was
not imputed to her for sin, doubtless in consideration of the motive,
and the sense of duty and obedience to her lord and master which she
had manifested. She also became young and beautiful again; and that
Job might keep his oath and neither hurt her nor his own conscience,
he was directed to give her one blow with a palm branch having an
hundred leaves.
The legend as related in D'Herbelot, is more favourable to her and
exempts her from all blame. According to Khondemir whom he follows,
what Job's wife, here called Rasima, provided for her miserable
husband, Satan stole from her, till he deprived her at last of all
means of supporting him, and thus rendered him utterly destitute. As
soon as the tempter had effected this, he appeared to Rasima in the
form of a bald old woman, and offered if she would give him the two
locks which hung down upon her neck, to supply her every day with
whatever she wanted for her husband. Rasima joyfully accepted the
proposal, cut off her locks and gave them to the false old woman. No
sooner was Satan possessed of them than he went to Job, told him that
his wife had been detected in dishonouring herself and him, and that
she had been ignominiously shorn in consequence, in proof of which he
produced the locks. Job when he saw that his wife had indeed been
shorn of her tresses, believed the story, and not doubting that she
had allowed the Devil to prevail over her, swore if ever he recovered
his health to punish her severely. Upon this Satan exulting that he
had provoked Job to anger, assumed the form of an Angel of Light, and
appearing to the people of the land, said he was sent by the Lord to
tell them that Job had drawn upon himself the displeasure of the Most
High, wherefore he had lost the rank of Prophet which theretofore he
had held, and they must not suffer him to remain among them, otherwise
the wrath of the Lord would be extended to them also. Job then
breathed the prayer which is in the Koran, and the legend proceeds as
in the other version, except that nothing is said concerning the
manner in which he was discharged of his vow, the vow itself being
annulled when Rasima's innocence was made known.
The Koran where it touches upon this legend, says, it was said to Job,
“take a handful of rods in thy hand, and strike thy wife therewith,
and break not thine oath.” Sale observes upon this that as the text
does not express what this handful of rods was to be, some
commentators have supposed it to be dry grass, and others rushes, and
others (as in the legend) a palm branch. But the elder Wesley takes
the words in their direct and rigorous meaning, and says that as the
Devil had no small part in the Koran, this passage indubitably bears
his stamp, for who but the Devil would instigate any one to beat his
wife? This erudite commentator, (he deserves to be so called,)
vindicates the Matriarch in one of his Dissertations, and says that in
the speech for which Job reproved her she only advised him to pray for
death: in the mouth of a Greek or Roman matron it might have been
understood as an exhortation to suicide;—_Hæc ore Græcæ aut Romanæ
mulieris prolata ut heroica quædam exhortatio esset suspecta._
His favourable opinion is entitled to more weight, because it was
formed when he made the book of Job his particular study, whereas in
an earlier work, the History of the Bible in verse, he had followed
the common error, and made Satan as the last and worst of Job's
torments play his wife against him, saying that the fiercest shock
which the Patriarch sustained was from the tempest raised by her
tongue.
The expositors who comment upon this text of the Koran without
reference to the legend, have differed in opinion as to the offence
which Job's wife had committed thus to provoke her husband, some
asserting that he swore to punish her with stripes because she had
stayed too long on an errand,—an opinion by no means consistent with
his patience.
Returning to the main argument I conclude, that if upon the meaning of
the doubtful word in the Hebrew text authorities are so equipoised as
to leave it doubtful, these traditions being of Arabian growth have
sufficient weight to turn the scale; even if it were not a maxim that
in cases of this kind the most charitable opinion ought to be
preferred. And as Dr. Southey has classed this injured Matriarch in a
triad with Xantippe and Mrs. Wesley, I cannot but hope that the candid
and learned Laureate, who as I before observed, has condescended to
clear the character of some Irish cast-off cavalry horses, will, when
he has perused this chapter, render the same justice to Job's wife;
and in the next edition of his Life of Wesley, substitute Hooker's in
her place.
CHAPTER CXVIII.
POINTS OF SIMILITUDE AND DISSIMILITUDE BETWEEN SIR THOMAS BROWN AND
DOCTOR DOVE.
But in these serious works designed
To mend the morals of mankind,
We must for ever be disgraced
With all the nicer sons of taste,
If once the shadow to pursue
We let the substance out of view.
Our means must uniformly tend
In due proportion to their end,
And every passage aptly join
To bring about the one design.
CHURCHILL.
Dr. Johnson says that, “perhaps there is no human being, however hid
in the crowd from the observation of his fellow mortals, who if he has
leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions,
will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself
distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations
of nature or of fortune.” This remark he makes in relation to what Sir
Thomas Brown asserts of the course of his own life, that it was “a
miracle of thirty years, which to relate were not a history, but a
piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable.” Now it
is not known that any thing extraordinary ever befell him. “The
wonders,” says Johnson, “probably were transacted in his own mind:
self-love, cooperating with an imagination vigorous and fertile as
that of Brown, will find or make objects of astonishment in every
man's life.”
What the Philosopher of Norwich considered as miraculous was probably
this, that he had escaped from “Pyrrho's maze,” and had never been
contaminated in Epicurus' sty; that he had neither striven for place
among the “wrangling crew” nor sought to make his way with the sordid
herd; that he had not sold himself to the service of Mammon; but in
mature years and with deliberate judgement had chosen a calling in
which he might continually increase his knowledge and enlarge his
views, and entertain a reasonable hope that while he endeavoured to
relieve the sufferings of his fellow creatures and discipline his own
mind, the labours wherein his life was past would neither be useless
to others nor to himself. He might well consider it a miracle of
divine mercy that grace had been given him to fulfil the promise made
for him at his baptism, and that he had verily and indeed renounced
the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. He might indeed take
comfort in his “authentic reflections how far he had performed the
great intention of his Maker;—whether he had made good the principles
of his nature and what he was made to be; what characteristic and
special mark he had left to be observable in his generation; whether
he had lived to purpose or in vain; and what he had added, acted, or
performed, that might considerably speak him a man.”
There were more resemblances between Sir Thomas Brown and the Doctor
than Fluellen discovered between Henry of Monmouth and Alexander the
Great. Both graduated in the same profession at the same university;
and each settled as a practitioner in a provincial town. (Doncaster
indeed was an inconsiderable place compared with Norwich; and Brown
merely procured his degree at Leyden, which was not in his time, as it
was in Daniel Dove's, the best school of physic in Europe.) Both too
were Philosophers as well as Physicians, and both were alike
speculative in their philosophy and devout. Both were learned men. Sir
Thomas Brown might have said of himself with Herbert,
I know the ways of learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of itself, like a good housewife, spun
In laws and policy: what the Stars conspire;
What willing Nature speaks, what forced by fire;
Both the old discoveries, and the new found seas:
The stock and surplus, cause and history:
All these stand open, or I have the keys.
The Doctor could not have said this; he would rather have said,
I am but one who do the world despise
And would my thoughts to some perfection raise,
A wisdom-lover, willing to be wise.[1]
Yet he was as justly entitled to the appellation of a learned man by
his multifarious knowledge, as he was far from pretending to it. There
were many things of which he was ignorant, and contented to be
ignorant, because the acquirement would not have been worth the cost.
Brown would have taken with just confidence a seat at the Banquet of
the Philosophers, whereas Dove would have thought himself hardly
worthy to gather up the crumbs that fell from their table.
[Footnote 1: LORD STIRLING.]
A certain melancholy predominated as much in the constitution of Sir
Thomas's mind, as in that of Charles the First, to whom his portrait
bears so remarkable a resemblance; and a certain mirth entered as
largely into the composition of the Doctor's, as it did into Charles
the Second's, to whom in all moral respects no one could be more
utterly unlike. The elements have seldom been so happily mixed as they
were in the Philosopher of Norwich; he could not have been perfectly
homogeneous if a particle of the quintelement had been
superadded;—such an ingredient would have marred the harmony of his
character: whereas the Philosopher of Doncaster would have been marred
without a large portion of it.
It was a greater dissimilarity, and altogether to be regretted, that
my Doctor left no “characteristic and special mark to be observable in
his generation;” but upon this I shall make some observations
hereafter. What led me to compare these persons, incomparable each in
his own way, was that my Doctor, though he did not look upon his own
history as miraculous, considered that the course of his life had been
directed by a singular and special Providence. How else could it have
been that being an only son,—an only child, the sole representative in
his generation of an immemorial line,—his father instead of keeping
him attached to the soil, as all his forefathers had been, should have
parted with him for the sake of his moral and intellectual
improvement, not with a view to wealth or worldly advancement, but
that he might seek wisdom and ensue it?—that with no other friend than
the poor schoolmaster of a provincial townlet, and no better
recommendation, he should have been placed with a master by whose care
the defects of his earlier education were supplied, and by whose
bounty, after he had learned the practical routine of his profession,
he was sent to study it as a science in a foreign university, which a
little before had been raised by Boerhaave to its highest
reputation;—that not only had his daily bread been given him without
any of that wearing anxiety which usually attends upon an unsettled
and precarious way of life, but in the very house which when sent
thither in boyhood he had entered as a stranger, he found himself
permanently fixed, as successively the pupil, the assistant, the
friend, and finally the successor and heir of his benefactor;—above
all, that he had not been led into temptation, and that he had been
delivered from evil.
“My life,” said an unfortunate poor man who was one of the American
Bishop Hobart's occasional correspondents, “has been a chapter of
blunders and disappointments.” John Wilkes said that “the chapter of
accidents is the longest chapter in the book;” and he, who had his
good things here, never troubled himself to consider whether the great
volume were the Book of Chance, or of Necessity, the Demogorgon of
those by whom no other deity is acknowledged. With a wiser and happier
feeling Bishop White Kennett when he was asked “where are we?”
answered the question thus,—“in a world where nothing can be depended
on but a future state; in the way to it, little comfort but prayers
and books.” White Kennett might have enjoyed more comfort if he had
been born in less contentious times, or if he had taken less part in
their contentions, or if he had been placed in a less conspicuous
station. Yet he had little cause to complain of his lot, and he has
left behind him good works and a good name.
There is scarcely any man who in thoughtfully contemplating the course
of his own life, would not find frequent reason to say,—
_in fede mia
Ho fatto bene a non fare a mio modo._[2]
The Doctor however was one of the very few who have never been put out
of their designed course, and never been disposed to stray from it.
_Spesso si perde il buono
Cercando il meglio. E a scegliere il sentiero
Chi vuol troppo esser saggio,
Del tempo abusa, e non fa mai viaggio._[3]
[Footnote 2: RICCIARDETTO.]
[Footnote 3: METASTASIO.]
INTERCHAPTER XV.
THE AUTHOR RECOMMENDS A CERTAIN WELL-KNOWN CHARACTER AS A CANDIDATE
FOR HONOURS, BOTH ON THE SCORE OF HIS FAMILY AND HIS DESERTS. HE
NOTICES ALSO OTHER PERSONS WHO HAVE SIMILAR CLAIMS.
_Thoricht, auf Bessrung der Thoren zu harren!
Kinder der klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehort._
GOETHE.
In these days when honours have been so profusely distributed by the
most liberal of Administrations and the most popular of Kings, I
cannot but think that Tom Fool ought to be knighted. And I assure the
reader that this is not said on the score of personal feeling, because
I have the honour to be one of his relations, but purely with regard
to his own claims, and the fitness of things, as well as to the
character of the Government.
It is disparaging him, and derogatory to his family, which in
undisputed and indisputable antiquity exceeds any other in these
kingdoms,—it is disparaging him, I say, to speak of him as we do of
Tom Duncombe, and Tom Cribb, and Tom Campbell; or of Tom Hood and Tom
Moore, and Tom Sheridan; and before them of Tom Browne and Tom
D'Urfey, and Tom Killigrew. Can it be supposed if he were properly
presented to his Majesty (Lord Nugent would introduce him), and knelt
to kiss the royal hand, that our most gracious and good-natured King
would for a moment hesitate to give him the accollade, and say to him
“Rise Sir Thomas!”
I do not ask for the Guelphic Order; simple Knighthood would in this
case be more appropriate.
It is perfectly certain that Sir Thomas More, if he were alive, would
not object to have him for a brother knight and namesake. It is
equally certain that Sir Thomas Lethbridge could not, and ought not.
Dryden was led into a great error by his animosity against Hunt and
Shadwell when he surmised that “dullness and clumsiness were fated to
the name of Tom.” “There are,” says Serjeant Kite, “several sorts of
Toms; Tom o'Lincoln, Tom Tit, Tom Tell-truth, Tom o'Bedlam and Tom
Fool!” With neither of these is dullness or clumsiness associated. And
in the Primitive World, according to the erudite philologist who with
so much industry and acumen collected the fragments of its language,
the word itself signified just or perfect. Therefore the first Decan
of the constellation Virgo was called Tom, and from thence Court de
Gebelin derives Themis: and thus it becomes evident that Themistocles
belongs to the Toms. Let no Thomas then or Sir Thomas, who has made
shipwreck of his fortune or his reputation or of both, consider
himself as having been destined to such disgrace by his godfathers and
godmothers when they gave him that name. The name is a good name. Any
one who has ever known Sir Thomas Acland may like it and love it for
his sake: and no wise man will think the worse of it for Tom Fool's.
No! the name Thomas is a good name, however it has been disparaged by
some of those persons who are known by it at this time. Though Bovius
chose to drop it and assume the name Zephiriel in its stead in honour
of his tutelary Angel, the change was not for the better, being indeed
only a manifestation of his own unsound state of mind. And though in
the reign of King James the First, Mr. William Shepherd of Towcester
christened his son by it for a reason savouring of disrespect, it is
not the worse for the whimsical consideration that induced him to fix
upon it. The boy was born on the never to be forgotten fifth of
November 1605, about the very hour when the Gunpowder Treason was to
have been consummated; and the father chose to have him called Thomas,
because he said this child if he lived to grow up would _hardly
believe_ that ever such wickedness could be attempted by the sons of
men.
It is recorded that a parrot which was seized by a kite and carried
into the air, escaped by exclaiming _Sancte Thoma adjuva me!_ for upon
that powerful appeal the kite relaxed his hold, and let loose the
intended victim. This may be believed, though it is among the miracles
of Thomas a Becket, to whom and not to the great schoolman of Aquino,
nor the Apostle of the East, the invocation was addressed. Has any
other human name ever wrought so remarkable a deliverance?
Has any other name made a greater noise in the world. Let Lincoln
tell, and Oxford; for although “_omnis clocha clochabilis in clocherio
clochando, clochans clochativo, clochare facit clochabiliter
clochantes,_” yet among them all, Master Janotus de Bragmardo would
have assigned pre-eminence to the mighty Toms.
The name then is sufficiently vindicated, even if any vindication were
needed, when the paramount merits of my claimant are considered.
Merry Andrew likewise should be presented to receive the same honour,
for sundry good reasons, and especially for this, that there is
already a Sir Sorry Andrew.
I should also recommend Tom Noddy, were it not for this consideration,
that the honour would probably soon be merged in an official
designation, and therefore lost upon him; for when a certain eminent
statesman shall be called from the Lower House, as needs he must ere
long, unless the party who keep moving and push him forward as their
leader, should before that time relieve him of his hereditary rights,
dignities, and privileges, no person can possibly be found so worthy
to succeed him in office and tread in his steps, as Tom Noddy.
Nor is Jack Pudding to be forgotten who is cousin-german to that merry
man Andrew! He moreover deserves it by virtue of his Puddingship; the
Puddings are of an ancient and good family: the Blacks in particular
boast of their blood.
Take reader this epigram of that cheerful and kind-hearted
schoolmaster Samuel Bishop of Merchant Taylors, written in his
vocation upon the theme _Aliusque et Idem_—
Five countries from five favorite dishes name
The popular stage buffoon's professional name.
Half fish himself, the Dutchman never erring
From native instinct, styles him _Pickle Herring_.
The German whose strong palate _haut-gouts_ fit,
Calls him _Hans Werst_, that is _John-Sausage-Wit_.
The Frenchman ever prone to _badinage_
Thinks of his soup, and shrugs, _Eh! voila Jean Potage!_
Full of ideas his sweet food supplies,
The Italian, _Ecco Macaroni!_ cries.
While English Taste, whose board with dumplin smokes,
Inspired by what it loves, applauds _Jack Pudding's_ jokes.
A charming bill of fare, you'll say, to suit
One dish, and that one dish a Fool, to boot!
“A learned man will have it,” says Fuller, “that Serapis is nothing
more than Apis with the addition of the Hebrew _Sar_, a Prince, whence
perchance our English Sir.” Odd, that the whole beast should have
obtained this title in Egypt, and a part of it in England. For we all
know that Loin of Beef has been knighted, and who is not pleased to
meet with him at dinner? and John Barleycorn has been knighted, and
who is not willing to pledge him in all companies in a glass?
But wherefore should I adduce precedents, as if in this age any regard
were paid to them in the distribution of honours, or there could be
any need of them in a case which may so well stand upon its own
merits.
CHAPTER CXIX.
THE DOCTOR IN HIS CURE. IRRELIGION THE REPROACH OF HIS PROFESSION.
Virtue, and that part of philosophy
Will I apply, that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
TAMING OF THE SHREW.
A practitioner of medicine possesses in what may be called his cure,
that knowledge of all who are under his care, which the parochial
priest used to possess in former times, and will it is to be hoped
regain whenever the most beneficial of all alterations shall be
effected in the Church Establishment, and no Clergyman shall have a
duty imposed upon him which it is impossible to fulfil,—impossible it
is, if his parishioners are numbered by thousands instead of hundreds.
In such cases one of two consequences must inevitably ensue. Either he
will confine himself to the formalities of his office, and because he
cannot by any exertions do what ought to be done, rest contented with
performing the perfunctory routine; or he will exert himself to the
utmost till his health, and perhaps his heart also, is broken in a
service which is too often found as thankless as it is hopeless.
Our Doctor was, among the poorer families in his cure, very much what
Herbert's Country Parson is imagined to be in his parish. There was
little pauperism there at that time; indeed none that existed in a
degree reproachful to humanity; or in that obtrusive and clamorous
form which at present in so many parts of this misgoverned country
insults and outrages and endangers society. The labourers were not so
ill paid as to be justly discontented with their lot; and he was not
in a manufacturing district. His profession led him among all classes;
and his temper as well as his education qualified him to sympathize
with all, and accommodate himself to each as far as such accommodation
was becoming. Yet he was every where the same man; he spoke the King's
English in one circle, and the King's Yorkshire in another; but this
was the only difference in his conversation with high and low. Before
the professors of his art indeed, in the exercise of their calling,
the distinctions of society disappear, and poor human nature is stript
to its humanities. Rank, and power, and riches,—these—
cannot take a passion away, Sir,
Nor cut a fit but one poor hour shorter.[1]
The most successful stock jobber, or manufacturer that ever counted
his wealth by hundreds of thousands—
must endure as much as the poorest beggar
That cannot change his money,—this is the equality
In our impartial essences![1]
Death is not a more inexorable leveller than his precursors age and
infirmity and sickness and pain.
[Footnote 1: BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.]
Hope and fear and grief and joy act with the same equitable disregard
of conventional distinctions. And though there is reason for
disbelieving that the beetle which we tread upon feels as much as a
human being suffers in being crushed, it is yet undoubtedly true that
except in those cases where individuals have so thoroughly corrupted
their feelings as to have thereby destroyed the instinctive sense of
right and wrong, making evil their good, what may be termed the
primitive affections exist in as much strength among the rudest as
among the most refined. They may be paralyzed by pauperism, they may
be rotted by the licentiousness of luxury; but there is no grade of
society in which they do not exhibit themselves in the highest degree.
Tragic poets have been attracted by the sufferings of the great, and
have laid the scene of their fables in the higher circles of life; yet
tragedy represents no examples more touching or more dreadful, for our
admiration or abhorrence, to thrill us with sympathy or with
indignation, than are continually occurring in all classes of society.
They who call themselves men of the world and pride themselves
accordingly upon their knowledge, are of all men those who know least
of human nature. It was well said by a French biographer, though not
well applied to the subject[2] of his biography, that _il avait pu,
dans la solitude, se former à l'amour du vrai et du juste, et même à
la connoissance de l'homme, si souvent et si mal à propos confondue
avec celle des hommes; c'est-à-dire, avec la petite experience des
intrigues mouvantes d'un petit nombre d'individus plus ou moins
accrédités et des habitudes etroites de leurs petites coteries. La
connoissance des hommes est à celle de l'homme ce qu'est l'intrigue
sociale à l'art social._
[Footnote 2: The ABBE SIEYES.]
Of those passions which are or deserve to be the subject of legal and
judicial tragedy, the lawyers necessarily see most, and for this
reason perhaps they think worse of human nature than any other class
of men, except the Roman Catholic Clergy. Physicians on the contrary,
though they see humanity in its most humiliating state, see it also in
the exercise of its holiest and most painful duties. No other persons
witness such deep emotions and such exertions of self-controul. They
know what virtues are developed by the evils which flesh is heir to,
what self-devotion, what patience, what fortitude, what piety, what
religious resignation.
Wherefore is it then that physicians have lain under the reproach of
irreligion, who of all men best know how fearfully and wonderfully we
are made, and who it might be thought would be rendered by the scenes
at which they are continually called upon to assist, of all men the
most religious? Sir Thomas Brown acknowledges that this was the
general scandal of his profession, and his commentator Sir Kenelm
Digby observes upon the passage, that “Physicians do commonly hear ill
in this behalf,” and that “it is a common speech (but,” he
parenthesizes, “only amongst the unlearned sort) _ubi tres medici duo
athei_.” Rabelais defines a Physician to be _animal incombustible
propter reliqionem_.
“As some mathematicians,” says an old Preacher, “deal so much in
Jacob's staff that they forget Jacob's ladder, so some Physicians (God
decrease the number!) are so deep naturalists that they are very
shallow Christians. With us, Grace waits at the heels of Nature, and
they dive so deep into the secrets of philosophy that they never look
up to the mysteries of Divinity.”
Old Adam Littleton who looked at every thing in its best light, took a
different view of the effect of medical studies, in his sermon upon
St. Luke's day. “His character of Physician,” said he, “certainly gave
him no mean advantage, not only in the exercise of his ministry by an
acceptable address and easy admission which men of that profession
every where find among persons of any civility; but even to his
understanding of Christian truths and to the apprehending the
mysteries of faith.
“For having as that study directed him, gone orderly over all the
links of that chain by which natural causes are mutually tied to one
another, till he found God the supreme cause and first mover at the
top; having traced the footsteps of Divine Goodness through all the
most minute productions of his handmaid Nature, and yet finding human
reason puzzled and at a loss in giving an account of his almighty
power and infinite wisdom in the least and meanest of his works; with
what pious humility must he needs entertain supernatural truths, when
upon trial he had found every the plainest thing in common nature
itself was mystery, and saw he had as much reason for his believing
these proposals of faith, as he had for trusting the operations of
sense, or the collections of reason itself.
“I know there is an unworthy reproach cast upon this excellent study
that it inclines men to atheism. 'Tis true the ignorance and
corruption of men that profess any of the three honourable faculties,
bring scandal upon the faculty itself. Again, sciolists and
half-witted men are those that discredit any science they meddle with.
But he that pretends to the noble skill of physic, and dares to deny
that which doth continually _incurrere in sensus_, that which in all
his researches and experiments he must meet with at every turn, I dare
to say he is no Physician; or at least that he doth at once give his
profession and his conscience too the lye.”
CHAPTER CXX.
EFFECT OF MEDICAL STUDIES ON DIFFERENT DISPOSITIONS. JEW PHYSICIANS,
ESTIMATION AND ODIUM IN WHICH THEY WERE HELD.
_Confiesso la digression; mas es facil al que no quisiere leerla,
passar al capitulo siguiente, y esta advertencia sirva de disculpa._
LUIS MUNOZ.
If the elder Daniel had thought that the moral feelings and religious
principles of his son were likely to be endangered by the study of
medicine, he would never have been induced to place him with a medical
practitioner. But it seemed to him, good man, that the more we study
the works of the Creator, the more we must perceive and feel his
wisdom and his power and his goodness. It was so in his own case, and
like Adam Littleton and all simple-hearted men, he judged of others by
himself.
Nevertheless that the practice of Physic, and still more of surgery,
should have an effect like that of war upon the persons engaged in it,
is what those who are well acquainted with human nature might expect,
and would be at no loss to account for. It is apparent that in all
these professions coarse minds must be rendered coarser, and hard
hearts still farther indurated; and that there is a large majority of
such minds and hearts in every profession, trade and calling, few who
have had any experience of the ways of the world can doubt. We need
not look farther for the immediate cause. Add to a depraved mind and
an unfeeling disposition, either a subtle intellect or a daring one,
and you have all the preparations for atheism that the Enemy could
desire.
But other causes may be found in the history of the medical profession
which was an art in the worst sense of the word, before it became a
science, and long after it pretended to be a science, was little
better than a craft. Among savages the sorcerer is always the
physician; and to this day superstitious remedies are in common use
among the ignorant in all countries. But wherever the practice is
connected with superstition as free scope is presented to wickedness
as to imagination; and there have been times in which it became
obnoxious to much obloquy, which on this score was well deserved.
Nothing exposed the Jews to more odium in ages when they were held
most odious, than the reputation which they possessed as physicians.
There is a remarkable instance of the esteem in which they were held
for their supposed superiority in this art as late as the middle of
the sixteenth century. Francis I. after a long illness in which he
found no benefit from his own physicians, dispatched a courier into
Spain, requesting Charles V. to send him the most skilful Jewish
practitioner in his dominions. This afforded matter for merriment to
the Spaniards; the Emperor however gave orders to make enquiry for
one, and when he could hear of none who would trust himself in that
character, he sent a New-Christian physician, with whom he supposed
Francis would be equally satisfied. But when this person arrived in
France, the King by way of familiar discourse sportively asked him if
he were not yet tired of expecting the Messiah? Such a question
produced from the new Convert a declaration that he was a Christian,
upon which the King dismissed him immediately without consulting him,
and sent forthwith to Constantinople for a Jew. The one who came found
it necessary to prescribe nothing more for his royal patient than
Asses milk.
This reputation in which their physicians were held was owing in great
measure to the same cause which gave them their superiority in trade.
The general celebrity which they had obtained in the dark ages, and
which is attested by Eastern tales as well as by European history,
implies that they had stores of knowledge which were not accessible to
other people. And indeed as they communicated with all parts of the
known world, and with parts of it which were unknown to the Christian
nations, they had means of obtaining the drugs of the East, and the
knowledge of what remedies were in use there, which was not of less
importance in an art, founded, as far as it was of any avail, wholly
upon experience. That knowledge they reserved to themselves, perhaps
as much with a view to national as to professional interests.
Nicolas Antonio sent to Bertolacci a manuscript entitled _Otzar
Haanijm_, that is, “the Treasure of the Poor,” written by a certain
Master Julian in the Portuguese language, but in rabbinical
characters. It was a collection of simple receipts for all diseases,
and appears to have been written thus that it might be serviceable to
those only who were acquainted with Hebrew. There was good policy in
this. A king's physician in those days was hardly a less important
person than a king's confessor; with many princes indeed he would be
the more influential of the two, as being the most useful, and
frequently the best informed; and in those times of fearful
insecurity, it might fall within his power, like Mordecai, to avert
some great calamity from his nation.
Among the articles which fantastic superstition, or theories not less
fantastic had introduced into the _materia medica_, there were some
which seemed more appropriate to the purposes of magic than of
medicine, and some of an atrocious kind. Human fat was used as an
unguent,—that of infants as a cosmetic. Romances mention baths of
children's blood; and there were times and countries in which such a
remedy was as likely to be prescribed, as imagined in fiction. It was
believed that deadly poisons might be extracted from the human
body;—and they who were wicked enough to administer the product, would
not be scrupulous concerning the means whereby it was procured. One
means indeed was by tormenting the living subject. To such practices
no doubt Harrison alludes when, speaking, in Elizabeth's reign, of
those who graduated in the professions of law or physic, he says, “one
thing only I mislike in them, and that is their usual going into
Italy, from whence very few without special grace do return good men,
whatever they pretend of conference or practice; chiefly the
physicians, who under pretence of seeking of foreign simples, do
oftentimes learn the framing of such compositions as were better
unknown than practised, as I have often heard alleged.” The suspicion
of such practices attached more to the Jewish than to any other
physicians, because of the hatred with which they were supposed to
regard all Christians, a feeling which the populace in every country,
and very frequently the Rulers also did every thing to deserve. The
general scandal of atheism lay against the profession; but to be a Jew
was in common opinion to be worse than an atheist, and calumnies were
raised against the Jew Physicians on the specific ground of their
religion, which, absurd and monstrous as they were, popular credulity
was ready to receive. One imputation was that they made it a point of
conscience to kill one patient in five, as a sacrifice of atonement
for the good which they had done to the other four. Another was that
the blood of a Christian infant was always administered to a Jewess in
child-bed, and was esteemed so necessary an ingredient in their
superstitious ceremonies or their medical practice at such times, that
they exported it in a dried and pulverized form to Mahommedan
countries, where it could not be obtained fresh.
There are some pages in Jackson's Treatise upon the Eternal Truth of
Scripture and Christian Belief, which occurring in a work of such
excellent worth, and coming from so profound and admirable a writer,
must be perused by every considerate reader with as much sorrow as
surprize. They show to what a degree the most judicious and charitable
mind may be deluded when seeking eagerly for proofs of a favorite
position or important doctrine, even though the position and the
doctrine should be certainly just. Forgetful of the excuse which he
has himself suggested for the unbelief of the Jews since the
destruction of Jerusalem, saying, with equal truth and felicity of
expression, that “their stubborness is but a strong hope malignified,
or, as we say, grown wild and out of kind,” he gives credit to the old
atrocious tales of their crucifying Christian children, and finds in
them an argument for confirming our faith at which the most
iron-hearted supralapsarian might shudder. For one who passes much of
his time with books, and with whom the dead are as it were living and
conversing, it is almost as painful to meet in an author whom he
reveres and loves, with anything which shocks his understanding and
disturbs his moral sense, as it is to perceive the faults of a dear
friend. When we discover aberrations of this kind in such men, it
should teach us caution for ourselves as well as tolerance for others;
and thus we may derive some benefit even from the errors of the wise
and good.
That the primitive Christians should have regarded the Jews with
hostile feelings as their first persecutors, was but natural, and that
that feeling should have been aggravated by a just and religious
horror for the crime which has drawn upon this unhappy nation it's
abiding punishment. But it is indeed strange that during so many
centuries this enmity should have continued to exist, and that no
sense of compassion should have mitigated it. For the Jews to have
inherited the curse of their fathers was in the apprehension of
ordinary minds to inherit their guilt; and the cruelties which man
inflicted upon them were interpreted as proofs of the continued wrath
of Heaven, so that the very injuries and sufferings which in any other
case would have excited commiseration, served in this to close the
heart against it. Being looked upon as God's outlaws, they were
everywhere placed as it were under the ban of humanity. And while
these heart-hardening prepossessions subsisted against them in full
force, the very advantages of which they were in possession rendered
them more especial objects of envy, suspicion and popular hatred. In
times when literature had gone to decay throughout all Christendom,
the Jews had not partaken of the general degradation. They had Moses
and the Prophets whose everlasting lamps were kept trimmed amongst
them, and burning clearly through the dark when the light of the
Gospel had grown dim in the socket, and Monkery and Popery had well
nigh extinguished it. They possessed a knowledge of distant countries
which was confined to themselves; for being dispersed every where,
they travelled every where with the advantage of a language which was
spoken by the Children of Israel wherever they were found, and nowhere
by any other people. As merchants therefore and as statesmen they had
opportunities peculiar to themselves. In both capacities those Princes
who had any sense of policy found them eminently useful. But wealth
made them envied, and the way in which they increased it by lending
money made them odious in ages when to take any interest was accounted
usury. That odium was aggravated whenever they were employed in
raising taxes; and as they could not escape odium, they seem sometimes
to have braved it in despite or in despair, and to have practised
extortion if not in defiance of public opinion, at least as a species
of retaliation for the exactions which they themselves endured, and
the frauds which unprincipled debtors were always endeavouring to
practise upon them.
But as has already been observed, nothing exposed them to greater
obloquy than the general opinion which was entertained of their skill
in medicine, and of the flagitious practices with which it was
accompanied. The conduct of the Romish Church tended to strengthen
that obloquy, even when it did not directly accredit the calumnies
which exasperated it. Several Councils denounced excommunication
against any persons who should place themselves under the care of a
Jewish Physician, for it was pernicious and scandalous they said, that
Christians who ought to despise and hold in horror the enemies of
their holy religion, should have recourse to them for remedies in
sickness. They affirmed that medicines administered by such impious
hands became hurtful instead of helpful; and moreover that the
familiarity thus produced between a Jewish practitioner and a
Christian family, gave occasion to great evil and to many crimes. The
decree of the Lateran Council by which physicians were enjoined under
heavy penalties to require that their patients should confess and
communicate before they administered any medicines to them, seems to
have been designed as much against Jewish practitioners as heretical
patients. The Jews on their part were not more charitable when they
could express their feelings with safety. It appears in their own
books that a physician was forbidden by the Rabbis to attend upon
either a Christian or Gentile, unless he dared not refuse; under
compulsion it was lawful, but he was required to demand payment for
his services, and never to attend any such patients gratuitously.
CHAPTER CXXI.
WHEREIN IT APPEARS THAT SANCHO's PHYSICIAN AT BARATARIA ACTED
ACCORDING TO PRECEDENTS AND PRESCRIBED LAWS.
_Lettor, tu vedi ben com' io innalzo
La mia materia, e però con piu arte
Non ti maravigliar s' i' la rincalzo._
DANTE.
But the practice both of medicine and of surgery, whatever might be
the religion of the practitioner, was obnoxious to suspicions for
which the manners of antiquity, of the dark ages and of every
corrupted society gave but too much cause. It was a power that could
be exercised for evil as well as for good.
One of the most detestable acts recorded in ancient history is that of
the Syrian usurper Tryphon, who when he thought it expedient to make
away with young Antiochus the heir to the kingdom, delivered him into
a surgeon's hands to be cut for the stone, that he might in that
manner be put to death. It is a disgraceful fact that the most ancient
operation known to have been used in surgery, is that abominable one
which to the reproach of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities is
still practised in Italy.
Physicians were not supposed to be more scrupulous than surgeons. The
most famous and learned Doctor Christopher Wirtzung, whose General
Practice of Physic was translated from German into English at the
latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign by his countryman Jacob Mosan,
Doctor in the same faculty, has this remarkable section in his work:
“Ancient Physicians were wont to have an old proverb, and to say that
Venom is so proud that it dwelleth commonly in gold and silver;
whereby they meant that great personages that eat and drink out of
gold and silver, are in greater danger to be poisoned than the common
people that do eat and drink out of earthen dishes.” Christopher
Wirtzung might have quoted Juvenal here;
_Nulla aconita bibuntur
Fictilibus. Tunc illa time, cum pocula sumes
Gemmata, et lato Setinum ardebit in auro._
“Wherefore,” proceeds the German Doctor, “must such high personages
that are afraid to be poisoned, diligently take heed of the meat and
drink that they eat, and that are drest of divers things. Also they
must not take too much of all sweet, salt and sour drinks; and they
must not eat too eagerly, nor too hastily; and they must at all times
have great regard of the first taste of their meat and drink. But the
most surest way is, that before the mealtide he take somewhat that may
resist venom, as figs, rue, or nuts, each by himself, or tempered
together. The citrons, rape-seed, nepe, or any of those that are
described before, the weight of a drachm taken with wine, now one and
then another, is very much commended. Sometimes also two figs with a
little salt, then again mithridate or treacle, and such like more may
be used before the mealtide.”
“It is a matter of much difficulty,” says Ambrose Paré, “to avoid
poisons, because such as at this time temper them are so thoroughly
prepared for deceit and mischief that they will deceive even the most
wary and quick-sighted; for they so qualify the ingrate taste and
smell by the admixture of sweet and well-smelling things that they
cannot easily be perceived even by the skilful. Therefore such as fear
poisoning ought to take heed of meats cooked with much art, very
sweet, salt, sour, or notably endued with any other taste. And when
they are opprest with hunger or thirst, they must not eat nor drink
too greedily, but have a diligent regard to the taste of such things
as they eat or drink. Besides, before meat let them take such things
as may weaken the strength of the poisons, such as is the fat broth of
good nourishing flesh-meats. In the morning let them arm themselves
with treacle or mithridate, and conserve of roses, or the leaves of
rue, a walnut and dry figs: besides let him presently drink a little
draught of muscadine, or some other good wine.”
How frequent the crime of poisoning had become in the dark ages
appears by the old laws of almost every European people, in some of
which indeed its frequency, “_proh dolor_,” is alleged as a reason for
enacting statutes against it. And whilst in the empire the capital
sentence might be compounded for, like other cases of homicide, by a
stated compensation to the representatives of the deceased, no such
redemption was allowed among the Wisi-Goths, but the poisoner, whether
freeman or slave, was to suffer the most ignominious death. In the
lower ranks of life men were thought to be in most danger of being
thus made away with by their wives, in the higher by their Physicians
and their cooks.
There are two curious sections upon this subject in the Laws of
Alphonso the Wise, the one entitled _Quáles deben ser los fisicos del
Rey, et qué es lo que deben facer_;—What the Physicians of a King
ought to be, and what it is they ought to do:—the other, _Quáles deben
ser los oficiales del Rey que le han de servir en su comer et en su
beber_: What the officers of a King ought to be who minister to him at
his eating and at his drinking.
“Physic,” says the royal author, “according as the wise antients have
shown, is as much as to say the knowledge of understanding things
according to nature, what they are in themselves, and what effect each
produces upon other things; and therefore they who understand this
well, can do much good, and remove many evils; especially by
preserving life and keeping men in health, averting from them the
infirmities whereby they suffer great misery, or are brought to death.
And they who do this are called Physicians, who not only must
endeavour to deliver men from their maladies, but also to preserve
their health in such manner that they may not become sick; wherefore
it is necessary that those whom the King has with him should be right
good. And as Aristotle said to Alexander, four things are required in
them,—first that they should be knowing in their art; secondly, that
they should be well approved in it; thirdly, that they should be
skilled in the cases which may occur; fourthly, that they should be
right loyal and true. For if they are not knowing in their art, they
will not know how to distinguish diseases; and if they are not well
approved in it, they will not be able to give such certain advice,
which is a thing from whence great hurt arises; and if they are not
skilful, they will not be able to act in cases of great danger when
such may happen; and if they are not loyal, they can commit greater
treasons than other men, because they can commit them covertly. And
when the King shall have Physicians in whom these four aforesaid
things are found, and who use them well, he ought to do them much
honour and much good; and if peradventure they should act otherwise
knowingly, they commit known treason, and deserve such punishment as
men who treacherously kill others that have confided in them.
“Regiment also in eating and drinking is a thing without which the
body cannot be maintained, and therefore the officers who have to
minister to the King or others, have no less place than those of whom
we have spoken above, as to the preservation of his life and his
health. For albeit the Physicians should do all their endeavours to
preserve him, they will not be able to do it if he who prepares his
food for him should not chuse to take the same care; we say the same
also of those who serve him with bread, and wine, and fruit, and all
other things of which he has to eat, or drink. And according as
Aristotle said to Alexander, in these officers seven things are
required: first, that they be of good lineage, for if they be, they
will always take heed of doing things which would be ill for them;
secondly, that they be loyal, for if they be not so, great danger
might come to the King from them; thirdly, that they be skilful, so
that they may know how to do those things well which appertain to
their offices: fourthly, that they be of good understanding, so that
they may know how to comprehend the good which the King may do them,
and that they be not puffed up, nor become insolent because of their
good fortune; fifthly, that they be not over covetous, for great
covetousness is the root of all evil; sixthly, that they be not
envious in evil envy, lest if they should be, they might haply be
moved thereby to commit some wrong; seventhly, that they be not much
given to anger, for it is a thing which makes a man beside himself,
and this is unseemly in those who hold such offices. And also besides
all those things which we have specified, it behoveth them greatly
that they be debonair and clean, so that what they have to prepare for
the King, whether to eat or drink, may be well prepared; and that they
serve it to him cleanlily, for if it be clean he will be pleased with
it, and if it be well prepared he will savour it the better, and it
will do him the more good. And when the King shall have such men as
these in these offices, he ought to love them, and to do them good and
honour; and if peradventure he should find that any one offends in not
doing his office loyally, so that hurt might come thereof to the
person of the King, he ought to punish him both in his body and in his
goods, as a man who doth one of the greatest treasons that can be.”
The fear in which the Princes of more barbarous states lived in those
ages is no where so fully declared as in the Palace-laws compiled by
that King of Majorca who was slain at the battle of Cressy, from which
laws those of his kinsman Pedro the Ceremonious of Arragon, who drove
him from his kingdom, were chiefly taken. His butler, his under
butler, his major domo, and his cooks were to swear fealty and homage,
_quia tam propter nefandissimam infidelitatem aliquorum ministrorum,
quam ipsorum negligentiam, quæ est totius boni inimica, quâ
ministrante omittuntur præcavenda, audivimus pluries tam Regibus quam
aliis Principibus maxima pericula evenisse, quod est plus quam summe
abhorrendum._ No stranger might approach the place where any food for
the King's table was prepared or kept; and all the cooks purveyors and
sub-purveyors, and the major domo, and the chamberlain were to taste
of every dish which was served up to him. The noble who ministered to
him when he washed at table was to taste the water, and the barber who
washed his head was to do the like; for great as the King was, being
mindful that he was still but a man, he acknowledged it necessary that
he should have a barber, _pro humanis necessitatibus, quibus natura
hominum quantâcunque fretum potentiâ nullum fecit expertem, etiam nos
Barbitonsorum officio indigemus._ His taylor was to work in a place
where no suspicious people could have access; and whatever linen was
used for his bed, or board, or more especially for his apparel, was to
be washed in a secret place, and by none but known persons. The Chief
Physician was to taste all the medicines that he administered. Every
morning he was to inspect the royal urinal, and if he perceived any
thing amiss prescribe accordingly. He was to attend at table, caution
the King against eating of any thing that might prove hurtful, and if
notwithstanding all precautions poison should be administered, he was
to have his remedies at hand.
By the Chinese laws if either the superintending or dispensing
officer, or the cook introduces into the Emperor's kitchen any unusual
drug, or article of food, he is to be punished with an hundred blows,
and compelled to swallow the same.
CHAPTER CXXII.
A CHAPTER WHEREIN STUDENTS IN SURGERY MAY FIND SOME FACTS WHICH WERE
NEW TO THEM IN THE HISTORY OF THEIR OWN PROFESSION.
If I have more to spin
The wheel shall go.
HERBERT.
Another reproach to which the medical profession was exposed arose
from the preparatory studies which it required. The natural but
unreflecting sentiment of horror with which anatomy is everywhere
regarded by the populace, was unfortunately sanctioned by the highest
authorities of the Roman Church. Absolutely necessary for the general
good as that branch of science indisputably is, it was reprobated by
some of the Fathers in the strongest and most unqualified terms; they
called it butchering the bodies of the dead; and all persons who
should disinter a corpse for this purpose, were excommunicated by a
decree of Boniface the 8th, wherein the science itself was pronounced
abominable both in the eyes of God and man. In addition to this cause
of obloquy, there was a notion that cruel experiments, such as are now
made upon animals, and too often unnecessarily, and therefore wickedly
repeated, were sometimes performed upon living men. The Egyptian
Physician who is believed first to have taught that the nerves are the
organs of sensation, is said to have made the discovery by dissecting
criminals alive. The fact is not merely stated by Celsus, but
justified by him. Deducing its justification as a consequence from the
not-to-be disputed assertion _cum in interioribus partibus et dolores,
et morborum varia genera nascantur, neminem his adhibere posse
remedia, quæ ipse ignoret:—necessarium ergo esse,_ he proceeds to say,
_incidere corpora mortuorum, eorumque viscera atque intestina
scrutari._ LONGEQUE OPTIME FECISSE _Herophilum et Erasistratum, qui
nocentes homines à regibus ex carcere acceptos,_ VIVOS INCIDERINT;
_considerarintque,_ ETIAM SPIRATU MANENTE, _ea quæ natura antea
clausisset, eorumque posituram, colorem, figuram, magnitudinem,
ordinem, duritiem, mollitiem, lævorem, contactum; processus deinde
singulorum et recessus; et sive quid inseritur alteri, sive quid
partem alterius in se recipit._ As late as the sixteenth century
surgeons were wont to beg (as it was called) condemned malefactors,
whom they professed to put to death in their own way, by opium before
they opened them. It might well be suspected that these disciples of
Celsus were not more scrupulous than their master; and they who thus
took upon themselves the business of an executioner, had no reason to
complain if they shared in the reproach attached to his infamous
office.
A French author[1] of the sixteenth century says that the Physicians
at Montpelier, which was then a great school of medicine, had every
year two criminals, the one living, the other dead, delivered to them
for dissection. He relates that on one occasion they tried what effect
the mere expectation of death would produce upon a subject in perfect
health, and in order to this experiment they told the gentleman (for
such was his rank) who was placed at their discretion, that, as the
easiest mode of taking away his life, they would employ the means
which Seneca had chosen for himself, and would therefore open his
veins in warm water. Accordingly they covered his face, pinched his
feet without lancing them, and set them in a foot-bath, and then spoke
to each other as if they saw that the blood were flowing freely, and
life departing with it. The man remained motionless, and when after a
while they uncovered his face they found him dead.
[Footnote 1: BOUCHET.]
It would be weakness or folly to deny that dangerous experiments for
the promotion of medical or surgical practice may, without breach of
any moral law, or any compunctious feeling, be tried upon criminals
whose lives are justly forfeited. The Laureate has somewhere in his
farraginous notes _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_, produced a
story of certain Polish physicians who obtained permission to put on
the head of a criminal as soon as it had been cut off, and an
assurance of his pardon if they should succeed in reuniting it. There
is nothing to be objected to such an experiment, except its utter
unreasonableness.
When it was necessary that what was at that time a most difficult and
dangerous surgical operation should be performed upon Louis XIV,
enquiry was made for men afflicted with the same disease, they were
conveyed to the house of the minister Louvois, and there in presence
of the King's physician Fagon, Felix the chief surgeon operated upon
them. Most of these patients died; they were interred by night, but
notwithstanding all precautions it was observed that dead bodies were
secretly carried from that house, and rumours got abroad that a
conspiracy had been discovered, that suspected persons had been
brought before the minister and had either died under the question or
been made away with by poison under his roof. The motive for this
secresy was that the King might be saved from that anxiety which the
knowledge of what was going on must have excited in him. In
consequence of these experiments, Felix invented new instruments which
he tried at the Hotel des Invalides, and when he had succeeded with
them the result was communicated to the King, who submitted to the
operation with characteristic fortitude. The surgeon performed it
firmly and successfully; but the agitation which he had long struggled
against and suppressed, produced then a general tremour from which he
never recovered. The next day, in bleeding one of his own friends he
maimed him for life.
This was a case in which the most conscientious practitioner would
have felt no misgiving; there was no intentional sacrifice of life, or
infliction of unnecessary suffering. So too when inoculation for the
small-pox was introduced into this country; some condemned criminals
gladly consented to be inoculated instead of hanged, and saved their
lives by the exchange.
It is within the memory of some old members of the profession, that a
man was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, who had a wen upon his
throat weighing between thirty and forty pounds. To hang him was
impossible without circumstances of such revolting cruelty as would,
even at that time, have provoked a general outcry of indignation. The
case found its way from the lawyers to the surgeons; the latter
obtained his pardon, and took off the tumour. John Hunter was the
operator; the man, his offence not having been of a very heinous kind,
though the indiscriminating laws made it at that time capital, was
taken into his service, and used to show his own wen in his master's
museum; it was the largest from which any person had ever been
relieved. The fate of the poor Chinese who underwent a similar
operation in London with a different result, is fresh in remembrance
and will long be remembered. The operation was made a public
exhibition for medical students, instead of being performed with all
circumstances that could tend to soothe the patient; and to the
consequent heat of a crowded room, and partly perhaps to the
excitement which such an assemblage occasioned in the object of their
curiosity, the fatal termination was with too much probability
imputed. We may be sure that no such hazardous operation will ever
again be performed in this country in the same public manner.
The remarks which were called forth on that occasion are proofs of the
great improvement in general feeling upon such points, that has taken
place in modern times. In the reign of Louis XI. a franc-archer of
Meudon was condemned to be hanged for robbery and sacrilege; he
appealed to the Court of Parliament, but that Court confirmed the
sentence, and remanded him to the Provost of Paris for execution. The
appeal however seems to have brought the man into notice, and as he
happened to afford a surgical case as well as a criminal one, the
surgeons and physicians of the French capital petitioned the King for
leave to operate upon him. They represented that many persons were
afflicted with the stone and other internal disorders; that the case
of this criminal resembled that of the Sieur de Bouchage who was then
lying dangerously ill; it was much to be desired for his sake that the
inside of a living man should be inspected, and no better subject
could have occurred than this franc-archer who was under sentence of
death. This application was made at the instance of Germaine Colot, a
practitioner who had learned his art under one of the Norsini, a
Milanese family of itinerant surgeons, celebrated during several
generations for their skill in lithotomy. Whether the criminal had his
option of being hanged, or opened alive, is not stated; but Monstrelet
by whom the fact is recorded, says that permission was granted, that
the surgeons and physicians opened him, inspected his bowels, replaced
them, and then sewed him up; that the utmost care was taken of him by
the King's orders, that in the course of fifteen days he was perfectly
cured, and that he was not only pardoned but had a sum of money given
him. To such means were the members of this profession driven, because
anatomy was virtually if not formally prohibited.
A much worse example occurred when the French King Henry II. was
mortally wounded in tilting with Montgomery. It is stated by most
historians that a splinter from Montgomery's spear entered the King's
visor and pierced his eye; but Vincent Carloix, who probably was
present, and if not, had certainly the best means of information,
shows that this is altogether an erroneous statement. He says that
when the Scot had broken his spear upon the King, instead of
immediately throwing away the truncheon, as he ought to have done, he
rode on holding it couched; the consequence of this inadvertence was
that it struck the King's visor, forced it up, and ran into his eye.
His words are these, _ayans tous deux fort valeureusement couru et
rompu d'une grande dexterité et adresse leurs lances, ce mal-habile
Lorges ne jecta pas, selon l'ordinaire coustume, le trousse qui
demoura en la main la lance rompue; mais le porta tousjours baissé, et
en courant, rencontra la teste du Roy, du quel il donna droit dedans
la visiere qui le coup haulsa, et luy creva un œil._
The accuracy of this account happens to be of some importance, because
the course which the King's surgeons pursued in consequence
illustrates the state of surgery at that time, and of manners and laws
also; for with the hope of ascertaining in what direction the broken
truncheon had entered the brain and how they might best proceed to
extract the splinters, they cut off the heads of four criminals, and
drove broken truncheons into them, as nearly as they could judge at
the same inclination, and then opened the heads. But after these
lessons, five or six of the most expert surgeons in France were as
much at a loss as before.
It was well that there were criminals ready upon the occasion,
otherwise perhaps, in the then temper of the French Court, the first
Huguenots who came to hand might have been made to serve the turn. And
it was well for the subjects that it was not thought advisable to
practise upon them alive; for no scruples would have been entertained
upon the score of humanity. When Philip Von Huten, whom the Spanish
writers call Felipe de Utre, made his expedition from Venezuela in
search of the Omeguas, an Indian wounded him with a spear, under the
right arm, through the ribs. One Diego de Montes, who was neither
surgeon nor physician, undertook to treat the wound, because there was
no person in the party better qualified to attempt it. A life was to
be sacrificed for his instruction, and accordingly a friendly Cacique
placed the oldest Indian in the village at his disposal. This poor
creature was drest in Von Huten's coat of mail (_sayo o escaulpil_)
and set on horseback; Montes then ran a spear into him through the
hole in this armour, after which he opened him, and found that the
integuments of the heart had not been touched, this being what he
wished to ascertain. The Indian died; but Von Huten's wound was opened
and cleansed in full reliance upon the knowledge thus obtained, and he
recovered.
CHAPTER CXXIII.
SOME ALLUSION TO, AND SOME USE OF THE FIGURE OF SPEECH CALLED
PARENTHESIS.
_J'ecrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre, et non pas peut-être dans une
confusion sans dessein; c'est le veritable ordre, et qui marquera
toujours mon objet par le desordre même._
Pascal.
Gentle reader,—and if gentle, good reader,—and if good, patient
reader; for if not gentle, then not good; and if not good, then not
gentle; and neither good nor gentle, if not patient;—dear reader, who
art happily for thyself all three, it is, I know, not less with thy
good will than with my own, that I proceed with this part of my
subject. _Quelle matiére que je traite avec vous, c'est toujours un
plaisir pour moi._[1] You will say to me “amuse yourself (and me) in
your own way; ride your own round-about, so you do but come to the
right point at last.”[2] To that point you are well assured that all
my round-abouts tend; and my care must be to eschew the error of that
author, engineer, statesman, or adventurer of any kind,
Which of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.[3]
[Footnote 1: MADAME DE MAINTENON.]
[Footnote 2: CUMBERLAND.]
[Footnote 3: SHAKESPEAR.]
Lady Hester Stanhope had an English Physician with her in Syria who,
if he be living, can bear testimony that her Ladyship did not commit
this fault, when she superintended the cutting out of his scarlet
galligaskins. Neither will I commit it.
You indeed, dear reader, would express no displeasure if, instead of
proceeding in the straight line of my purpose, I should sometimes find
it expedient to retrograde; or, borrowing a word of barbarous Latin
coined in the musician's mint, _cancrizare_, which may be rendered to
crab-grade. For as Roger North says, when, at the commencement of his
incomparable account of his brother the Lord Keeper's life, he
confesses that it would be hard to lead a thread in good order of time
through it—“there are many and various incidents to be remembered,
which will interfere, and make it necessary to step back sometimes,
and then again forwards;—and in this manner I hope to evacuate my mind
of every matter and thing I know and can remember materially
concerning him. And if some things are set down which many may think
too trivial, let it be considered that the smallest incidents are
often as useful to be known, though not so diverting, as the greater,
and profit must always share with entertainment.”
I am not however side-ling toward my object crab-like; still less am I
starting back from it, like a lobster, whose spring upon any alarm is
stern-foremost: nor am I going I know not where, like the three
Princes Zoile, Bariandel and Lyriamandre, when, having taken leave of
Olivier King of England, to go in search of Rosicler, they took ship
at London _sans dessein d'aller plustôt en un lieu qu'en un autre_.
Nor like the more famous Prince Don Florisel and Don Falanges, when
having gone on board a small vessel, _y mandada por ellos en lo alto
de la mar meter, hazen con los marineros que no hagan otro camino mas
de aquel que la nao movido por la fuerza de los ayres, quisiesse
hazer, queriendo yr a buscar con la aventura lo que a ella hallar se
permitia segun la poca certinidad que para la demanda podian llevar._
I should say falsely were I to say with Petrarch,
_Vommene in guiza d'orbo senza luce,
Che non sa ove si vada, e pur si parte._
But I may say with the Doctor's name-sake Daniel de Bosola in
Webster's tragedy,[4] “I look no higher than I can reach: they are the
gods that must ride on winged horses. A lawyer's mule, of a slow pace,
will both suit my disposition and business: for mark me, when a man's
mind rides faster than his horse can gallop, they quickly both
tire.”—Moreover
———This I hold
A secret worth its weight in gold
To those who write as I write now,
Not to mind where they go, or how,
Thro' ditch, thro' bog, o'er hedge and stile,
Make it but worth the reader's while,
And keep a passage fair and plain
Always to bring him back again.[5]
[Footnote 4: DUCHESS OF MALFI.]
[Footnote 5: CHURCHILL.]
“You may run from major to minor,” says Mrs. Bray in one of her
letters to Dr. Southey, “and through a thousand changes, so long as
you fall into the subject at last, and bring back the ear to the right
key at the close.”
Where we are at this present reading, the attentive reader cannot but
know; and if the careless one has lost himself, it is his fault, not
mine. We are in the parenthesis between the Doctor's courtship and his
marriage. Life has been called a parenthesis between our birth and
death; the history of the human race is but a parenthesis between two
cataclasms of the globe which it inhabits; time itself only a
parenthesis in eternity. The interval here, as might be expected after
so summary a wooing, was not long; no settlements being required, and
little preparation. But it is not equally necessary for me to fix the
chapter, as it was for them to fix the day.
Montaigne tells us that he liked better to forge his mind than to
furnish it. I have a great liking for old Michel, Seigneur de
Montaigne, which the well-read reader may have perceived;—who indeed
has ever made his acquaintance without liking him? I have moreover
some sympathies with him; but upon this point we differ. It is more
agreeable to me to furnish than to forge,—intellectually speaking, to
lay in than to lay out;—to eat than to digest. There is however
(following the last similitude) an intermediate process enjoyed by the
flocks and herds, but denied to Aldermen; that process affords so apt
a metaphor for an operation of the mind, that the word denoting it has
passed into common parlance in its metaphorical acceptation, and its
original meaning is not always known to those who use it.
It is a pleasure to see the quiet full contentment which is manifested
both in the posture and look of animals when they are chewing the cud.
The nearest approach which humanity makes toward a similar state of
feeling, seems to be in smoking, when the smoker has any intellectual
cud on which to chew. But ruminating is no wholesome habit for man,
who, if he be good for any thing, is born as surely to action as to
trouble;—it is akin to the habit of indulging in day dreams, which is
to be eschewed by every one who tenders his or her own welfare.
There is however a time for every thing. And though neither the Doctor
nor Deborah had thought of each other in the relation of husband and
wife, before the proposal was made, and the silent assent given, they
could not chuse but ruminate upon the future as well as the past,
during the parenthesis that ensued. And though both parties
deliberately approved of what had been suddenly determined, the
parenthesis was an uneasy time for both.
The commentators tell us that readers have found some difficulty in
understanding what was Shakespear's meaning when he made Macbeth say
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
Johnson says he never found them agreeing upon it. Most persons
however are agreed in thinking, that when anything disagreeable must
be done, the sooner it is done the better. Who but a child ever holds
a dose of physic in his hand,—rhubarb to wit,—or Epsom salts—delaying
as long as possible to take the nauseous draught? Who ever, when he is
ready for the plunge, stands lingering upon the side of the river, or
the brink of the cold bath?—Who that has entered a shower-bath and
closed the door, ever hesitates for a moment to pull the string? It
was upon a false notion of humanity that the House of Commons
proceeded, when it prolonged the interval between the sentence of a
murderer and the execution. The merciful course in all cases would be,
that execution should follow upon the sentence with the least possible
delay.
“Heaven help the man, says a goodnatured and comely reader who has a
ring on the fourth finger of her left hand,—Heaven help the man! Does
he compare marriage to hanging, to a dose of physic, and to a plunge
over head and ears in cold water?” No madam, not he: he makes no such
unseemly comparisons. He only means to say that when any great change
is about to take place in our circumstances and way of life,—any thing
that is looked on to with anxiety and restlessness, any thing that
occasions a yeasty sensation about the pericardium,—every one who is
in that state wishes that the stage of fermentation were past,—that
the transition were over.
I have said that little preparation was needed for a marriage which
gave little employment to the upholsterers, less to the dress-makers,
and none to the lawyers. Yet there was something to be done. Some part
of the furniture was to be furbished, some to be renewed, and some to
be added. The house required papering and painting, and would not be
comfortably habitable while the smell of the paint overpowered or
mingled with the odour of the shop. Here then was a cause of
unavoidable delay; and time which is necessarily employed, may be said
to be well employed, though it may not be upon the business which we
have most at heart. If there be an impatient reader, that is to say an
unreasonable one, who complains that instead of passing rapidly over
this interval or parenthesis (as aforesaid), I proceed in such a
manner with the relation, that many of my chapters are as
parenthetical as the Euterpe of Herodotus, which whole book as the
present Bishop Butler used to say, is one long parenthesis, and the
longest that ever was written;—if, I say, there be so censorious a
reader, I shall neither contradict him, nor defend myself, nor yet
plead guilty to the fault of which he accuses me. But I will tell him
what passed on a certain occasion, between Doctor, afterwards
Archbishop, Sharp, when he was Rector of St. Giles's, and the Lord
Chancellor Jefferies.
In the year 1686 Dr. Sharp preached a sermon wherein he drew some
conclusions against the Church of Rome, to show the vanity of her
pretensions in engrossing the name of Catholic to herself. The sermon
was complained of to James II, and the Lord Chancellor Jefferies was
directed to send for the preacher, and acquaint him with the King's
displeasure. Dr. Sharp accordingly waited upon his Lordship with the
notes of his sermon, and read it over to him. “Whether,” says his son,
“the Doctor did this for his own justification, and to satisfy his
Lordship that he had been misrepresented, or whether my Lord ordered
him to bring his sermon and repeat it before him, is not certain; but
the latter seems most probable: because Dr. Sharp afterwards
understood that his Lordship's design in sending for him and
discoursing with him, was, that he might tell the King that he had
reprimanded the Doctor, and that he was sorry for having given
occasion of offence to his Majesty, hoping by this means to release
Dr. Sharp from any further trouble. However it was, his Lordship took
upon him, while the Doctor was reading over his sermon, to chide him
for several passages which the Doctor thought gave no occasion for
chiding; and he desired his Lordship when he objected to these less
obnoxious passages, to be patient, for there was a great deal worse
yet to come.”
The sermon nevertheless was a good sermon, as temperate as it was
properly timed, and the circumstance was as important in English
history, as the anecdote is pertinent in this place. For that sermon
gave rise to the Ecclesiastical Commission, which, in its
consequences, produced, within two years, the Revolution.
CHAPTER CXXIV.
THE AUTHOR MORALIZES UPON THE VANITY OF FAME; AND WISHES THAT HE HAD
BOSWELLIZED WHILE IT WAS IN HIS POWER TO HAVE DONE SO.
_Mucho tengo que llorar,
Mucho tengo que reir._
GONGORA.
It is a melancholy consideration that Fame is as unjust as Fortune. To
Fortune indeed injustice ought not to be imputed, for Fortune is
blind, and disposes of her favours at random. But Fame with all her
eyes and ears and tongues, overlooks more than she perceives, and sees
things often in a wrong light, and hears and reports as many
falsehoods as truths.
We need not regret that the warriors who lived before Agamemnon should
be forgotten, for the world would have been no worse if many of those
who lived after him had been forgotten in like manner. But the wise
also perish, and leave no memorial. What do we know of “Ethan the
Ezrahite, and Heman and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol,” whom
it was accounted an honour for Solomon to have excelled in wisdom?
Where is now the knowledge for which Gwalchmai ab Gwyar, and Llechau
ab Arthur, and Rhiwallawn Wallt Banadlen were leashed in a Triad as
the three Physiologists or Philosophers of the Isle of Britain;
because “there was nothing of which they did not know its material
essence, and its properties, whether of kind, or of part, or of
quality, or of compound, or of coincidence, or of tendency, or of
nature, or of essence, whatever it might be?” Where is their
knowledge? where their renown? They are now “merely _nuda nomina_,
naked names!” “For there is no remembrance of the wise, more than of
the fool for ever; seeing that which now is, in the days to come shall
all be forgotten!”
——If our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not.[1]
The Seven Wise Men have left almost as little as the Sybils.
[Footnote 1: SHAKESPEAR.]
“What satisfaction,” says Sir John Hawkins, “does the mind receive
from the recital of the names of those who are said to have increased
the chords of the primitive lyre from four to seven, Chorebus,
Hyagius, and Terpander? Or when we are told that Olympus invented the
enarmonic genus, as also the Harmatian mood? Or that Eumolpus and
Melampus were excellent musicians, and Pronomus, Antigenides and Lamia
celebrated players on the flute? In all these instances, where there
are no circumstances that constitute a character, and familiarize to
us the person spoken of, we naturally enquire who he is, and for want
of farther information become indifferent as to what is recorded of
him.” The same most learned and judicious historian of his favourite
art, laments that most of the many excellent musicians who flourished
in the ages preceding our own, are all but utterly forgotten. “Of
Tye,” he says, “of Redford, Shephard, Douland, Weelkes, Welbye, Est,
Bateson, Hilton and Brewer, we know little more than their names.
These men composed volumes which are now dispersed and irretrievably
lost; yet did their compositions suggest those ideas of the power and
efficacy of music, and those descriptions of its manifold charms, that
occur in the verses of our best poets.”
Is there one of my Readers in a thousand who knows that Philistes was
a Greco-Phœnician, or Phœnico-Grecian Queen of Malta and Gozo, before
the Carthaginians obtained the dominion of those islands, in which
their language continues living, though corrupted, to this day?—Are
there ten men in Cornwall who know that Medacritus was the name of the
first man who carried tin from that part of the world?
What but his name is now known of Romanianus, who in St. Augustin's
opinion was the greatest genius that ever lived; and how little is his
very name known now! What is now remembered “of the men of renown
before the Flood?” Sir Walter Raleigh hath a chapter concerning them,
wherein he says, “of the war, peace, government and policy of these
strong and mighty men, so able both in body and wit, there is no
memory remaining; whose stories if they had been preserved, and what
else was then performed in that newness of the world, there could
nothing of more delight have been left to posterity. For the exceeding
long lives of men, (who to their strength of body and natural wits had
the experience added of eight and nine hundred years,) how much of
necessity must the same add of wisdom and understanding? Likely it is
that their works excelled all whatsoever can be told of after-times;
especially in respect of this old age of the world, when we no sooner
begin to know than we begin to die: according to Hippocrates, _Vita
brevis, ars longa, tempus præceps_, which is, life is short, art is
long, and time is headlong. And that those people of the first age
performed many things worthy of admiration, it may be gathered out of
these words of Moses, these were mighty men, which in old time were
men of renown.” What is known of them now? Their very names have
perished!
Who now can explain the difference between the Agenorian, the
Eratoclean, the Epigonian, and the Damonian sects of musicians, or
knows any thing more than the names of their respective founders,
except that one of them was Socrates's music-master?
What Roman of the age of Horace would have believed that a
contemporaneous Consul's name should only live to posterity, as a
record of the date of some one of the Poet's odes?
Who now remembers that memorable Mr. Clinch, “whose single voice, as
he had learned to manage it, could admirably represent a number of
persons at sport, and in hunting, and the very dogs and other
animals,”—himself a whole pack and a whole field in full cry: “but
none better than a quire of choristers chanting an Anthem”—himself a
whole quire.
“How subdued,” says Mr. David Laing, who has rescued from oblivion so
much that is worthy of being held in remembrance,—“how subdued is the
interest that attaches to a mere name, as for instance, to that of
Dunbar's contemporaries, Stobo, Quintyne, or St. John the Ross, whose
works have perished!”
Who was that famous singer nick-named Bonny Boots, who, because of his
excellent voice, or as Sir John Hawkins says, “for some other reason,
had permission to call Queen Elizabeth his Lady:” and of whom it is
said in the canzonet,
Our Bonny Boots could toot it,
Yea and foot it,
Say lusty lads, who now shall Bonny-Boot it?
Sir John thinks it might “possibly be one Mr. Hale.” But what is Fame
when it ends in a poor possibility that Bonny Boots who called the
Queen his Lady, and that Queen, not Bergami's popular Queen, but Queen
Elizabeth, the nation's glorious Queen Elizabeth, the people's good
Queen Bess,—what, I repeat, is Fame, when it ends in a mere conjecture
that the Bonny Boots who was permitted to call such a Queen his Lady,
might be “one Hale or Hales in whose voice she took some pleasure.”
Well might Southey say
Fame's loudest blast upon the ear of Time
Leaves but a dying echo!
And what would posterity have heard of my Dove, my Daniel, my
Doctor,—my Doctor Daniel Dove,—had it not been for these my patient
and humble labours;—patient, but all too slow; humble, if compared
with what the subject deserves, and yet ambitious, in contemplation of
that desert, that inadequate as they are, they will however make the
subject known; so that my Dove, my Daniel, my Doctor, shall be
every-body's Dove, every-body's Daniel, every-body's Doctor,—yea the
World's Doctor, the World's Doctor Daniel Dove!
O his desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves with characters of brass
A forted residence, 'gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion.[2]
[Footnote 2: MEASURE FOR MEASURE.]
Alas that there should have been in that generation but one Boswell.
Why did Nature break his mould? Why did she not make two? for I would
not have had Johnson deprived of what may almost be called his better
part;—but why were there not two Boswells, as there are two Dromios in
the Comedy of Errors, and two Mr. Bulwers at this day, and three
Hunchbacks in the Arabian Tale. Why was there not a duplicate Boswell,
a fac-simile of the Laird of Auchinleck, an undistinguishable
twin-brother, to have lived at Doncaster, and have followed my Doctor,
like his dog, or his shadow, or St. Anthony's pig, and have gathered
up the fragments of his wit and his wisdom, so that nothing should
have been lost? Sinner that I am, that I should have had so little
forethought in the golden days of youth and opportunity! As Brantôme
says when speaking of Montluc, _j'etois fort souvent avec luy, et
m'aymoit fort, et prenoit grand plaisir quand je le mettois en propos
et en train et luy faisois quelques demandes,—car je ne suis jamais
esté si jeune, que je n'aye tousjours esté fort curieux d'apprendre;
et luy, me voyant en cette volonte, il me respondoit de bon cœur, et
en beaux termes; car il avoit une fort belle eloquence._ Truly
therefore may I say of thee, O my friend and master!
——_s'alcun bel frutto
Nasce di me, da voi vien prima il seme.
Io per me son quasi un terreno asciutto
Colto da voi, e'l pregio è vostro in tutto._[3]
[Footnote 3: PETRARCH.]
Sinner that I was! not to have treasured up all his words when I
enjoyed and delighted in his presence; improvident wretch! that I did
not faithfully record them every night before I went to bed, while
they were yet fresh in memory! How many things would I fain recall,
which are now irrecoverably lost! How much is there, that if it were
possible to call back the days that are past, I would eagerly ask and
learn! But the hand of Time is on me. _Non solebat mihi tam velox
tempus videri; nunc incredibilis cursus apparet: sive quia admoveri
lineas sentio, sive quia attendere cœpi et computare damnum meum._[4]
I linger over these precious pages while I write, pausing and
pondering in the hope that more recollections may be awakened from
their long sleep; that one may jog and stir up another. By thus
rummaging in the stores of memory many things which had long been
buried there have been brought to light;—but O reader! how little is
this all to what it might have been! It is but as a poor armful of
gleanings compared to a waggon well piled with full sheaves, carrying
the harvest home.
[Footnote 4: SENECA.]
Here too I may apply with the alteration of only one word what that
good man Gotthilf Franck says in his Preface to the History of the
Danish Mission in India, as translated into Latin from Niecamp's
German Work. _Quamquam vero huic æquo desiderio gratificandi animum
tanto promptiorem gessimus, quanto plus ad illustrationem nominis
dilecti ex tali compendio redundaturum esse perspeximus, multa tamen
impedimenta in dies subnata sunt, quo minus res in effectum dari
potuerit. Siquidem ad ejusmodi epitomen accurate conscribendum et res
præcipuas breviter complectendas non solum multum temporis, patientiæ
et laboris, sed singularis etiam epitomatoris ἱκανοτης et dexteritas
requiritur._
The Doctor himself was careless of Fame. As he did nothing to be seen
of men, so he took no thought for anything through which he might be
remembered by them. It was enough for him if his jests and whims and
fancies and speculations, whether sportive or serious, pleased
himself, brought a smile to his wife's lips and a dimple to her cheek,
or a good-humoured frown which was hardly less agreeable, to her
brow;—it was enough for him if they amused or astonished those to whom
they were addressed. Something he had for every one within the sphere
of his little rounds; a quip for this person and a crank for that;
“nods and becks and wreathed smiles” for those who were in the May-day
of youth, or the hey-day of hilarity and welfare; a moral saying in
its place and a grave word in season; wise counsel kindly given for
those who needed it, and kind words for all,—with which kind actions
always kept pace, instead of limping slowly and ungraciously behind.
But of the world beyond that circle, he thought as little as that
world thought of him; nor had he the slightest wish for its applause.
The passion which has been called “the last infirmity of noble minds”
had no place in his;—for he was a man _in quo_, as Erasmus says of his
Tutor Hegius, _unum illud vel Momus ipse calumniari fortasse
potuisset, quod famæ plus æquo negligens, nullam posteritatis haberet
rationem._
CHAPTER CXXV.
FAME IN THE BOROUGH ROAD. THE AUTHOR DANIELIZES.
_Duc, Fama,—
Duc me insolenti tramite; devius
Tentabo inaccessos profanis
Invidiæ pedibus recessus._
VINCENT BOURNE.
Guess, Reader, where I once saw a full-sized figure of Fame, erect,
tip-toe in the act of springing to take flight and soar aloft, her
neck extended, her head raised, the trumpet at her lips, and her
cheeks inflated, as if about to send forth a blast which the whole
city of London was to hear? Perhaps thou mayest have seen this very
figure thyself, and surely if thou hast, thou wilt not have forgotten
it. It was in the Borough Road, placed above a shop-board which
announced that Mr. Somebody fitted up Water-Closets upon a new and
improved principle.
But it would be well for mankind if Fame were never employed in
trumpeting any thing worse. There is a certain stage of depravity, in
which men derive an unnatural satisfaction from the notoriety of their
wickedness, and seek for celebrity “_ob magnitudinem infamiæ, cujus
apud prodigos novissima voluptas est._”[1]—“_Ils veulent faire parler
d'eux,_” says Bayle, “_et leur vanité ne seroit pas satisfaite s'il
n'y avoit quelque chose de superlatif et d'eminent dans leur mauvaise
reputation. Le plus haul degré de l'infamie est le but de leurs
souhaits, et il y a des choses qu'ils ne feroient pas si elles
n'etoient extraordinairement odieuses._”
[Footnote 1: TACITUS.]
Plutarch has preserved the name of Chærephanes who was notorious among
the ancients for having painted such subjects as Julio Romano has the
everlasting infamy of having designed for the flagitious Aretine. He
has also transmitted to posterity the name of Parmeno, famous for
grunting like a pig, and of Theodorus, not less famous for the more
difficult accomplishment of mimicking the sound of a creaking
cart-wheel. Who would wish to have his name preserved for his
beggarliness, like Pauson the painter, and Codrus the poet? Or for his
rascality and wickedness like Phrynondas? Or like Callianax the
physician for callous brutality? Our Doctor used to instance these
examples when he talked of “the bubble reputation,” which is sometimes
to be had so cheaply, and yet for which so dear a price has often been
paid in vain. It amused him to think by what odd, or pitiful accidents
that bubble might be raised. “Whether the regular practitioner may
sneer at Mr. Ching,” says the Historian of Cornwall, “I know not; but
the Patent Worm-Lozenges have gained our Launceston Apothecary a large
fortune, and secured to him perpetual fame.”
Would not John Dory's name have died with him, and so been long ago
dead as a door-nail, if a grotesque likeness for him had not been
discovered in the Fish, which being called after him, has immortalized
him and his ugliness? But if John Dory could have anticipated this
sort of immortality when he saw his own face in the glass, he might
very well have “blushed to find it fame.” There would have been no
other memorial of Richard Jaquett at this day, than the letters of his
name in an old deed and obsolete hand, now well nigh rendered
illegible by time, if he had not in the reign of Edward VI. been Lord
of the Manor of Tyburn with its appurtenances, wherein the gallows was
included, wherefore from the said Jaquett it is presumed by
antiquaries that the hangman hath been ever since corruptly called
Jack Ketch. A certain William Dowsing who during the Great Rebellion
was one of the Parliamentary Visitors for demolishing superstitious
pictures and ornaments of Churches, is supposed by a learned critic to
have given rise to an expression in common use among school-boys and
blackguards. For this worshipful Commissioner broke so many “mighty
great Angels” in glass, knocked so many Apostles and Cherubims to
pieces, demolished so many pictures and stone-crosses, and boasted
with such puritanical rancour of what he had done, that it is
conjectured the threat of giving any one _a dowsing_, preserves his
rascally name. So too while Bracton and Fleta rest on the shelves of
some public Library, Nokes and Stiles are living names in the Courts
of Law: and for John Doe and Richard Roe, were there ever two
litigious fellows so universally known as these eternal antagonists!
Johnson tells a story of a man who was standing in an inn kitchen with
his back to the fire, and thus accosted a traveller who stood next
him, “Do you know Sir, who I am?” “No Sir,” replied the traveller—“I
have not that advantage.” “Sir,” said the man, “I am the great
Twalmley who invented the new Flood-gate Iron.”—Who but for Johnson
would have heard of the great Twalmley now? Reader I will answer the
question which thou hast already asked, and tell thee that his
invention consisted in applying a sliding door, like a flood-gate, to
an ironing-box, flat-irons having till then been used, or box-irons
with a door and bolt.
Who was Tom Long the Carrier? when did he flourish? what road did he
travel? did he drive carts, or waggons, or was it in the age of
pack-horses? Who was Jack Robinson? not the once well known Jack
Robinson of the Treasury, (for his celebrity is now like a tale that
is told,) but the one whose name is in every body's mouth, because it
is so easily and so soon said. Who was Magg? and what was his
diversion? was it brutal, or merely boorish? the boisterous exuberance
of rude and unruly mirth, or the gratification of a tyrannical temper
and a cruel disposition? Who was Crop the Conjuror, famous in trivial
speech, as Merlin in romantic lore, or Doctor Faustus in the school of
German extravagance? What is remembered now of Bully Dawson? all I
have read of him is, that he lived three weeks on the credit of a
brass shilling because nobody would take it of him. “There goes a
story of Queen Elizabeth,” says Ray, “that being presented with a
Collection of English Proverbs, and told by the Author that it
contained them all, ‘Nay,’ replied she, ‘Bate me an ace, quoth
Bolton!’ which proverb being instantly looked for, happened to be
wanting in his collection.” “Who this Bolton was,” Ray says, “I know
not, neither is it worth enquiring.” Nevertheless I ask who was
Bolton? and when Echo answers “_who?_” say in my heart _Vanitas
Vanitatum, omnia Vanitas_. And having said this, conscience smites me
with the recollection of what Pascal has said, _Ceux qui écrivent
contre la gloire, veulent avoir la gloire d'avoir bien écrit; et ceux
qui le lisent, voulent avoir la gloire de l'avoir lu; et moi qui écris
ceci, j'ai peut-être cette envie, et peut-être que ceux qui le liront,
l'auront aussi._
Who was old Ross of Pottern, who lived till all the world was weary of
him? all the world has forgotten him now. Who was Jack Raker, once so
well known that he was named proverbially as a scape-grace by Skelton,
and in the Ralph Roister Doister of Nicholas Udall,—that Udall, who on
poor Tom Tusser's account, ought always to be called the bloody
schoolmaster? Who was William Dickins, whose wooden dishes were sold
so badly that when any one lost by the sale of his wares, the said
Dickins and his dishes, were brought up in scornful comparison?
Out-roaring Dick was a strolling singer of such repute that he got
twenty shillings a day by singing at Braintree Fair: but who was that
Desperate Dick that was such a terrible cutter at a chine of beef, and
devoured more meat at ordinaries in discoursing of his frays and deep
acting of his flashing and hewing, than would serve half a dozen
brewers' draymen? It is at this day doubtful whether it was Jack Drum
or Tom Drum whose mode of entertainment no one wishes to receive;—for
it was to haul a man in by the head and thrust him out by the neck and
shoulders. Who was that other Dick who wore so queer a hat-band that
it has ever since served as a standing comparison for all queer
things? By what name besides Richard was he known? Where did he live
and when? His birth, parentage, education, life, character and
behaviour, who can tell? Nothing, said the Doctor, is remembered of
him now, except that he was familiarly called Dick, and that his queer
hat-band, went nine times round and would not tie.
“O vain World's glory, and unstedfast state
Of all that lives on face of sinful earth!”[2]
Who was Betty Martin, and wherefore should she so often be mentioned
in connection with my precious eye or yours? Who was Ludlam whose dog
was so lazy that he leant his head against a wall to bark? And who was
Old Cole whose dog was so proud that he took the wall of a dung-cart
and got squeezed to death by the wheel? Was he the same person of whom
the song says
Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he?
And was his dog proud because his master was called King? Here are
questions to be proposed in the Examination papers of some Australian
Cambridge, two thousand years hence, when the people of that part of
the world shall be as reasonably inquisitive concerning our affairs,
as we are now concerning those of the Greeks. But the Burneys, the
Parrs and the Porsons, the Elmsleys, Monks and Blomfields of that age,
will puzzle over them in vain, for we cannot answer them now.
[Footnote 2: SPENSER.]
“Who was the Vicar of Bray? I have had a long chase after him,” said
Mr. Brome to Mr. Rawlins, in 1735. “Simon Aleyn, or Allen, was his
name; he was Vicar of Bray about 1540 and died in 1588; so he held the
living near fifty years. You now partake of the sport that has cost me
some pains to take. And if the pursuit after such game seems mean, one
Mr. Vernon followed a butterfly nine miles before he could catch him.”
Reader, do not refuse your belief of this fact, when I can state to
you on my own recollection that the late Dr. Shaw, the celebrated
Naturalist, a librarian of the British Museum and known by the name of
the learned Shavius, from the facility and abundance of his Latin
compositions, pointed out to my notice there many years ago two
volumes written by a Dutchman upon the wings of a butterfly. “The
dissertation is rather voluminous Sir, perhaps you will think,” said
the Doctor, with somewhat of that apologetic air, which modest science
is wont occasionally to assume in her communications with ignorance,
“but it is immensely important.” Good natured, excellent enthusiast!
fully didst thou appreciate the Book, the Dutchman, and above all the
Butterfly.
“I have known a great man,” says Taylor the Water-Poet, “very expert
on the Jews-harp; a rich heir excellent at Noddy; a Justice of the
Peace skilful at Quoytes; a Merchant's Wife a quick gamester at Irish,
especially when she came to bearing of men, that she would seldom miss
entering.” Injurious John Taylor! thus to defraud thy friends of their
fame, and leave in irremediable oblivion the proper name of that
expert Jews-Harper, that person excellent at Noddy, that great
Quoytes-man, and that Mistress who played so masterly a game at
Irish!—But I thank thee for this, good John the Water-Poet; thou hast
told us that Monsieur La Ferr, a Frenchman, was the first inventor of
the admirable game of Double-hand, Hot Cockles, &c., and that Gregory
Dawson, an Englishman, devised the unmatchable mystery of
Blind-man's-buff. But who can tell me what the game of Carps was, the
_Ludus Carparum_, which Hearne says was used in Oxford much, and being
joined with cards, and reckoned as a kind of _alea_, is prohibited in
some statutes. When Thomas Hearne, who learned whatever Time forgot,
was uncertain what game or play it really was, and could only
conjecture that perhaps it might be a sort of Back-gammon, what
antiquary can hope to ascertain it?
“Elizabeth Canning, Mary Squires the Gipsey, and Miss Blandy,” says
one who remembered their days of celebrity, “were such universal
topics in 1752, that you would have supposed it the business of
mankind to talk only of them; yet now, in 1790, ask a young man of
twenty-five or thirty a question relative to these extraordinary
personages, and he will be puzzled to answer.”
Who now knows the steps of that dance, or has heard the name of its
author, of which in our father's days it was said in verse that
Isaac's rigadoon shall live as long
As Rafael's painting, or as Virgil's song.
Nay, who reads the poem wherein those lines are found, though the
author predicted for them in self-applauding pleasantry, that
Whilst birds in air, or fish in streams we find,
Or damsels fresh with aged partners join'd,
As long as nymphs shall with attentive ear
A fiddle rather than a sermon hear,
So long the brightest eyes shall oft peruse
These useful lines of my instructive muse.
Even of the most useful of those lines, the “uses are gone by.” Ladies
before they leave the ball room, are now no longer fortified against
the sudden change of temperature by a cup of generous white wine
mulled with ginger; nor is it necessary now to caution them at such
times against a draught of cold small beer, because as the Poet in his
own experience assured them
Destruction lurks within the poisonous dose,
A fatal fever, or a pimpled nose.[3]
[Footnote 3: SOAME JENYNS.]
CHAPTER CXXVI.
MR. BAXTER'S OFFICES. MILLER'S CHARACTER OF MASON; WITH A FEW REMARKS
IN VINDICATION OF GRAY'S FRIEND AND THE DOCTOR'S ACQUAINTANCE.
——_Te sonare quis mihi
Genîque vim dabit tui?
Stylo quis æquor hocce arare charteum,
En arva per papyrina
Satu loquace seminare literas?_
JANUS DOUSA.
That dwelling house which the reader may find represented in Miller's
History of Doncaster, as it was in his time, and in the Doctor's, and
in mine,—that house in which the paper-hangers and painters were
employed during the parenthesis, or to use a more historical term, the
Interim of this part of our history,—that house which when, after an
interval of many years, I saw it last, had the name R. Dennison on the
door, is now, the Sheffield Mercury tells me, occupied as Mr. Baxter's
Offices. I mean no disrespect to Mr. R. Dennison. I mean no disrespect
to Mr. Baxter. I know nothing of these gentlemen, except that in 1830
the one had his dwelling there, and in 1836 the other his offices. But
for the house itself, which can now be ascertained only by its site,
totally altered as it is in structure and appearance, without and
within,—when I think of it I cannot but exclaim, in what Wordsworth
would call “that inward voice” with which we speak to ourselves in
solitude, “If thou be'est it,” with reference to that alteration,—and
with reference to its change of tenants and present appropriation I
cannot but carry on the verse, and say—“but oh how fallen, how
changed!”
In that house Peter Hopkins had entertained his old friend Guy; and
the elder Daniel once, upon an often pressed and special invitation,
had taken the longest journey he ever performed in his life, to pass a
week there. For many years Mr. Allison and Mr. Bacon made it their
house of call whenever they went to Doncaster. In that house Miller
introduced Herschel to Dr. Dove; and Mason when he was Mr. Copley's
guest never failed to call there, and enquire of the Doctor what books
he had added to his stores,—for to have an opportunity of conversing
with him was one of the pleasures which Mason looked for in his visits
at Netherhall.
Miller disliked Mason: described him as sullen, reserved, capricious
and unamiable; and this which he declared to be “the real character of
this celebrated poet,” he inserted, he said, “as a lesson to mankind,
to shew them what little judgement can be formed of the heart of an
author, either by the sublimity of his conceptions, the beauty of his
descriptions, or the purity of his sentiments.”
Often as Miller was in company with Mason, there are conclusive proofs
that the knowledge which he attained of Mason's character, was as
superficial as the poet's knowledge of music, for which as has
heretofore been intimated, the Organist regarded him with some
contempt.
He says that the reason which Mason assigned for making an offer to
the lady whom he married, was, that he had been a whole evening in her
company with others, and observed, that during all that time she never
spoke a single word. Mason is very likely to have said this; but the
person who could suppose that he said it in strict and serious
sincerity, meaning that it should be believed to the letter, must have
been quite incapable of appreciating the character of the speaker.
Mason whom Gray described, a little before this offer, as repining at
his four and twenty weeks residence at York, and longing for the
flesh-pots and coffee-houses of Cambridge, was notwithstanding in his
friend and fellow-poet's phrase, a long while _mariturient_, “and
praying to heaven to give him a good and gentle governess.” “No man,”
says Gray, “wants such a thing more in all senses; but his greatest
wants do not make him move a foot faster, nor has he, properly
speaking, any thing one can call a passion about him, except a little
malice and revenge.” Elsewhere he speaks of Mason's “insatiable
repining mouth.” Yet there was no malice in these expressions. Gray
loved him, taking him for all in all, and to have been the friend of
Gray will always be considered as evidence of no ordinary worth; for
it is not on intellect alone that the friendship of so good and wise a
man as Gray could be founded.
When Gray first became acquainted with Mason he wrote concerning him
thus. “He has much fancy, little judgement, and a good deal of
modesty. I take him for a good and well-meaning creature; but then he
is really in simplicity a child, and loves every body he meets with:
he reads little or nothing, writes abundance, and that with a design
to make his fortune by it.” In another letter “Mason grows apace in my
good graces; he is very ingenious, with great good-nature and
simplicity; a little vain, but in so harmless and so comical a way
that it does not offend one at all; a little ambitious, but withal so
ignorant in the world and its ways, that this does not hurt him in
one's opinion. So sincere and so undisguised, that no mind with a
spark of generosity would ever think of hurting him, he lies so open
to injury; but so indolent that if he cannot overcome this habit, all
his good qualities will signify nothing at all.”
This surely is the character of an amiable and very likeable man.
Mason said when he printed it, “my friends, I am sure will be much
amused at this; my enemies (if they please) may sneer at it, and say
(which they will very truly,) that twenty-five years have made a very
considerable abatement in my general philanthropy. Men of the world
will not blame me for writing from so prudent a motive, as that of
making my fortune by it; and yet the truth I believe, at the time was,
that I was perfectly well satisfied if my publications furnished me
with a few guineas to see a Play, or an Opera.”
During the short time that his wife lived after his marriage, Miller
observed that he appeared more animated and agreeable in his
conversation, that is to say, he was cheerful because he was happy.
After her death (and who has ever perused her epitaph without
emotion?) he relapsed into a discontented habit of mind, as might be
expected from one who had remained unmarried too long, and who
although he might be said in the worldly sense of the word to have
been a fortunate man, was never, except during the short duration of
his marriage, a happy one. He had no near relations, none to whom he
was in any degree attached; and in Gray he lost the most intimate of
his friends, probably the only one towards whom he ever felt anything
approaching to a warmth of friendship. This produced a most
uncomfortable effect upon him in the decline of life; for knowing that
he was looked upon as one who had wealth to leave for which there were
no near or natural claimants, he suspected that any marks of attention
which were shewn him, whether from kindness or from respect, proceeded
from selfish views. That in many cases such suspicions may be
well-founded, any one who knows what the world is, will readily
believe; and if they made him capricious, and rendered him liable to
be accused of injustice and want of feeling, the effect is not so
extraordinary as it is pitiable. It is one of the evils attendant upon
the possession of riches where there is no certain heir; it is part of
the punishment which those persons bring upon themselves who
accumulate unnecessary wealth, without any just or definite object.
But Mason is chargeable with no such sin. When a young man he made a
resolution that if he came into possession of an estate which was
entailed upon him, he would accept of no additional preferment; and he
adhered to that resolution, though many offers were made to him which
might have induced a worldly man to depart from it. The first thing he
did after the inheritance fell to him was to resign his King's
Chaplainship: “a priest in that situation,” he said, “could not help
looking forward to a bishoprick, a species of ambition incompatible
with the simplicity and purity of the Christian character, for, the
moment a man aspires to the purple that moment virtue goes out of
him.” Mr. Greville who after a visit to Mason, related this in a
letter to his friend Polwhele, was informed that his income was about
£1500 a-year, and that of this one third was appropriated to patronage
and charity.
He had made another resolution, which was not kept, because it was not
reasonable. When the Earl of Holdernesse offered him the Rectory of
Aston, he was not in orders, and he called upon Warburton to ask his
advice. “I found him,” says Warburton, “yet unresolved whether he
should take the Living. I said, was the question about a mere secular
employment, I should blame him without reserve if he refused the
offer. But as I regarded going into orders in another light, I frankly
owned to him he ought not to go, unless he had a _call_: by which I
meant, I told him, nothing fanatical or superstitious; but an
inclination, and, on that, a resolution, to dedicate all his studies
to the service of religion, and totally to abandon his poetry. This
sacrifice, I said, I thought was required at any time, but more
indispensably so in this, when we are fighting with infidelity _pro
aris et focis_. This was what I said; and I will do him the justice to
say, that he entirely agreed with me in thinking that decency,
reputation, and religion, all required this sacrifice of him; and
that, if he went into orders, he intended to give it.” “How much shall
I honour him,” says Warburton in another letter, “if he performs his
promise to me of putting away those idle baggages after his sacred
espousals!” This unwise promise explains Mason's long silence as a
poet, and may partly account for his uncomfortable state of mind as
long as he considered himself bound by it.
There were other circumstances about him which were unfavourable to
happiness; he seems never to have been of a cheerful, because never of
a hopeful temper; otherwise Gray would not have spoken of his
“insatiable repining mouth,”—the lively expression of one who clearly
perceived his constitutional faults, and yet loved him, as he deserved
to be loved, in spite of them. The degree of malice also, which Gray
noticed as the strongest passion in his nature, is to be reckoned
among those circumstances. By far the most popular of his compositions
were those well known satires which he never owned, and which
professional critics with their usual lack of acumen, pronounced not
to be his because of their sarcastic humour and the strength of their
language. He had a great deal of that sarcastic humour, and this it
was which Gray called malice; in truth it partakes of maliciousness,
and a man is the worse for indulging it, if he ever allows himself to
give it a personal direction, except in cases where strong provocation
may warrant and strict justice require it. That these satires were
written by Mason will appear upon the most indisputable proof whenever
his letters shall be published; and it is earnestly hoped those
letters may not be allowed to perish, for in them and in them only
will the character of the writer appear in its natural lights and
shades.
Mason would not (especially after their signal success,) have
refrained from acknowledging these satires, which are the most
vigorous of his compositions, unless he had been conscious that the
turn of mind they indicated was not that which ought to be found in a
member of his profession. And it can only have been the same feeling
which induced the Editor to withhold them from the only collective
edition of his works. That edition was delayed till fourteen years
after his death, and then appeared without any memoir of the author,
or any the slightest prefatory mark of respect: it seems therefore
that he had left none by whom his memory was cherished. But though
this may have been in some degree his fault, it was probably in a far
greater degree his misfortune.
Mason had obtained preferment for his literary deserts, and in such
just measure as to satisfy himself, and those also who would wish that
ecclesiastical preferment were always so properly bestowed. But he was
not satisfied with his literary fame. Others passed him upon the
stream of popularity with all their sails set, full speed before the
wind, while he lay quietly upon his oars in a pleasant creek; and he
did not sufficiently bear in mind that he was safe at his ease, when
some of those who so triumphantly left him behind were upset and went
to the bottom. He had done enough to secure for himself a respectable
place among the poets of his country, and a distinguished one among
those of his age. But more through indolence than from any deficiency
or decay of power, he had fallen short of the promise of his youth,
and of his own early aspirations. Discontent, especially when mingled
with self-reproach, is an uneasy feeling, and like many others he
appears to have sought relief by projecting it, and transferring as
much of it as he could upon the world. He became an acrimonious whig,
and took an active part in the factious measures by which Yorkshire
was agitated about the close of the American war. Gray if he had been
then living might perhaps have been able to have rendered him more
temperate and more reasonable in his political views; certainly he
would have prevailed upon him not to write, or having written not to
publish or preserve, the last book of his English Garden, which is in
every respect miserably bad; bad in taste as recommending sham castles
and modern ruins; bad in morals, as endeavouring to serve a political
cause and excite indignation against the measures of Government by a
fictitious story, (which if it had been true could have had no bearing
whatever upon the justice or injustice of the American war;) and bad
in poetry because the story is in itself absurd. Not the least absurd
part of this puerile tale is the sudden death of the heroine, at the
unexpected sight of her betrothed husband, whom she was neither glad
nor sorry to see; and the description of the _facies Hippocratica_ is
applied to this person, thus dying in health, youth and beauty! Dr.
Dove used to instance this as a remarkable example of knowledge
ignorantly misapplied.
Yet though the Doctor did not rank him higher as a physiologist than
Miller did as a musician, or than Sir Joshua must have done as a
painter, he found more pleasure than the organist could do in his
conversation; partly because there was an air of patronage in Mason's
intercourse with Miller at first, and afterwards an air of
estrangement, (a sufficient reason;) and partly because Mason was more
capable of enjoying the richness of the Doctor's mind, and such of its
eccentricities as were allowed to appear in company where he was not
wholly without reserve, than he was of appreciating the simplicity of
Miller's. That vein of humour which he indulged in his correspondence
opened when he was conversing with one, like the Doctor, upon whom
nothing was lost; at such times the heavy saturnine character of
Mason's countenance, which might almost be called morose, seemed to be
cast off; and pleasantry and good-nature animated its intellectual
strength. But according to Polwhele's friend, there was a “sedate
benignity in his countenance, which taught me,” says Mr. Greville,
“instantaneously to rely on him as a man the leading traits of whose
disposition were feeling and reflection. This immediate impression of
his character I found afterwards to be strictly just. I never yet met
with a human being whose head and heart appear to act and re-act so
reciprocally, so concordantly upon each other as his.—In his style of
conversation, you can trace nothing of the _vis vivida_ of the poet.
Here his inventive powers apparently lie dormant. Those flashes of
genius, those intellectual emanations which we are taught to believe
great men cannot help darting forward in order to lighten up the gloom
of colloquial communication, he seems to consider as affected; he
therefore rejects them whenever they occur, and appears to pride
himself on the preference which he gives to simplicity and
perspicuity. Conversation (if you will excuse a pedantic allusion,)
with him resembles the style of painting mentioned in the earlier part
of the Athenian History, which consisted in representing the artist's
ideas in a simple unaffected point of view, through the medium of one
colour only; whereas his writings are like the pictures of Polygnotus.
They glow with all the warmth of an invigorated imagination, an
animated diction, and a rich luxuriant phraseology.
“His manners, too, are equally as chaste and unaffected as his
conversation. The stream that winds its easy way through woods and
verdant meads, is not less artificial or more insinuating than he is
in doing the honours of the table, or promoting the graces of the
drawing room. That peculiar happiness which some few I have met with
possess, of reconciling you implicitly to their superiority, he enjoys
in an eminent degree, by the amiability of his sentiments, the
benignity of his attention, and particularly by an indescribable way
with him, of making you appear to advantage, even when he convinces
you of the erroneousness of your opinions, or the inconclusiveness of
your reasoning.
“In regard to his morals, I believe from what I have collected, that
few can look back upon a period of sixty years existence, spent so
uniformly pure and correct. In the course of our chit chat, he
informed me, in an unostentatious unaffected manner, that he never was
intoxicated but once.”
There was another point of resemblance, besides their vein of humour,
between Mason and the Doctor, in their latter days; they were nearly
of the same age, and time had brought with it to both the same sober,
contemplative, deep feeling of the realities of religion.
The French Revolution cured Mason of his whiggery, and he had the
manliness to sing his palinode. The fearful prevalence of a false and
impious philosophy made him more and more sensible of the inestimable
importance of his faith. On his three last birth-days he composed
three sonnets, which for their sentiment and their beauty ought to be
inserted in every volume of select poems for popular use. And he left
for posthumous publication a poem called RELIGIO CLERICI: as a whole
it is very inferior to that spirited satire of Smedley's which bears
the same title, and which is the best satire of its age; but its
concluding paragraph will leave the reader with a just and very
favourable impression of the poet and the man.
FATHER, REDEEMER, COMFORTER DIVINE!
This humble offering to thy equal shrine
Here thy unworthy servant grateful pays,
Of undivided thanks, united praise,
For all those mercies which at birth began,
And ceaseless flow'd thro' life's long-lengthened span,
Propt my frail frame thro' all the varied scene,
With health enough for many a day serene;
Enough of science clearly to discern
How few important truths the wisest learn;
Enough of arts ingenuous to employ
The vacant hours, when graver studies cloy;
Enough of wealth to serve each honest end,
The poor to succour, or assist a friend;
Enough of faith in Scripture to descry,
That the sure hope of immortality,
Which only can the fear of death remove,
Flows from the fountain of REDEEMING LOVE.
One who visited York a few years after the death of the Poet, says,
“the Verger who showed us the Minster upon my inquiring of him
concerning Mason, began an encomium upon him in an humble way indeed,
but more honourable than all the factitious praises of learned
ostentation; his countenance brightened up when I asked him the
question; his very looks told me that Mason's charities did not
evaporate in effusions of sensibility; I learned that he was humble,
mild, and generous; the father of his family; the delight of all that
came within the sphere of his notice. Then he was so good in his
parish. My soul contemplates, with fond exultation, the picture of a
man, endowed with genius, wit and every talent to please the great,
but _suâ se virtute involventem_, resigning himself with complacency
to the humble duties of a country pastor,—turning select Psalms into
Verse to be sung in his Church; simplifying and arranging, and
directing to the purposes of devotion his church music; and performing
his duties as a minister with meekness, perseverance, and brotherly
love.”
Enough has now been adduced to vindicate Mason's character from
Miller's aspersion. They who desire to see his merits as a poet
appreciated with great ability and equal justice should peruse his
life in Hartley Coleridge's Boreal Biography,—what a boisterous title
for a book in which there is not one blustering sentence, and so many
sweet strains of feeling and of thought!
CHAPTER CXXVII.
THE DOCTOR'S THEORY OF PROGRESSIVE EXISTENCE.
_Quam multæ pecudes humano in corpore vivunt!_
PALINGENIUS.
Like Mason, Dr. Dove looked to the future in that sure and certain
hope without which the present would be intolerable to a thinking mind
and feeling heart. But in his speculations he looked to the past also.
Watson Bishop of Llandaff amused himself with asking from whom his
mind descended? where it existed before he was born? and who he should
have been if he had not been Richard Watson? “The Bishop was a
philosopher,” says Dr. Jarrold, “and ought not to have asked such idle
questions.”
My Doctor would not have agreed with Dr. Jarrold in this opinion. Who
the Bishop might have been if he had not been the discontented hero of
his own auto-biography, he could not indeed have pretended to divine;
but what he was before he was Richard Watson, where his mind had
existed before he was born, and from whom, or rather from what, it had
been transmitted, were questions which according to his notions, might
admit of a probable solution.
It will not surprise the judicious reader to be told that the Doctor
was a professed physiognomist, though Lavater had not in those days
made it fashionable to talk of physiognomy as a science. Baptista
Porta led him to consider the subject; and the coarse wood-cuts of a
bungling Italian elucidated the system as effectually as has since
been done by Mr. Holloway's graver. But Dr. Dove carried it farther
than the Swiss enthusiast after, or the Neapolitan physician before
him. Conceiving in a deeper sense than Lebrun, _que chacun avait sa
bête dans la figure_, he insisted that the strong animal likenesses
which are often so distinctly to be traced in men, and the
correspondent propensities wherewith they are frequently accompanied,
are evidence of our having pre-existed in an inferior state of being.
And he deduced from it a theory, or notion as he modestly called it,
which he would have firmly believed to be a part of the patriarchal
faith, if he had known how much it resembled the doctrine of the
Druids.
His notion was that the Archeus, or living principle, acquires that
perfect wisdom with which it acts, by passing through a long
progression in the lower world, before it becomes capable of being
united to a rational and immortal soul in the human body. He even
persuaded himself that he could discover in particular individuals
indications of the line by which their Archeus had travelled through
the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
There was a little pragmatical exciseman, with a hungry face, sharp
nose, red eyes, and thin, coarse, straggling hair of a yellow cast,
(what was formerly called Judas-colour,) whom he pronounced to have
been a ferret in his last stage. “Depend upon it,” he said, “no rat
will come under the roof where he resides!” And he was particularly
careful when they met in the open air always to take the wind of him.
One lawyer, a man of ability and fair character, but ready to avail
himself of every advantage which his profession afforded, he traced
from a bramble into a wasp, thence into a butcher-bird, and lastly
into a fox, the vulpine character being manifestly retained in his
countenance. There was another, who from sweeping his master's office
and blacking his shoes, had risen to be the most noted pettifogger in
those parts. This fellow was his peculiar abhorrence; his living
principle, he affirmed, could never have existed in any other form
than that of a nuisance; and accordingly he made out his genealogy
thus:—a stinker (which is the trivial name of the _phallus
impudicus_,) a London bug, an ear-wig, a pole-cat,—and, still
worsening as he went on, a knavish attorney.
He convicted an old Major in the West York Militia of having been a
turkey cock; and all who knew the Major were satisfied of the
likeness, whatever they might be of the theory.
One of the neighbouring justices was a large, square-built, heavy
person, with a huge head, a wide mouth, little eyes, and a slender
proportion of intellect. Him he set down for a hippopotamus.
A brother magistrate of the Major's had been a goose, beyond all
dispute. There was even proof of the fact; for it was perfectly well
remembered that he had been born web-fingered.
All those persons who habitually sit up till night is far spent, and
as regularly pass the best hours of the morning in bed, he supposed to
have been bats, night-birds, night-prowling beasts, and insects whose
portion of active life has been assigned to them during the hours of
darkness. One indication of this was, that candle-light could not have
such attractions for them unless they had been moths.
The dog was frequently detected in all its varieties, from the
lap-dog, who had passed into the whipper-snapper _petit-maître_, and
the turnspit, who was now the bandy-legged baker's boy,—to the
Squire's eldest son, who had been a lurcher,—the Butcher, who had been
a bulldog, and so continued still in the same line of life;—Lord A——'s
domestic chaplain, harmless, good-natured, sleek, obsequious, and as
fond of ease, indulgence and the fire-side, as when he had been a
parlour spaniel; Sir William B——'s huntsman, who exercised now the
whip which he had felt when last upon four legs, and who was still an
ugly hound, though staunch; and the Doctor's own man, Barnaby, whom,
for steadiness, fidelity and courage, he pronounced to have been a
true old English mastiff, and one of the best of his kind.
Chloris had been a lily. You saw it in the sickly delicacy of her
complexion. Moreover she toiled not, neither did she spin.
A young lady, in whose family he was perfectly familiar, had the
singular habit of sitting always upon one or other foot, which as she
sat down she conveyed so dexterously into the seat of her chair, that
no one who was not previously acquainted with her ways, could possibly
perceive the movement. Upon her mother's observing one day that this
was a most unaccountable peculiarity, the Doctor replied, “No, madam!
I can account for it to my own entire satisfaction. Your daughter was
a bird of some gentle and beautiful species, in her last stage of
existence; in that state she used always to draw up one leg when at
rest. The habits that we acquire in our pre-existent state, continue
with us through many stages of our progress; your daughter will be an
Angel in her next promotion, and then, if Angels close their eyes in
slumber, she will sleep with her head under her wing.”
The landlady of the White Lion had been a cabbage, a blue-bottle fly,
a tame duck, and a bacon pig.
Who could doubt that Vauban had been an earthworm, a mole and a
rabbit? that Euclid acquired the practical knowledge of geometry when
he was a spider; and that the first builder of a pyramid imitated
unconsciously the proportionately far greater edifices which he had
been employed in raising when he was one of a nation of white ants?
Mrs. Dove had been a cowslip, a humble bee, and, lastly, a cushat.
He himself had been a Dove and a Serpent—for “Dan was a Serpent by the
way;” and moreover he flattered himself that he had the wisdom of the
one, and the simplicity of the other. Of his other stages he was not
so certain,—except that he had probably once been an inhabitant of the
waters, in the shape of some queer fish.
CHAPTER CXXVIII.
ELUCIDATIONS OF THE COLUMBIAN THEORY.
Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
Many facts in illustration or exemplification of the Doctor's theory
concerning progressive existence must have occurred to every one
within the circle of his own observations. One of the scientific
persons who abridged the Philosophical Transactions says, he “was
acquainted with a medical practitioner of considerable eminence who
could not refrain from eating toasted cheese, though he was subject to
an alarming pulmonary complaint which was uniformly aggravated by it,
and which terminated fatally at an age by no means advanced.” This
practitioner, the Doctor would have said, had been either a mouse or a
rat, and in that pre-existent form had nibbled at such a bait,—perhaps
once too often. This would account for the propensity even if he were
not a Welshman to boot.
The same author says “there is now living a physician of my
acquaintance who at an autumnal dessert, never ceases eating all the
filberts he can lay his hands upon, although he very candidly
acknowledges that they are extremely indigestible and hurtful things.”
Upon the Doctor's theory, who can doubt that he had been a squirrel?
“I remember,” says a certain Mr. George Garden in a letter written
from Aberdeen in 1676, “when Mrs. Scougall and I were with you last
summer, we had occasion to speak of a man in this country very
remarkable for something peculiar in his temper, that inclines him to
imitate unawares all the gestures and motions of those with whom he
converses. We then had never seen him ourselves. Since our return we
were together at Strathbogie where he dwells, and notwithstanding all
we had heard of him before, were somewhat surprized with the oddness
of this dotterel quality. This person named Donald Munro, being a
little old and very plain man, of a thin slender body, has been
subject to this infirmity, as he told us, from his very infancy. He is
very loath to have it observed, and therefore casts down his eyes when
he walks in the streets, and turns them aside when he is in company.
We had made several trials before he perceived our design, and
afterwards had much ado to make him stay. We caressed him as much as
we could, and had then the opportunity to observe that he imitated not
only the scratching of the head, but also the wringing of the hands,
wiping of the nose, stretching forth of the arms, &c., and we needed
not strain compliments to persuade him to be covered, for he still put
off and on as he saw us do, and all this with so much exactness, and
yet with such a natural and unaffected air that we could not so much
as suspect that he did it on design. When we held both his hands and
caused another to make such motions, he pressed to get free; but when
we would have known more particularly how he found himself affected,
he could only give us this simple answer, that it vexed his heart and
his brain.”
The writer of this letter had hit upon the solution of the
idiosyncracy which he describes, but had not perceived it. The man had
been a dotterel.
“Have we not heard,” said the Doctor, “of persons who have ruminated?
Do we not read well authenticated cases of some whose skins were
tuberculated? Is it not recorded of Dioscorides, not the botanist but
the Alexandrian physician of Cleopatra's time, that he was called
Phacas because his body was covered with warts? And where was this so
likely to have happened as in Egypt? He had been a crocodile. The
cases are more frequent of people who in the scaliness of their skins
have borne testimony of their piscine origin.”
Was not Margaret Griffith, wife of David Owen of Llan Gaduain in
Montgomeryshire shown in London, because a crooked horn four inches
long grew out of the middle of her forehead? “A miraculous and
monstrous, but yet most true and certain account” of her, with her
rude portrait affixed, was imprinted at London by Thomas Owen, in the
year of the Spanish Armada, and sold by Edward White, at the little
north door of St. Pauls Church at the Sign of the Gun. And in the
British Museum there is not only the picture of another horned woman,
Davies by name, who was born at Shotwick in Cheshire, but one of the
horns also which she shed.
There was a Mistress Bomby, (not the Mother Bombie of the old play,
but a person of our own times,) who having been a schoolmistress till
the age of fifty, married at that age, and on the day of her marriage
became deranged. She never recovered her reason, but she lived to be
fourscore; and in the latter year of her life a crooked horn sprouted
from the side of her forehead, and grew to the length of nearly six
inches. Another made its appearance, but its growth was stopped. It is
to be regretted that the person who recorded this did not say whether
the second horn made its appearance on the other side of the forehead,
so as to correspond with the former and form a pair.
Blumenbach had three human horns in his collection, all the growth of
one woman. She had broken her head by a fall and the first of them
grew from the wound; it continued growing for thirty years, till it
was about ten inches long, then it dropped off; a second grew from its
place, this was short thick and nearly straight, and she shed it in
less time; the third was growing when she died, and the Professor had
it cut from the corpse. The first was completely twisted like a ram's
horn, was round and rough, of a brownish colour, and full half an inch
in diameter at the roots. All three appeared to be hollow and were
blunt and rounded at the termination. It has been said that all the
cases of this kind which have been observed have been in women; the
remark whether it were made by Blumenbach, or by the intelligent
traveller who describes this part of his collection, would if it were
true be unimportant, because of the paucity of cases that have been
recorded: but there is a case of a male subject, and it is remarkable
for the circumstances attending it.
Marshal Laverdin in the year 1599 was hunting in the province of
Maine, when his attendants came in sight of a peasant who, instead of
waiting to pay his obeisance to their master, fled from them. They
pursued and overtook him; and as he did not uncover to salute the
Marshal, they plucked off his cap, and discovered that he had a horn
growing on his head. François Trouillu was this poor man's name, and
he was then aged thirty-four years: the horn began to sprout when he
was about seven years old; it was shaped almost like that of a ram,
only the flutings were straight instead of spiral, and the end bowed
inwards toward the cranium. The fore part of his head was bald, and
his beard red and tufted, such as painters bestow upon Satyrs. He had
retired to the woods hoping to escape exposure there, and there he
wrought in the coal-pits. Marshal Laverdin took possession of him as
he would of a wild beast, and sent him as a present to Henry IV; and
that King, with even more inhumanity than the Marshal, bestowed him
upon somebody who carried him about as a show. Mezeray, who relates
this without any comment upon the abominable tyranny of the Marshal
and the King, concludes the story by saying “the poor man took it so
much to heart to be thus led about like a bear and exposed to the
laughter and mockery of his fellow creatures, that he very soon died.”
Blumenbach says “it has been ascertained by chemical analysis that
such horns have a greater affinity in their composition with the horns
of the rhinoceros than of any other animal.” It may be so; but the
short and straight horns were stunted in their growth; their natural
tendency was to twist like a sheep's horn;—and the habit of
cornification is more likely to have been formed nearer home than in
the interior of Africa.
The first rope-dancer, or as Johnson would have called him
‘funambulist,’ the Doctor said, had been a monkey; the first fellow
who threw a somerset, a tumbler pigeon.
The Oneirocrites, or Oneirologists, as they who pretended to lay down
rules for the interpretation of dreams called themselves, say that if
any one dreams he has the head of a horse on his shoulders instead of
his own, it betokens poverty and servitude. The Doctor was of opinion
that it presaged nothing, but that it bore a retrospective
interpretation, being the confused reminiscence of a prior state.
Amateur thieves,—for there are persons who commit petty larcenies with
no other motive than the pleasure of stealing,—he supposed to have
been tame magpies or jackdaws. And in the vulgar appellation which is
sometimes bestowed upon an odious woman, he thought that though there
was not more meant than meets the ear, there was more truth conveyed
than was intended.
A dramatist of Charles the First's reign, says,
'Tis thought the hairy child that's shown about
Came by the mother's thinking on the picture
Of Saint John Baptist, in his camel's coat.
But for this and other recorded cases of the same kind the Doctor
accounted more satisfactorily to himself by his own theory. For though
imagination, he said, might explain these perfectly well, (which he
fully admitted,) yet it could not explain the horned, nor the
tubercular, nor the ruminating cases; nor the case of John Ferguisson,
of the parish of Killmelfoord in Argyleshire, who lived eighteen years
without taking any other sustenance than water, and must therefore
either have been a leech, tortoise, or some other creature capable of
being so supported. Nor could any thing so well as his hypothesis
explain the cases in which various parts of the human body had been
covered with incrustations, which were shed and reproduced in
continual succession, a habit retained from some crustaceous stage of
existence, and probably acquired in the form of a crab or lobster.
Still more remarkable was the case of a German, communicated by Dr.
Steyerthall to the Royal Society: this poor man cast his leg by an
effort of nature, not by an immediate act of volition as he would have
done in his crab or lobster state, for the power had not been retained
with the habit, but after long and severe suffering; the limb however
at last separated of itself, and the wound healed.
Neither, he said, could imagination explain the marvellous and yet
well-attested story of the Danish woman who lay in, like Leda, of two
eggs. The neighbours who were called in at the delivery, most
improperly broke one and found that it contained a yolk and white, to
all appearance as in that of a hen, which it also resembled in size.
The other, instead of endeavouring to hatch it, they sent to Olaus
Wormius, and it is still to be seen at Copenhagen.
How, he would ask, was the case of Samuel Chilton, near Bath, to be
explained, who used to sleep for weeks and months at a time; but as an
old habit of hibernation, acting at irregular times, because it was no
longer under the direction of a sane instinct. And how that of the
idiot at Ostend, who died at last in consequence of his appetite for
iron, no fewer than eight and twenty pieces to the amount of nearly
three pounds in weight, having been found in his stomach after death.
Who but must acknowledge that he had retained this habit from an
ostrich?
This poor creature was really ferrivorous. The Doctor though he
sometimes pressed into his service a case to which some exceptions
might have been taken, would not have classed as a quondam ostrich,
the sailor who used to swallow knives for a feat of desperate bravery,
and died miserably as might be expected. Nor would he have formed any
such conclusion concerning the person of whom Adam Clarke has
preserved the following remarkable story, in the words of Dr. Fox who
kept a lunatic asylum near Bristol.
“In my visits among my patients, one morning, I went into a room where
two, who were acquaintances of each other, were accustomed to live:
immediately I entered, I noticed an unusual degree of dejection about
one of them, and a feverish kind of excitement in the other. I
enquired what was the matter? ‘Matter!’ said the excited one, ‘matter
enough! he has done for himself!’—‘Why? what has he done?’—‘Oh he has
only swallowed the poker!’ During this short conversation the other
looked increasingly mournful; and on my enquiring what was the matter
with him, he replied, ‘He has told you true enough; I have swallowed
the poker, and do not know what I shall do with it!’ ‘I will tell you
how it happened,’ said the first. ‘My friend and I were sitting by the
fire talking on different things, when I offered to lay him a wager
that he could not eat any of the poker: he said he could and would;
took it up, twisted the end of it backward and forward between the
bars of the grate, and at last broke off some inches of it, and
instantly swallowed it; and he has looked melancholy ever since.’ I
did not believe,” said Dr. Fox, “a word of this tale; and I suppose
the narrator guessed as much, for he added, ‘O, you can see that it is
true, for there is the rest of the poker.’ I went to the grate and
examined the poker, which, being an old one, had been much burned; and
where the action of the fire had been fiercest and had worn away the
iron, a piece of between two and three inches had been wrenched off
and was missing. Still I could hardly credit that the human stomach
could receive such a dose and remain ‘feeling,’ as the professed
swallower of it said, ‘nothing particular.’ However the constant
affirming of the first, united to the assent and rueful looks of the
second, induced me to use the patient as though the account were true:
I administered very strong medicines, and watched their effects
constantly. The man eat and drank and slept as usual, and appeared to
suffer nothing but from the effect of the medicines. At last, to my
astonishment, the piece of the poker came away, and the man was as
well as ever. The iron had undergone a regular process of digestion
and the surface of it was deeply honey-combed by the action of the
juices. This was a most singular case, and proves how the God of
Nature has endowed our system with powers of sustaining and redressing
the effects of our own follies.”
The tales of lycanthropy which are found in such different ages and
remote countries, strongly supported the Doctor's theory. Virgil, and
Ovid in his story of Lycaon, had only adapted a popular superstition
to their purposes. And like its relator he regarded as a mere fable
the legend which Pliny has preserved from the lost works of Evanthes a
Greek author not to be despised. Evanthes had found it written among
the Arcadians that a man from the family of a certain author in that
country was chosen by lot and taken to a certain lake; there he
stript, hung his garments upon an oak, swam across and going into the
wilderness, became a wolf, and herded with wolves for nine years; and
if during that time he abstained from doing any hurt to men, he
returned to the lake, recrossed it, resumed his human form, with the
only change of being the worse, not for the wear indeed, but for the
lapse of those nine years; and moreover found his clothes where he had
left them. Upon which Pliny observes, _Mirum est quo procedat Græca
credulitas! Nullum tam impudens mendacium est quod teste careat._
A worse manner of effecting the same metamorphosis Pliny relates from
the Olympionics of Agriopas; that at a human sacrifice offered by the
Arcadians to Jupiter Lycæus, one Demænetus Parrhasius tasted the
entrails, and was transformed into a wolf; at the expiration of ten
years he resumed his original form, and obtained the prize of pugilism
at the Olympic games.
But the Doctor differed from Pliny's opinion that all which is related
concerning lycanthropy must be rejected or all believed;—_Homines in
lupos verti rursumque restitui sibi, falsum esse confidenter
existimare debemus; aut credere omnia, quæ fabulosa tot seculis
comperimus._ The belief however, he admits, was so firmly fixed in the
common people that their word for turncoat was derived from it;—_Unde
tamen ista vulgo infixa sit fama in tantum, ut in maledictis
versipelles habeat, indicabitur._ These fables the Doctor argued,
could not invalidate the testimony of ancient physicians, that there
was an actual and well known species of madness, in which men howled
like wolves, and wandered by night about in lonely places or among the
tombs. It was most severe at the commencement of spring; and was
sometimes epidemic in certain countries. Pieter Forest whose character
for accuracy and sagacity stands high among medical writers, affirms
that he, in the sixteenth century, had seen the disease, and that it
was as it had been described by the ancients. He must have been a
credulous person who believed Constantinople had been so infested by
these wolf-men, that the Grand Seignior and his guards had been
obliged to go out against them; killing a hundred and fifty, and
putting the rest of the pack to flight. This was a traveller's tale;
and the stories related in books of demonology and witchcraft,
concerning wretches who had been tried and executed for having, in the
shape of wolves, killed and eaten children, and who had confessed
their guilt, might be explained, like other confessions of witchcraft,
by the effects of fear and tortures; yet there were cases upon which
the Doctor thought no doubt could be entertained.
One case upon which the Doctor insisted, was that of an Italian
peasant near Pavia, who in the year 1541, was seized with this
madness, and fancying himself to be a wolf, attacked several persons
in the fields and killed some of them. He was taken at last, but not
without great difficulty; and when in the hands of his captors he
declared that he was a wolf, however much they might doubt the avowal,
and that the only difference between him and other wolves was, that
they had their fur on the outside of the skin, but his was between the
skin and the flesh. The madman asserted this so positively that some
of the party, _trop inhumains et loups par effect_, as Simon Goulart
says with a humanity above the standard of his age, determined to see,
and made several slashes in his arms and legs. Repenting of their
cruelty, when they had convinced themselves by this experiment that
the poor wretch was really insane, they put him under the care of a
surgeon; and he died in the course of a few days under his hands.
“Now” said the Doctor “if this were a solitary case, it would
evidently be a case of madness; but as lycanthropy is recognized by
physicians of different times and countries, as a specific and well
known affection of the human mind, can it be so satisfactorily
explained in any other manner, as by the theory of progressive
existence,—by the resurrection of a habit belonging to the preceding
stage of the individual's progress?”
The superstition was not disbelieved by Bishop Hall. In the account of
what he observed in the Netherlands, he says of Spa, “the wide deserts
on which it borders are haunted with three kinds of ill cattle, free
booters, wolves, and witches, though these two last are often one.”
When Spenser tells us it was said of the Irish, as of the Scythians,
how they were once a year turned into wolves, “though Master Camden in
a better sense doth suppose it was the disease called
Lycanthropia,”—he adds these remarkable words, “yet some of the Irish
do use to make the wolf their gossip.” Now it must be observed that
gossip is not here used in its secondary meaning of a talking,
tattling, or tippling companion, but in its original import, though
wickedly detorted here: “Our Christian ancestors,” says Verstegan,
“understanding a spiritual affinity to grow between the parents and
such as undertook for the child at baptism, called each other by the
name of God-sib, which is as much as to say as that they were _sib_
together, that is, of kin together, through God.” The Limerick
schoolmaster whose words are transcribed by Camden, says, “they
receive wolves as gossips, calling them _Chari-Christ_, praying for
them, and wishing them happy; upon which account they are not afraid
of them.” There was great store of wolves in Ireland at that time; and
the Doctor asked whether so strange a custom could be satisfactorily
explained in any way but by a blind consciousness of physical
affinity,—by supposing that those who chose wolves to be godfathers
and godmothers for their children, had in the preceding stage of their
own existence been wolves themselves?
How triumphantly would he have appealed to a story which Captain
Beaver relates in his African Memoranda. “In the evening” says that
most enterprising, resolute, able, and right minded man, “two or three
of the grumetas came to me and said that Francisco, one of their
party, was not a good man: that he wanted to eat one of them, John
Basse, who had been this day taken very ill. As I could not comprehend
what they meant by saying that one of them wanted to eat another, I
sent for Johnson to explain. He said that the man accused of eating
the other was a witch, and that he was the cause of John Basse's
illness, by sucking his blood with his infernal witchcraft; and that
these people had come to request that I would let them tie him to a
tree and flog him, after they had finished their work. I told them
that there was no such thing as a witch; that it was impossible for
this man to suck the blood of another, by any art which he could
possibly possess; that he could not be the cause of another man's
illness by such means; and that with respect to flogging, no one
punished on the island but myself. Johnson who is as bigotted in this
instance as any of them, says that he is well known to be a witch;
that he has killed many people with his infernal art, and that this is
the cause of his leaving his own country, where if he should ever be
caught, he would be sold as a slave; and that he with difficulty had
prevented the other grumetas from throwing him overboard on their
passage from Bissao hither. Johnson moreover told me that there was
another witch among the grumetas, who had the power of changing
himself into an alligator, and that he also had killed many people by
his witchcraft, and was consequently obliged to run from his country.
They therefore most earnestly entreated me to let them punish them,
country-fashion, and they promised not to kill either of them.
Astonished at the assurance that neither of them should be killed if
they were permitted to punish them, I told Johnson that if such a
thing should occur, I would immediately hang all those concerned in
it, and then endeavoured to reason them out of their foolish notions
respecting these two poor men. Johnson replied, that it was the custom
of the country for white men never to interfere in these cases, and
that at Bissao the governor never took notice of their thus punishing
one another according to their own country fashion, and that they
expected the same indulgence here; for that if these people were in
their own country, they would either be killed or sold, as witchcraft
was never forgiven and its professors never suffered to remain in
their own country when once found out. I had now all the grumetas
round me, among whom were the accused themselves, and endeavoured
again to convince them of the innocence of these people, by pointing
out the impossibility of their hurting others by any magic or spell,
or of transforming themselves into any other shape. When many of them
said this man had often avowed his turning himself into an alligator
to devour people: ‘How say you Corasmo, said I, did you ever say so to
any of these people?’ ‘Yes,’ was his reply. ‘What do you mean? do you
mean to say that you ever transformed yourself into any other shape
than that which you now bear?’ ‘Yes,’ was the answer. ‘Now, Corasmo,
you know that white man knows every thing; you cannot deceive me;
therefore avow to those people, that you never changed yourself into
an alligator, and that these are all lies.’ ‘No,’ was his reply,—who
can believe it? ‘I _can_ change myself into an alligator, and _have
often_ done it.’ This was such an incorrigible witch that I
immediately gave him up to the grumetas to punish him, but desired
them to be merciful.—It is scarcely credible that a man can so work
upon his own weak imagination as to believe, which I doubt not this
man did, its own fanciful creations to be realities.—After the
grumetas had left me last night I regretted having delivered up to
them the two poor miserable wretches accused of witchcraft. From ten
till twelve at night their cries were most piteous and loud, and
though distant a full half mile, were distinctly heard. This morning
they cannot move.”
There was a Mr. William Wright of Saham Tony in Norfolk who used to
cast his skin every year, sometimes once, sometimes twice; it was an
uneasy and distressing effort of nature, preceded by itching, red
spots and swellings; the fingers became stiff, hard, and painful at
the ends, and about the nails the pain was exquisite. The whole
process of changing was completed in from ten to twelve days, but it
was about six months before the nails were perfectly renewed. From the
hands the skin came off whole like a glove: and a print representing
one of these gloves is given with the account of the case in the
Gentleman's Magazine.
When this was related to the Doctor it perplexed him. The habit was
evidently that of a snake; and it did not agree with his theory to
suppose that the Archeus would pass, as it were _per saltum_, from so
low a stage of existence to the human form. But upon reading the
account himself he was completely satisfied as soon as he found that
the subject was an Attorney.
He did not know, because it was not known till Mr. Wilkin published
his excellent edition of Sir Thomas Browne's Works, that that
Philosopher sent to his son Dr. Edward Browne “the skin of the palm of
a woman's hand, cast off at the end of a fever, or in the declination
thereof. I called it,” he says, “_exuvium palmæ muliebris_, the Latin
word being _exuvia_ in the plural, but I named it _exuvium_, or
_exuvia_ in the singular number. It is neat, and worthy to be shown
when you speak of the skin. Snakes and lizards and divers insects cast
their skins, and they are very neat ones: men also in some diseases,
by pieces, but I have not met with any so neat as this: a palmister
might read a lecture of it. The whole soles of the feet came off, and
I have one.” If the Doctor had heard of this case, and had not
suspected the woman of having once belonged to a generation of vipers,
or some _snekki-famili_ as the words are rendered in the Talkee-talkee
version, he would have derived her from an eel, and expressed a
charitable hope that she might not still be a slippery subject.
CHAPTER CXXIX.
WHEREIN THE AUTHOR SPEAKS OF A TRAGEDY FOR THE LADIES, AND INTRODUCES
ONE OF WILLIAM DOVE'S STORIES FOR CHILDREN.
_Y donde sobre todo de su dueño
El gran tesoro y el caudal se infiere,
Es que al grande, al mediano, y al pequeño,
Todo se da de balde á quien lo quiere._
BALBUENA.
Here might be the place for enquiring how far the Doctor's opinions or
fancies upon this mysterious subject were original. His _notion_ he
used to call it; but a person to whom the reader will be introduced
ere long, and who regarded him with the highest admiration and the
profoundest respect, always spoke of it as the Columbian Theory of
Progressive Existence. Original indeed in the Doctor it was not; he
said that he had learned it from his poor Uncle William; but that
William Dove originated it himself there can be little doubt. From
books it was impossible that he should have derived it, because he
could not read; and nothing can be more unlikely than that he should
have met with it as a traditional opinion. The Doctor believed that
this poor Uncle, of whom he never spoke without some expression of
compassionate kindness, had deduced it intuitively as an inference
from his instinctive skill in physiognomy.
When subjects like these are treated of, it should be done discreetly.
There should be, in the words of Bishop Andrewes, “_Οἰκονομία_, a
dispensation, not a dissipation; a laying forth, not _διασκορπισμος_,
a casting away; a wary sowing, not a heedless scattering; and a sowing
_χεὶρι, οὐ θυλακῃ_, by handfulls, not by basket-fulls, as the
heathen-man well said.” Bearing this in mind I have given a
Chapterfull, not a Volumefull, and that Chapter is for physiologists
and philosophers; but this Opus is not intended for them alone; they
constitute but a part only of that “fit audience” and not “few,” which
it will find.
One Andrew Henderson, a Scotchman, who kept a bookseller's shop, or
stand, in Westminster Hall, at a time when lawyers' tongues and
witnesses' souls were not the only commodities exposed for sale there,
published a tragedy, called “Arsinoe, or The Incestuous Marriage.” The
story was Egyptian; but the drama deserves to be called Hendersonian,
after its incomparable author; for he assured the reader, in a
prefatory advertisement, that there were to be found in it “the most
convincing arguments against incest and self-murder, interspersed with
an inestimable treasure of ancient and modern learning, and the
substance of the principles of the illustrious Sir Isaac Newton,
adapted to the meanest capacity, and very entertaining to the Ladies,
containing a nice description of the passions and behaviour of the
Fair Sex.”
The Biographer, or Historian, or Anecdotist, or rather the reminiscent
relator of circumstances concerning the birth, parentage and
education, life, character and behaviour, of Dr. Daniel Dove, prefers
not so wide a claim upon the gratitude of his readers as Andrew
Henderson has advanced. Yet, like the author of “Arsinoe,” he trusts
that his work is “adapted to the meanest capacity;” that the lamb may
wade in it, though the elephant may swim, and also that it will be
found “very entertaining to the Ladies.” Indeed, he flatters himself
that it will be found profitable for old and young, for men and for
women, the married and the single, the idle and the studious, the
merry and the sad; that it may sometimes inspire the thoughtless with
thought, and sometimes beguile the careful of their cares. One thing
alone might hitherto seem wanting to render it a catholic, which is to
say, an universal book, and that is, that as there are Chapters in it
for the closet, for the library, for the breakfast room, for the
boudoir, (which is in modern habitations what the oriel was in ancient
ones,) for the drawing-room, and for the kitchen, if you please, (for
whatever you may think, good reader, I am of opinion, that books which
at once amuse and instruct, may be as useful to servant men and maids,
as to their masters and mistresses)—so should there be one at least
for the nursery. With such a chapter, therefore, will I brighten the
countenance of many a dear child, and gladden the heart of many a
happy father, and tender mother, and nepotious uncle or aunt, and fond
brother or sister;
_ἡδεῖαν φάτιν
Φεροίμεν ἀυτοῖς._[1]
For their sakes I will relate one of William Dove's stories, with
which he used to delight young Daniel, and with which the Doctor in
his turn used to delight his young favourites; and which never fails
of effect with that fit audience for which it is designed, if it be
told with dramatic spirit, in the manner that our way of printing it
may sufficiently indicate, without the aid of musical notation.
_Experto crede._ Prick up your ears then,
“My good little women and men;”[2]
and ye who are neither so little, nor so good, _favete linguis_, for
here follows the Story of the Three Bears.
[Footnote 1: SOPHOCLES.]
[Footnote 2: SOUTHEY.]
THE STORY OF THE THREE BEARS.
A tale which may content the minds
Of learned men and grave philosophers.
GASCOYNE.
Once upon a time there were Three Bears, who lived together in a house
of their own, in a wood. One of them was a Little, Small, Wee Bear;
and one was a Middle-sized Bear, and the other was a Great, Huge Bear.
They had each a pot for their porridge, a little pot for the Little,
Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized pot for the Middle Bear, and a
great pot for the Great, Huge Bear. And they had each a chair to sit
in; a little chair for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized
chair for the Middle Bear; and a great chair for the Great, Huge Bear.
And they had each a bed to sleep in; a little bed for the Little,
Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized bed for the Middle Bear; and a
great bed for the Great, Huge Bear.
One day, after they had made the porridge for their breakfast, and
poured it into their porridge-pots, they walked out into the wood
while the porridge was cooling, that they might not burn their mouths,
by beginning too soon to eat it. And while they were walking, a little
old Woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest
old Woman; for first she looked in at the window, and then she peeped
in at the keyhole; and seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the
latch. The door was not fastened, because the Bears were good Bears,
who did nobody any harm, and never suspected that any body would harm
them. So the little old Woman opened the door, and went in; and well
pleased she was when she saw the porridge on the table. If she had
been a good little old Woman, she would have waited till the Bears
came home, and then, perhaps, they would have asked her to breakfast;
for they were good Bears,—a little rough or so, as the manner of Bears
is, but for all that very good natured and hospitable. But she was an
impudent, bad old Woman, and set about helping herself.
So first she tasted the porridge of the Great, Huge Bear, and that was
too hot for her; and she said a bad word about that. And then she
tasted the porridge of the Middle Bear, and that was too cold for her;
and she said a bad word about that, too. And then she went to the
porridge of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and tasted that; and that was
neither too hot, nor too cold, but just right; and she liked it so
well, that she ate it all up: but the naughty old Woman said a bad
word about the little porridge-pot, because it did not hold enough for
her.
Then the little old Woman sate down in the chair of the Great Huge
Bear, and that was too hard for her. And then she sate down in the
chair of the Middle Bear, and that was too soft for her. And then she
sate down in the chair of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and that was
neither too hard, nor too soft, but just right. So she seated herself
in it, and there she sate till the bottom of the chair came out, and
down came hers, plump upon the ground. And the naughty old Woman said
a wicked word about that too.
Then the little old Woman went up stairs into the bed-chamber in which
the three Bears slept. And first she lay down upon the bed of the
Great, Huge Bear; but that was too high at the head for her. And next
she lay down upon the bed of the Middle Bear; and that was too high at
the foot for her. And then she lay down upon the bed of the Little,
Small, Wee Bear; and that was neither too high at the head, nor at the
foot, but just right. So she covered herself up comfortably, and lay
there till she fell fast asleep.
By this time the Three Bears thought their porridge would be cool
enough; so they came home to breakfast. Now the little old Woman had
left the spoon of the Great, Huge Bear, standing in his porridge.
“_Somebody has been at my porridge!_”
said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice. And when
the Middle Bear looked at his, he saw that the spoon was standing in
it too. They were wooden spoons; if they had been silver ones, the
naughty old Woman would have put them in her pocket.
“Somebody has been at my porridge!”
said the Middle Bear, in his middle voice.
Then the Little, Small, Wee Bear, looked at his, and there was the
spoon in the porridge-pot, but the porridge was all gone.
“_Somebody has been at my porridge, and has eaten it all up!_”
said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.
Upon this the Three Bears, seeing that some one had entered their
house, and eaten up the Little, Small, Wee Bear's breakfast, began to
look about them. Now the little old Woman had not put the hard cushion
straight when she rose from the chair of the Great, Huge Bear.
“_Somebody has been sitting in my chair!_”
said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice.
And the little old Woman had squatted down the soft cushion of the
Middle Bear.
“Somebody has been sitting in my chair!”
said the Middle Bear, in his middle voice.
And you know what the little old Woman had done to the third chair.
“_Somebody has been sitting in my chair, and has sate the bottom of
it out!_”
said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.
Then the Three Bears thought it necessary that they should make
farther search; so they went up stairs into their bed-chamber. Now the
little old Woman had pulled the pillow of the Great, Huge Bear, out of
its place.
“_Somebody has been lying in my bed!_”
said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice.
And the little old Woman had pulled the bolster of the Middle Bear out
of its place.
“Somebody has been lying in my bed!”
said the Middle Bear, in his middle voice.
And when the Little, Small, Wee Bear, came to look at his bed, there
was the bolster in its place; and the pillow in its place upon the
bolster; and upon the pillow was the little old Woman's ugly, dirty
head,—which was not in its place, for she had no business there.
“_Somebody has been lying in my bed,—and here she is!_”
said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.
The little old Woman had heard in her sleep the great, rough, gruff
voice, of the Great, Huge Bear; but she was so fast asleep that it was
no more to her than the roaring of wind, or the rumbling of thunder.
And she had heard the middle voice of the Middle Bear, but it was only
as if she had heard some one speaking in a dream. But when she heard
the little, small, wee voice, of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was
so sharp, and so shrill, that it awakened her at once. Up she started;
and when she saw the Three Bears on one side of the bed, she tumbled
herself out at the other, and ran to the window. Now the window was
open, because the Bears, like good, tidy Bears, as they were, always
opened their bed-chamber window when they got up in the morning. Out
the little old Woman jumped; and whether she broke her neck in the
fall; or ran into the wood and was lost there; or found her way out of
the wood, and was taken up by the constable and sent to the House of
Correction for a vagrant as she was, I cannot tell. But the Three
Bears never saw any thing more of her.
CHAPTER CXXX.
CHILDREN AND KITTENS. APHORISMS ASCRIBED TO THE LAUREATE, DR. SOUTHEY.
MORE COLUMBIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Oh! if in after life we could but gather
The very refuse of our youthful hours!
CHARLES LLOYD.
O dear little children, you who are in the happiest season of human
life, how will you delight in the Story of the Three Bears, when Mamma
reads it to you out of this nice book, or Papa, or some fond Uncle,
kind Aunt, or doting Sister! Papa and Uncle, will do the Great, Huge
Bear, best; but Sister, and Aunt, and Mamma, will excel them in the
Little, Small, Wee Bear, with his little, small, wee voice. And O Papa
and Uncle, if you are like such a Father and such an Uncle as are at
this moment in my mind's eye, how will you delight in it, both for the
sake of that small, but “fit audience,” and because you will perceive
how justly it may be said to be
—a well-writ story,
Where each word stands so well placed that it passes
Inquisitive detraction to correct.[1]
[Footnote 1: DAVENPORT.]
It is said to be a saying of Dr. Southey's, that “a house is never
perfectly furnished for enjoyment, unless there is a child in it
rising three years old, and a kitten rising six weeks.”
Observe, reader; this is repeated upon _On-dit's_ authority, which is
never to be taken for more than it is worth. I do not affirm that Dr.
Southey has said this, but he is likely enough to have said it; for I
know that he sometimes dates his letters from Cat's Eden. And if he
did say so, I agree with him, and so did the Doctor; he _specialiter_
as regards the child, I _specialiter_ as regards the kitten.
Kitten is in the animal world what the rosebud is in the garden; the
one the most beautiful of all young creatures, the other the loveliest
of all opening flowers. The rose loses only something in delicacy by
its developement,—enough to make it a serious emblem to a pensive
mind; but if a cat could remember kittenhood, as we remember our
youth, it were enough to break a cat's heart, even if it had nine
times nine heart strings.
Do not the flowers spring fresh and gay,
Pleasant and sweet, in the month of May;
And when their time cometh they fade away.[2]
[Footnote 2: LUSTY JUVENTUS.]
It is another saying of the Laureate's, according to _On-dit_, that,
“live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half
of your life.” They appear so while they are passing; they seem to
have been so when we look back upon them; and they take up more room
in our memory than all the years that succeed them.
But in how strong a light has this been placed by the American teacher
Jacob Abbott whose writings have obtained so wide a circulation in
England. “Life, he says, if you understand by it the season of
preparation for eternity, is more than half gone;—life so far as it
presents opportunities and facilities for penitence and pardon,—so far
as it bears on the formation of character, and is to be considered as
a period of probation,—is unquestionably more than half gone, to those
who are between fifteen and twenty. In a vast number of cases it is
more than half gone, even in _duration_: and if we consider the
thousand influences which crowd around the years of childhood and
youth, winning us to religion, and making a surrender of ourselves to
Jehovah easy and pleasant,—and, on the other hand, look forward beyond
the years of maturity, and see these influences losing all their
power, and the heart becoming harder and harder under the deadening
effects of continuance in sin,—we shall not doubt a moment that the
years of immaturity make a far more important part of our time of
probation than all those that follow.”
That pious man, who, while he lived, was the Honourable Charles How,
and might properly now be called the honoured, says, that, “twenty
years might be deducted for education, from the three score and ten,
which are the allotted sum of human life; this portion,” he observes,
“is a time of discipline and restraint, and young people are never
easy till they are got over it.”
There is, indeed, during those years, much of restraint, of
wearisomeness, of hope, and of impatience; all which feelings lengthen
the apparent duration of time. Suffering, I have not included here;
but with a large portion of the human race, in all Christian
countries, (to our shame be it spoken!) it makes a large item in the
account: there is no other stage of life in which so much gratuitous
suffering is endured,—so much that might have been spared,—so much
that is a mere wanton, wicked addition, to the sum of human
misery,—arising solely and directly from want of feeling in others,
their obduracy, their caprice, their stupidity, their malignity, their
cupidity and their cruelty.
_Algunos sabios han dicho que para lo que el hombre tiene aprender es
muy corta la vida; mas yo añado que es muy larga para los que hemos de
padecer._ “Some wise men,” writes Capmany, “have said that life is
very short for what man has to learn,—but I (he says) must add, that
it is very long for what we have to suffer.” Too surely this is but
too true; and yet a more consolatory view may be taken of human
existence. The shortest life is long enough for those who are more
sinned against than sinning; whose good instincts have not been
corrupted, and whose evil propensities have either not been called
into action, or have been successfully resisted and overcome.
The Philosopher of Doncaster found, in his theory of progressive
existence, an easy solution for some of those questions on which it is
more presumptuous than edifying to speculate, yet whereon that
restless curiosity which man derives from the leaven of the forbidden
fruit, makes it difficult for a busy mind to refrain from speculating.
The horrid opinion which certain Fathers entertained concerning the
souls of unbaptized infants, he never characterized by any lighter
epithet than _damnable_, for he used to say, “it would be wicked to
use a weaker expression:” and the more charitable notion of the Limbo
he regarded as a cold fancy, neither consonant to the heart of man,
nor consistent with the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. He thought
that when the ascent of being has been from good to better through all
its stages, in moral qualities as well as in physical developement,
the immortal spirit might reach its human stage in such a state that
it required nothing more than the vehicle of humanity, and might be
spared its probation. As Enoch had been translated without passing
through death, so he thought such happy spirits might be admitted into
a higher sphere of existence without passing through the trials of sin
and the discipline of sorrow.
CHAPTER CXXXI.
THE DOCTOR ABSTAINS FROM SPECULATING ON PERILOUS SUBJECTS. A STORY OF
ST. ANSELM.
This field is so spacious, that it were easy for a man to lose himself
in it; and if I should spend all my pilgrimage in this walk, my time
would sooner end than my way.
BISHOP HALL.
The Doctor, though he played with many of his theories as if they were
rather mushrooms of the fancy than fruits of the understanding, never
expressed himself sportively upon this. He thought that it rested upon
something more solid than the inductions of a speculative imagination,
because there is a feeling in human nature which answers to it,
acknowledges, and confirms it. Often and often, in the course of his
painful practice, he had seen bereaved parents seek for consolation in
the same conclusion, to which faith and instinctive reason led them,
though no such hypothesis as his had prepared them for it. They
believed it simply and sincerely; and it is a belief, according to his
philosophy, which nature has implanted in the heart for consolation,
under one of the griefs that affect it most.
He had not the same confidence in another view of the same branch of
his hypothesis, relating to the early death of less hopeful subjects.
Their term, he supposed, might be cut short in mercy, if the
predisposing qualities which they had contracted on their ascent were
such as would have rendered their tendency toward evil fatally
predominant. But this, as he clearly saw, led to the brink of a
bottomless question; and when he was asked after what manner he could
explain why so many in whom this tendency predominates, are, to their
own destruction, permitted to live out their term, he confessed
himself at fault. It was among the things, he said, which are
inexplicable by our limited powers of mind. When we attain a higher
sphere of existence, all things will be made clear. Meantime,
believing in the infinite goodness of God, it is enough for us to
confide in His infinite mercy, and in that confidence to rest.
When St. Anselm, at the age of seventy-six, lay down in his last
illness, and one of the Priests who stood around his bed said to him,
it being then Palm Sunday, “Lord Father, it appears to us, that,
leaving this world, you are about to keep the Passover in the Palace
of your Lord!” the ambitious old theologue made answer,—“_et quidem,
si voluntas ejus in hoc est, voluntati ejus non contradico. Verum si
mallet me adhuc inter vos saltem tamdiu manere, donec quæstionem quam
de animæ origine mente revolvo, absolvere possem, gratiosus acciperem,
eo quod nescio, utrum aliquis eam, me defuncto, sit absoluturus._ If
indeed this be his will, I gainsay it not. But if He should chuse
rather that I should yet remain among you at least long enough to
settle the question which I am revolving in my mind concerning the
origin of the Soul, I should take it gratefully; because I do not know
whether any one will be able to determine it, after I am dead.” He
added, “_ego quippe, si comedere possem, spero convalescere; nam nihil
doloris in aliqua parte sentio, nisi quod lassescente stomacho, ob
cibum quem capere nequit, totus deficio._[1]—If I could but eat, I
might hope to recover, for I feel no pain in any part, except that as
my stomach sinks for lack of food, which it is unable to take, I am
failing all over.”
[Footnote 1: EADMER.]
The Saint must have been in a most satisfactory state of
self-sufficiency when he thus reckoned upon his own ability for
disposing of a question which he thought it doubtful whether any one
who came after him would be able to solve. All other appetite had
forsaken him; but that for unprofitable speculation and impossible
knowledge clung to him to the last; so strong a relish had he retained
of the forbidden fruit;
Letting down buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up![2]
So had the Saint lived beyond the allotted term of three-score years
and ten, and his hand was still upon the windlass when the hand of
death was upon him. One of our old Dramatists[3] represented a seven
years apprenticeship to such a craft as sufficient for bringing a man
to a just estimate of it:—
I was a scholar; seven useful springs
Did I deflower in quotations
Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man;
The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt.
DELIGHT, my spaniel, slept, whilst I baused leaves,
Toss'd o'er the dunces, pored on the old print
Of titled words; and still my spaniel slept.
Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh,
Shrunk up my veins: and still my spaniel slept.
And still I held converse with Zabarell,
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw
Of antick Donate; still my spaniel slept.
Still on went I; first, _an sit anima?_
Then an it were mortal? O hold, hold; at that
They're at brain-buffets, fell by the ears amain
Pell-mell together: still my spaniel slept.
Then whether 'twere corporeal, local, fixt,
_Ex traduce_, but whether't had free will
Or no, hot Philosophers
Stood banding factions, all so strongly propt,
I staggered, knew not which was firmer part,
But thought, quoted, read, observed and pryed,
Stufft noting-books; and still my spaniel slept.
At length he waked and yawn'd; and by yon sky,
For aught I know he knew as much as I.
In a more serious mood than that of this scholar, and in a humbler and
holier state of mind than belonged to the Saint, our philosopher used
to say, “little indeed does it concern us, in this our mortal stage,
to enquire whence the spirit hath come,—but of what infinite concern
is the consideration whither is it going!”
[Footnote 2: COWPER.]
[Footnote 3: MARSTON.]
CHAPTER CXXXII.
DR. CADOGAN. A REMARKABLE CASE OF HEREDITARY LONGEVITY. REMARKS ON THE
ORDINARY TERM OF HUMAN LIFE.
Live well, and then how soon so e'er thou die,
Thou art of age to claim eternity.
RANDOLPH.
Dr. Cadogan used to say that the life of man is properly ninety years
instead of three-score and ten; thirty to go up, thirty to stand
still, and thirty to go down.
Who told him so? said Dr. Dove; and who made him better informed upon
that point than the Psalmist?
Any one who far exceeded the ordinary term, beyond which “our strength
is but labour and sorrow,” was supposed by our philosopher, to have
contracted an obstinate habit of longevity in some previous stage of
existence. Centenaries he thought must have been ravens and tortoises;
and Henry Jenkins, like Old Parr, could have been nothing in his
preceding state, but a toad in a block of stone or in the heart of a
tree.
Cardinal D'Armagnac, when on a visitation in the Cevennes, noticed a
fine old man sitting upon the threshold of his own door and weeping;
and as, like the Poet, he had
—not often seen
A healthy man, a man full-grown
Weep in the public roads, alone,
he went up to him, and asked wherefore he was weeping? The old man
replied he wept because his father had just beaten him. The Cardinal
who was amazed to hear that so old a man had a father still living,
was curious enough to enquire what he had beaten him for: “because,”
said the old man, “I past by my grandfather without paying my respects
to him.” The Cardinal then entered the house that he might see this
extraordinary family, and there indeed he saw both father and
grandfather, the former still a hale though a _very_ aged man; the
latter unable to move because of his extreme age, but regarded by all
about him with the greatest reverence.
That the habit in this instance, as in most others of the kind, should
have been hereditary, was what the Doctor would have expected: good
constitutions and ill habits of body are both so;—two things which
seldom co-exist, but this obstinate longevity, as he called it, was
proof both of the one and the other. A remarkable instance of
hereditary longevity is noticed in the Statistical Account of Arklow.
A woman who died at the age of an hundred and ten, speaking of her
children said that her youngest boy was eighty; and that old boy was
living several years afterwards, when the account was drawn up. The
habit, however, he thought, was likely in such cases to correct
itself, and become weaker in every generation. An ill habit he deemed
it, because no circumstances can render extreme old age desirable: it
cannot be so in a good man, for his own sake; nor in a bad one for the
sake of every body connected with him. On all accounts the appointed
term is best, and the wise and pious Mr. How has given us one cogent
reason why it is so.
“The viciousness of mankind,” that excellent person says, “occasioned
the flood; and very probably God thought fit to drown the world for
these two reasons; first to punish the then living offenders; and next
to prevent mens plunging into those prodigious depths of impiety, for
all future ages. For if in the short term of life, which is now
allotted to mankind, men are capable of being puffed up to such an
insolent degree of pride and folly, as to forget God and their own
mortality, his power and their own weakness; if a prosperity bounded
by three-score and ten years, (and what mortal's prosperity, since the
deluge, ever lasted so long?) can swell the mind of so frail a
creature to such a prodigious size of vanity, what boundaries could be
set to his arrogance, if his life and prosperity, like that of the
Patriarch's were likely to continue eight or nine hundred years
together? If under the existing circumstances of life, mens passions
can rise so high; if the present short and uncertain enjoyments of the
world, are able to occasion such an extravagant pride, such
unmeasurable ambition, such sordid avarice, such barbarous rapine and
injustice, such malice and envy, and so many other detestable things,
which compose the numerous train of vice,—how then would the passions
have flamed, and to what a monstrous stature would every vice have
grown, if those enjoyments which provoked and increased them, were of
eight or nine hundred years duration? If eternal happiness and eternal
punishment are able to make no stronger impressions upon men's minds,
so near at hand, it may well be imagined that at so great a distance,
they would have made no impression at all; that eternal happiness
would have been entirely divested of its allurements, and eternal
misery of its terrors; and the Great Creator would have been deprived
of that obedience and adoration, which are so justly due to him from
his creatures. Thus, the inundation of vice has in some measure, by
the goodness of God, been prevented by an inundation of water. That
which was the punishment of one generation, may be said to have been
the preservation of all those which have succeeded. For if life had
not been thus clipped, one Tiberius, one Caligula, one Nero, one Louis
XIV. had been sufficient to have destroyed the whole race of mankind;
each of whose lives had they been ten times as long, and the mischiefs
they occasioned multiplied by that number, it might easily be computed
how great a plague one such long-lived monster would have been to the
world.”
Reflect, reader upon this extract. The reasoning is neither fantastic,
nor far-fetched; but it will probably be as new to you as it was to
me, when I met with it in Mr. How's Devout Meditations. The
republication of that book is one of those good works for which this
country is beholden to the late excellent Bishop Jebb. Mr.
Hetherington in his very original and able treatise upon the Fullness
of Time, has seen this subject in the same point of view. He says
“Even our three-score and ten years, broken and uncertain as that
little span is, can delude us into the folly of putting death and its
dread reckoning far from us, as if we were never to die, and might
therefore neglect any preparation for the after judgement. But if we
were to see before us the prospect of a life of one thousand years, we
should doubtless regard death as a bug-bear indeed, and throw off all
the salutary restraint which the fear of it now exercises. Suppose our
tendencies to every kind of sinful indulgence as strong as at present,
with the prospect of such lengthened enjoyment and immunity from
danger, and we may easily imagine with what hundred-fold eagerness we
should plunge into all kinds of enormity, and revel in the wildest
licentiousness. But this is the very consummation to which the race of
Adam had reached, when ‘God looked on the earth, and behold it was
corrupt and filled with violence;’ and God determined to destroy the
earth with its inhabitants.”
A remark of Brantome's may be quoted as the curious confirmation of a
pious man's opinion by a thoroughly corrupt one. It occurs in his
Discourse upon the Emperor Charles the fifth. “_Il faut certes
confesser,_” he says, “_comme j'ouy dire une fois à un vieux Capitaine
Espagnol, que si ce grand Empereur eust été immortel, ou seulement de
cent ans bien sain et dispos, il auroit esté par guerre le vray Fleau
du Monde, tant il estoit frappé d'ambition, si jamais Empereur le
fut._”
CHAPTER CXXXIII.
MORE THOUGHTS CONCERNING LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY.
_Clericus es? legito hæc. Laicus? legito ista libenter.
Crede mihi, invenies hic quod uterque voles._
D. DU-TR. MED.
If we look to the better part of the human race as well as the worse,
with regard to them also the ordinary term of human life will be found
the best that could have been appointed both for themselves and for
the purposes of society, the wisdom and the goodness of the ways of
Providence becoming evident in this, as in all other things upon which
our limited faculties are capable of forming a comprehensive
judgement.
The term is long enough for all we have to learn. Madame de Sevigné
said sportively, that she should be a very wise person if she could
but live about two hundred years: _je tâche tous les jours à profiter
de mes reflexions; et si je pouvois vivre seulement deux cents ans, il
me semble que je serois une personne bien admirable._ This the Doctor
thought might hold good in the case of Madame de Sevigné herself, and
of all other persons who regarded the acquirement of information as an
amusement, or at most an accomplishment; “One small head might carry
all they knew,” though their lives should be prolonged to the length
of antediluvian old age. But in his opinion it would be otherwise with
those who devoted themselves to the pursuit of knowledge, for the
purpose of storing their own minds, and enabling themselves to
instruct their fellow creatures. For although the mind would retain
its faculties unimpaired for a length of time in proportion to the
greater length of life, it by no means follows that its capacity would
be enlarged. Horace Walpole lived forty years after he had said “my
mould has taken all its impressions, and can receive no more. I must
grow old upon the stock I have.” It is indeed highly probable that the
most industrious students for some time before they reach the confines
of senility forget as much as they learn. A short life is long enough
for making us wise to salvation, if we will but give our hearts to the
wisdom which is from above: and this is the one thing needful.
There are some however who in their eulogistic and extravagant
lamentations seem to have thought no lease long enough for the objects
of their admiration. A certain John Fellows published an elegy on the
death of the Reverend John Gill, D.D. This learned Doctor in Dissent
died at a good old age; nevertheless the passionate mourner in rhyme
considered his death as a special mark of the Almighty's displeasure,
and exclaimed
How are the mighty fallen! Lord when will
Thine anger cease? The great the learned Gill
Now pale and breathless lies!
Upon which a reviewer not improperly remarked that without dwelling
upon the _presumption_ of the writer he could not but notice the
_folly_ of thus lamenting as though it were an untimely stroke, the
natural departure of a venerable old man of near eighty. “Was this,”
said he, “sufficient cause for raising such an outcry in Zion, and
calling on her sons and daughters to weep and wail as if the Day of
Judgement were come.”
Nothing however in former times excited so great a sensation in the
small world of Noncons as the death of one of their Divines. Their
favorite poet Dr. Watts, wished when the Reverend Mr. Gouge died that
he could make the stones hear and the rocks weep,
And teach the Seas and teach the Skies
Wailings and sobs and sympathies.
Heaven was impatient of our crimes,
And sent his minister of death
To scourge the bold rebellion of the times,
And to demand our prophet's breath.
He came commissioned for the fates
Of awful Mead and charming Bates:
There he essay'd the vengeance first,
Then took a dismal aim, and brought GREAT GOUGE to dust.
GREAT GOUGE to dust! how doleful is the sound!
How vast the stroke is! and how wide the wound!—
Sion grows weak and England poor;
Nature herself with all her store
Can furnish such a pomp for death no more.
This was pretty well for a threnodial flight. But Dr. Watts went
farther. When Mr. Howe should die, (and Howe was then seventy years of
age,) he thought it would be time that the world should be at an
end,—and prayed that it might be so.
Eternal God! command his stay!
Stretch the dear months of his delay;—
O we could wish his age were one immortal day!
But when the flaming chariot's come
And shining guards to attend thy Prophet home,
Amidst a thousand weeping eyes,
Send an Elisha down, a soul of equal size;
_Or burn this worthless globe, and take us to the skies!_
What would the Dissenters have said if a clerical poet had written in
such a strain upon the decease of a Bishop or Archbishop?
We pray in the Litany to be delivered from sudden death. Any death is
to be deprecated which should find us unprepared: but as a temporal
calamity with more reason might we pray to be spared from the misery
of an infirm old age. It was once my fortune to see a frightful
instance of extreme longevity,—a woman who was nearly in her hundredth
year. Her sight was greatly decayed, though not lost; it was very
difficult to make her hear, and not easy then to make her understand
what was said, though when her torpid intellect was awakened she was,
legally, of sane mind. She was unable to walk, or to assist herself in
any way. Her neck hung in such wrinkles that it might almost be
likened to a turkey's; and the skin of her face and of her arms was
cleft like the bark of an oak, as rough, and almost of as dark a
colour. In this condition, without any apparent suffering, she passed
her time in a state between sleeping and waking, fortunate that she
could thus beguile the wearisomeness of such an existence.
Instances of this kind are much rarer in Europe than in tropical
climates. Negresses in the West Indies sometimes attain an age which
is seldom ascertained because it is far beyond living memory. They
outlive all voluntary power, and their descendants of the third or
fourth generation carry them out of their cabins into the open air,
and lay them, like logs, as the season may require, in the sunshine,
or in the shade. Methinks if Mecænas had seen such an object, he would
have composed a palinode to those verses in which he has perpetuated
his most pitiable love for life. A woman in New Hampshire, North
America, had reached the miserable age of 102, when one day as some
people were visiting her, the bell tolled for a funeral; she burst
into tears and said “Oh when will the bell toll for me! It seems as if
it never would toll for me! I am afraid that I shall never die!” This
reminds me that I have either read, or heard, an affecting story of a
poor old woman in England,—very old, and very poor,—who retained her
senses long after the body had become a weary burden; she too when she
heard the bell toll for a funeral used to weep, and say she was afraid
God had forgotten her! Poor creature, ignorantly as she spake, she had
not forgotten Him; and such impatience will not be accounted to her
for a sin.
These are extreme cases, as rare as they are mournful. Life indeed is
long enough for what we have to suffer, as well as what we have to
learn; but it was wisely said by an old Scottish Minister (I wish I
knew his name, for this saying ought to have immortalized it,) “Time
is short; and if your cross is heavy you have not far to carry it.”
_Chi ha travaglio, in pace il porti:
Dolce è Dio, se il mondo è amaro.
Sappia l'uom, che al Cielo è caro;
Abbia fede, è aura conforti._[1]
Were the term shorter it would not suffice for the developement of
those moral qualities which belong peculiarly to the latter stage of
life; nor could the wholesome influence which age exercises over the
young in every country where manners are not so thoroughly corrupted
as to threaten the dissolution of society, be in any other manner
supplied.
[Footnote 1: MAGGI.]
“_Il me semble que le mal physique attendrit autant que le mal moral
endurcit le cœur,_” said Lord Chesterfield, when he was growing old,
and suffering under the infirmities of a broken constitution.
Affliction in its lightest form, with the aid of time, had brought his
heart into this wholesome state.
_O figliuol' d'Adam, grida Natura,
Onde i tormenti? Io vi farà tranquilli,
Se voi non rebellate alla mia legge._[2]
There is indeed a tranquillity which Nature brings with it as duly
toward the close of life, as it induces sleep at the close of day. We
may resist the salutary influence in both cases, and too often it is
resisted, at the cost of health in the one, and at a still dearer cost
in the other: but if we do this, we do it wilfully, the resistance is
our own act and deed,—it is our own error, our own fault, our sin, and
we must abide the consequences.
[Footnote 2: CHIABRERA.]
The greatest happiness to which we can attain in this world is the
peace of God. Ask those who have attained the height of their
ambition, whether in the pursuit of wealth, or power, or fame, if it
be not so? ask them in their sane mind and serious hours, and they
will confess that all else is vanity.
Fond man, that looks on earth for happiness,
And here long seeks what here is never found![3]
This His own peace, which is his last and crowning gift, our Heavenly
Father reserves for us in declining life, when we have earned our
discharge from its business and its cares; and He prepares us for it
by the course of nature which he has appointed.
O all the good we hope, and all we see,
That Thee we know and love, comes from Thy love and Thee.[3]
Hear reader the eloquent language of Adam Littleton when speaking of
one who has received this gift:—it occurs in a funeral sermon, and the
preacher's heart went with his words. After describing the state of a
justified Christian, he rises into the following strain: “And now what
has this happy person to do in this world any longer, having his debts
paid and his sins pardoned, his God reconciled, his conscience quieted
and assured, his accusers silenced, his enemies vanquished, the law
satisfied, and himself justified, and his Saviour glorified, and a
crown of Immortality, and a robe of righteousness prepared for him?
What has he to do here more, than to get him up to the top of Pisgah
and take a view of his heavenly Canaan; to stand upon the Confines of
Eternity, and in the contemplation of those joys and glories, despise
and slight the vanities and troubles of this sinful and miserable
world; and to breathe after his better life, and be preparing himself
for his change; when he shall be called off to weigh anchor, and hoist
sail for another world, where he is to make discoveries of unutterable
felicities, and inconceivable pleasures?
“Oh what a happy and blest condition is it to live, or to die in the
midst of such gracious deliverances and glorious assurances; with this
fastening consideration to boot, that ‘neither life nor death, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor any creature is able to
separate him from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ his
Lord!’”
[Footnote 3: PHINEAS FLETCHER.]
CHAPTER CXXXIV.
A TRANSITION, AN ANECDOTE, AN APOSTROPHE, AND A PUN, PUNNET, OR
PUNDIGRION.
_Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures;
Et sermone opus est, modo tristi, sæpe jocoso._
HORACE.
The Reader is now so far acquainted with the Doctor and his bride
elect, (for we are still in the Interim,)—he knows so much of the
birth, parentage and education of both, so much of their respective
characters, his way of thinking and her way of life, that we may pass
to another of those questions propounded in the second post-initial
chapter.
The minister of a very heterodox congregation in a certain large city,
accosted one of his friends one day in the street with these words,
which were so characteristic and remarkable that it was impossible not
to remember and repeat them,—“I am considering whether I shall marry
or keep a horse.” He was an eccentric person, as this anecdote may
show; and his inspirited sermons (I must not call them inspired,) were
thought in their style of eloquence and sublimity to resemble
Klopstock's Odes.
No such dubitation could ever have entered the Doctor's head. Happy
man, he had already one of the best horses in the world: (Forgive me,
O Shade of Nobs in thine Elysian pastures, that I have so long delayed
thy eulogy!)—and in Deborah he was about to have one of the best of
wives.
If he had hesitated between a horse and a wife, he would have deserved
to meet with a Grey Mare.
CHAPTER CXXXV.
REGINALD HEBER. A MISTAKE OBVIATED, WHICH MIGHT OTHERWISE EASILY BE
MADE.
Perhaps some Gull, as witty as a Goose,
Says with a coy skew look, “it's pretty, pretty!
But yet that so much wit he should dispose
For so small purpose, faith” saith he, “'tis pity!”
DAVIES OF HEREFORD.
Who was Nobs?
Nobs, I may venture to affirm, is not mentioned by Reginald Heber. I
have never had an opportunity of ascertaining the fact by a careful
examination of his volumes, but the enquiries which it has been in my
power to make, have led to this conclusion. Judicious readers will, I
hope, acknowledge, that in consequence of the scrupulous care with
which I guard against even the appearance of speaking positively upon
subjects whereon there may be any reasonable doubt, I am,
comparatively with most authors, superlatively correct.
Now as Reginald Heber must have seen Nobs, and having seen could not
but have remarked him, and having remarked must also have perceived
how remarkable he was for all the outward and visible signs of a good
horse, this omission is to be lamented. A culpable omission it must
not be called, because it was not required that he should mention him;
but it could not have been considered as _hors d'œuvre_ to have
noticed his surpassing merits, merits which Reginald Heber could have
appreciated, and which no one perhaps could have described so well;
for of Nobs it may veritably be said that he was a horse
———_tanto buono e bello,
Che chi volesse dir le lodi sue,
Bisognarebbe haver un gran cervello,
Bisognarebbe un capo come un bue._[1]
[Footnote 1: VARCHI.]
Perhaps some captious reader may suppose that he has here detected a
notable error in my chronology. Nobs, he may say, was made dog's-meat
before Reginald Heber was born, or at least before he had exchanged
his petticoats for the garb-masculine, denominated galligaskins in
philippic verse.
Pardon me, reader; the mistake is on your part; and you have committed
two in this your supposition. Mistakes indeed, like misfortunes,
seldom come single.
First it is a mistake, and what, if it were not altogether
inconsiderate, would be a calumnious one,—to suppose that Nobs ever
was made dog's-meat. The Doctor had far too much regard for his good
horse, to let his remains be treated with such indignity. He had too
much sense of obligation and humanity to part with an old dumb servant
when his strength began to fail, and consign him to the hard usage
which is the common lot of these poor creatures, in this, in this
respect, hard-hearted and wicked nation. Nobs when his labour was
past, had for the remainder of his days the run of the fields at
Thaxted Grange. And when in due course of nature, he died of old age,
instead of being sent to the tanners and the dogs, he became, like
“brave Percy” food for—worms.—A grave was dug, wherein he was decently
deposited, with his shoes on, and Barnaby and his master planted a
horse-chesnut on the spot. Matthew Montagu, and Montagu Matthew ought
to have visited it in joint pilgrimage.
Hadst thou been a bay horse, Nobs, it would have been a bay-tree
instead. But though the tree which was thy monument was deciduous and
has perhaps been doomed to fall by some irreverent or ignorant hand,
thy honours are perennial.
Secondly, the captious reader is mistaken in supposing me to have
spoken of Bishop Heber,—that Heber, who if he had been a Romish Bishop
would already have been Saint Reginald by the courtesy of Rome, as in
due time he must have been by right of canonization. Sir Edward Lloyd
would smile at such a mistake. So would a Yorkshire or a Shropshire
Genealogist. I am not enough of one to know in what degree the two
Reginalds were related; but that they were of the same family is
apparent, and the elder, who is of the equestrian order of Authors and
ought to have taken the name of Philip, was contemporary with the
Doctor. He published yearly lists of horse matches run from 1753 to
1758,—I know not how much longer. If such registers as his had been
preserved of the Olympic Games, precious would they be to historians
and commentators, examining Masters, and aspirant Under-Graduates.
CHAPTER CXXXVI.
THE PEDIGREE AND BIRTH OF NOBS, GIVEN IN REPLY TO THE FIRST QUERY IN
THE SECOND CHAPTER P. I.
_Theo._ Look to my Horse, I pray you, well.
_Diego._ He shall Sir.
_Inc._ Oh! how beneath his rank and call was that now!
Your Horse shall be entreated as becomes
A Horse of fashion, and his inches.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Who was Nobs?
A troop of British cavalry which had served on the continent was
disbanded in the City of York, and the horses were sold. Their
commander Sir Robert Clayton was a wealthy man, and happening to be a
noble-minded man also, he could not bear to think that his old fellow
campaigners, who had borne brave men to battle, should be ridden to
death as butcher's hacks, or worked in dung-carts till they became
dog's meat. So he purchased a piece of ground upon Knavesmire heath,
and turned out the old horses to have their run there for life. There
may be persons living who remember to have heard of this honourable
act, and the curious circumstance which has preserved it from being
forgotten. For once these horses were grazing promiscuously while a
summer storm gathered, and when the first lightnings flashed from the
cloud, and the distant thunder began to roll; but presently, as if
they supposed these fires and sounds to be the signal of approaching
battle, they were seen to get together and form in line, almost in as
perfect order as if they had had their old masters upon their backs.
One of these old soldiers was what the Spaniards with the gravity
peculiar to their language call a _Caballo Padre_; or what some of our
own writers, with a decorum not less becoming, appellate an Entire
horse;—or what a French interpreter accompanying an Englishman to
obtain a passport wherein the horse as well as the rider was to be
described, denominated _un cheval de pierre_ to the astonishment of
the clerks in the office, whose difficulty was not at all removed by
the subsequent definition of the English applicant, which the said
interpreter faithfully rendered thus, _un cheval de pierre est un
cheval qui couvre les officiers municipaux._ He had found his way in a
Cossack regiment from the Steppes of Tartary to the plains of Prussia;
had run loose from a field of battle in which his master was killed,
and passing from hand to hand had finally been sold by a Jew into the
service of his majesty King George II. In the course of this eventful
life he had lost his Sclavonic name, and when he entered the British
regiment was naturalized by that of Moses in honour of his late
possessor.
It so happened that a filly by name Miss Jenny had been turned out to
recover from a sprain in a field sufficiently near Knavesmire Heath
for a Houyhnhnm voice to be within hearing of Houyhnhnm ears. In this
field did Miss Jenny one day beguile the solitude by exclaiming
“heigh-ho for a husband!” an exclamation which exists in the Equine as
well as in the English language. It is also found in the Feline
tongue, but Grimalkin has set it to very unpleasant music. Moses heard
the strain and listened to the voice of love. The breezes did for him
what many a lover has in vain requested them to do in sonnet, and in
elegy, and in song;—they wafted back his sympathetic wishes, and the
wooing was carried on at a quarter of a mile distance: after which the
Innamorato made no more of hedge and ditch than Jupiter was wont to do
of a brazen Tower. Goonhilly in Cornwall was indebted for its once
famous breed of horses to a Barb, which was turned loose (like Moses)
by one of the Erisey family,—the Erisey estate joining the down.
A few days afterwards Miss Jenny having perfectly recovered of her
sprain was purchased by Dr. Dove. The alteration which took place in
her shape was so little that it excited no suspicion in any person:—a
circumstance which will not appear extraordinary to those who remember
that the great Mr. Taplin himself having once booked his expectations
of a colt, kept the mare eleven lunar months and a fortnight by the
Almanack, and then parted with her, after taking the opinion of almost
every farmer and breeder in the country, upon an universal decision
that she had no foal in her;—ten days afterwards the mare shewed cause
why the decision of the judges should be reversed. Those persons, I
say, who know the supereminent accuracy of Mr. Taplin, and that in
matters of this kind every thing past under his own eye, (for he tells
you that it was a trust which he never delegated to another), will not
be so much surprised as the Doctor was at what happened on the present
occasion. The Doctor and Nicholas were returning from
Adwick-in-the-Street where they had been performing an operation. It
was on the eleventh of June; the day had been unusually hot; they were
overtaken by a thunderstorm, and took shelter in a barn. The Doctor
had no sooner alighted than Miss Jenny appeared greatly distressed;
and to the utter astonishment both of Dr. Dove and Nicholas, who could
scarcely believe their own eyes, there was—almost as soon as they
could take off the saddle—what I once saw called in the letter of a
waiting gentlewoman—_dishion_ to the family. To express the same event
in loftier language,
_Ἦλθεν δ᾿ υπὸ σπλάγχνων ὑπ ὠ——
δῖνος τ᾿ ἐρατᾶς ΝΟΨ
Ες φάος ἀυτίκα._
It is for the gratification of the learned Thebans who will peruse
this history that I quote Pindar here.
INTERCHAPTER XVI.
THE AUTHOR RELATES SOME ANECDOTES, REFERS TO AN OPINION EXPRESSED BY A
CRITIC ON THE PRESENT OPUS, AND DESCANTS THEREON.
Every man can say B to a battledore, and write in praise of virtue and
the seven liberal sciences; thresh corn out of full sheaves, and fetch
water out of the Thames. But out of dry stubble to make an
after-harvest, and a plentiful crop without sowing, and wring juice
out of a flint, that is Pierce a God's name, and the right trick of a
workman.
NASH.
There is an anecdote related of the Speaker in one of Queen
Elizabeth's Parliaments, who when the Queen, during a session in which
small progress had been made in the public business, asked him what
the House had got through, made answer, “May it please your Majesty,
eight weeks.” In like manner, if it be asked what I have got through
in the prosecution of this my Opus, I reply, “May it please your
Readership, four volumes.”
This brings to my recollection another anecdote, which though not
matter of history like the former, is matter of fact, and occurred in
the good town of Truro. A lady in that town hired a servant, who at
the time of hiring thought herself bound to let the lady know that she
had once “had a misfortune.” When she had been some time in service,
she spoke of something to her Mistress, inadvertently, as having
happened just after the birth of her first child. Your first! said the
Lady; why how many have you had then?—Oh Ma'am said she, I've had
four. Four! exclaimed the Mistress; why you told me you had had but
one. However I hope you mean to have no more. Ma'am, replied the
woman, that must be as it may please God.
“We are” says Lord Camelford, “as it pleases God,—and sometimes as it
displeases him.”
The reflection is for every one; but the anecdote is recommended to
the special notice of a Critic on the Athenæum establishment, who in
delivering his opinion upon the third volume of this Opus, pronounced
it to be “clear to him,” that the Author had “expended” on the two
former, “a large portion of his intellectual resources, no less than
of his lengthy common-place book.”
The aforesaid Critic has also pronounced that the Opus entitled The
Doctor might have been and ought to have been a Novel. _Might_ have
been is one consideration, _ought_ to have been is another, and
whether it would have been better that it _should_ have been, is a
third; but without discussing either of these propositions, because as
Calderon says,
_Sobre impossibles y falsas
proposiciones, no hai
argumento;_
without, I say, enquiring into what might, would, could, or should
have been, neither of which imports of the preterperfect tense,
optative, potential or subjunctive, are suitable to the present case,
the Author of this Opus replies to the aforesaid Critic's assertion
that the Opus might have been a Novel,—That, Sir, _must_ have been as
it pleased ME.
When Corporal Trim in one of his many attempts to begin the immortal
story of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles, called that King
unfortunate, and Uncle Toby compassionately asked “was he unfortunate
then?” the Corporal replied, the King of Bohemia, an' please your
honour was _unfortunate_, as thus,—that taking great pleasure and
delight in navigation and all sort of sea affairs, and there happening
throughout the whole Kingdom of Bohemia, to be no sea-port town
whatever,—“How the Deuce should there, Trim? cried my Uncle Toby; for
Bohemia being totally inland, it could have happened no
otherwise.”—“It might said Trim, if it had pleased God.”—“I believe
not, replied my Uncle Toby, after some pause—for being inland as I
said, and having Silesia and Moravia to the East; Lusatia and Upper
Saxony to the North; Franconia to the West, and Bavaria to the South,
Bohemia could not have been propelled to the sea, without ceasing to
be Bohemia,—nor could the sea, on the other hand, have come up to
Bohemia, without overflowing a great part of Germany, and destroying
millions of unfortunate inhabitants who could make no defence against
it,—which would bespeak, added my Uncle Toby, mildly, such a want of
compassion in Him who is the Father of it,—that, I think, Trim—the
thing could have happened no way.”
Were I to say of a Homo on any establishment whatsoever, political,
commercial or literary, public or private, legal or ecclesiastical,
orthodox or heterodox, military or naval,—I include them all that no
individual in any may fancy the observation was intended for himself
and so take it in snuff, (a phrase of which I would explain the origin
if I could,)—and moreover that no one may apply to himself the
illustration which is about to be made, I use the most generic term
that could be applied,—Were I to say of any Homo, (and how many are
there of whom it might be said!) that he might have been whelped or
foaled, instead of having been born, no judicious reader would
understand me as predicating this to be possible, but as denoting an
opinion that such an animal might as well have been a quadruped as
what he is; and that for any use which he makes of his intellect, it
might have been better for society if he had gone on four legs and
carried panniers.
“There stands the Honourable Baronet, hesitating between two bundles
of opinions”—said a certain noble Lord of a certain County Member in
the course of an animated debate in the House of Commons on a subject
now long since forgotten. I will not say of any Homo on any
establishment that his fault is that of hesitating too long or
hazarding too little; but I will say of any such hypothetical Homo as
might better have been foaled, that I wish his panniers had supplied
him with better bundles to choose of.
“How,” says Warburton, “happened it in the definitions of Man, that
_reason_, is always made essential to him? Nobody ever thought of
making _goodness_ so. And yet it is certain that there are as few
reasonable men as there are good. To tell you my mind, I think Man
might as properly be defined, _an animal to whom a sword is
essential_, as one to _whom reason is essential_. For there are as few
that _can_, and yet fewer that _dare_, use the one as the other.”—And
yet, he might have added, too many that misuse both.
The aforesaid Critic on the Athenæum establishment spoke with as
little consideration as Trim, when he said that the Opus might have
been a novel, implying the while—if it had so pleased the Author; and
I make answer advisedly like my Uncle Toby in saying that it could not
have pleased me.
The moving accident is not my trade;
To freeze the blood I have no ready arts.[1]
[Footnote 1: WORDSWORTH.]
Wherefore should I write a novel? There is no lack of novels nor of
novel-writers in these days, good, bad, and indifferent. Is there not
Mr. James who since the demise of Sir Walter is by common consent
justly deemed King of the historical Novelists? And is there not Mrs.
Bray who is as properly the Queen? Would the Earl of Mulgrave be less
worthily employed in writing fashionable tales upon his own views of
morality, than he is in governing Ireland as he governs it? Is there
any season in which some sprigs of nobility and fashion do not bring
forth hot-house flowers of this kind? And if some of them are rank or
sickly, there are others (tell us, Anne Grey! are there not?) that are
of delicate penciling, rich colours, and sweet scent. What are the
Annuals but schools for Novelists male and female? and if any lady in
high life has conceived a fashionable tale, and when the critical time
arrives wishes for a temporary concealment, is not Lady Charlotte Bury
kindly ready to officiate as _Sage Femme_?
The Critic was not so wide of the mark in saying that this Opus ought
to have been a novel—to have pleased him, being understood.
Oh, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;
But there's more in me than thou understandest:[2]
And indeed as Chapman says in his Commentary on the Iliad, “where a
man is understood there is ever a proportion between the writer's wit
and the writees,—that I may speak with authority, according to my old
lesson in philosophy, _intellectus in ipsa intelligibilia transit_.”
[Footnote 2: TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.]
_Le role d'un auteur est un role assez vain_, says Diderot, _c'est
celui d'un homme qui se croit en etat de donner des leçons au public.
Et le role du critique? Il est plus vain encore; c'est celui d'un
homme qui se croit en etat de donner des leçons à celui qui se croit
en etat d'en donner au public. L'auteur dit, Messieurs, écoutezmoi,
car je suis votre maitre. Et le critique, C'est moi, Messieurs, qu'il
faut écouter, car je suis le maitre de vos maitres._
The Athenæan Critic plays the Master with me,—and tops his part. “It
is clear, he says, from every page of this book that the Author does
not in vulgar parlance, think Small Beer of himself.” Right, my
Master? certainly I do not. I do not think that the contents of this
book would be truly compared to small beer, which is either weak and
frisky, or weak and flat; that they would turn sour upon a sound, that
is to say an orthodox stomach, or generate flatulence except in an
empty one. I am more inclined, as my Master insinuates, to think
Strong Beer of myself, Cwrw, Burton, Audit Ale, Old October,—what in
his parlance used be called Stingo; or Porter, such as Thrale's
Entire, and old Whitbread's, in days when the ingredients came from
the malster and the hop merchant, not from the Brewer's druggist. Or
Cider, whether of Herefordshire, Somersetshire or Devonshire growth,
no matter; Stire, Cokaghee, or Fox-whelp, a beverage as much better
than Champagne, as it is honester, wholesomer and cheaper. Or Perry,
the Teignton-Squash. These are right old English liquors, and I like
them all. Nay, I am willing if my Master pleases, to think Metheglin
of myself also, though it be a Welsh liquor, for there is Welsh blood
in my veins, and Metheglin has helped to make it, and it is not the
worse for the ingredient. Moreover with especial reference to the
present Opus, there is this reason why I should think Metheglin of
myself,—that Metheglin is made of honey and honey is collected from
all the flowers of the fields and gardens: and how should I have been
able to render this tribute to the Philosopher of Doncaster, my true
Master, if I had not been busy as a Bee in the fields and gardens of
literature, yea in the woods and wilds also? And in the orchards,—for
have I not been plying early and late amongst
“the orchard trees
Last left and earliest found by birds and bees?”[3]
Of Bees however let me be likened to a Dumbledore, which Dr. Southey
says is the most goodnatured of God's Insects; because great must be
the provocation that can excite me to use my sting.
[Footnote 3: EBENEZER ELLIOTT.]
My Master's mention of Small Beer, in vulgar parlance Swipes, reminds
me of Old Tom of Oxford's Affectionate Condolence with the Ultras,
some years ago, whereby it appears that he thought Small Beer at that
time of some very great Patriots and Queenites.
I see your noble rage too closely pent;
I hear you Whigs and Radicals ferment,
Like close-cork'd bottles fill'd with fizzing barm.
Now, Gentlemen, whose stopper is the strongest?
Whose eloquence will bottle-in the longest?
Who'll first explode, I wonder, or who last?
As weak small Beer is sure to fly the first,
Lo! poor Grey Bennet hath already burst,
And daub'd with froth the Speaker as he past.
Who next? Is't Lambton, weak and pert and brisk,
And spitting in one's face, like Ginger-frisk?
Lord John, keep in _thy_ cork, for Heaven's sake do!
The strength and spirit of Champagne is thine,
Powers that will mellow down to generous wine;
Thy premature explosion I should rue.
The Oxford satirist thought Champagne of Lord John in the reign of
Queen Caroline. I think Champagne of him still, which the Satirist
assuredly does not, but we differ in opinion upon this point only
because we differ concerning the merits of the wine so called. I
request him to accept the assurance of my high consideration and
good-will, I shake hands with him mentally and cordially, and entreat
him to write more songs, such as gladden the hearts of true
Englishmen.
Dr. Clarke says in a note to his Travels, that Champagne is an
artificial compound: that “the common champagne wine drunk in this
country is made with green grapes and sugar; and that the imitation of
it, with green gooseberries and sugar, is full as salutary, and
frequently as palatable.” A Frenchman who translated these Travels
remarks upon this passage thus, _C'est sans doute par un sentiment de
patriotisme, et pour degoûter ses compatriotes du vin de Champagne,
que le Docteur Clarke se permet de hasarder de pareilles assertions.
Croit-il que le vin de Champagne se fasse avec du sucre et des raisins
verts, ou des groseilles, et qu'un semblable mélange puisse passer,
même en Angleterre, pour un analogue des vins d'Ai et d'Epernai?_ Dr.
Clarke, as it became him to do, inserted this remark in his next
edition, and said in reply to it, “It so happens that the author's
information does not at all depend upon any conjectures he may have
formed; it is the result of enquiries which he made upon the spot, and
of positive information relative to the chemical constituents ‘_des
vins d'Ai et d'Epernai_,’ from Messrs. Moett and Company, the
principal persons concerned in their fabrication.” It was in the town
of Epernai, whither the author repaired for information upon this
subject, that in answer to some written questions proposed to Mons.
Moett, the following statement was given by that gentleman touching
the admission of sugar into the composition of their wine:
“_Peut-être regarderoit-on en Champagne comme un indiscretion, la
réponse a cette question, puisque la révélation de ce qu'on appelle_
LE SECRET DU PROPRIETAIRE _pourroit nuire a la reputation des vins de
Champagne: mais les hommes instruits et éclairés doivent connoître les
faits et les causes, parcequ'ils savent apprecier et en tirer les
justes consequences._
“_Il est tres vrai que dans les années froides ou pluvieuses, le
raisin n'ayant pas acquis assez de maturité, ou ayant été privé de la
chaleur du soleil, les vins n'ont plus cette liqueur douce et aimable
qui les characterise: dans ce cas quelques propriétaires y ont supplée
par l'introduction dans leur vins d'une liqueur tres eclaire, dont la
base est nécessairement du sucre; sa fabrication est un secrêt; cette
liqueur meslée en très petites quantités aux vins verts, corrige le
vice de l'année, et leur donne absolument la même douceur que celle
que procure le soleil dans les années chaudes. Il s'est élevé en
Champagne même des frequentes querelles entre des connoisseurs qui
pretendoient pouvoir distinguer au goût la liqueur artificielle de
celle qui est naturelle; mais c'est une chimère. Le sucre produit dans
le raisin, comme dans toute espèce de fruit par le travail de la
nature, est toujours du sucre, comme celui que l'art pourroit y
introduire, lorsque l'intemperance des saisons les en a privé. Nous
nous sommes plûs très souvent à mettre en defaut l'expérience de ces
prétendus connoisseurs; et il est si rare de les voir rencontrer
juste, que l'on peut croire que c'est le hazard plus que leur goût qui
les a guidé._”
Having thus upon the best authority shown that Champagne in
unfavourable years is doctored in the country, and leaving the reader
to judge how large a portion of what is consumed in England is made
from the produce of our own gardens, I repeat that I think Champagne
of Lord John Russell,—not such as my friend of Oxford intended in his
verses,—but Gooseberry Champagne, by no means brisk, and with a very
disagreeable taste of the Cork.
If the Oxford Satirist and I should peradventure differ concerning
Champagne, we are not likely to differ now concerning Lord John
Russell. I am very well assured that we agree in thinking of his Lord
Johnship as he is thought of in South Devonshire. Nor shall we differ
in our notions of some of Lord John's Colleagues, and their left
handed friends. If he were to work out another poem in the same vein
of satire, some of the Whole-hoggery in the House of Commons he would
designate by Deady, or Wet and Heavy, some by weak tea, others by
Blue-Ruin, Old Tom which rises above Blue-Ruin to the tune of three
pence a glass—and yet more fiery than Old Tom, as being a fit beverage
for another Old one who shall be nameless,—Gin and Brimstone.
There is a liquor peculiar to Cornwall, with which the fishermen
regale, and which because of its colour they call Mahogany, being a
mixture of two parts gin and one part treacle, well beaten together.
Mahogany then may be the representative _liqueur_ of Mr. Charles
Buller, the representative of a Cornish borough: and for Sir John
Campbell there is Athol porridge, which Boswell says is the
counterpart of Mahogany, but which Johnson thought must be a better
liquor, because being a similar mixture of whiskey and honey, both its
component parts are better: _qui non odit_ the one, _amet_ the other.
Mr. Shiel would put the Satirist in mind of Whiskey “unexcised by
Kings,” and consequently above proof. Mr. Roebuck of Bitters, Mr.
Joseph Hume of Ditch Water, Mr. Lytton Bulwer of Pop, Mr. Ward of
_Pulque_, Mr. O'Connell of _Aqua Tofana_, and Lord Palmerston of
_Parfait Amour_.
Observe good Reader, it was to bottled Small Beer that the Oxford
Satirist likened Grey Bennet, not to Brown Stout, which is a generous
liquor having body and strength.
Hops and Turkeys, Carp and Beer
Came into England all in one year
and that year was in the reign of Henry VIII. The Turkeys could not
have come before the discovery of America, nor the Beer before the
introduction of the Hops. Bottled Beer we owe to the joint agency of
Alexander Nowell, Bishop Bonner, and Mr. Francis Bowyer, afterwards
Sheriff of London.
Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Pauls,
A famous preacher in the halcyon days
Of Queen Elizabeth of endless praise,
was at the beginning of Queen Mary's cruel reign, Master of
Westminster School. Izaak Walton would have pronounced him a very
honest man from his picture at Brazen Nose College, (to which he was a
great Benefactor,) inasmuch as he is there represented “with his
lines, hooks and other tackling, lying in a round on one hand, and his
angles of several sorts on the other.” But says Fuller, whilst Nowell
was catching of Fishes, Bonner was catching of Nowell, and
understanding who he was, designed him to the shambles, whither he had
certainly been sent, had not Mr. Francis Bowyer then a London
merchant, conveyed him upon the seas. Nowell was fishing upon the
Banks of the Thames when he received the first intimation of his
danger, which was so pressing that he dared not go back to his own
house to make any preparation for his flight. Like an honest angler he
had taken with him provision for the day; and when in the first year
of England's deliverance he returned to his own country and his own
haunts, he remembered that on the day of his flight he had left a
bottle of beer in a safe place on the bank; there he looked for it,
and “found it no bottle but a gun, such the sound at the opening
thereof; and this, says Fuller, is believed, (casualty is mother of
more inventions than industry,) the original of Bottled Ale in
England.”
Whatever my Master may think of me, whether he may class me with Grey
Bennet's weak and frothy, or Dean Nowell's wholesome and strong, be
the quality of the liquor what it may, he certainly mistook the
capacity of the vessel, even if he allowed it to be a Magnum Bonum or
Scotch Pint. Greatly was he mistaken when he supposed that a large
portion of my intellectual resources was expended, and of my
common-place Book also.—The former come from a living spring,—and the
latter is like the urn under a River God's arm. I might hint also at
that Tun which the Pfalzgraf Johannes Kasimir built at Heidelberg in
the year 1591,
_Dessgleichen zu derselben zeit
War keines in der Christenheit:_
but alas! it is now a more melancholy object than the Palace to which
it appertained,—for the ruins of that Palace are so beautiful, that
the first emotion with which you behold them is that of unmingled
pleasure:—and the tun is empty! My Master, however, who imagines that
my vat runs low and is likely to be drawn dry, may look at one of the
London Brewers great casks.
END OF VOL. IV.
W. Nicol, 51, Pall Mall.
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