The doctor, &c., vol. 5 (of 7)

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Title: The doctor, &c., vol. 5 (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. V.

LONDON:
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN AND LONGMAN.

1838.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY W. NICOL, PALL-MALL.

PRELUDE OF MOTTOES.

See here, see here, a Doctor rare,
Who travels much at home;
Come take his pills,—they cure all ills,
Past, present, and to come.
Take a little of his nif-naf,
Put it on your tif-taf.

THE BISHOPRICK GARLAND.

_Quod virgo proba, quod stolata mater,
Quod purus positâ severitate
Jam post pulpita perlegat sacerdos._

T. L. ON SIR WM. KILLIGREW'S SELINDRA.

I entered on this work certainly with considerable materials, and
since engaging in it, in reading, in thinking, in correcting and
improving, I have proportioned my labours to my undertaking. Every
step I advanced, I did but more clearly see how much farther I might
go. Here too readers and some writers may be reminded of the effect
sweet; you lose the sense of weight by the deceptions of fancy and
occasional rests; and in proportion as your journey becomes more
agreeable, you are in danger of growing more dilatory.

GEORGE DYER.

_Si tu tombes entre les mains de ceux qui ne voyent rien d'autruy que
pour y trouver sujet de s'y desplaire, et qu'ils te reprochent que ton
Docteur est ennuyeux; responds leur qu'il est à leur choix de lui voir
ou ne lui voir point.—Si tu te trouves parmy ceux qui font profession
d'interpreter les songes, et descouvrir les pensées plus secrettes
d'autruy, et qu'ils asseurent que * * est un tel homme et * * une
telle femme; ne leur respond rien; car ils sçavent assez qu'ils ne
sçavent pas ce qu'ils disent: mais supplie ceux qui pourroient estre
abusez de leurs fictions, de considerer que si ces choses ne
m'importent, j'aurois eu bien peu d'esprit de les avoir voulu
dissimuler et ne l'avoir sceu faire. Que si en ce qu'ils diront, il
n'y a guere d'apparence, il ne les faut pas croire; et s'il y'en a
beaucoup, il faut penser que pour couvrir la chose que je voulois
tenir cachée et ensevelie, je l'eusse autrement desguisée._

ASTRÉE—MUTATIS MUTANDIS.

I would not be in danger of that law of Moses, that if a man dig a pit
and cover it not, he must recompense those which are damnified by it;
which is often interpreted of such as shake old opinions, and do not
establish new as certain, but leave consciences in a worse danger than
they found them in. I believe that law of Moses hath in it some
mystery and appliableness; for by that law men are only then bound to
that indemnity and compensation, if an ox or an ass, (that is such as
are of a strong constitution and accustomed to labour) fall therein;
but it is not said so, if a sheep or a goat fall: no more are we if
men in a silliness or wantonness will stumble or take a scandal, bound
to rectify them at all times. And therefore because I justly presume
you strong and watchful enough, I make account that I am not obnoxious
to that law; since my meditations are neither too wide nor too deep
for you.

DONNE'S LETTERS.

Such an author consulted in a morning sets the spirits for the
vicissitudes of the day, better than the glass does a man's person.

SIR RICHARD STEELE.

The Load-stone of Attraction I find out,
The Card of Observation guides about,
The Needle of Discretion points the way.

DUTCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.

—_βροτοὶ παύσασθε μάταιοι.
Ῥεμβομενοι σκοτίη και ἀφεγγέϊ νυκτὶ μελαίνῃ·
Καὶ λίΠετε σκοτίην νυκτὸς, φωτὸς δὲ λάβεσθε·
Οὗτος ἰδοὺ παντεσσι σαφὴς, ἀπλάνητος ὑπάρχει.
Ἐλθετε, μὴ σκοτίην δὲ διώκετε, καὶ γνόφον αἰεί·
Ἠελίȣ γλυκυδερκὲς ἰδοὺ φάος ἔξοχα λάμπει._

SIBYLLINE VERSES.

Of things that be strange
Who loveth to read
In this book let him range
His fancy to feed.

RICHARD ROBINSON.

_At ego tibi sermone isto—
Varias fabulas conseram, auresque tuas
Benevolus lepido susurro permulceam._

APULEIUS.

Whoso doth attempt the Author's works to read
Must bring with him a stayed head, and judgement to proceed;
For as there be most wholesome hests and precepts to be found,
So are there rocks and shallow shelves to run the ship aground.

ARTHUR GOLDING.

I am studying the art of patience:—to drive six snails before me from
this town to Moscow, neither use goad nor whip to them, but let them
take their own time. The patientest man i' the world match me for an
experiment!

WEBSTER.

He says and he says not, cares and he cares not, he's king and he's no
king; his high-born soul is above this sublunary world; he reigns, he
rides in the clouds and keeps his court in the Horizon: he's Emperor
of the Superlative Heights, and lives in pleasure among the Gods; he
plays at bowls with the Stars, and makes a foot-ball of the Globe; he
makes that to fly far, far out of the reach of Thought.

HURLOTHRUMBO.

_Lo libres fo be faitz, e de bos motz complit;
E sil voletz entendre, li gran e li petit
Podon i mot apendre de sen e de bel dit;
Car aisel qui le fe nal ventre tot farsit,
E sel que nol conoish, ni nol a resentit.
Ja no so cujaria._

CANSOS DE LA CROZADA
CONTR ELS EREGES DALBREGES.

Something oddly
The book-man prated; yet he talked it weeping.

FORD.

We content ourselves to present to thinking minds, the original seeds
from whence spring vast fields of new theories, that may be further
cultivated, beautified and enlarged. Truth however being of a coherent
nature, it is impossible to separate one branch from another and see
it in all its beauty. I beg therefore my readers not to judge of the
work by parcels, but to continue to the end, that so they may see the
connection of every part with the whole. Scattered rays do not always
enlighten; but when reunited they give a mutual lustre to each other.

THE CHEVALIER RAMSAY.

I must be allowed my freedom in my studies, for I substitute my
writings for a game at the tennis-court or a club at the tavern. I
never counted among my honours these _opuscula_ of mine, but merely as
harmless amusements. It is my partridge, as with St. John; my Cat, as
with Pope St. Gregory; my little dog, as with St. Dominic; my lamb, as
with St. Francis; (my pig, he might have said as with St. Antony,) my
great black mastiff as with Cornelius Agrippa; and my tame hare, as
with Justus Lipsius.

CATHERINOT.
_As quoted and translated by_ D'ISRAELI.

To ignorants obdurde, quhair wilfull errour lyis,
Nor zit to curious folks, quhilks carping dois deject thee,
Nor zit to learned men, quha thinks thame onelie wyis,
But to the docile bairns of knowledge I direct thee.

JAMES 1st.

Albeit I have studied much and learned little, yet I have learned to
glean some handfulls of corn out of the rankest cockle; to make choice
of the most fragrant flowers of humanity, the most virtuous herbs of
philosophy, the most sovereign fruits of government, and the most
heavenly manna of divinity; to be acquainted with the fairest,
provided for the foulest, delighted with the temperatest, pleased with
the meanest, and contented with all weather—greater men may profess
and can achieve greater matters: I thank God I know the length, that
is the shortness of my own foot. If it be any man's pleasure to
extenuate my sufficiency in other knowledge, or practise to empeach my
ability in words or deeds, to debase my fortune, to abridge my
commendations, or to annihilate my fame, he shall find a cold
adversary of him that hath laid hot passions awatering, and might
easily be induced to be the invective of his own non proficiency.

GABRIEL HARVEY.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER CXXXVII.—p. 1.

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION BETWEEN THE DOCTOR AND NICHOLAS CONCERNING THE
HIPPOGONY, OR ORIGIN OF THE FOAL DROPT IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.

———his birth day, the eleventh of June
When the Apostle Barnaby the bright
Unto our year doth give the longest light.

BEN JONSON.

CHAPTER CXXXVIII.—p. 6.

DOUBTFUL PEDIGREE OF ECLIPSE. SHAKESPEAR (N. B. NOT WILLIAM) AND OLD
MARSK. A PECULIARITY OF THE ENGLISH LAW.

_Lady Percy_. But hear you, my Lord!

_Hotspur_. What say'st thou, my lady?

_Lady Percy_. What is it carries you away?

_Hotspur_. Why my Horse, my love, my Horse.

SHAKESPEAR.

CHAPTER CXXXIX.—p. 11.

FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS RELATING TO ONOMATOLOGY.

Moreover there are many more things in the World than there are names
for them; according to the saying of the Philosopher; _Nomina sunt
finita, res autem infinitæ; ideo unum nomen plura significat:_ which
saying is by a certain, or rather uncertain, author approved: _Multis
speciebus non sunt nomina; idcirco necessarium est nomina fingere, si
nullum ante erit nomen impositum._

GWILLIM.

CHAPTER CXL.—p. 32.

HOW THERE AROSE A DISPUTE BETWEEN BARNABY AND NICHOLAS CONCERNING THE
NAMING OF THIS COLT, AND OF THE EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES THAT
ENSUED.

_Quoiqu'il en soit, je ne tairai point cette histoire; je l'abandonne
à la credulité, ou à l'incredulité des Lecteurs, ils prendront à cet
égard quel parti il leur plaira. Je dirai seulement, s'ils ne la
veulent pas croire, que je les defie de me prouver qu'elle soit
absolument impossible; ils ne le prouveront jamais._

GOMGAM.

CHAPTER CXLI.—p. 39.

A SINGULAR ANECDOTE AND NOT MORE SAD THAN TRUE.

Oh penny Pipers, and most painful penners
Of bountiful new Ballads, what a subject,
What a sweet subject for your silver sounds!

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

CHAPTER CXLII.—p. 42.

A DEFECT IN HOYLE SUPPLIED. GOOD ADVICE GIVEN, AND PLAIN TRUTH TOLD. A
TRIBUTE OF RESPECT TO THE MEMORY OF F. NEWBERY, THE CHILDREN'S
BOOKSELLER AND FRIEND.

Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard, even by such kind of
proofs so to manifest and clear that point, that no man living shall
be able to deny it, without denying some apparent principle such as
all men acknowledge to be true.

HOOKER.

CHAPTER CXLIII.—p. 47.

A FEEBLE ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL QUALITIES OF NOBS.

_Quant à moi, je desirerois fort sçavoir bien dire, ou que j'eusse eu
une bonne plume, et bien taillée à commandement, pour l'exalter et
louër comme il le mérite. Toutesfois, telle quelle est, je m'en vais
l'employer au hazard._

BRANTOME.

CHAPTER CXLIV.—p. 74.

HISTORY AND ROMANCE RANSACKED FOR RESEMBLANCES AND NON-RESEMBLANCES TO
THE HORSE OF DR. DANIEL DOVE.

Renowned beast! (forgive poetic flight!)
Not less than man, deserves poetic right.

THE BRUCIAD.

CHAPTER CXLV.—p. 101.

WILLIAM OSMER. INNATE QUALITIES. MARCH OF ANIMAL INTELLECT. FARTHER
REVEALMENT OF THE COLUMBIAN PHILOSOPHY.

There is a word, and it is a great word in this Book,[1] _ἐπι το
αὐτο,_—_In id ipsum_, that is, to look to the thing itself, the very
point, the principal matter of all; to have our eye on that, and not
off it, upon _alia omnia_, any thing but it.—To go to the point, drive
all to that, as also to go to the matter real, without declining from
it this way or that, to the right hand or to the left.

BP. ANDREWS.

[Footnote 1: The New Testament which the Preacher had before him.]

CHAPTER CXLVI.—p. 113.

DANIEL DOVE VERSUS SENECA AND BEN JONSON. ORLANDO AND HIS HORSE AT
RONCESVALLES. MR. BURCHELL. THE PRINCE OF ORANGE. THE LORD KEEPER
GUILDFORD. REV. MR. HAWTAYN. DR. THOMAS JACKSON. THE ELDER SCALIGER.
EVELYN. AN ANONYMOUS AMERICAN. WALTER LANDOR, AND CAROLINE BOWLES.

——Contented with an humble theme
I pour my stream of panegyric down
The vale of Nature, where it creeps and winds
Among her lovely works with a secure
And unambitious course, reflecting clear,
If not the virtues, yet the worth of brutes.

COWPER.

CHAPTER CXLVII.—p. 124.

OLD TREES. SHIPS. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. LIFE AND PASSIONS ASCRIBED TO
INANIMATE OBJECTS. FETISH WORSHIP. A LORD CHANCELLOR AND HIS GOOSE.

_Ce que j'en ay escrit, c'est pour une curiosité, qui plaira possible
à aucuns: et non possible aux autres._

BRANTOME.

CHAPTER EXTRAORDINARY.—p. 140.

PROCEEDINGS AT A BOOK CLUB. THE AUTHOR ACCUSED OF ‘_Lese
delicatesse_,’ OR WHAT IS CALLED AT COURT ‘TUM-TI-TEE.’ HE UTTERS A
MYSTERIOUS EXCLAMATION, AND INDIGNANTLY VINDICATES HIMSELF.

_Rem profecto mirabilem, longeque stupendam, rebusque veris veriorem
describo._

HIERONYMUS RADIOLENSIS.

CHAPTER CXLVIII.—p. 161.

WHEREIN A SUBSTITUTE FOR OATHS, AND OTHER PASSIONATE INTERJECTIONS IS
EXEMPLIFIED.

What have we to do with the times? We cannot cure 'em:
Let them go on: when they are swoln with surfeits
They'll burst and stink: Then all the world shall smell 'em.

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

CHAPTER CXLIX.—p. 174.

A PARLOUS QUESTION ARISING OUT OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER. MR. IRVING
AND THE UNKNOWN TONGUES. TAYLOR THE WATER POET. POSSIBLE SCHEME OF
INTERPRETATION PROPOSED. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE GIFT OF TONGUES AS
EXHIBITED IN MADMEN.

Speak what terrible language you will, though you understand it not
yourselves, no matter! Chough's language, gabble enough and good
enough.

SHAKESPEARE.

CHAPTER CL.—p. 184.

THE WEDDING PEAL AT ST. GEORGE'S, AND THE BRIDE'S APPEARANCE AT
CHURCH.

See how I have strayed! and you'll not wonder when you reflect on the
whence and the whither.

ALEXANDER KNOX.

CHAPTER CLI.—p. 188.

SOMETHING SERIOUS.

If thou hast read all this Book, and art never the better, yet catch
this flower before thou go out of the garden, and peradventure the
scent thereof will bring thee back to smell the rest.

HENRY SMITH.

CHAPTER CLII.—p. 196.

ODD OPINIONS CONCERNING BIOGRAPHY AND EDUCATION. THE AUTHOR MAKES A
SECOND HIATUS AS UNWILLINGLY AS HE MADE THE FIRST, AND FOR THE SAME
COGENT REASON.

_Ya sabes—pero es forzoso
Repetirlo, aunque lo sepas._

CALDERON.

CHAPTER CLIII.—p. 200.

MATRIMONY AND RAZORS. LIGHT SAYINGS LEADING TO GRAVE THOUGHTS. USES OF
SHAVING.

I wonder whence that tear came, when I smiled
In the production on't! Sorrow's a thief
That can when joy looks on, steal forth a grief.

MASSINGER.

CHAPTER CLIV.—p. 209.

A POET'S CALCULATION CONCERNING THE TIME EMPLOYED IN SHAVING, AND THE
USE THAT MIGHT BE MADE OF IT. THE LAKE POETS LAKE SHAVERS ALSO. A
PROTEST AGAINST LAKE SHAVING.

Intellect and industry are never incompatible. There is more wisdom,
and will be more benefit, in combining them than scholars like to
believe, or than the common world imagine. Life has time enough for
both, and its happiness will be increased by the union.

SHARON TURNER.

CHAPTER CLV.—p. 215.

THE POET'S CALCULATION TESTED AND PROVED.

Fiddle-faddle, dont tell of this and that, and every thing in the
world, but give me mathematical demonstration.

CONGREVE.

CHAPTER CLVI.—p. 222.

AN ANECDOTE OF WESLEY, AND AN ARGUMENT ARISING OUT OF IT, TO SHOW THAT
THE TIME EMPLOYED IN SHAVING IS NOT SO MUCH LOST TIME; AND YET THAT
THE POET'S CALCULATION REMAINS OF PRACTICAL USE.

_Questo medesimo anchora con una altra gagliardissima ragione vi
confermo._

LODOVICO DOMINICHI.

CHAPTER CLVII.—p. 230.

WHICH THE READER WILL FIND LIKE A ROASTED MAGGOT, SHORT AND SWEET.

_Malum quod minimum est, id minimum est malum._

PLAUTUS.

CHAPTER CLVIII.—p. 232.

DR. DOVE'S PRECEPTORIAL PRESCRIPTION, TO BE TAKEN BY THOSE WHO NEED
IT.

Some strange devise, I know, each youthful wight
Would here expect, or lofty brave assay:
But I'll the simple truth in simple wise convey.

HENRY MORE.

CHAPTER CLIX.—p. 237.

THE AUTHOR COMPARES HIMSELF AND THE DOCTOR TO CARDINAL WOLSEY AND KING
HENRY VIII. AND SUGGESTS SUNDRY SIMILES FOR THE STYLE OF HIS BOOK.

I doubt not but some will liken me to the Lover in a modern Comedy,
who was combing his peruke and setting his cravat before his mistress;
and being asked by her when he intended to begin his court? he
replied, he had been doing it all this while.

DRYDEN.

CHAPTER CLX.—p. 243.

MENTION OF ONE FOR WHOM THE GERMANS WOULD COIN A DESIGNATION WHICH
MIGHT BE TRANSLATED A ONCE-READER. MANY MINDS IN THE SAME MAN. A
POET'S UNREASONABLE REQUEST. THE AUTHOR OFFERS GOOD ADVICE TO HIS
READERS, AND ENFORCES IT BY AN EPISCOPAL OPINION.

Judge not before
Thou know mine intent;
But read me throughout,
And then say thy fill;
As thou in opinion
Art minded and bent,
Whether it be
Either good or ill.

E. P.

CHAPTER CLXI.—p. 249.

WESLEY AND THE DOCTOR OF THE SAME OPINION UPON THE SUBJECT OF THESE
CHAPTERS. A STUPENDOUS EXAMPLE OF CYCLOPÆDIAN STOLIDITY.

A good razor never hurts, or scratches. Neither would good wit, were
men as tractable as their chins. But instead of parting with our
intellectual bristles quietly, we set them up, and wriggle. Who can
wonder then if we are cut to the bone?

GUESSES AT TRUTH.

CHAPTER CLXII.—p. 254.

AMOUNT OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL'S PERSONAL SINS ACCORDING TO THE ESTIMATE
OF MR. TOPLADY. THE DOCTOR'S OPINION THEREON. A BILL FOR CERTAIN
CHURCH REPAIRS. A ROMISH LEGEND WHICH IS LIKELY TO BE TRUE, AND PART
OF A JESUIT'S SERMON.

Mankind, tho' satirists with jobations weary us,
Has only two weak parts if fairly reckon'd;
The first of which, is trifling with things serious;
And seriousness in trifles is the second.
Remove these little rubs, whoe'er knows how,
And fools will be as scarce,—as wise men now.

BISHOP.

CHAPTER CLXIII.—p. 264.

AN OPINION OF EL VENERABLE PADRE MAESTRO FRAY LUIS DE GRANADA, AND A
PASSAGE QUOTED FROM HIS WORKS, BECAUSE OF THE PECULIAR BENEFIT TO
WHICH PERSONS OF A CERTAIN DENOMINATION WILL FIND THEMSELVES ENTITLED
UPON READING OR HEARING IT READ.

_Chacun tourne en réalités,
Autant qu'il peut, ses propres songes;
L'homme est de glace aux vérités,
Il est de feu pour les mensonges._

LA FONTAINE.

CHAPTER CLXIV.—p. 267.

AN ENQUIRY IN THE POULTRY-YARD, INTO THE TRUTH OF AN OPINION EXPRESSED
BY ARISTOTLE.

This is some liquor poured out of his bottle;
A deadly draught for those of Aristotle.

J. C. sometime of M. H. Oxon.

CHAPTER CLXV.—p. 274.

A QUESTION ASKED AND RIGHTLY ANSWERED, WITH NOTICES OF A GREAT
IMPORTATION ANNOUNCED IN THE LEITH COMMERCIAL LIST.

“But tell me yet what followed on that But.”

DANIEL.

CHAPTER CLXVI.—p. 278.

A WISH CONCERNING WHALES, WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THEIR PLACE IN
PHYSICAL AND MORAL CLASSIFICATION. DR. ABRAHAM REES. CAPTAIN SCORESBY.
THE WHALE FISHERY.

Your Whale he will swallow a hogshead for a pill;
But the maker of the mouse-trap is he that hath skill.

BEN JONSON.

CHAPTER CLXVII.—p. 292.

A MOTTO WHICH IS WELL CHOSEN BECAUSE NOT BEING APPLICABLE IT SEEMS TO
BE SO. THE AUTHOR NOT ERRANT HERE OR ELSEWHERE. PHILOSOPHY AND
OTHER-OSOPHIES.

Much from my theme and friend have I digressed,
But poor as I am, poor in stuff for thought,
And poor in thought to make of it the best,
Blame me not, Gentles, if I soon am caught
By this or that, when as my themes suggest
Aught of collateral aid which may be wrought
Into its service: Blame me not, I say;
The idly musing often miss their way.

CHARLES LLOYD.

CHAPTER CLXVIII.—p. 296.

NE-PLUS-ULTRA-WHALE-FISHING. AN OPINION OF CAPTAIN SCORESBY'S. THE
DOCTOR DENIES THAT ALL CREATURES WERE MADE FOR THE USE OF MAN. THE
CONTRARY DEMONSTRATED IN PRACTICE BY BELLARMINE.

_Sequar quo vocas, omnibus enim rebus omnibusque sermonibus, aliquid
salutare miscendum est._

SENECA.

CHAPTER CLXIX.—p. 305.

LINKS AND AFFINITIES. A MAP OF THE AUTHOR'S INTELLECTUAL COURSE IN THE
FIVE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

_Ὦ φίλε Φαῖδρε, ποῖ δὴ καὶ πόθεν;_

PLATO.

CHAPTER CLXX.—p. 320.

THE AUTHOR REPEATS A REMARK OF HIS DAUGHTER UPON THE PRECEDING
CHAPTER; COMPLIMENTS THE LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX UPON HIS LUNGS AND
LARYNX; PHILOSOPHIZES AND QUOTES, AND QUOTES AND PHILOSOPHIZES AGAIN
AND AGAIN.

_Fato, Fortuna, Predestinazione,
Sorte, Caso, Ventura, son di quelle
Cose che dan gran noja a le persone,
E vi si dicon su di gran novelle.
Ma in fine Iddio d'ogni cose é padrone:
E chi é savio domina a le stelle;
Chi non é savio paziente e forte,
Lamentisi di se, non de la sorte._

ORL. INN.

CHAPTER CLXXI.—p. 330.

CONTAINING PART OF A SERMON, WHICH THE READER WILL FIND WORTH MORE
THAN MOST WHOLE ONES THAT IT MAY BE HIS FORTUNE TO HEAR.

_Je fais une grande provision de bon sens en prenant ce que les autres
en ont._

MADAME DE MAINTENON.

INTERCHAPTER XVII.—p. 336.

A POPULAR LAY NOTICED, WITH SUNDRY REMARKS PERTINENT THERETO,
SUGGESTED THEREBY, OR DEDUCED THEREFROM.

Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit: by and by it will strike.

TEMPEST.

INTERCHAPTER XVIII.—p. 347.

APPLICATION OF THE LAY. CALEB D'ANVERS. IRISH LAW. ICON BASILIKE.
JUNIUS. THOMAS À KEMPIS. FELIX HEMMERLEN. A NEEDLE LARGER THAN GAMMER
GURTON'S AND A MUCH COARSER THREAD. THOMAS WARTON AND BISHOP STILL.
THE JOHN WEBSTERS, THE ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAMS, AND THE CURINAS AND THE
STEPHENS.

_Lo que soy, razona poco
Porque de sombra a mi va nada, o poco._

FUENTE DESEADA.

INTERCHAPTER XIX.—p. 378.

THE AUTHOR DIFFERS IN OPINION FROM SIR EGERTON BRYDGES AND THE EMPEROR
JULIAN, SPEAKS CHARITABLY OF THAT EMPEROR, VINDICATES PROTEUS FROM HIS
CENSURE, AND TALKS OF POSTHUMOUS TRAVELS AND EXTRA MUNDANE EXCURSIONS,
AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN LIMBOLAND.

_Petulant_. If he says black's black,—if I have a humour to say it
is blue—let that pass. All's one's for that. If I
have a humour to prove it, it must be granted.

_Witwould_. Not positively must,—But it may, it may.

_Petulant_. Yes, it positively must,—upon proof positive.

_Witwould_. Ay, upon proof positive it must; but upon proof
presumptive it only may. That's a logical distinction
now.

CONGREVE.

THE DOCTOR, &c.

CHAPTER CXXXVII.

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION BETWEEN THE DOCTOR AND NICHOLAS CONCERNING THE
HIPPOGONY, OR ORIGIN OF THE FOAL DROPT IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.

———his birth day, the eleventh of June
When the Apostle Barnaby the bright
Unto our year doth give the longest light.

BEN JONSON.

It's as fine a foal as ever was dropt, said Nicholas;—but I should as
soon thought of dropping one myself!

If thou hadst Nicholas, replied the Doctor, 'twould have been a foal
with longer ears, and a cross upon the shoulders. But I am heartily
glad that it has happened to the Mare rather than to thee; for in the
first place thou wouldst hardly have got so well through it, as with
all my experience I should have been at a loss how to have rendered
thee any assistance; and secondly, Nicholas, I should have been
equally at a loss how to account for the circumstance, which certainly
never could have been accounted for in so satisfactory a manner. The
birth of this extraordinary foal supports a fact which the wise
ancients have attested, and the moderns in their presumptuous
ignorance have been pleased to disbelieve: it also agrees with a
notion which I have long been disposed to entertain. But had it been
thy case instead of the Mare's it would have been to no purpose except
to contradict all facts and confound all notions.

As for that matter, answered Nicholas, all my notions are struck in a
heap. You bought that Mare on the 29th of July, by this token that it
was my birth-day, and I said she would prove a lucky one.
One,—two,—three,—four,—five,—six,—seven,—eight,—nine,—-ten,—he
continued, counting upon his fingers,—ten Kalendar months, and to-day
the eleventh of June;—in all that time I'll be sworn she has never
been nearer a horse than to pass him on the road. It must have been
the Devil's doing, and I wish he never did worse. However, Master, I
hope you'll sell him, for in spite of his looks I should never like to
trust my precious limbs upon the back of such a misbegotten beast.

_Un_begotten, Nicholas, replied the Doctor; _un_begotten,—or rather
begotten by the winds,—for so with every appearance of probability we
may fairly suppose him to have been.

The Winds! said Nicholas; he lifted up the lids of his little eyes as
far as he could strain them, and breathed out a whistle of a half
minute long, beginning in C alt and running down two whole octaves.

It was common in Spain, pursued Dr. Dove, and consequently may have
happened in our less genial climate, but this is the first instance
that has ever been clearly observed. I well remember, he continued,
that last July was peculiarly fine. The wind never varied more than
from South South East to South West; the little rain which fell
descended in gentle, balmy, showers, and the atmosphere never could
have been more full of the fecundating principle.

That our friend really attached any credit to this fanciful opinion of
the Ancients, is what I will not affirm, nor perhaps would he himself
have affirmed it. But Henry More, the Platonist, Milton's friend,
undoubtedly believed it. After quoting the well-known passage upon
this subject in the Georgics, and a verse to the same effect from the
Punics, he adds, that you may not suspect it “to be only the levity
and credulity of Poets to report such things, I can inform you that
St. Austin, and Solinus the historian write the same of a race of
horses in Cappadocia. Nay, which is more to the purpose, Columella and
Varro, men expert in rural affairs, assert this matter for a most
certain and known truth.” Pliny also affirms it as an undoubted fact:
the foals of the Wind, he says, were exceedingly swift, but
short-lived, never outliving three years. And the Lampongs of Sumatra,
according to Marsden, believe at this time that the Island Engano is
inhabited entirely by females, whose progeny are all children of the
Wind.

CHAPTER CXXXVIII.

DOUBTFUL PEDIGREE OF ECLIPSE. SHAKESPEAR (N. B. NOT WILLIAM) AND OLD
MARSK. A PECULIARITY OF THE ENGLISH LAW.

_Lady Percy_. But hear you, my Lord!

_Hotspur_. What say'st thou, my lady?

_Lady Percy_. What is it carries you away?

_Hotspur_. Why my Horse, my love, my Horse.

SHAKESPEAR.

After having made arrangements with the owner of the barn for the
accommodation of the Mare in-the-straw, the Doctor and Nicholas
pursued their way to Doncaster on foot, the latter every now and then
breaking out into exclamations of the Lord bless me! and sometimes
with a laugh of astonishment annexing the Lord's name to a verb of
opposite signification governing a neuter pronoun. Then he would cry,
Who would have thought it? Who'll believe it? and so with
interjections benedictory or maledictory, applied indiscriminately to
himself and Miss Jenny and the foal, he gave vent to his wonder,
frequently however repeating his doubts how the come-by-chance, as he
called it, would turn out.

A doubt to the same purport had come across the Doctor; for it so
happened that one of his theories bore very much in support of
Nicholas's unfavourable prepossession. Eclipse was at that time in his
glory; and Eclipse was in the case of those children who are said by
our Law to be more than ordinarily legitimate, tho' he was not like
one of these double legitimates enabled at years of discretion to
chuse for himself between the two possible fathers. Whether Eclipse
was got by Shakespear or by Old Marsk was a point of which the Duke of
Cumberland and his Stud Groom at one time confessed themselves
ignorant; and though at length, as it was necessary that Eclipse
should have a pedigree, they filiated him upon Old Marsk, Dr. Dove had
amused himself with contending that the real cause of the superiority
of that wonderful horse to all other horses was, that in reality he
was the Son of both, and being thus doubly begotten had derived a
double portion of vigour. It is not necessary to explain by what
process of reasoning he had arrived at this conclusion; but it
followed as a necessary inference that if a horse with two Sires
inherited a double stock of strength, a horse who had no Sire at all
must, _pari ratione_, be in a like proportion deficient. And here the
Doctor must have rested had he not luckily called to mind that Canto
of the Faery Queen in which

The birth of fayre Belphœbe and
Of Amorett is told.

how

———wondrously they were begot and bred
Through influence of the Heavens fruitfull ray.

Miraculous may seem to him that reades
So strange ensample of conception;
But reason teacheth that the fruitfull seedes
Of all things living, through impression
Of the sun-beames in moyst complexion
Doe life conceive, and quick'ned are by kynd;
So after Nilus' inundation
Infinite shapes of creatures men doe fynd
Informed in the mud on which the Sunne hath shynd.

Great Father he of Generation
Is rightly called, th' Authour of life and light;
And his faire sister for creation
Ministreth matter fit, which tempred right
With heate and humour breedes the living wight.

So delighted was he with this recollection, and with the beautiful
picture of Belphœbe which it recalled, that he would instantly have
named the foal Belphœbe,—if it had happened to be a filly. For a
moment it occurred to him to call him Belphœbus; but then again he
thought that Belphœbus was too like Belphegor, and he would not give
any occasion for a mistake, which might lead to a suspicion that he
favoured Nicholas's notion of the Devil's concern in the business.

But the naming of this horse was not so lightly to be decided. Would
it have been fitting under all the circumstances of the case to have
given him any such appellation as Buzzard, Trumpeter, Ploughboy,
Master Jackey, Master Robert, Jerry Sneak, Trimmer, Swindler,
Deceiver, Diddler, Boxer, Bruiser, Buffer, Prize-fighter, Swordsman,
Snap—would it have been fitting I say to have given to a Colt who was
dropt almost as unexpectedly as if he had dropt from the clouds,—would
it I repeat have been fitting to have given him any one of these
names, all known in their day upon the Turf, or of the numberless
others commonly and with equal impropriety bestowed upon horses.

CHAPTER CXXXIX.

FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS RELATING TO ONOMATOLOGY.

GWILLIM.

Names, Reader, are serious things; and certain philosophers, as well
as Mr. Shandy, have been to use the French-English of the day, deeply
penetrated with this truth.

The name of the Emperor of Japan is never known to his subjects during
his life. And the people of ancient Rome never knew the true and
proper name of their own City, which is indeed among the things that
have utterly perished. It was concealed as the most awful of all
mysteries, lest if it were known to the enemies of the City, they
might by force of charms and incantations deprive it of the aid of its
tutelary Gods.—As for that mystery which has occasioned among Hebrew
Critics the Sect of the Adonists, I only hint thereat.

Names, Reader, are serious things, so serious that no man since Adam
has been able, except by special inspiration, to invent one which
should be perfectly significant.

_Adan, antes que el bien le fuera oposito,
Fue tan grande filosofo y dialectico,
Que a todo quanto Dios le dio en deposito,
(Aunque pecando fue despues frenetico,)
De nombres adorno tan a proposito
Como quien tuvo espiritu profetico;
Porque naturaleza en modo tacito
Las causas descubrio a su beneplacito._

_Esta virtud tan alta fue perdiendose
De los que del vinieron derivandose,
Tanto que todos van desvaneciendose.
En aplicar los nombres, y engañandose,
Sino es por algun Angel descubriendose,
O por inspiracion manifestandose._[1]

[Footnote 1: CAYRASCO DE FIGUEROA.]

Names, Reader, I repeat, are serious things: and much ingenuity has
been exerted in inventing appropriate ones not only for man and beast,
but for inanimate things. Godfathers and Godmothers, Navigators,
Shipbuilders, Florists, Botanists, Chemists, Jockies, Feeders, Stage
Coach-Proprietors, Quacks, Perfumers, Novelists and Dramatists have
all displayed their taste in the selection of Names.

More whimsically consorted names will seldom be found than among the
Lodges of the Manchester Unity of the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows—You find there Apollo and St. Peter; the Rose of Sharon, and
the Rose of Cheetham; Earl Fitz-william, Farmer's Glory, and Poor
Man's Protection; Philanthropic and Lord Byron, Lord John Russell and
Good Intent; Queen Caroline (Bergami's Queen not George the Seconds)
and Queen Adelaide.

Reader be pleased to walk into the Garden with me. You see that
bush,—what would you call the fruit which it bears?—The
Gooseberry.—But its more particular name?—Its botanical name is
_ribes_—or _grossularia_, which you will Mr. Author.—Still Reader we
are in generals. For you and I, and our wives and children, and all
plain eaters of gooseberry-pie and gooseberry-fool, the simple name
gooseberry might suffice. Not so for the scientific in gooseberries,
the gooseberryologists. They could distinguish whether it were the
King or the Duke of York; the Yellow Seedling or the Prince of Orange;
Lord Hood or Sir Sidney Smith; Atlas or Hercules; the Green Goose or
the Green Bob or the Green Chisel; the Colossus or the Duke of
Bedford; Apollo or Tickle Toby; the Royal Oak or the Royal Sovereign;
the Hero or the Jolly Smoaker; the Game Keeper or the Sceptre; the
Golden Gourd or the Golden Lion, or the Gold-finder; Worthington's
Conqueror or Somach's Victory; Robinson's Stump or Davenport's Lady;
Blakeley's Chisel or Read's Satisfaction; Bell's Farmer or the
Creeping Ceres; the White Muslin, the White Rose, the White Bear, the
White Noble or the White Smith; the Huntsman, the Gunner, the
Thrasher, the Viper, the Independent, the Glory of Eccles, or the
Glory of England; Smith's Grim-Mask, Blomerly's John Bull, Hamlet's
Beauty of England, Goodier's Nelson's Victory, Parkinson's Scarlet
Virgin, Milling's Crown Bob, Kitt's Bank of England, Yeat's Wild-Man
of the Wood, Davenport's Jolly Hatter, or Leigh's Fiddler.—For all
these are Gooseberries: and yet this is none of them; it is the Old
Ironmonger.

Lancashire is the County in which the Gooseberry has been most
cultivated; there is a Gooseberry book annually printed at Manchester;
and the Manchester Newspapers recording the death of a person and
saying that he bore a severe illness with Christian fortitude and
resignation, add that he was much esteemed among the Class of
Gooseberry Growers.—A harmless class they must needs be deemed, but
even in growing Gooseberries emulation may be carried too far.

The Royal Sovereign which in 1794 was grown by George Cook of Ashton
near Preston which weighed seventeen pennyweights, eighteen grains,
was thought a Royal Gooseberry at that day. But the growth of
Gooseberries keeps pace with the March of Intellect. In 1830 the
largest Yellow Gooseberry on record was shown at Stockport, it weighed
thirty-two pennyweights, thirteen grains, and was named the Teazer.
The largest Red one was the Roaring Lion of thirty-one pennyweights,
thirteen grains, shown at Nantwich; and the largest White, was the
Ostrich shown at Ormskirk; falling far short of the others, and yet
weighing twenty-four pennyweights, twenty grains. They have been grown
as large as Pigeon's eggs. But the fruit is not improved by the forced
culture which increases its size. The Gooseberry growers who show for
the prizes which are annually offered, thin the fruit so as to leave
but two or three berries on a branch; even then prizes are not gained
by fair dealing: they contrive to support a small cup under each of
these, so that the fruit shall for some weeks rest in water that
covers about a fourth part, and this they call suckling the
gooseberry.

Your Orchard, Sir! you are perhaps content with Codlins and Pippins,
Non-pareils and Russets, with a few nameless varieties. But Mr.
Forsyth will tell you of the Beauty of Kent, of the Belle Grisdeline,
the Boomrey, the Hampshire Nonsuch, the Dalmahoy, the Golden Mundi,
the Queening, the Oak Peg, the Nine Square, the Paradise Pippin, the
Violet Apple, the Corpendu, the Trevoider, the Ramborn, the Spanish
Onion, the Royal George, the Pigeonette, the Norfolk Paradise, the
Long-laster, the Kentish Fill-baskets, the Maiden's Blush, the Lady's
Finger, the Scarlet Admirable, the Hall-Door, the Green Dragon, the
Fox's Whelp, the Fair Maid of Wishford, Coble-dick-longerkin—an apple
in the north of Devon and Cornwall, which Mr. Polwhele supposes to
have been introduced into the parish of Stratton by one Longerkin who
was called Cobble-dick, because his name was Richard and he was a
Cobler by trade. John Apple,

——whose withered rind, intrench'd
With many a furrow, aptly represents
Decrepid age.[2]

the King of the Pippins (of him hereafter in the Chapter of Kings) and
the Seek-no-farther,—after which no farther will we seek.

[Footnote 2: PHILIPS.]

Of Pears, the _Bon Chrêtien_ called by English Gardeners the
Bum-Gritton, the _Teton de Venus_ and the _Cuisse Madame_, three names
which equally mark the country from whence they came. The last Bishop
of Alais before the French Revolution visiting a Rector once who was
very rich and very avaricious, gave him some gentle admonitory hint of
the character he had heard of him. “_Mais Monseigneur,_” said the Man,
“_il faut garder une Poire pour la soif._” “_Vous avez bien raison,_”
replied the Bishop: “_prenez garde seulement qu'elle soit du bon
Chrêtien._” The first Lord Camelford in one of whose letters this pun
is preserved, thought it perfect. But to proceed with the nomenclature
of Pears, there are the Supreme, the Bag-pipe of Anjou, the Huff Cap,
the Grey Good Wife, the Goodman's Pear, the Queen's Pear, the Prince's
Pear, the Marquis's Pear, the Dean's Pear, the Knave's Pear, the
Pope's Pear, the Chaw Good, the Vicar, the Bishop's Thumb, the Lady's
Lemon, the Lord Martin, the St. Austin, La Pastorelle and Monsieur
John, the Great Onion, the Great Mouthwater, the King of Summer, the
Angelic Pear,—and many others which I would rather eat than enumerate.
At present the Louis Philippe holds pre-eminence.

The _Propria quæ Potatibus_ will be found not less rich,—though here
we perceive a lower key of invention, as adapted to a lower rank of
fruit and affording a proof of Nature's Aristocracy;—here we have Red
Champions, White Champions, Late Champions and English Champions,
Early Manlys, Rough Reds, Smooth Yellows, Silver Skins, Pink Eyes,
Golden Tags, Golden Gullens, Common Wise, Quaker Wise, Budworth's
Dusters, Poor Man's Profit, Lady Queens, Drunken Landlords, Britons,
Crones, Apples, Magpies, Lords, Invincibles, the Painted Lady and the
Painted Lord, the Golden Dun, the Old Red Rough, and the Ox Noble;

_Cum multis aliis quæ nunc perscribere longum est._

For Roses, methinks Venus, and the Fair Maid, and Flora, and Favorite,
and Diana may well keep company with our old favourite the Maiden
Blush. There may be too, though it were to be wished there were not, a
Miss Bold, among these beautiful flowers. Nor would I object to Purple
nor to Ruby, because they are significant if nothing more. But for
Duchess, with double blush, methinks the characteristic and the name
go ill together. The Great Mogul is as bad as the Vagrant; the Parson
worse than either; and for Mount Etna, and Mount Vesuvius, it excites
an explosion of anger to hear of them.

Among the trees in Barbadoes, we read of Anchovy the Apple, the Bread
and Cheese, or Sucking bottle, the Belly ache and the Fat Pork Tree!

From the fields and gardens to the Dairy. In the Vaccine nomenclature
we pass over the numerals and the letters of the Alphabet. Would you
have more endearing appellations than Curly, Curl-pate, Pretty,
Browny, Cot Lass, Lovely Lass (a name peradventure imposed by that
person famous in the proverb, as the old Woman who kissed her
Cow)—more promising than Bee, Earnest, Early, Standfast, Fill-bouk,
Fillpan,—more romantic than Rose, Rosely, Rosebud, Roseberry,
Rosamond, Rosella, Rosalina, Furba, Firbrella, Firbrina, more rural
than Rurorea.

Then for Bulls,—was there not the Bull Shakespeare, by Shakespeare off
young Nell, who was sold in the year 1793 for £400., with a condition
that the seller should have the privilege every year of introducing
two Cows to the said Shakespeare. And was there not the Bull Comet who
was sold for 1000 guineas. I say nothing of Alderman Bull, nor of John
Bull, nor of the remarkable Irish Breed.

For horses I content myself with remembering the never to be forgotten
Pot-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-os, sometimes written Pot8os. Whose was the proudest
feeling of exultation, his who devised this numerico-literal piece of
wit,—or that of Archimedes when he exclaimed _Εὑρηκα_? And while
touching the Arithmographic mode of writing let us not forget the
Frenchman who by the union of a pun and a hieroglyph described his
Sovereign's style thus—Louis with ten-oysters in a row after the name.

As for the scientific names of Plants,—if Apollo had not lost all
power he would have elongated the ears of Tournefort and Linnæus, and
all their followers, as deservedly as he did those of Midas.

Of the Knights or Horsemen, Greeks and Trojans, Rustics and Townsmen
among—Butterflies,—and the Gods, Goddesses, Muses and Graces, Heroes,
Worthies and Unworthies, who feed in their grub state upon lettuces
and cabbages, sleep through their aurelian term of existence, and
finally obtain a name in the naturalist's nomenclature, and perhaps a
local habitation in his Cabinet with a pin through their bodies, I say
nothing, farther than to state why one tribe of them is denominated
Trojans. Be it known then in the words of a distinguished
Entomologist, that “this tribe has been dedicated by Entomologists to
the memory of the more distinguished worthies of the Trojan race, and
above others to preserve, the memory of those heroes whose exploits in
the defence of that rich and potent station of the ancient world, the
town of Troy, have been commemorated in the Iliad by the immortal
Homer.” Lest Homer therefore and all the works derived from him should
perish from remembrance the Entomologists have very considerately
devised this means for preserving the memory of Hector.

Hath not Daniel Girton, of the County of Bucks, in his Complete
Pigeon-Fancier, wherein he points out to the Gentlemen of the Fancy,
the foul marks and the real perfections of every valuable species of
Fancy Birds and Toys which in his time were bred in England, France
and Holland;—hath not Daniel Girton, I say, (tho' Boswell thought that
a sentence so formed as to require an _I'say_ to keep it together,
resembled a pair of ill-mended breeches, and candidly acknowledged the
resemblance in his own,—the sentence I mean, which he was then
penning, not the breeches which he wore;)—hath not Daniel Girton, I
say, particularly enumerated in his Title-Page among the varieties of
such Fancy Birds, Powters, Carriers, Horsemen, Dragoons, Croppers,
Powting Horsemen, Uplopers, Fantails, Chinese Pigeons, Lace-Pigeons,
Tumblers, Runts, Spots, Laughers, Trumpeters, Jacobines, Capuchines,
Nuns, Shakers, Helmets, Ruffs, Finnikins, Turners, Barbs, Mahomets,
Turbits, Owls, and Smiters, concluding the imperfect enumeration with
an &c.

The Foul Fiends also have odd names. Witness the list which John Gee
collected after the veracious Romish Priests of his time: Lusty Dick,
Killico, Hob, Corner-Cap, Puffe, Purre, Frateretto, Fliberdigibbet,
Haberdicut, Cocabelto, Maho, (this Maho, who was a gentleman as
Shakespeare tells us, maintained his ground against a Priest for seven
hours) Kellicocam, Wilkin, Smolkin, Lusty Jolly Jenkin, (this must
have been a Welsh Devil and of a noble race) Porto Richo,
(peradventure a Creole Devil,) Pudding of Thame—(fie on such pudding!)
Pour Dieu (Pour Diable!) Bonjour, Motubizanto, Nur, Bernon, Delicate.

The familiar of that “damnable and malicious witch Elizabeth
Southerns, alias Dimdikes, was called Tibb: she dwelt in the forest of
Pendle,” a vast place fit for her profession, and she was a general
Agent for the Devil in all those parts.

There was one Mr. Duke, a busy fanatic, in Devonshire in Charles II.'s
days, whom old Sir Edward Seymour used to call Spirit Po, that said Po
being a _petit diable_, a small devil that was _presto_ at every
Conjuror's nod. He (the said Mr. Duke) was a common runner up and down
on factious errands; and there could not be a meeting in the country
for business or mirth, but Spirit Po was there.

Actæus Megalesius, Ormenus, Lycus, Nicon and Mimon are five of the
Chief Telchinnes or Alastores, who take the waters of Styx in their
hands, and sprinkle them over the earth, thereby causing all kinds of
diseases and calamities.

It is known upon testimony which has received the sanction of the Holy
Office, that Lucifer has three Lord Lieutenants, whose names are
Aquias, Brum, and Acatu: whether the second assumed his name in
prospective compliment to the Queen's Attorney-General, or whether the
name itself has some appropriate and amiable signification in the
infernal tongue must be left to conjecture. These Lord Lieutenants
were sent with a whole army of Devils to make war against a person of
the feminine gender called in her own language Anna de Santiago, but
in the language of Hell, Catarruxa, which according to the
interpretation given by the Devils themselves, means the Strong Woman.
The General was named Catacis, and the names of the subordinate
Commanders have been faithfully recorded by a Franciscan Chronicler of
unquestioned veracity, for the use of Exorcists, experience having
shown that it is of signal use in their profession to know the names
of the enemies with whom they are contending, the Devils perhaps
having learnt from the Lawyers, (who are able to teach the Devil), to
take advantage of a misnomer. This indeed is so probable that it
cannot be superfluous to point out to Exorcists a received error,
which must often have frustrated their laudable endeavours, if the
same literal accuracy be required in their processes as in those of
the Law. They no doubt have always addressed the Prince of the Devils
by the name of Beelzebub, but his real name is Beelzebul; and so St.
Jerome found it in all his Manuscripts, but not understanding what was
then the common, and true reading, he altered _Βεελζεβȣλ_ into
_Βεελζεϐȣϐ_,—by which he made the word significant to himself, but
enabled Beelzebul to quash all actions of ejectment preferred against
him in this false name. The value of this information will be
appreciated in Roman Catholic Countries. Gentlemen of the long robe
will think it beautiful; and I have this additional motive for
communicating it, to wit, that it may be a warning to all verbal
Critics. I now return to my nomenclature.

If a catalogue of plants or animals in a newly discovered country be
justly esteemed curious, how much more curious must a genuine
muster-roll of Devils be esteemed, all being Devils of rank and
consequence in the Satanic service. It is to Anna de Santiago herself
that we are originally beholden for it, when at her Confessor's
desire,

_θεȣς δ᾽ ὀνομῄνεν ἀπαντας
Τȣς ὑποταρίȣς_[3]

[Footnote 3: HOMER.]

“The reader (as Fuller says,) will not be offended with their hard
names here following, seeing his eye may run them over in perusing
them, though his tongue never touch them in pronouncing them.” And
when he thinks how many private and non-commissioned officers go to
make up a legion, he may easily believe that Owen Glendower might have
held Hotspur

at least nine hours
In reckoning up the several Devil's names
That were his lackeys.

Barca, Maquias, Acatam, Ge, Arri, Macaquias, Ju, Mocatam, Arra, Vi,
Macutu, Laca, Machehe, Abriim, Maracatu, Majacatam, Barra, Matu, the
Great Dog, (this was a dumb devil), Arracatorra, Mayca, Oy, Aleu,
Malacatan, Mantu, Arraba, Emay, Alacamita, Olu, Ayvatu, Arremabur,
Aycotan, Lacahabarratu, Oguerracatam, Jamacatia, Mayacatu, Ayciay,
Ballà, Luachi, Mayay, Buzache, Berrà, Berram, Maldequita, Bemaqui,
Moricastatu, Anciaquias, Zamata, Bu, Zamcapatujas, Bellacatuaxia, Go,
Bajaque, and Baa,—which seems but a sheepish name for a Devil.

Can there be yet a roll of names more portentous in appearance, more
formidable in sound, more dangerous in utterance? Look, reader, at the
ensuing array, and judge for thyself; _look_ I say, and mentally
peruse it, but attempt not to enunciate the words, lest thou shouldest
loosen thy teeth or fracture them in the operation.

Angheteduff, otherwise Anghutuduffe, otherwise Ballyhaise, Kealdragh,
Caveneboy, Aghugrenoase, otherwise Aghagremous, Killataven,
Kilnaverley, Kelvoryvybegg, Tonnegh, Briehill, Drommody, Amraghduffe,
Drumhermshanbeeg, Dranhill, Cormaghscargin, Corlybeeg, Cornashogagh,
Dromhome, Trimmigan, Knocklyeagh, Carrigmore, Clemtegrit,
Lesdamenhuffe, Correamyhy, Aghnielanagher, otherwise Agnigamagh,
Prittage, Aghaiasgim, Tobogamagh, Dromaragh, otherwise Dromavragh,
Cnockamyhee, Lesnagvan, Kellarne, Gargaran, Cormodyduffe,
Curraghchinrin, Annageocry, Brocklagh, Aghmaihi, Drungvin, otherwise
Dungen, Dungenbegg, Dungemore, Sheina, Dremcarplin, Shaghtany,
Knocksegart, Keillagh, Tinlaghcoole, Tinlagheryagh, Lyssybrogan,
Lyssgallagh, Langarriah, Sheanmullagh, Celgvane, Drombomore,
Lissgarre, Toncantany, Knockadawe, Dromboobegg, Drumpgampurne,
Listiarta, Omrefada, Corranyore, Corrotober, Clere, Biagbire,
Lurgriagh, Tartine, Drumburne, Aghanamaghan, Lusmakeragh, Nucaine,
Cornamuck, Crosse, Coyleagh, Cnocknatratin, Toanmore, Ragasky,
Longamonihity, Atteantity, Knockfodda, Tonaghmore, Drumgrestin, Owley,
Dronan, Vushinagh, Carricknascan, Lyssanhany, otherwise Lysseyshanan,
Knockaduyne, Dromkurin, Lissmakearke, Dromgowhan, Raghege,
Dromacharand, Moneyneriogh, Drinsurly, Dromillan, Agunylyly,
Gnockantry, Ellyn, Keileranny, otherwise Kulrany, Koraneagh, and
Duigary.

“Mercy on us,” says the Reader, “what are these!”—Have patience
Reader, we have not done yet, there are still—Magheryhillagh, Drung,
Clefern, Castleterra, Killana, Moybolgace, Kilfort, Templefort,
Killaghadon, Laragh, Cloncaughy, Annaghgiliffe, Towninmore, Rathany,
Drumgoone, Tyrelatrada, Lurganboy, Ballyclanphilip, Killinkery,
Ballintampel, Kilbride, Crosserlough, Drumlawnaught, Killanaburgh,
Kilsherdan, otherwise Killersherding, Dremakellen, Aughaurain,
Drumgress and Shanaraghan.

“For mercy's sake,” exclaims the Reader, “enough—enough! what are
they?” The latter, dear Reader, are all Poles and Termons. And the
whole of them were set up for sale by public cant in Dublin, pursuant
to a Decree of his Majesty's High Court of Chancery in Ireland, dated
the 18th of May, 1816.

CHAPTER CXL.

HOW THERE AROSE A DISPUTE BETWEEN BARNABY AND NICHOLAS CONCERNING THE
NAMING OF THIS COLT, AND OF THE EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES THAT
ENSUED.

GOMGAM.

While the Doctor was deliberating by what significant name to call the
foal of which he had in so surprising a manner found himself
possessed, a warm dispute upon the same subject had arisen between
Barnaby and Nicholas: for though a woman does not consider herself
complimented when she is called a horse-godmother, each was ambitious
of being horse-godfather on this occasion, and giving his own name to
the colt, which had already become a pet with both.

Upon discovering each other's wish they first quietly argued the
point. Nicholas maintained that it was not possible any person, except
his master, could have so good a right to name the colt as himself,
who had actually been present when he was dropt. Barnaby admitted the
force of the argument, but observed that there was a still stronger
reason for naming him as he proposed, because he had been foaled on
the eleventh of June, which is St. Barnabas's day.

Nicholas, quoth his antagonist, it ought to be, for I was there at the
very nick of time. Barnaby, retorted the other, it ought to be; for in
a barn it happened.

Old Nick was the father of him! said Nicholas.—The more reason,
replied Barnaby, for giving him a Saint's name.

He shall be nicked to suit his name, said Nicholas;—and that's a good
reason!—Its a wicked reason, cried Barnaby, he shall never be nicked.
I love him as well as if he was a bairn of my own: and that's another
reason why he should be called Barnaby. He shall neither be nicked or
Nicholased.

Upon this Nicholas grew warm, and asserted that his name was as good
as the others, and that he was ready to prove himself the better man.
The other who had been made angry at the thought of nicking his pet,
was easily put upon his mettle, and they agreed to settle the dispute
by the _ultima ratio regum_. But this appeal to the immortal Gods was
not definitive, for John Atkinson the Miller's son came up and parted
them; and laughing at them for a couple of fools when he heard the
cause of their quarrel, he proposed that they should determine it by
running a race to the gate at the other end of the field.

Having made them shake hands, and promise to abide by the issue, he
went before them to the goal, and got on the other side to give the
signal and act as umpire.

One!—Two!—Three and away!—They were off like race-horses. They jostled
mid-way. It was neck and neck. And each laid his hand at the same
moment on the gate.

John Atkinson then bethought him that it would be a more sensible way
of deciding the dispute, if they were to drink for it, and see who
could swallow most ale at the Black Bull, where the current barrel was
much to his taste. At the Black Bull, therefore they met in the
evening. John chalked pint for pint; but for the sake of good
fellowship he drank pint for pint also; the Landlord (honest Matthew
Sykes) entered into the spirit of the contest, and when his wife
refused to draw any more beer, went for it himself as long as he had a
leg to stand on, or a hand to carry the jug, and longer than any one
of the party could keep the score.

The next day they agreed to settle it by a sober game at
Beggar-my-Neighbour. It was a singular game. The cards were dealt with
such equality that after the first round had shewn the respective
hands, the ablest calculator would have been doubtful on which side to
have betted. Captures were made and remade,—the game had all and more
than all its usual ups and downs, and it ended in tyeing the two last
cards. Never in any contest had Jupiter held the scales with a more
even hand.

The Devil is in the business to be sure, said Nicholas, let us toss up
for it!—Done, said Barnaby; and Nicholas placing a half-penny on his
thumb nail sent it whizzing into the air.

Tails! quoth Barnaby.—Tis heads, cried Nicholas, hurrah!

Barnaby stampt with his right foot for vexation—lifted his right arm
to his head, drew in his breath with one of those sounds which
grammarians would class among interjections, if they could express
them by letters, and swore that if it had been an honest half-penny,
it would never have served him so! He picked it up,—and it proved to
be a _Brummejam_ of the coarsest and clumsiest kind, with a head on
each side. They now agreed that the Devil certainly must be in it, and
determined to lay the whole case before the Doctor.

The Doctor was delighted with their story. The circumstances which
they related were curious enough to make the naming of this horse as
remarkable as his birth. He was pleased also that his own difficulties
and indecision upon this important subject should thus as it were be
removed by Fate or Fortune; and taking the first thought which now
occurred, and rubbing his forehead as he was wont to do, when any
happy conception struck him, (Jupiter often did so when Minerva was in
his brain), he said, we must compromise the matter, and make a
compound name in which both shall have an equal share. Nicholas
Ottley, and Barnaby Sutton; N. O.—B. S.—Nobs shall be his name.

Perhaps the Doctor remembered Smectymnuus at that time, and the
notorious Cabal, and the fanciful etymology that because news comes
from all parts, and the letters N. E. W. S. stand for North, East,
West, and South—the word was thence compounded. Perhaps also, he
called to mind that Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, the famous Maimonides, was
called Rambam from the initials of his titles and his names; and that
the great Gustavus Adolphus when he travelled incognito assumed the
name of M. Gars, being the four initials of his name and title. He
certainly did not remember that in the Dialogue of Solomon and
Saturnus the name of Adam is said to have been in like manner derived
from the four Angels Archox, Dux, Arocholem, and Minsymbrie. He did
not remember this—because he never knew it; this very curious
Anglo-Saxon poem existing hitherto only in manuscript, and no other
portions or account of it having been printed than those brief ones
for which we are indebted to Mr. Conybeare, a man upon whose like we
of his generation shall not look again.

CHAPTER CXLI.

A SINGULAR ANECDOTE AND NOT MORE SAD THAN TRUE.

Oh penny Pipers, and most painful penners
Of bountiful new Ballads, what a subject,
What a sweet subject for your silver sounds!

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

The chance of the Birmingham halfpenny was a rare one. I will not so
far wrong the gentle Reader as to suppose that he will doubt the
accuracy of any thing which is recorded in this true history; and I
seriously assure him that such a halfpenny I have myself seen in those
days when the most barefaced counterfeits were in full circulation,—a
halfpenny which had a head on either side, and consequently was like
the fox in the fable, or a certain noble Marquis, and now more noble
Duke when embassador at Petersburg,—not as being double-faced, but as
having lost its tail.

A rare chance it was, and yet rarer ones have happened.—I remember one
concerning a more serious appeal to fortune with the same instrument.
An Organist not without some celebrity in his day, (Jeremiah Clark was
his name), being hopelessly in love with a very beautiful lady, far
above his station in life, determined upon suicide, and walked into
the fields to accomplish his purpose. Coming to a retired spot where
there was a convenient pond, surrounded with equally convenient trees,
he hesitated which to prefer, whether to choose a dry death, or a
watery one;—perhaps he had never heard of the old riddle concerning
Ælia Lælia Crispis, which no Œdipus has yet solved. But that he might
not continue like the Ass between two bundles of hay in the sophism,
or Mahomet's coffin in the fable, he tossed a halfpenny in the air to
decide whether he should hang or drown himself,—and the halfpenny
stuck edgeways in the dirt.

The most determined infidel would at such a moment have felt that this
was more than accident. Clark, as may well be supposed went home
again; but the salutary impression did not remain upon his poor
disordered mind, and he shot himself soon afterwards.

CHAPTER CXLII.

A DEFECT IN HOYLE SUPPLIED. GOOD ADVICE GIVEN, AND PLAIN TRUTH TOLD. A
TRIBUTE OF RESPECT TO THE MEMORY OF F. NEWBERY, THE CHILDREN'S
BOOKSELLER AND FRIEND.

HOOKER.

There are many things in these kingdoms which are greatly under
valued: strong beer for example in the cider countries, and cider in
the countries of good strong beer; bottled twopenny in South Britain;
sprats and herrings by the rich, (—it may be questioned whether his
Majesty ever tasted them, though food for the immortal Gods),—and fish
of every kind by the labouring classes;—some things because they are
common, and others because they are not.

But I cannot call to mind any thing which is estimated so much below
its deserts as the game of Beggar-my-Neighbour. It is generally
thought fit only for the youngest children, or for the very lowest and
most ignorant persons into whose hands a pack of cards can descend;
whereas there is no game whatever in which such perpetual
opportunities of calculation are afforded to the scientific gamester;
not indeed for playing his cards, but for betting upon them. Zerah
Colburn, George Bidder and Professor Airy would find their faculties
upon the stretch, were they to attempt to keep pace with its chances.

It is, however, necessary that the Reader should not mistake the
spurious for the genuine game, for there are various ways of playing
it, and as in all cases only one which is the orthodox way. You take
up trick by trick. The trump as at other games, takes every other
suit. If suit is not followed the leader wins the trick; but if it is,
the highest card is the winner. These rules being observed (I give
them because they will not be found in Hoyle) the game is regular and
affords combinations worthy to have exercised the power of that
calculating machine of flesh and blood, called Jedediah Buxton.

Try it Reader, if you have the slightest propensity for gambling.—But
first pledge your sacred word of honour to the person whose good
opinion you are most desirous of retaining, that you will never at any
game, nor in any adventure, risk a sum which would involve you in any
serious difficulties, or occasion you any reasonable regret if it
should be lost. Make that resolution, and keep it;—and you and your
family will have cause to bless the day in which you read the History
of Dr. Dove.

Observe, it is your word of honour that I have requested, and not your
oath. Either with you might and ought to be equally binding, as _in
foro conscientiæ_, so every where else. But perhaps you are, or may
hereafter be a Member of Parliament, (a propensity whether slight or
not for gambling which has been presupposed, renders this the more
likely;) and since what is called the Catholic Relief Bill was passed,
the obligation of an oath has been done away by the custom of
Parliament, honourable Members being allowed to swear with whatever
degree of mental reservation they and their Father Confessors may find
convenient.

A Frenchman some fifteen years ago published a Treatise upon the game
of Thirty-One; and which is not always done by Authors, in French or
English, thought it necessary to make himself well acquainted with the
subject upon which he was writing. In order therefore to ascertain the
chances, he made one million five hundred and sixty thousand throws
which he computed as equivalent to four years' uninterrupted play. If
this indefatigable Frenchman be living, I exhort him to study
Beggar-my-Neighbour with equal diligence.

There are some games which have survived the Revolutions of Empires,
like the Pyramids; but there are more which have been as short-lived
as modern Constitutions. There may be some old persons who still
remember how Ombre was played, and Tontine and Lottery; but is there
any one who has ever heard of Quintill, Piquemdrill, Papillon,
L'Ambigu, Ma Commère, La Mariée, La Mouche, Man d'Auvergne, L'Emprunt,
Le Poque, Romestecq, Sizette, Guinguette, Le Sixte, La Belle, Gillet,
Cul Bas, Brusquembrille, the Game of Hoc, the Reverse, the Beast, the
Cuckoo and the Comet,—is there any one, I say, who has ever heard of
these Games, unless he happens to know as I do, that rules for playing
them were translated from the French of the Abbé Bellecour, and
published for the benefit of the English people some seventy years ago
by Mr. F. Newbery, a publisher never to be named without honour by
those who have read in their childhood the delectable histories of
Goody Two-Shoes, and Giles Gingerbread.

CHAPTER CXLIII.

A FEEBLE ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL QUALITIES OF NOBS.

BRANTOME.

Such, O Reader were the circumstances concerning Nobs, before his
birth, at his birth and upon his naming. Strange indeed would it have
been, if anything which regarded so admirable a horse, had been after
the manner of other horses.

Fate never could a horse provide
So fit for such a man to ride;
Nor find a man with strictest care
So fit for such a horse to bear.[1]

[Footnote 1: CHURCHILL.]

To describe him as he was would require all the knowledge, and all the
eloquence of the immortal Taplin. Were I to attempt it in verse, with
what peculiar propriety might I adopt the invocation of the Polish
Poet.

_Ducite Gratiæ
E valle Permessi vagantem
Pegason; alipedemque sacris
Frenate sertis.—Ut micat auribus!
Vocemque longé vatis amabili
Agnoscit hinnitu! Ut Dearum
Frena ferox, hilarique bullam
Collo poposcit._[2]

[Footnote 2: CASIMIR.]

Might I not have applied the latter part of these verses as aptly, as
they might truly have been applied to Nobs, when Barnaby was about to
saddle him on a fine spring morning at the Doctor's bidding? But what
have I to do with the Graces, or the Muses and their winged steed? My
business is with plain truth and sober prose.

———_Io non so dov'io debba comminciare,
Dal capo, da gli orecchi, o dalla coda.
Egli è per tutto tanto singulare,
Ch'io per me vò lodarlo, intero, intero;
Poi pigli ognun qual membro più gli pare._[3]

[Footnote 3: BUSINI.]

Stubbs would have found it difficult to paint him, Reginald Heber
himself to describe him as he was. I must begin by saying what he was
not.

And grant me now,
Good reader, thou!
Of terms to use
Such choice to chuse,
As may delight
The country wight,
And knowledge bring:
For such do praise
The country phrase,
The country acts,
The country facts,
The country toys,
Before the joys
Of any thing.[4]

[Footnote 4: TUSSER.]

He was not jogged under the jaw, nor shoulder-splat, neck-cricked,
pricked in the sole or loose in the hoof, horse-hipped, hide-bound,
broken-winded, straight or heavy shouldered, lame in whirl-bone,
run-away, restiff, vicious, neck-reversed or cock-thrappled,
ewe-necked, or deer-necked, high on the leg, broken-knee'd, splent,
oslett, false-quartered, ring-boned, sand-cracked, groggy,
hollow-backed, bream-backed, long-backed or broken-backed,
light-carcased, ragged hipped, droop-Dutchman'd, Dutch buttock'd, hip
shot-stifled, hough-boney or sickle-hammed. He had neither his head
ill set on, nor dull and hanging ears, nor wolves teeth, nor bladders
in the mouth, nor gigs, nor capped-hocks, nor round legs, nor grease,
nor the chine-gall, the navel-gall, the spur-gall, the light-gall, or
the shackle-gall; nor the worms, nor the scratches, nor the colt-evil,
nor the pole-evil, nor the quitter bones, nor the curbs, nor the
Anticoré, nor the pompardy, nor the rotten-frush, nor the crown-scab,
nor the cloyd, nor the web, nor the pin, nor the pearl, nor the howks,
nor the haws, nor the vines, nor the paps, nor the pose: nor the
bladders, nor the surbate, nor the bloody riffs, nor sinews down, nor
mallenders, nor fallenders, nor sand cracks, nor hurts in the joints,
nor toes turned out, nor toes turned in, nor soft feet, nor hard feet,
nor thrushes, nor corns. Nor did he beat upon the hand, nor did he
carry low, nor did he carry in the wind. Neither was he a crib-biter,
nor a high-goer, nor a daisy cutter, nor a cut-behind, nor a hammer
and pinchers, nor a wrong-end-first, nor a short stepper, nor a
roarer, nor an interferer. For although it hath been said that “a man
cannot light of any horse young or old, but he is furnished with one,
two, or more of these excellent gifts,” Nobs had none of them: he was
an immaculate horse;—such as Adam's would have been, if Adam had kept
what could not then have been called a saddle-horse, in Eden.

He was not, like the horse upon which Petruchio came to his wedding,
“possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the chine; troubled
with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of wind-galls, sped
with spavins, raied with the yellows, past cure of the fives, stark
spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed in the back
and shoulder-shotten.”[5] But he was in every respect the reverse.

[Footnote 5: TAMING OF THE SHREW.]

A horse he was worthy to be praised like that of the Sieur Vuyart

_Un courtaut brave, un courtaut glorieux,
Qui ait en l'air ruade furieuse
Glorieux trot, la bride glorieuse._[6]

[Footnote 6: CLEMENT MAROT.]

A horse who like that famous charger might have said in his Epitaph

_J'allay curieux
En chocs furieux,
Sans craindre estrapade;
Mal rabotez lieux
Passez a cloz yeux,
Sans faire chopade.
La viste virade,
Pompante pennade,
Le saut soubzlevant,
La roide ruade,
Prompte petarrade
Je mis en avant.
Escumeur bavant
Au manger sçavant,
Au penser très-doux;
Relevé devant,
Jusqu' au bout servant
J'ay esté sur tous._

Like that Arabian which Almanzar sent to Antea's father, the Soldan,

_Egli avea tutte le fattezze pronte
Di buon caval, come udirete appresso._[7]

Like those horses, described by Mr. Milman in his version of the
episode of Nala from the Mahábhárata, he was

fit and powerful for the road;
Blending mighty strength with fleetness,—high in courage and in
blood:
Free from all the well-known vices,—broad of nostril, large of jaw,
With the ten good marks distinguished,—born in Sindhu, fleet as
wind.

[Footnote 7: PULCI.]

Like these horses he was,—except that he was born in Yorkshire;—and
being of Tartarian blood it may be that he was one of the same race
with them.

He was not like the horses of Achilles;

_Ἐξ ἀφθίτων γὰρ ἄφθιτοι πεφυκότες
Τὸν Πηλέως φέρουσι θούριον γόνον.
Δίδωσι δ᾽ αὐτους πωλοδαμνήσας ἄναξ
Πηλεῖ Ποσειδῶν, ὡς λεγουσι, πόντιος._[8]

Like them therefore Nobs could not be, because he was a mortal horse;
and moreover because he was not amphibious, as they must have been. If
there be any of their breed remaining, it must be the immortal River,
or more properly Water-Horse of Loch Lochy, who has sometimes, say the
Highlanders, been seen feeding on the banks: sometimes entices mares
from the pasture, sometimes overturns boats in his anger and agitates
the whole lake with his motion.

[Footnote 8: EURIPIDES.]

He was of a good tall stature; his head lean and comely; his forehead
out-swelling; his eyes clear, large, prominent and sparkling, with no
part of the white visible; his ears short, small, thin, narrow and
pricking; his eye-lids thin; his eye-pits well-filled; his under-jaw
thick but not fleshy; his nose arched; his nostrils deep, open and
extended; his mouth well split and delicate; his lips thin; his neck
deep, long, rising straight from the withers, then curving like a
swan's; his withers sharp and elevated; his breast broad; his ribs
bending; his chine broad and straight; his flank short and full; his
crupper round and plump; his haunches muscular; his thighs large and
swelling; his hocks round before, tendonous behind, and broad on the
sides, the shank thin before, and on the sides broad; his tendons
strong, prominent and well detached; his pasterns short; his fet-locks
well-tufted, the coronet somewhat raised; his hoofs black, solid and
shining; his instep high, his quarters round; the heel broad; the frog
thin and small; the sole thin and concave.

Here I have to remark that the tufted fetlocks Nobs derived from his
dam Miss Jenny. They belong not to the thorough-bred race;—witness the
hunting song,

‘Your high bred nags,
Your hairy legs,
We'll see which first come in, Sir.’

He had two properties of a man, to wit, a proud heart, and a hardy
stomach.

He had the three parts of a woman, the three parts of a lion, the
three parts of a bullock, the three parts of a sheep, the three parts
of a mule, the three parts of a deer, the three parts of a wolf, the
three parts of a fox, the three parts of a serpent, and the three
parts of a cat, which are required in a perfect horse.

For colour he was neither black-bay, brown-bay, dapple-bay,
black-grey, iron-grey, sad-grey, branded-grey, sandy-grey,
dapple-grey, silver-grey, dun, mouse-dun, flea-backed, flea-bitten,
rount, blossom, roan, pye-bald, rubican, sorrel, cow-coloured sorrel,
bright sorrel, burnt sorrel, starling-colour, tyger-colour,
wolf-colour, deer-colour, cream-colour, white, grey or black. Neither
was he green, like the horse which the Emperor Severus took from the
Parthians, and reserved for his share of the spoil, with a Unicorn's
horn and a white Parrot; _et qu'il estima plus pour la rareté et
couleur naïve et belle que pour la valeur, comme certes il avoit
raison: car, nul butin, tant precieux fut-il, ne l'eust pu esgaler, et
sur tout ce cheval, verd de nature_—Such a horse Rommel saw in the
Duke of Parma's stables; because of its green colour it was called
Speranza, and the Duke prized it above all his other horses for the
extreme rarity of the colour, as being a jewel among horses,—yea a
very emerald.

Nor was he peach-coloured roan, like that horse which Maximilian de
Bethune, afterwards the famous Duc de Sully, bought at a horse-market
for forty crowns, and which was so poor a beast in appearance _qu'il
ne sembloit propre qu'a porter la malle_, and yet turned out to be so
excellent a horse that Maximilian sold him to the Vidasme of Chartres
for six hundred crowns. Sully was an expert horse-dealer. He bought of
Monsieur de la Roche-Guyon one of the finest Spanish horses that ever
was seen and gave six hundred crowns for him. Monsieur de Nemours not
being able to pay the money, _une tapisserie des forces de Hercule_
was received either in pledge or payment, which tapestry adorned the
great hall at Sully, when the veteran soldier and statesman had the
satisfaction of listening to the _Memoires de ce que Nous quatre_, say
the writers, _qui avons esté employez en diverses affaires de France
sous Monseigneur le Duc de Sully, avons peu sçavoir de sa vie, mœurs,
dicts, faicts, gestes et fortunes; et de ce que luy-mesme nous peut
avoir appris de ceux de nostre valeureux Alcide le Roy Henry le Grand,
depuis le mois de May 1572 (qu'il fut mis à son service,) jusques au
mois de May 1610, qu'il laissa la terre pour aller au Ciel._

No! his colour was chesnut; and it is a saying founded on experience
that a chesnut horse is always a good one, and will do more work than
any horse of the same size of any other colour. The horse which
Wellington rode at the Battle of Waterloo for fifteen hours without
dismounting, was a small chesnut horse.

This was the ‘thorough-bred red chestnut-charger’ mentioned by Sir
George Head when he relates an anecdote of the Duke of Wellington and
Sir Thomas Picton, who, contrary to the Duke's intentions, seemed at
that moment likely to bring on an engagement, not long after the
battle of Orthez. Having learnt where Sir Thomas was, the Duke set
spurs to his horse; the horse “tossed up its head with a snort and
impetuously sprang forward at full speed, and in a few minutes,
_ventre à terre_, transported its gallant rider, his white cloak
streaming in the breeze, to the identical copse distant about half a
mile from whence the firing of the skirmishers proceeded. As horse and
rider furiously careered towards the spot, I fancied,” says Sir
George, “I perceived by the motion of the animal's tail, a type,
through the medium of the spur, of the quickened energies of the noble
Commander, on the moment when for the first time he caught view of
Picton.”

This famous horse, named Copenhagen because he was foaled about the
time of the expedition against that City, died on the 12th of
February, 1836, at Strathfieldsaye of old age; there, where he had
passed the last ten years of his life in perfect freedom, he was
buried, and by the Duke's orders a salute was fired over his grave.
The Duchess used to wear a bracelet made of his hair. Would that I had
some of thine in a broche, O Nobs!

Copenhagen has been wrongly described in a newspaper as slightly made.
A jockey hearing this said of a horse, would say, “_aye a thready
thing_;” but Copenhagen was a large horse in a small compass, as
compact a thorough bred horse as ever run a race,—which he had done
before he was bought and sold to the Duke in Spain. “He was as sweet
gentle a creature,” says a right good old friend of mine, “as I ever
patted, and he came of a gentle race, by the mother's side; she was
Meteora, daughter of Meteor, and the best trait in her master's
character, Westminster's Marquis, was that his eyes dropped tears when
they told him she had won a race, but being over weighted had been
much flogged.”

He was worthy, like the horses of the Greek Patriarch Theophylact, to
have been fed with pistachios, dates, dried grapes, and figs steeped
in the finest wines,—that is to say if he would have preferred this
diet to good oats, clean hay, and sometimes in case of extraordinary
exertion an allowance of bread soaked in ale.

Wine the Doctor did not find it necessary to give him, even in his old
age; although he was aware of the benefit which the horse of Messire
Philippe De Comines derived from it after the battle of Montl'hery:
“_J'avoye_,” says that sagacious soldier, “_un cheval extremement las
et vieil; Il beut un seau plein de vin; par aucun cas d'aventure il y
mit le museau; Je le laissay achever; Jamais ne l'avoye trouvé si bon
ne si frais._”

He was not such a horse as that famous one of Julius Cæsar's, which
had feet almost like human feet, the hoofs being cleft after the
manner of toes. Leo X. had one which in like manner had what Sir
Charles Bell calls digital extremities; and Geoffrey St. Hilaire, he
tells us, had seen one with three toes on the fore-foot and four on
the hind-foot; and such a horse was not long since exhibited in London
and at Newmarket.—No! Nobs was not such a horse as this;—if he had
been so mis-shapen he would have been a monster. The mare which the
Tetrarch of Numidia sent to Grandgousier and upon which Gargantua rode
to Paris, had feet of this description; but that mare was _la plus
enorme et la plus grande que fut oncques veüe, et la plus monstreuse_.

He was a perfect horse;—worthy to belong to the perfect Doctor,—worthy
of being immortalized in this perfect history. And it is not possible
to praise him too much,

_οὓνεκ᾽ ἀριστος
Ἳππῶν, ὅσσοι ἔασιν ὑπ᾽ ἠώ τ᾽ ἡέλιον τε:_[9]

not possible I repeat, _porque_, as D. Juan Perez de Montalvan says,
_parece que la naturaleza le avia hecho, no con la prisa que suele,
sino con tanto espacio y perfection, que, como quando un pintor acaba
con felicidad un lienzo, suele poner a su lado su nombre, assi pudo la
Naturaleza escrivir el suyo, como por termino de su ciencia:_ which
is, being translated, “Nature seemed to have made him, not with her
wonted haste, but with such deliberation and perfection, that as a
painter when he finishes a picture successfully, uses to mark it with
his name, so might Nature upon this work have written hers, as being
the utmost of her skill!” As Shakespeare would have expressed it—

Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, this was a Horse.

[Footnote 9: HOMER.]

In the words of an old romance, to describe him _ainsi qu'il apartient
seroit difficile jusques à l'impossibilité_, beyond which no
difficulty can go.

He was as excellent a horse, the Doctor used to say, as that which was
first chosen to be backed by Cain, and which the divine Du Bartas, as
rendered by the not less divine Sylvester, thus describes,

With round, high, hollow, smooth, brown, jetty hoof;
With pasterns short, upright, but yet in mean;
Dry sinewy shanks; strong fleshless knees and lean;
With hart-like legs; broad breast, and large behind,
With body large, smooth flanks, and double chined;
A crested neck, bowed like a half bent bow,
Whereon a long, thin, curled mane doth flow;
A firm full tail, touching the lowly ground,
With dock between two fair fat buttocks drown'd;
A pricked ear, that rests as little space
As his light foot; a lean, bare, bony face,
Thin joule, and head but of a middle size;
Full, lively-flaming, quickly-rolling eyes;
Great foaming mouth, hot fuming nostril wide;
Of chesnut hair, his forehead starrified;
Three milky feet, a feather in his breast,
Whom seven-years-old at the next grass he guest.

In many respects he was like that horse which the elder of the three
Fracassins won in battle in the Taprobanique Islands, in the wars
between the two dreadful Giant Kings Gargamitre and Tartabas. _Ce
furieux destrier estoit d'une taille fort belle, à jambe de cerf, la
poictrine ouverte, la croupe large, grand corps, flancs unis, double
eschine, le col vouté comme un arc mi-tendu, sur lequel flottoit un
long poil crespu; la queue longue, ferme et espesse; l'oreille
poinctue et sans repos, aussi bien que le pied, d'une corne lissee,
retirant sur le noir, haute, ronde, et creuse, le front sec, et
n'ayant rien que l'os; les yeux gros prompts et relevez; la bouche
grande, escumeuse; le nareau ronflant et ouvert; poil chastain, de
l'age de sept ans. Bref qui eut voulu voir le modelle d'un beau, bon
et genereux cheval en estoit un._

Like this he was, except that he was never _Nobs furieux_, being as
gentle and as docile at seven years old, as at seventeen when it was
my good fortune to know and my privilege sometimes to ride him.

He was not such a horse as that for which Muley, the General of the
King of Fez, and the _Principe Constante_ D. Fernando fought, when
they found him without an owner upon a field covered with slain; a
horse

_tan monstruo, que siendo hijo
del Viento, adopcion pretende
del Fuego; y entre los dos
lo desdize y lo desmiente
el color, pues siendo blanco
dize el Agua, parto es este
de mi esfera, sola yo
pude quaxarle de nieve._

Both leaped upon him at once, and fought upon his back, and Calderon's
Don Fernando thus describes the battle,—

_En la silla y en las ancas
puestos los dos juntamente,
mares de sangre rompimos;
por cuyas ondas crueles
este baxel animado,
hecho proa de la frente,
rompiendo el globo de nacar.
desde el codon al copete,
parecio entre espuma y sangre,
ya que baxel quise hazerle,
de quatro espuelas herido,
que quatro vientos le mueven._

He did not either in his marks or trappings, resemble Rabicano, as
Chiabrera describes him, when Rinaldo having lost Bayardo, won this
famous horse from the Giant to whose keeping Galafron had committed
him after Argalia's death.

_Era sì negro l'animal guerriero,
Qual pece d' Ida; e solamente en fronte
E sulla coda biancheggiava il pelo,
E del piè manco, e deretano l'unghia;
Ma con fren d'oro, e con dorati arcioni.
Sdegna tremando ogni reposo, e vibra
Le tese orecchie, e per levarsi avvampa,
E col ferrato piè non è mai stanco
Battere il prato, e tutte l'aure sfida
Al sonar de magnanimi nitriti._

Galafron had employed

_Tutto l'Inferno a far veloce in corso
Qual negro corridor._

Notwithstanding which Rabicano appears to have been a good horse, and
to have had no vice in him; and yet his equine virtues were not equal
to those of Nobs, nor would he have suited the Doctor so well.

Lastly, he was not such a Horse as that goodly one “of Cneiüs Seiüs
which had all the perfections that could be named for stature,
feature, colour, strength, limbs, comeliness, belonging to a horse;
but withal, this misery ever went along with him, that whosoever
became owner of him was sure to die an unhappy death.” Nor did the
possession of that fatal horse draw on the destruction of his owner
alone, but the ruin of his whole family and fortune. So it proved in
the case of his four successive Masters, Cneiüs Seiüs, Cornelius
Dolabella, Caius Cassius and Mark Antony, whom if I were to call by
his proper name Marcus Antonius, half my readers would not recognize.
This horse was foaled in the territory of Argos, and his pedigree was
derived from the anthropophagous stud of the tyrant Diomedes. He was
of surpassing size, _haud credibili pulchritudine vigore et colore
exuberantissimo_,—being purple with a tawney mane. No! Nobs was not
such a horse as this.

Though neither in colour nor in marks, yet in many other respects the
description may be applied to him which Merlinus Cocaius has given in
his first Macaronea of the horse on which Guido appeared at that
tournament where he won the heart of the Princess Baldovina.

_Huic mantellus erat nigrior carbone galantus,
Parvaque testa, breves agilesque movebat orecchias;
Frontis et in medio faciebat stella decorem.
Frena biassabat, naresque tenebat apertas.
Pectore mostazzo tangit, se reddit in unum
Groppettum, solusque viam galopando misurat,
Goffiat, et curtos agitant sua colla capillos.
Balzanus tribus est pedibus, cum pectore largo,
Ac inter gambas tenet arcto corpore caudam;
Spaventat, volgitque oculos hinc inde fogatos;
Semper et ad solam currit remanetque sbriatam,
Innaspatque pedes naso boffante priores._

That he should have been a good horse is not surprizing, seeing that
though of foreign extraction on the one side, he was of English birth,
whereby, and by his dam, he partook the character of English horses.
Now as it has been discreetly said, “Our English horses have a
mediocrity of all necessary good properties in them, as neither so
slight as the Barbe; nor so slovenly as the Flemish; nor so fiery as
the Hungarian; nor so aery as the Spanish Gennets, (especially if, as
reported, they be conceived of the wind;) nor so earthly as those in
the Low Countries, and generally all the German Horse. For stature and
strength they are of a middle size, and are both seemly and
serviceable in a good proportion. And whilst the seller praiseth them
too much, the buyer too little, the indifferent stander-by will give
them this due commendation.”[10]

[Footnote 10: FULLER.]

A reasonably good horse therefore he might have been expected to prove
as being English, and better than ordinary English horses as being
Yorkshire. For saith the same judicious author, “Yorkshire doth breed
the best race of English horses, whose keeping commonly in steep and
stony ground bringeth them to firmness of footing and hardness of
hoof; whereas a stud of horses bred in foggy, fenny ground, and soft,
rotten morasses,—(delicacy marrs both man and beast,) have often a fen
in their feet, being soft, and soon subject to be foundered. Well may
Philip be so common a name amongst the gentry of this country, who are
generally so delighted in horsemanship.”

Very good therefore there might have been fair ground for hoping that
Nobs would prove; but that he should have proved so good, so
absolutely perfect in his kind and for his uses, was beyond all
hope—all expectation.

“I have done with this subject, the same author continues, when I have
mentioned the monition of David, ‘an Horse is but a vain thing to save
a man,’ though it is no vain thing to slay a man, by many casualties:
such need we have, whether waking or sleeping, whether walking or
riding, to put ourselves by prayer into Divine Protection.”

Such a reflection is in character with the benevolent and pious
writer; and conveys indeed a solemn truth which ought always to be
borne in mind. Its force will not be weakened though I should remark
that the hero of a horse which I have endeavoured to describe may in a
certain sense be said to afford an exception to David's saying: for
there were many cases in which according to all appearance the patient
could not have been saved unless the Doctor had by means of his horse
Nobs arrived in time.

His moral qualities indeed were in as great perfection as his physical
ones; but—_il faut faire desormais une fin au discours de ce grand
cheval; car, tant plus que j'entrerois dans le labyrinthe de ses
vertus, tant plus je m'y perdrois._ With how much more fitness may I
say this of Nobs, than Brantome said it of Francis I.!

When in the fifteenth century the noble Valencian Knight, Mossen
Manuel Diez accompanied Alonso to the conquest of the kingdom of
Naples, he there had occasion to remark of how great importance it was
that the knights should be provided with good horses in time of war,
that they might thereby be the better able to increase the honour and
extend the dominions of their king; and that in time of their old age
and the season of repose they should have for their recreation good
mules. He resolved therefore to compose a book upon the nature and
qualities of these animals, and the way of breeding them, and
preserving them sound, and in good condition and strong. And although
he was well versed in these things himself, nevertheless he obtained
the king's orders for calling together all the best _Albeytares_ that
is to say in old speech, farriers, horse-doctors, or horse-leeches,
and in modern language Veterinary surgeons; all which could assemble
were convened, and after due consultation with them, he composed that
_Libre de Menescalià_, the original of which in the Valencian dialect
was among the MSS. that Pope Alexander VII. collected, and which began
_In nome sia de la Sancta Trinitat, que es Pare, è Fill, e Sant
Spirit, tot hum Deu;_ and which he as _Majordom_ of the _molt alt e
poderos Princep, e victorios Signior Don Alfonso, Re de Ragona,_ &c.
set forth to show to _als jovents Cavellers, gran part de la practica
è de la conexenza del Cavalls, e de lurs malaties, è gran part de les
cures di aquells_. If Nobs had lived in those days, worthy would he
have been to have been in all particulars described in that work, to
have had an equestrian order instituted in his honour, and have been
made a _Rico Cavallo_, the first who obtained that rank.

CHAPTER CXLIV.

HISTORY AND ROMANCE RANSACKED FOR RESEMBLANCES AND NON-RESEMBLANCES TO
THE HORSE OF DR. DANIEL DOVE.

Renowned beast! (forgive poetic flight!)
Not less than man, deserves poetic right.

THE BRUCIAD.

When I read of heroic horses in heroic books, I cannot choose but
remember Nobs, and compare him with them, not in particular qualities,
but in the sum total of their good points, each in his way. They may
resemble each other as little as Rabelais and Rousseau, Shakespeare
and Sir Isaac Newton, Paganini and the Duke of Wellington, yet be
alike in this that each had no superior in his own line of excellence.

Thus when I read of the courser which Prince Meridiano presented to
Alphebus, the Knight of the Sun, after the Prince had been defeated by
him in the presence of his Sister Lindabridis, I think of Nobs, though
Cornelin was marvellously unlike the Doctor's perfect roadster. For
Cornelin was so named because he had a horn growing from the middle of
his forehead; and he had four joints at the lower part of his legs,
which extraordinary formation, (I leave anatomists to explain how,)
made him swifter than all other horses, insomuch that his speed was
likened to the wind. It was thought that his Sire was an Unicorn,
though his dam was certainly a mare: and there was this reason for
supposing such to be the case, that Meridiano was son to the Emperor
of Great Tartary, in which country the hybrid race between Unicorn and
Mare was not uncommon in those days.

When the good Knight of the Sun engaged in single combat with the
Giant Bradaman, this noble horse stood him in good stead: for Bradaman
rode an elephant, and as they ran at each other, Cornelin thrust his
natural spike into the elephant's poitrel, and killed him on the spot.

Cornelin did special service on another occasion, when some Knights
belonging to a Giant King of the Sards, who had established one of
those atrocious customs which it was the duty of all Errant Knights to
suppress, met with the Good Knight of the Sun; and one of them said he
would allow him to turn back and go his way in peace, provided he gave
him his arms and his horse, “if the horse be thine own,” said he,
“inasmuch as he liketh me hugely.” The Good Knight made answer with a
smile “my arms I shall not give, because I am not used to travel
without them; and as for my horse, none but myself can mount him.” The
discourteous Knight made answer with an oath that he would see whether
he could defend the horse; and with that he attempted to seize the
bridle. No sooner had he approached within Cornelin's reach, than that
noble steed opened his mouth, caught him by the shoulder, lifted him
up, dropt him, and then trampled on him _si rudement que son ame
s'envola à celuy à qui elle estoit pour ses malefices_. Upon this
another of these insolent companions drew his sword, and was about to
strike at Cornelin's legs, but Cornelin reared, and with both his
fore-feet struck him on the helmet with such force, that no armourer
could repair the outer head-piece, and no surgeon the inner one.

It was once disputed in France whether a horse could properly be said
to have a mouth; a wager concerning it was laid, and referred to no
less a person than a Judge, because, says a Frenchman, “our French
Judges are held in such esteem that they are appealed to upon the most
trifling occasions.” The one party maintained _qu'il falloit dire la
gueule à toutes bestes, et qu'il n'y avoit que l'homme qui eust
bouche_; but the Judge decided, _qu'à cause de l'excellence du cheval,
il falloit dire la bouche_. The Giant King's Knights must have been of
the Judge's opinion when they saw Cornelin make but a mouthful of
their companion.

When our English Judges are holden in such esteem as to be referred to
on such occasions, they do not always entertain the appeal. Mr.
Brougham when at the Bar—that Mr. Brougham (if posterity enquiries
whom I mean) who was afterwards made Lord Chancellor and of whom Sir
Edward Sugden justly observed, that if he had but a smattering of law
he would know something of everything—Mr. Brougham, I say, opened
before Lord Chief Justice Tenterden an action for the amount of a
wager laid upon the event of a dog-fight, which through some
unwillingness of dogs or men had not been brought to an issue: “We, My
Lord,” said the advocate, “were minded that the dogs should
fight.”—“Then I,” replied the Judge “are minded to hear no more of
it;” and he called another cause.

No wager would ever have been left undecided through any unwillingness
to fight on the part of Cornelin or of his Master the Knight of the
Sun.

When that good Knight of the Sun seeking death in his despair landed
upon the Desolate Island, there to encounter a monster called Faunus
el Endemoniado, that is to say the Bedevilled Faun, he resolved in
recompence for all the service that Cornelin had done him to let him
go free for life: so taking off his bridle and saddle and all his
equipments, he took leave of him in these sorrowful words. “O my good
Horse, full grievously do I regret to leave thee! Would it were but in
a place where thou mightest be looked to and tended according to thy
deserts! For if Alexander of Macedon did such honour to his dead horse
that he caused a sepulchre to be erected for him and a city to be
called after his name, with much more reason might I show honour to
thee while thou art living, who art so much better than he. Augustus
had his dead horse buried that he might not be devoured by carrion
birds. Didius Julianus consecrated a marble statue of his in the
Temple of Venus. Lucius Verus had the likeness of his while living
cast in gold. But I who have done nothing for thee, though thou
surpassest them all in goodness, what can I do now but give thee
liberty that thou mayest enjoy it like other creatures? Go then, my
good Horse, the last companion from whom I part in this world!” Saying
this, he made as if he would have struck him to send him off. But here
was a great marvel in this good horse: for albeit he was now free and
with nothing to encumber him, he not only would not go away, but
instead thereof approached his master, his whole body trembling, and
the more the Knight threatened the more he trembled and the nearer he
drew. The Knight of the Sun knew not what he should do, for on the one
hand he understood in what danger this good horse would be if he
should be perceived by the Faun; and on the other threaten him as he
would he could not drive him away. At length he concluded to leave him
at liberty, thinking that peradventure he would take flight as soon as
he should see the Faun. He was not mistaken; Cornelin would have stood
by his Master in the dreadful combat in which he was about to engage,
and would peradventure have lost his life in endeavouring to aid him;
but the Bedevilled Faun had been so named because he had a hive of
Devils in his inside; fire came from his mouth and nostrils as he
rushed against the Knight, and swarms of armed Devils were breathed
out with the flames; no wonder therefore that even Cornelin took
fright and galloped away.

But when Alphebus had slain the Bedevilled Faun, and lived alone upon
the Desolate Island, like a hermit, waiting and wishing for death,
eating wild fruits and drinking of a spring which welled near some
trees, under which he had made for himself a sort of bower, Cornelin
used often to visit him in his solitude. It was some consolation to
the unhappy Knight to see the good horse that he loved so well: but
then again it redoubled his grief as he called to mind the exploits he
had performed when mounted upon that famous courser. The displeasure
of his beautiful and not less valiant than beautiful mistress the
Princess Claridiana had caused his wretchedness, and driven him to
this state of despair; and when Claridiana being not less wretched
herself, came to the Desolate Island in quest of him, the first thing
that she found was the huge and broken limb of a tree with which he
had killed the Faun, and the next was Cornelin's saddle and bridle and
trappings, which she knew by the gold and silk embroidery, tarnished
as it was, and by the precious stones. Presently she saw the good
horse Cornelin himself, who had now become well nigh wild, and came
toward her bounding and neighing, and rejoicing at the sight of her
horse, for it was long since he had seen a creature of his own kind.
But he started off when she would have laid hold of him, for he could
not brook that any but his own master should come near him now.
Howbeit she followed his track, and was thus guided to the spot where
her own good Knight was wasting his miserable life.

Nobs was as precious a horse to the Doctor as Vegliantino was to
Rinaldo,—that noble courser whom the Harpies killed, and whom Rinaldo,
after killing the whole host of Harpies, buried sorrowfully, kneeling
down and kissing his grave. He intended to go in mourning and afoot
for his sake all the rest of his life, and wrote for him this epitaph
upon a stone, in harpy's blood and with the point of his sword.

_Quì giace Vegliantin, caval de Spagna,
Orrido in guerra, e tutto grazie in pace;
Servi Rinaldo in Francia ed in Lamagna,
Ed ebbe ingegno e spirto si vivace
Che averebbe coi piè fatto una ragna;
Accorto, destro, nobile ed audace,
Morì qual forte, e con fronte superba;
O tu, che passi, gettagli un pò d'erba._[1]

He was as sagacious a horse and as gentle as Frontalatte, who in the
heroic age of horses was

_Sopra ogni altro caval savio ed umano._[2]

[Footnote 1: RICCIARDETTO.]

[Footnote 2: ORLANDO INAMORATO.]

When the good Magician Atlante against his will sent his pupil
Ruggiero forth, and provided him with arms and horse, he gave him this
courser which Sacripante had lost, saying to him

_certamente so che potrai dire
Che'l principe Rinaldo e'l conte Orlando
Non ha miglior caval._[3]

_Avendo altro signore, ebbe altro nome;_

His new master called him Frontino

_Il mondo non avea più bel destriero,_

* * * * *

_Or sopra avendo il giovane Ruggiero,
Piu vaga cosa nun si vide mai.
Chi guardasse il cavallo e'l cavaliero
Starebbe a dar giudicio in dubbio assai,
Se fusser vivi, o fatti col pennello,
Tanto era l'un e l'altro egregio e bello._[3]

[Footnote 3: ORLANDO INAMORATO.]

Nobs was not like that horse now living at Brussels, who is fond of
raw flesh, and getting one day out of his stable found his way to a
butcher's shop and devoured two breasts of mutton, mutton it seems
being his favourite meat. If his pedigree could be traced we might
expect to find that he was descended from the anthropophagous stud of
that abominable Thracian King whom Hercules so properly threw to his
own horses for food.

Nor was he like that other horse of the same execrable extraction,
whom in an evil day Rinaldo, having won him in battle, sent as a
present by the damsel Hipalca to Ruggiero,—that Clarion

_A quien el cielo con rigor maldixo,
Y una beldad le diò tan codiciada;_

that fatal horse who as soon as Ruggiero mounted him, carried his
heroic master into the ambush prepared for him in which he was
treacherously slain. The tragedy not ending there, for one of the
traitors took this horse for his reward and his proper reward he had
with him

_Púsole el traidor pernas, corrió el fuerte
Desenfrenado potro hasta arrojallo,
En medio de la plaza de Marsella,
A ojos de Bradamante, y su doncella._

_Alli en presencia suyo hecho pedazos
Al Magancés dexó el caballo fiero:
Viendole Hipalca muerto entre los brazos,
Y no en su silla qual penso a Rugero,
Notorios vió los cavilosos lazos
Del fementido bando de Pontiero.
Alteróse la bella Bradamante
Y el sobresalto le abortó un infante._

_Y al quinto dia con la nueva cierta
De la muerte infeliz del paladino,
La antes dudosa amante quedó muerta,
Y cumplido el temor del adivino.
Y por tantas desgracias descubierta
La traicion de Maganza, un rio sanguino
Labró Morgana, y de la gente impia
Cien falsos Condes degolló en un dia._[4]

_eso quieren decir las desgracias del Caballo Clarion_, says the
author of this poem El Doctor Don Bernardo de Balbuena, in the
allegory which he annexes to the Canto, _que la fuerza de las
estrellas predomina en los brutos, y en la parte sensitiva, y no en el
albedrio humano y voluntad racional._

[Footnote 4: BALBUENA.]

Neither did Nobs resemble in his taste that remarkable horse which Dr.
Tyson frequently saw in London at the beginning of the last century.
This horse would eat oysters with great delight, scrunching them
shells and all between his teeth. Accident developed in him this
peculiar liking; for being fastened one day at a tavern-door where
there happened to be a tub standing with oysters in it, the water
first attracted him, and then the fresh odour of fish induced him to
try his teeth upon what promised to be more savoury than oats and not
much harder than horse-beans. From that time he devoured them with
evident satisfaction whenever they were offered him; and he might have
become as formidable a visitor to the oyster-shops, if oyster-shops
there then had been, as the great and never-to-be-forgotten Dando
himself.

He was not like the Colt which Boyle describes, who had a double eye,
that is to say two eyes in one socket, in the middle of his forehead,
a Cyclops of a horse.

Nor was he like the coal-black steed on which the Trappist rode,
fighting against the _Liberales_ as heartily as that good Christian
the Bishop Don Hieronimo fought with the Cid Campeador against the
Moors, elevating the Crucifix in one hand, and with his sword in the
other smiting them for the love of Charity. That horse never needed
food or sleep: he never stumbled at whatever speed his master found it
needful to ride down the most precipitous descent; his eyes emitted
light to show the Trappist his way in the darkness; the tramp of his
hoofs was heard twenty miles around, and whatsoever man in the enemy's
camp first heard the dreadful sound, knew that his fate was fixed, and
he must inevitably die in the ensuing fight. Nobs resembled this
portentous horse as little as the Doctor resembled the terrible
Trappist. Even the great black horse which used to carry old George,
as William Dove called the St. George of Quakerdom, far exceeded him
in speed. The Doctor was never seen upon his back in the course of the
same hour at two places sixty miles apart from each other. There was
nothing supernatural in Nobs. His hippogony, even if it had been as
the Doctor was willing to have it supposed he thought probable, would
upon his theory have been in the course of nature, though not in her
usual course.

Olaus Magnus assigns sundry reasons why the Scandinavian horses were
hardier, and in higher esteem than those of any other part of the
World. They would bear to be shod without kicking or restraint. They
would never allow other horses to eat their provender. They saw their
way better in the dark. They regarded neither frost nor snow. They
aided the rider in battle both with teeth and hoofs. Either in
ascending or descending steep and precipitous places they were
sure-footed. At the end of a day's journey a roll in the sand or the
snow took off their fatigue and increased their appetite. They seldom
ailed anything and what ailments they had were easily cured. Moreover
they were remarkable for one thing,

_Ch' à dire è brutto, ed à tacerlo è bello_—[5]

and which, instead of translating or quoting the Dane's Latin, I must
intimate——by saying that it was never necessary to whistle to them.

[Footnote 5: RUCELLAI.]

Nobs had none of the qualities which characterized the Scandinavian
horses, and in which their excellencies consisted, as peculiarly
fitting them for their own country. But he was equally endowed with
all those which were required in his station. There was not a
surer-footed beast in the West Riding; and if he did not see his way
in the dark by the light of his own eyes like the black horse of the
Trappist, and that upon which the Old Woman of Berkeley rode double
behind One more formidable than the Trappist himself, when she was
taken out of her coffin of stone and carried bodily away,—he saw it as
well as any mortal horse could see, and knew it as well as John Gough
the blind botanist of Kendal, or John Metcalf the blind guide of
Knaresborough.

But of all his good qualities that for which the Doctor prized him
most was the kindness of his disposition, not meaning by those words
what Gentlemen-feeders and professors of agriculture mean. “It is the
Grazier's own fault,” says one of those professors, “if ever he
attempts to fatten an unkind beast,”—kindness of disposition in a
beast importing in their language, that it fattens soon. What it meant
in the Doctor's, the following authentic anecdote may show.

The Doctor had left Nobs one day standing near the door of a
farm-house with his bridle thrown over a gate-post; one of the
farmer's children, a little boy just old enough to run into danger,
amused himself by pulling the horse's tail with one hand and striking
him with a little switch across the legs with the other. The Mother
caught sight of this and ran in alarm to snatch the urchin away; but
before she could do this, Nobs lifted up one foot, placed it against
the boy's stomach, and gently pushed him down. The ground was wet, so
that the mark of his hoof showed where he had placed it, and it was
evident that what he had done was done carefully not to injure the
child, for a blow upon that part must have been fatal. This was what
the Doctor called kindness of disposition in a horse. Let others argue
if they please _que le cheval avoit quelque raison, et qu'il
ratiocinoit entre toutes les autres bestes, à cause du temperament de
son cerveau_;[6] here, as he justly said, was sufficient proof of
consideration, and good nature.

[Footnote 6: BOUCHET.]

He was not like the heroic horse which Amadis won in the Isle
Perilous, when in his old age he was driven thither by a tempest,
though the adventure has been pretermitted in his great history. After
the death of that old, old very old and most famous of all Knights,
this horse was enchanted by the Magician Alchiso. Many generations
passed away before he was overcome and disenchanted by Rinaldo; and he
then became so famous by his well-known name Bajardo, that for the
sole purpose of winning this horse and the sword Durlindana which was
as famous among swords as Bajardo among horses, Gradasso came from
India to invade France with an army of an hundred and fifty thousand
knights. If Nobs had been like him, think what a confusion and
consternation his appearance would have produced at Doncaster races!

_Ecco appare il cavallo, e i calci tira,
E fa saltando in ciel ben mille rote;
Delle narici il foco accolto spira,
Muove l'orecchie, e l'empie membra scuote;
A sassi, a sterpi, a piante ei non rimira,
Ma fracassando il tutto, urta e percote;
Col nitrito i nemici a fiera guerra
Sfida, e cò piè fa rimbombar la tierra._[7]

[Footnote 7: TASSO.]

Among the Romans he might have been in danger of being selected for a
victim to Mars, on the Ides of December. The Massagetæ would have
sacrificed him to the Sun, to whom horses seem to have been offered
wherever he was worshipped. He might have escaped in those countries
where white horses were preferred on such occasions;—a preference for
which a commentator upon Horace accounts by the unlucky conjecture
that it was because they were swifter than any others.

No better horse was ever produced from that celebrated breed which
Dionysius the Tyrant imported into Sicily from the Veneti. No better
could have been found among all the progeny of the fifty thousand
Mares belonging to the Great King, upon the Great Plain which the
Greeks called Hippobotus because the Median herb which was the best
pasture for horses abounded there. Whether the Nisæan horses which
were used by kings, were brought from thence or from Armenia, antient
Authors have not determined.

There was a tomb not far from the gates at Athens, ascending from the
Piræus, on which a soldier was represented standing beside a Horse.
All that was known of this monument in the age of Adrian was that it
was the work of Praxiteles; the name of the person whose memory it was
intended to preserve had perished. If Nobs and his Master had
flourished at the same time with Praxiteles, that great sculptor would
have thought himself worthily employed in preserving likenesses for
posterity of the one and the other. He was worthy to have been
modelled by Phidias or Lysippus. I will not wish that Chantrey had
been what he now is, the greatest of living sculptors, fourscore years
ago: but I may wish that Nobs and the Doctor had lived at the time
when Chantrey could have made a bust of the one and a model of the
other, or an equestrian statue to the joint honour of both.

Poppæa would have had such a horse shod with shoes of gold. Caligula
would have made him Consul. William Rufus would have created him by a
new and appropriate title Lord Horse of London Town.

When the French had a settlement in the Island of Madagascar, their
Commander who took the title of Viceroy, assembled a force of 3000
natives against one of the most powerful native Chiefs, and sent with
them 140 French under the Sieur de Chamargou. This Officer had just
then imported from India the first horse which had ever been seen in
Madagascar, and though oxmanship was practised by this people, as by
some of the tribes on the adjacent coast of Africa, those oxriders
were astonished at the horse; _ils luy rendoient même des respects si
profonds, que tous ceux qui envoyoient quelque deputation vers le
General de cette armée, ne manquoient point de faire des presens et
des complimens a Monsieur le Cheval._ If Nobs had been that Horse, he
would have deserved all the compliments that could have been paid him.

He would have deserved too, as far as Horse could have deserved, the
more extraordinary honours which fell to the lot of a coal black
steed, belonging to a kinsman of Cortes by name Palacios Rubios. In
that expedition which Cortes made against his old friend and comrade
Christoval de Olid, who in defiance of him had usurped a government
for himself, the Spaniards after suffering such privations and
hardships of every kind, as none but Spaniards could with the same
patience have endured, came to some Indian settlements called the
Mazotecas, being the name of a species of deer in the form of one of
which the Demon whom the natives worshipped had once, they said,
appeared to them, and enjoined them never to kill or molest in any way
an animal of that kind. They had become so tame in consequence, that
they manifested no fear at the appearance of the Spaniards, nor took
flight till they were attacked. The day was exceedingly hot, and as
the hungry hunters followed the chase with great ardour, Rubios's
horse was overheated, and as the phrase was, melted his grease. Cortes
therefore charged the Indians of the Province of Itza to take care of
him while he proceeded on his way to the Coast of Honduras, saying
that as soon as he fell in with the Spaniards of whom he was in quest,
he would send for him; horses were of great value at that time, and
this was a very good one. The Itzaex were equally in fear of Cortes
and the Horse; they did not indeed suppose horse and rider to be one
animal, but they believed both to be reasonable creatures, and
concluded that what was acceptable to the one would be so to the
other. So they offered him fowls to eat, presented nosegays to him of
their most beautiful and fragrant flowers, and treated him as they
would have treated a sick Chief, till to their utter dismay, he was
starved to death. What was to be done when Cortes should send for him?
The Cacique with the advice of his principal men gave orders that an
Image of the Horse should be set up in the temple of his town, and
that it should be worshipped there by the name of Tziminchac, as the
God of Thunder and Lightning, which it seemed to them were used as
weapons by the Spanish Horsemen. The honour thus paid to the Horse
would they thought obtain credit for the account which they must give
to the Spaniards, and prove that they had not wilfully caused his
death.

The Itzaex however heard nothing of the Spaniards, nor the Spaniards
of Rubios's black horse, till nearly an hundred years afterwards two
Franciscans of the province of Yucatan, went as Missionaries among
these Indians, being well versed in the Maya tongue, which is spoken
in that country; their names were Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Juan de
Orbita. The chief settlement was upon an Island in the Lake of Itza;
there they landed, not with the good will either of the Cacique or the
people, and entering the place of worship, upon one of their great Cus
or Pyramids they beheld the Horse-Idol, which was then more venerated
than all the other Deities. Indignant at the sight, Father Orbita took
a great stone and broke to pieces the clay statue, in defiance of the
cries and threats with which he was assailed. “Kill him who has killed
our God,” they exclaimed; “kill him! kill him!” The Spaniards say the
serene triumph and the unwonted beauty which beamed in Orbita's
countenance at that moment, made it evident that he was acting under a
divine impulse. His companion Fuensalida, acting in the same spirit,
held up the Crucifix, and addressed so passionate and powerful an
appeal to the Itzaex in their own language upon the folly and
wickedness of their Idolatry and the benefits of the Gospel which he
preached, that they listened to him with astonishment and admiration
and awe, and followed the Friars respectfully from the place of
worship, and allowed them to depart in safety.

These Franciscan Missionaries zealous and intrepid as they were, did
but half their work. Many years afterwards when D. Martin de Ursua
defeated the Itzaex in an action on the Lake, and took the Petén or
Great Island, he found, in what appears to have been the same
Adoratory, a decayed shin bone, suspended from the roof by three
strings of different coloured cotton, a little bag beneath containing
smaller pieces of bone in the same state of decay, under both there
were three censers of the Indian fashion with storax and other
perfumes burning, and a supply of storax near wrapt in dry leaves of
maize, and over the larger bone an Indian coronet. These he was told
upon enquiry, were the bones of the Horse which the Great Captain had
committed to the care of their Cacique long ago.

If it had been the fate of Nobs thus to be idolified, and the Iztaex
had been acquainted with his character, they would have compounded a
name for him, not from Thunder and Lightning, but from all the good
qualities which can exist in horse-nature, and for which words could
be found in the Maya tongue.

CHAPTER CXLV.

WILLIAM OSMER. INNATE QUALITIES. MARCH OF ANIMAL INTELLECT. FARTHER
REVEALMENT OF THE COLUMBIAN PHILOSOPHY.

BP. ANDREWS.

[Footnote 1: The New Testament which the Preacher had before him.]

A certain William Osmer once wrote a dissertation upon the Horse,
wherein he affirmeth, it is demonstrated by matters of fact, as well
as from the principles of philosophy, that innate qualities do not
exist, and that the excellence of this animal is altogether mechanical
and not in the blood. In affirming this of the Horse the said William
Osmer hath gone far toward demonstrating himself an Ass; for he might
as well have averred that the blood hath nothing to do with the
qualities of a black pudding.—When Hurdis said

Give me the steed
Whose noble efforts bore the prize away,
I care not for his grandsire or his dam,

it was well said but not wisely.

The opinion which is as old as anything known concerning this animal,
that the good qualities of a horse are likely to bear some resemblance
to those of its sire or dam, Mr. Osmer endeavoured to invalidate by
arguing that his strength and swiftness depend upon the exactness of
his make, and that where this was defective these qualities would be
deficient also,—a foolish argument, for the proposition rests upon
just the same ground as that against which he was reasoning. But what
better reasoning could be looked for from a man who affirmed that if
horses were not shod they might travel upon the turnpike roads without
injury to their feet, because, in his own language, “when time was
young, when the earth was in a state of nature, and turnpike roads as
yet were not, the Divine Artist had taken care to give their feet such
defence as it pleased him.”

If the Doctor had known that Nobs was of Tartarian extraction, this
fact would sufficiently have accounted for the excellences of that
incomparable roadster. He explained them quite as satisfactorily to
himself by the fancy which he amused himself with supporting on this
occasion, that this marvellous horse was a son of the Wind. And hence
he inferred that Nobs possessed the innate qualities of his kind in
greater perfection than any other horse, as approaching nearer to the
original perfection in which the species was created. For although
animals are each in their kind less degenerate than man, whom so many
circumstances have tended to injure in his physical nature, still, he
argued, all which like the horse have been made subservient to the
uses of man, were in some degree deteriorated by that subjection.
Innate qualities, however, he admitted were more apparent in the brute
creation than in the human creature, because even in those which
suffer most by domestication, the course of nature is not so violently
overruled.

I except the Duck, he would say. That bird, which Nature hath made
free of earth, air and water, loses by servitude the use of one
element, the enjoyment of two, and the freedom of all three.

Look at the Pig also, said the Doctor. In his wild state no animal is
cleaner, happier, or better able to make himself respected. Look at
him when tamed,—I will not say in a brawn-case, for I am not speaking
now of those cruelties which the Devil and Man between them have
devised,—but look at him prowling at large about the purlieus of his
sty. What a loathsome poor despised creature hath man made him!

_Animal propter convivia natum._[2]

Every cur thinks itself privileged to take him by the ear; whereas if
he were once more free in the woods, the stoutest mastiff or wolf-dog
would not dare look him in the face.

[Footnote 2: JUVENAL.]

Yet he was fond of maintaining that the lower creation are capable of
intellectual improvement. In Holland indeed he had seen the school for
dogs, where poodles go through a regular course of education, and
where by this time perhaps the Lancasterian inventions have been
introduced. But this was not what the Doctor contemplated. Making
bears and elephants dance, teaching dogs to enact ballets, and horses
to exhibit tricks at a fair, he considered as the freaks of man's
capricious cruelty, and instances of that abuse of power which he so
frequently exercises over his inferior creatures, and for which he
must one day render an account, together with all those whose
countenance of such spectacles affords the temptation to exhibit them.

In truth the power which animals as well as men possess, of conforming
themselves to new situations and forming new habits adapted to new
circumstances is proof of a capability of improvement. The wild dogs
in the plains of La Plata, burrow, because there is no security for
them above ground against stronger beasts of prey. In the same country
owls make their nests in the ground, because there are neither trees
nor buildings to afford them concealment. A clergyman in Iceland by
sowing angelica upon a Lake-island some miles from the sea, not only
attracted gulls and wild ducks to breed there, but brought about an
alliance between those birds, who are not upon neighbourly terms
elsewhere. Both perceived that the new plants afforded better shelter
from wind and rain, than any thing which they had seen before; there
was room enough for both; and neighbourhood produced so much good
will, that the gulls protected the weaker birds not only against the
ravens who are common enemies, but against another species of gull
also which attacks the duck's nest.

A change more remarkable than either of these, is that which the
common hearth-cricket has undergone in its very constitution as well
as in all its ways of life, since men built houses and inhabited cold
climates.

The field-cricket in North America, which buries itself during the
winter ten inches deep and there lies torpid, began about an hundred
years ago to avail itself of the work of man and take up its abode in
the chimnies. This insect even likes man for a bed-fellow, not with
any such felonious intentions as are put in execution by smaller and
viler vermin, but for the sake of warmth. The Swedish traveller, Kalm,
says that when he and his companions were forced to sleep in
uninhabited places, the crickets got into the folds of their garments,
so that they were obliged to make some tarriance every morning, and
search carefully before they could get rid of them.

Two species of Swallows have domesticated themselves with man. We have
only that which builds under the eaves in England, but in North
America they have both the house swallow and the chimney swallow; the
chimnies not being made use of in summer, they take possession, and
keep it sometimes in spite of the smoke if the fire is not very great.
Each feather in this bird's tail ends in a stiff point, like the end
of an awl; they apply the tail to the side of the wall, and it assists
in keeping them up, while they hold on with their feet. “They make a
great thundering noise all day long by flying up and down in the
chimnies;” now as the Indians had not so much as a hearth made of
masonry, it is an obvious question, says Kalm, where did these
swallows build before the Europeans came, and erected houses with
chimnies? Probably, it is supposed, in hollow trees, but certainly
where they could; and it is thus shown that they took the first
opportunity of improving their own condition.

But the Doctor dwelt with most pleasure on the intellectual
capabilities of Dogs. There had been Dogs, he said, who from the mere
desire of following their master's example had regularly frequented
either the Church or the Meeting House;—others who attended the Host
whenever they heard the bell which announced that it was carried
abroad; one who so modulated his voice as to accompany instrumental
music through all the notes of a song; and Leibnitz had actually
succeeded in teaching one to speak. A dog may be made an epicure as
well as his master. He acquires notions of rank and respectability;
understands that the aristocracy are his friends, regards the beggar
as his rival for bones, and knows that whoever approaches in darkness
is to be suspected for his intentions. A dog's physiognomical
discernment never deceives him; and this the Doctor was fond of
observing, because wherever he was known the dogs came to return the
greeting they expected. He has a sense of right and wrong as far as he
has been taught; a sense of honour and of duty, from which his master
might sometimes take a lesson; and not unfrequently a depth and
heroism of affection, which the Doctor verily believed would have its
reward in a better world. John Wesley held the same opinion, which has
been maintained also by his enemy Augustus Toplady, and by his
biographer the laureated L. L. D. or the El-el-deed Laureate. The
Materialist, Dr. Dove would argue, must allow upon his own principles
that a dog has as much soul as himself; and the Immaterialist, if he
would be consistent, must perceive that the life and affections and
actions of an animal are as little to be explained as the mysteries of
his own nature by mere materiality. The all-doubting and therefore
always half-believing Bayle has said that _les actions des bêtes sont
peut-être un des plus profonds abîmes sur quoi notre raison se puisse
exercer_.

But here the Doctor acknowledged himself to be in doubt. That another
state of existence there must be for every creature wherein there is
the breath of life, he was verily persuaded. To that conclusion the
whole tenour of his philosophy led him, and what he entertained as a
philosophical opinion, acquired from a religious feeling something
like the strength of faith. For if the whole of a brute animal's
existence ended in this world, then it would follow that there are
creatures born into it, for whom it had been better never to have
been, than to endure the privations, pains and wrongs and cruelties,
inflicted upon them by human wickedness; and he would not, could not,
dared not believe that any, even the meanest of God's creatures, has
been created to undergo more of evil than of good (where no power of
choice was given)—much less to suffer unmingled evil, during its
allotted term of existence. Yet this must be, if there were no state
for animals after death.

A French speculator upon such things (I think it was P. Bougeant) felt
this so strongly as to propose the strange hypothesis that fallen
Angels underwent their punishment in the bodies of brutes, wherein
they were incarnate and incarcerate as sentient, suffering and
conscious spirits. The Doctor's theory of progressive life was liable
to no such objections. It reconciled all seeming evil in the lower
creation to the great system of benevolence. But still there remained
a difficulty. Men being what they are, there were cases in which it
seemed that the animal soul would be degraded instead of advanced by
entering into the human form. For example, the Doctor considered the
beast to be very often a much worthier animal than the butcher; the
horse than the horse-jockey or the rider; the cock, than the
cock-fighter; the young whale than the man who harpoons the reasonable
and dutiful creature when it suffers itself to be struck rather than
forsake its wounded mother.

In all these cases indeed, a migration into some better variety of the
civilized biped might be presumed, Archeus bringing good
predispositions and an aptitude for improvement. But when he looked at
a good dog (in the best acceptation of the epithet),—a dog who has
been humanized by human society,—who obeys and loves his master, pines
during his illness, and dies upon his grave, (the fact has frequently
occurred,) the Doctor declared his belief, and with a voice and look
which told that he was speaking from his heart, that such a creature
was ripe for a better world than this, and that in passing through the
condition of humanity it might lose more than it could gain.

The price of a dog might not, among the Jews, be brought into the
House of the Lord, “for any vow,” for it was an abomination to the
Lord. This inhibition occurs in the same part of the Levitical law
which enjoins the Israelites not to deliver up to his master the
servant who had escaped from him; and it is in the spirit of that
injunction, and of those other parts of the Law which are so
beautifully and feelingly humane, that their very tenderness may be
received in proof of their divine origin. It looks upon the dog as
standing to his master in far other relation than his horse or his ox
or his ass,—as a creature connected with him by the moral ties of
companionship and fidelity and friendship.

CHAPTER CXLVI.

DANIEL DOVE VERSUS SENECA AND BEN JONSON. ORLANDO AND HIS HORSE AT
RONCESVALLES. MR. BURCHELL. THE PRINCE OP ORANGE. THE LORD KEEPER
GUILDFORD. REV. MR. HAWTAYN. DR. THOMAS JACKSON. THE ELDER SCALIGER.
EVELYN. AN ANONYMOUS AMERICAN. WALTER LANDOR, AND CAROLINE BOWLES.

COWPER.

The Doctor liked not Seneca when that philosopher deduced as a
consequence from his definition of a benefit, that no gratitude can be
due to beasts or senseless things; “_nam, qui beneficium mihi daturus
est_,” he says, “_debet non tantum prodesse, sed velle. Ideo nec mutis
animalibus quidquam debetur; et quam multos è periculo velocitas equi
rapuit! Nec arboribus; et quam multos æstu laborantes ramorum opacitas
texit!_” that is,—“for he who is about to render me a good service,
not only ought to render it, but to intend it. Nothing therefore can
be owed to dumb animals, and yet how many have the speed of a horse
saved from danger! Nor to trees, and yet how many when suffering under
the summer sun, have the thick boughs shaded!” To the same tenour Ben
Jonson speaks. “Nothing is a courtesy,” he says, “unless it be meant
us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that
they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring, and fill our
sails; or meats that they be nourishing; for these are what they are
necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not.”

What! our friend would say, do I owe thee nothing Nobs, for the many
times that thou hast carried me carefully and safely, through bad
ways, in stormy weather, and in dark nights? Do I owe thee nothing for
thy painful services, thy unhesitating obedience, thy patient
fidelity? Do I owe thee nothing for so often breaking thy rest, when
thou couldest not know for what urgent cause mine had been broken, nor
wherefore I was compelled by duty to put thee to thy speed? Nobs,
Nobs, if I did not acknowledge a debt of gratitude to thee, and
discharge it as far as kind usage can tend to prolong thy days in
comfort, I should deserve to be dropt as a colt in my next stage of
existence, to be broken in by a rough rider, and broken down at last
by hard usage in a hackney coach.

There is not a more touching passage in Italian poetry than that in
which Pulci relates the death of Orlando's famous horse, (his Nobs) in
the fatal battle of Roncesvalles:

_Vegliantin come Orlando in terra scese,
A piè del suo signor caduto è morto,
E inginocchiossi e licenzia gli chiese,
Quasi dicesse, io t'ho condotto a porto.
Orlando presto le braccia distese
A l'acqua, e cerca di dargli conforto,
Ma poi che pure il caval non si sente,
Si condolea molto pietosamente._

_O Vegliantin, tu m'hai servito tanto:
O Vegliantin, dov'è la tua prodezza?
O Vegliantin, nessun si dia piu vanto;
O Vegliantin, venuta è l'ora sezza:
O Vegliantin, tu m'hai cresciuto il pianto;
O Vegliantin, tu non vuoi piu cavezza:
O Vegliantin, s'io ti feci mai torto,
Perdonami, ti priego, cosi morto._

_Dice Turpin, che mi par maraviglia,
Che come Orlando perdonami disse,
Quel caval parve ch'aprisse le ciglia,
E col capo e co gesti acconsentisse._[1]

[Footnote 1: MORGANTE MAGGIORE.]

A traveller in South Africa, Mr. Burchell, who was not less
adventurous and persevering than considerate and benevolent, says that
“nothing but the safety of the whole party, or the urgency of peculiar
and inevitable circumstances could ever, during his whole journey,
induce him to forget the consideration due to his cattle, always
regarded as faithful friends whose assistance was indispensable. There
may be in the world,” he says, “men who possess a nature so hard, as
to think these sentiments misapplied; but I leave them to find, if
they can, in the coldness of their own hearts, a satisfaction equal to
that which I have enjoyed in paying a grateful attention to animals by
whose services I have been so much benefitted.”

The Prince of Orange would once have been surprised and taken in his
tent by the Spaniards if his dog had not been more vigilant than his
guards. Julian Romero planned and led this night attack upon the
Prince's camp; the camisado was given so suddenly, as well as with
such resolution, “that the place of arms took no alarm, until their
fellows,” says Sir Roger Williams, “were running in with the enemy in
their tails; whereupon this dog hearing a great noise, fell to
scratching and crying, and withal leapt on the Prince's face, awaking
him, being asleep, before any of his men.” Two of his secretaries were
killed hard by the tent, and “albeit the Prince lay in his arms, with
a lacquey always holding one of his horses ready bridled, yet at the
going out of his tent, with much ado he recovered his horse before the
enemy arrived. One of his squires was slain taking horse presently
after him, and divers of his servants which could not recover theirs,
were forced to escape amongst the guards of foot. Ever after until the
Prince's dying day, he kept one of that dog's race;—so did many of his
friends and followers. The most or all of these dogs were white little
hounds, with crooked noses, called camuses.”

The Lord Keeper Guilford “bred all his horses, which came to the
husbandry first colts, and from thence, as they were fit, were taken
into his equipage; and as by age or accident they grew unfit for that
service, they were returned to the place from whence they came, and
there expired.” This is one of the best traits which Roger North has
related of his brother.

“A person,” says Mr. Hawtayn, who was a good kind-hearted clergyman of
the Church of England, “that can be insensible to the fidelity and
love which dumb animals often express, must be lower in nature than
they.”

_Grata e Natura in noi; fin dalla cuna
Gratitudine è impressa in uman core;
Ma d'un instinto tal questo è lo stile,
Che lo seconda più, chi è piu gentile._[2]

[Footnote 2: CARLO MARIA MAGGI.]

The gentlest natures indeed are the best, and the best will be at the
same time the most grateful and the most tender. “Even to behold a
flourishing tree, first bereft of bark,” says Dr. Jackson, “then of
all the naked branches, yet standing, lastly the green trunk cut down
and cast full of sap into the fire, would be an unpleasant spectacle
to such as delighted in setting, pruning, or nourishing plants.”

The elder Scaliger as Evelyn tells us, never could convince Erasmus
but that trees feel the first stroke of the axe; and Evelyn himself
seems to have thought there was more probability in that opinion than
he liked to allow. The fall of a very aged oak, he says, giving a
crack like thunder, has been often heard at many miles distance; nor
do I at any time hear the groans without some emotion and pity,
constrained, as I too often am, to fell them with much reluctancy. Mr.
Downes in his Letters from the Continent says, “There is at this time
a forest near Bolsena so highly venerated for its antiquity that none
of the trees are ever cut.”

One who, we are told, has since been honourably distinguished for
metaphysical speculation, says in a juvenile letter to the late
American Bishop Hobart, “I sometimes converse a considerable time with
a tree that in my infancy invited me to play under its cool and
refreshing shade; and the old dwelling in which I have spent the
greater part of my life, though at present unoccupied and falling into
ruin, raises within me such a musing train of ideas, that I know not
whether it be pleasing or painful. Now whether it arise from an
intimate association of ideas, or from some qualities in the
insensible objects themselves to create an affection, I shall not
pretend to determine; but certain it is that the love we bear for
objects incapable of making a return, seems always more disinterested,
and frequently affords us more lasting happiness, than even that which
we feel toward rational creatures.”

But never by any author, ancient or modern, in verse or prose, has the
feeling which ascribes sentience as well as life to the vegetable
world, been more deliciously described than by Walter Landor, when
speaking of sweet scents, he says,

They bring me tales of youth, and tones of love;
And 'tis and ever was my wish and way
To let all flowers live freely and all die,
Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart,
Among their kindred in their native place.
I never pluck the rose; the violet's head
Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank
And not reproach'd me; the ever sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath between my hands
Felt safe, unsoil'd, nor lost one grain of gold.

These verses are indeed worthy of their author when he is most worthy
of himself. And yet Caroline Bowles's sweet lines will lose nothing by
being read after them.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

How happily, how happily the flowers die away!
Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they;
Just live a life of sunshine, of innocence and bloom,
Then drop without decrepitude or pain into the tomb.

The gay and glorious creatures! “they neither toil nor spin,”
Yet lo! what goodly raiment they're all apparelled in;
No tears are on their beauty, but dewy gems more bright
Than ever brow of Eastern Queen endiademed with light.

The young rejoicing creatures! their pleasures never pall,
Nor lose in sweet contentment, because so free to all;
The dew, the shower, the sunshine; the balmy blessed air,
Spend nothing of their freshness, though all may freely share.

The happy careless creatures! of time they take no heed;
Nor weary of his creeping, nor tremble at his speed;
Nor sigh with sick impatience, and wish the light away;
Nor when 'tis gone, cry dolefully, “Would God that it were day.”

And when their lives are over, they drop away to rest,
Unconscious of the penal doom, on holy Nature's breast;
No pain have they in dying, no shrinking from decay.
Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they!

CHAPTER CXLVII.

OLD TREES. SHIPS. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. LIFE AND PASSIONS ASCRIBED TO
INANIMATE OBJECTS. FETISH WORSHIP. A LORD CHANCELLOR AND HIS GOOSE.

_Ce que j'en ay escrit, c'est pour une curiosité, qui plaira possible
à aucuns: et non possible aux autres._

BRANTOME.

“Consider,” says Plutarch in that precious volume of Philemon
Holland's translating, which was one of the elder Daniel's treasures,
and which the Doctor valued accordingly as a relic, “consider whether
our forefathers have not permitted excessive ceremonies and
observations in these cases, even for an exercise and studious
meditation of thankfulness; as namely, when they reverenced so highly
the Oaks bearing acorns as they did. Certes the Athenians had one
Fig-tree which they honoured by the name of the holy and sacred
Fig-Tree; and they expressly forbade to cut down the Mulberry-tree.
For these ceremonies, I assure you, do not make men inclined to
superstition as some think, but frame and train us to gratitude and
sociable humanity one toward another, whenas we are thus reverently
affected to such things as these that have no soul nor sense.” But
Plutarch knew that there were certain Trees to which something more
than sense or soul was attributed by his countrymen.

There was a tradition at Corinth which gave a different account of the
death of Pentheus from that in the Metamorphoses, where it is said
that he was beholding the rites of the Bacchanals, from an open
eminence surrounded by the woods, when his mother espied him, and in
her madness led on the frantic women by whom he was torn to pieces.
But the tradition at Corinth was that he climbed a tree for the
purpose of seeing their mysteries, and was discovered amid its
branches; and that the Pythian Oracle afterwards enjoined the
Corinthians to find out this Tree, and pay divine honours to it, as to
a God. The special motive here was to impress the people with an
aweful respect for the Mysteries, none being felt for any part of the
popular religion.

Old Trees, without the aid of an Oracle to consecrate them, seem to
have been some of the most natural objects of that contemplative and
melancholy regard, which easily passes into superstitious veneration.
No longer ago than during the peace of Amiens a Frenchman[1]
describing the woods on the banks of the Senegal, says _On éprouve un
doux ravissement en contemplant ces nobles productions d'une nature
tranquille, libre et presque vierge; car là elle est encore respectée,
et la vieillesse des beaux arbres y est pour ainsi dire l'objet d'un
culte. Mon ame reconnoissante des émotions qu'elle ressentait,
remerciait le Créateur d'avoir fait naître ces magnifiques végétables
sur un sol òu elles avaient pu croitre indépendantes et paisibles, et
conserver ces formes originales et naïves que l'art sait alterer, mais
qu'il ne saura jamais imiter._—

_Quelques-uns des sites qu'on rencontre etalent les attraits et les
grâces d'une nature virginale; dans d'autres, on admire ce que l'âge,
de sa plus grande force, peut avoir de plus imposant et de plus
auguste; et d'antiques forêts, dont les arbres ont une grosseur et une
élévation qui attestent leur grand âge, excitent une admiration mêlée
de respect; et ces prodigieux végétaux encore verts, encore beaux,
après une vie de tant de siecles, semblent vouloir nous apprendre, que
dans ces contrées solitaires et fertiles, la nature vit toujours, et
ne vieillit jamais._

[Footnote 1: GOLBERRY.]

There are Tribes among the various races in the Philippines who are
persuaded that the souls of their ancestors use old trees as their
habitations, and therefore it is deemed a sacrilege to cut one down.
The Lezgis used to erect pillars under the boughs of decayed Oaks to
support them as long as possible; _Murlooz_ is the name which they
give to such spurs, or stay-pillars.

The Rector of Manafon, Mr. Walter Davies, in his View of the
Agriculture and Domestic Economy of North Wales, says, “Strangers have
oftentimes listened with attention to Gentlemen of the County of
Montgomery enquiring anxiously into the conduct and fate of the
Windsor Castle, the Impregnable, the Brunswick and other men of war,
in some particular naval engagements; and were led to imagine that
they had some near and dear relations holding important commissions on
board; but upon farther enquiry, found the ground of this curiosity to
be no other than that such ships had been partly built of timber that
had grown upon their estates; as if the inanimate material contained
some magic virtue.” The good Rector might have perceived in what he
censures, one indication of that attachment to our native soil, on
which much of the security of states depends, much of the happiness of
individuals, and not a little of their moral and intellectual
character.

But indeed the same cause which renders personification a common
figure not only with poets and orators, but in all empassioned and
even in ordinary speech, leads men frequently both to speak and act as
if they ascribed life and consciousness to inanimate things.

When the Cid Campeador recovered from the Infantes of Carrion, his two
swords Colada and Tizona, “his whole frame,” says the Chronicler,
“rejoiced, and he smiled from his heart. And he laid them upon his lap
and said, ‘Ah my swords, Colada and Tizona, truly may I say of you
that you are the best swords in Spain; and I won you, for I did not
get you either by buying or by barter. I gave ye in keeping to the
Infantes of Carrion that they might do honour to my daughters with ye.
But ye were not for them! They kept ye hungry, and did not feed ye
with flesh as ye were wont to be fed. Well is it for you that ye have
escaped that thraldom and are come again to my hands.’”

The same strong figure occurs in the Macaronea,

_Gaude, Baldus ait, mi brande! cibaberis; ecce
Carnis et sanguis tibi præsententur abunde._

The Greek Captain who purchases a vessel which he is to command
himself, takes possession of it by a ceremony which is called
espousing the ship; on this occasion he suspends in it a laurel crown
as a symbol of the marriage, and a bag of garlic as a preservative
against tempests.—In the year 1793, the ship Darius belonging to a
Hindoo, or more probably, as may be inferred from the name, a Parsee
owner, was run ashore off Malacca by its Commander Captain Laughton to
save it from falling into the hands of a French Privateer. The Captain
and his Officers when they had thus disappointed the enemy, succeeded
afterwards by great exertion and great skill, in getting the vessel
off, and brought it safely home to Bombay; where the grateful owner,
thinking the Ship itself was entitled to some signal mark of
acknowledgement, treated it with a compleat ablution, which was
performed not with water, but with sugar and milk.

Our own sailors sometimes ascribe consciousness and sympathy to their
ship. It is a common expression with them that “she behaves well;” and
they persuade themselves that an English Man of War, by reason of its
own good will, sails faster in pursuit of a Frenchman than at any
other time. Poor old Captain Atkins was firmly possessed with this
belief. On such occasions he would talk to his ship, as an Arabian to
his horse, urge and intreat her to exert herself and put forth all her
speed, and promise to reward her with a new coat of paint as soon as
they should get into harbour.—“Who,” says Fuller, “can without pity or
pleasure behold that trusty vessel which carried Sir Francis Drake
about the World?”—So naturally are men led to impute something like
vitality to so great a work of human formation, that persons connected
with the shipping trade talk of the average _life_ of a ship, which in
the present state of our naval affairs is stated to be twenty-two
years.

At one of the Philosophers' Yearly-Meetings it was said that every
Engine-man had more or less pride in his engine, just as a sailor had
in his ship. We heard then of the _duty_ of an engine, and of how much
_virtue_ resides in a given quantity of coals. This is the language of
the Mines, so easily does a figurative expression pass into common
speech. The _duty_ of an engine has been taken at raising 50 millions
of cubic-feet of water one foot in an hour; some say 100 millions,
some 120; but the highest duty which the reporter had ascertained was
90 millions, the lowest seventy. And the _virtue_ in a bushel of coals
is sufficient to raise 125 millions of cubic-feet of water one foot,
being from 800 to 1070 at the cost of one farthing. No one will think
this hard duty for the Engine, but all must allow it to be cheap
virtue in the coals.

This however is merely an example of the change which words undergo in
the currency of speech as their original stamp is gradually effaced:
what was metaphorical becomes trivial; and this is one of the causes
by which our language has been corrupted, more perhaps than any other,
recourse being had both in prose and verse to forced and fantastic
expressions as substitutes for the freshness and strength that have
been lost. Strong feelings and strong fancy are liable to a more
serious perversion.

M. de Custine, writing from Mont Anvert, in the rhapsodical part of
his travels, exclaims, _Qu'on ne me parle plus de nature morte; on
sent ici que la Divinité est partout, et que les pierres sont
pénêtrées comme nous-mêmes d'une puissance créatricé! Quand on me dit
que les rochers sont insensibles, je crois entendre un enfant soutenir
que l'aiguille d'une montre ne marche pas, parce qu'il ne la voit pas
se mouvoir._

It is easy to perceive that feelings of this kind may imperceptibly
have led to the worship of any remarkable natural objects, such as
Trees, Forests, Mountains, Springs, and Rivers, as kindred feelings
have led to the adoration of Images and of Relics. Court de Gebelin
has even endeavoured to show that Fetish worship was not without some
reasonable cause in its origin. The author of a treatise _Du Culte des
Dieux Fétiches, ou Parallèle de l'ancienne Religion de l'Egypte avec
la Religion actuelle de la Nigritie_, had asserted that this absurd
superstition originated in fear. But Court de Gebelin asks, “why not
from gratitude and admiration as well? Are not these passions as
capable of making Gods as Fear? Is not experience itself in accord
with us here? Do not all savage nations admit of Two Principles, the
one Good who ought not to be feared, the other Evil to whom sacrifices
must be offered in order to avert the mischief in which he delights?
If fear makes them address their homage to the one, it has no part in
the feeling which produces it toward the other. Which then of these
sentiments has led to Fetish-worship? Not fear, considered as the
sentiment which moves us to do nothing that might displease a Being
whom we regard as our superior, and as the source of our happiness;
for Fétishes cannot be regarded in this light. Will it then be fear
considered as the sentiment of our own weakness, filling us with
terror, and forcing us to seek the protection of a being more powerful
than ourselves and capable of protecting us? But how could any such
fear have led to the worship of Fetishes? How could a Savage, seized
with terror, ever have believed that an onion, a stone, a flower,
water, a tree, a mouse, a cat, &. could be his protector and secure
him against all that he apprehended? I know that fear does not reason,
but it is not to be understood in this sense; we frequently fear
something without knowing why; but when we address ourselves to a
Protector we always know why, it is in the persuasion that he can
defend us, a persuasion which has always a foundation,—a basis. But in
Fetish worship where is the motive? What is there to afford confidence
against alarm? Who has said that the Fetish is superior to man?—It is
impossible to conceive any one so blockish, so stupid, so terrified as
to imagine that inanimate things like these are infinitely above him,
much more powerful than himself, in a state to understand his wants,
his evils, his fears, his sufferings, and to deliver him from all in
acknowledgement of the offering which he makes to them.

“Moreover the Fetish is not used till it has been consecrated by the
Priest: this proves an opinion in the savage, that the Fetish of
itself cannot protect him; but that he may be made by other influence
to do so, and that influence is exercised by the Priest in the act of
consecration.” Court de Gebelin argues therefore that this
superstition arose from the primary belief in a Supreme Being on whom
we are altogether dependent, who was to be honoured by certain
ceremonies directed by the Priest, and who was to be propitiated by
revering these things whereby it had pleased him to benefit mankind;
and by consecrating some of them as pledges of future benefits to be
received from him, and of his presence among his Creatures who serve
him and implore his protection. But in process of time it was
forgotten that this was only a symbolic allegory of the Divine
Presence, and ignorant nations who could no longer give a reason for
their belief, continued the practice from imitation and habit.

This is ascribing too much to system, too little to superstition and
priestcraft. The name Fetish though used by the Negroes themselves is
known to be a corrupt application of the Portugueze word for
Witchcraft, _feitiço_; the vernacular name is _Bossum_ or _Bossifoe_.
Upon the Gold Coast every nation has its own, every village, every
family and every individual. A great hill, a rock anyway remarkable
for its size or shape, or a large Tree, is generally the national
Fetish. The king's is usually the largest tree in his country. They
who chuse or change one take the first thing they happen to see
however worthless. A stick, a stone, the bone of a beast, bird or
fish, unless the worshipper takes a fancy for something of better
appearance and chuses a horn or the tooth of some large animal. The
ceremony of consecration he performs himself, assembling his family,
washing the new object of his devotion, and sprinkling them with the
water. He has thus a household or personal God in which he has as much
faith as the Papist in his relics, and with as much reason. Barbot
says that some of the Europeans on that coast not only encouraged
their slaves in this superstition, but believed in it, and practised
it themselves.

Thus low has man sunk in his fall. The debasement began with the
worship of the Heavenly Bodies. When he had once departed from that of
his Creator, his religious instinct became more and more corrupted,
till at length no object was too vile for his adoration; as in a
certain state of disease the appetite turns from wholesome food, and
longs for what would at other times be loathsome.

The Negro Fetishes are just such objects as, according to the French
Jesuits, the Devil used to present to the Canadian Indians, to bring
them good luck in fishing, hunting, gaming, and such traffic as they
carried on. This may probably mean that they dreamt of such things;
for in dreams many superstitions have originated, and great use has
been made of them in Priestcraft.

The same kind of superstition has appeared in different ages and in
different parts of the World, among the most civilized nations and the
rudest savages, and among the educated as well as the ignorant. The
belief in Omens prevails among us still, and will long continue to
prevail, notwithstanding national schools, cheap literature and
Societies for promoting knowledge.

A late Lord Chancellor used to travel with a Goose in his carriage,
and consult it on all occasions; whether according to the rules of
Roman augury I know not, nor whether he decided causes by it; but the
causes might have been as well decided if he did. The Goose was his
Fetish. It was not Lord Brougham,—Lord Brougham was his own Goose
while he held the Seals; but it was the only Lord Chancellor in our
times who resembled him in extraordinary genius, and as extraordinary
an unfitness for his office. One of the most distinguished men of the
age, who has left a reputation which will be as lasting as it is
great, was when a boy in constant fear of a very able but unmerciful
schoolmaster; and in the state of mind which that constant fear
produced he fixed upon a great Spider for his Fetish, and used every
day to pray to it that he might not be flogged.

CHAPTER EXTRAORDINARY.

PROCEEDINGS AT A BOOK CLUB. THE AUTHOR ACCUSED OF ‘LESE DELICATESSE,’
OR WHAT IS CALLED AT COURT ‘TUM-TI-TEE.’ HE UTTERS A MYSTERIOUS
EXCLAMATION, AND INDIGNANTLY VINDICATES HIMSELF.

_Rem profecto mirabilem, longeque stupendam, rebusque veris veriorem
describo._

HIERONYMUS RADIOLENSIS.

A circumstance has come to my knowledge so remarkable in itself and
affecting me so deeply, that on both accounts I feel it necessary to
publish a Chapter Extraordinary on the occasion.

There is a certain Book-Club, or Society, (no matter where) in which
the Volumes of this Opus have been regularly ordered as they appeared,
and regularly perused, to the edification of many Readers, the
admiration of more, and the amusement of all. But I am credibly
informed that an alarm was excited in that select literary Circle by a
Chapter in the fourth volume, and that the said volume was not allowed
to circulate by the Managing Directors or Committee, of the said Book
Club, till the said Chapter had been exscinded, that is to say, cut
out.

Aballiboozo!

When a poor wretch fell into the hands of that hellish Tribunal which
called itself the Holy Office, the Inquisitors always began by
requiring him to tell them what he was accused of; and they persisted
in this course of examination time after time, till by promises and
threats, long suspense and solitary confinement, with the occasional
aid of the rack, they had extorted from him matter of accusation
against himself and as many of his friends, relations and
acquaintances as they could induce, or compel, or entrap him to name.
Even under such a judicial process I should never have been able to
discover what Chapter in this Opus could have been thought to require
an operation, which, having the fear of the expurgatorial scissars
before my eyes I must not venture to mention here, by its appropriate
name, tho' it is a Dictionary word and the use of it is in this sense
strictly technical. My ignorance however has been enlightened, and I
have been made acquainted with what in the simplicity of my heart I
never could have surmised.

The Chapter condemned to that operation, the chapter which has been
not bisked, but semiramised, is the hundred and thirty-sixth Chapter,
concerning the Pedigree and Birth of Nobs; but whether the passage
which called forth this severe sentence from the Censors were that in
which Moses and Miss Jenny, the Sire and Dam of Nobs, are described as
meeting in a field near Knavesmire Heath, like _Dido dux et Trojanus_;
or whether it were the part where the consequences of that meeting are
related as coming unexpectedly to light in a barn between Doncaster
and Adwick-in-the-Street, my informant was not certain.

From another quarter I have been assured, that the main count in the
indictment was upon the story of _Le Cheval de Pierre, et les
Officiers Municipaux_. This I am told it was which alarmed the
Literary Sensitives. The sound of the foot-steps of the Marble Statue
in Don Juan upon the boards of the stage never produced a more aweful
sense of astonishment in that part of the audience who were fixed all
eyes and ears upon its entrance, than this _Cheval de Pierre_ produced
among the Board of Expurgators. After this I ought not to be surprized
if the Publishers were to be served with a notice that the Lord Mayors
of London and York, and the simple Mayors of every corporate town in
England, reformed or unreformed, having a Magistrate so called,
whether gentle or simple, had instituted proceedings against them for
_Scandalum Magnatum_. This however I have the satisfaction of knowing,
that Miss Graveairs smiled in good humour when she heard the Chapter
read; the only serious look put on was at the quotation from Pindar,
as if suspecting there might be something in the Greek which was not
perfectly consistent with English notions of propriety. Nothing
however could be more innocent than that Greek. And even after what
has passed, she would agree with me that this Chapter which made the
Elders blush, is one which Susanna would have read as innocently as it
was written.

Nevertheless I say, _O tempora! O mores!_ uttering the words
exultantly, not in exprobration. I congratulate the age and the
British Public. I congratulate my Country-men, my Country-women, and
my Country-children. I congratulate Young England upon the March of
Modesty! How delightful that it should thus keep pace with the March
of Intellect! _Redeunt Saturnia regna._ In these days Liberality and
Morality appear hand-in-hand upon the stage like the Two Kings of
Brentford; and Piety and Profit have kissed each other at religious
Meetings.

We have already a Family Shakespeare; and it cannot be supposed that
the hint will always be disregarded which Mr. Matthew Gregory Lewis
introduced so properly some forty years ago into his then celebrated
novel called the Monk, for a Family Bible, upon the new plan of
removing all passages that could be thought objectionable on the score
of indelicacy. We may look to see Mr. Thomas Moore's Poems adapted to
the use of Families; and Mr. Murray cannot do less than provide the
Public with a Family Byron.

It may therefore be matter of grave consideration for me whether under
all circumstances it would not be highly expedient to prepare a
semiramised edition of this Opus, under the Title of the Family
Doctor. It may be matter for consultation with my Publishers, to whose
opinion as founded on experience and a knowledge of the public taste,
an author will generally find it prudent to defer. Neither by them or
me would it be regarded as an objection that the title might mislead
many persons, who supposing that the “Family Doctor” and the “Family
Physician” meant the same kind of Book, would order the Opus under a
mistaken notion that it was a new and consequently improved work,
similar to Dr. Buchan's, formerly well known as a stock-book. This
would be no objection I say, but on the contrary an advantage to all
parties. For a book which directs people how to physic themselves
ought to be entitled Every Man his own Poisoner, because it cannot
possibly teach them how to discriminate between the resemblant
symptoms of different diseases. Twice fortunate therefore would that
person have reason to think him or herself, who under such a
misapprehension of its title should purchase the Family Doctor!

Ludicrous mistakes of this kind have sometimes happened. Mr.
Haslewood's elaborate and expensive edition of the Mirror for
Magistrates was ordered by a gentleman in the Commission of the Peace,
not an hundred miles from the Metropolis; he paid for it the full
price, and his unfortunate Worship was fain to take what little he
could get for it from his Bookseller under such circumstances, rather
than endure the mortification of seeing it in his bookcase. A lady who
had a true taste as well as a great liking for poetry, ordered an
Essay on Burns for the Reading Society of which she was a member. She
opened the book expecting to derive much pleasure from a critical
disquisition on the genius of one of her favourite Poets; and behold
it proved to be an Essay on Burns and Scalds by a Surgeon!

But in this case it would prove an Agreeable Surprize instead of a
disappointment; and if the intention had been to mislead, and thereby
entrap the purchaser, the end might be pleaded, according to the
convenient morality of the age, as justifying the means. Lucky indeed
were the patient who sending for Morrison's Pills should be supplied
with Tom D'Urfey's in their stead; happy man would be his dole who
when he had made up his mind in dismal resolution to a dreadful course
of drastics, should find that gelastics had been substituted, not of
the Sardonian kind, but composed of the most innocent and salutiferous
ingredients, gently and genially alterative, mild in their operation,
and safe and sure in their effects.

On that score therefore there could be no objection to the publication
of a Family Doctor. But believing as I believe, or rather, knowing as
I know, that the Book is free from any such offence,

_mal cupiera alli
tal aspid en tales flores;_[1]

maintaining that it is in this point immaculate, which I will maintain
as confidently because as justly, and as publicly were it needful,
(only that my bever must be closed) as Mr. Dymock at the approaching
Coronation will maintain Queen Victoria's right to the Crown of these
Kingdoms (God save the Queen!),—it is impossible that I should consent
to a measure which must seem like acknowledging the justice of a
charge at once ridiculous and wrongful.

I must not disesteem
My rightful cause for being accused, nor must
Forsake myself, tho I were left of all.
Fear cannot make my innocence unjust
Unto itself, to give my Truth the fall.[2]

[Footnote 1: LOPE DE VEGA.]

[Footnote 2: DANIEL.]

The most axiomatic of English Poets has said

Do not forsake yourself; for they that do,
Offend and teach the world to leave them too.

Of the Book itself,—(the Opus) I can say truly, as South said of the
Sermon which he preached in 1662 before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of
the City of London, “the subject is inoffensive, harmless, and
innocent as the state of innocence itself;” and of the particular
chapter, that it is “suitable to the immediate design, and to the
genius of the book.” And in saying this I call to mind the words of
Nicolas Perez, el Setabiense;—_el amor propio es nuestro enemigo mas
perjudicial; es dificil acabar con el, por lo mismo un sabio le
compara à la camisa, que es el ultimo de los vestidos que nos
quitamos._

Bear witness _incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas!_ that I seek not to
cover myself with what the Spaniard calls Self-Love's last Shirt; for
I am no more guilty of _Lese Modestie_ than of _Lese Majesté_. If
there were a Court of Delicacy as there has been a Court of Honour, a
Court Modest as there is a Court Martial, I would demand a trial, and
in my turn arraign my arraigners,

“_Porque en este limpio trigo
Siembren zizaña y estrago._”[3]

[Footnote 3: LOPE DE VEGA.]

It is said in the very interesting and affecting Memoir of Mr.
Smedley's Life that he had projected with Mr. Murray “a castigated
edition of the Faery Queen.” He was surprized, says the biographer “to
find how many passages there were in this the most favourite poem of
his youth, which a father's acuter vision and more sensitive delicacy
discovered to be unfit for the eyes of his daughters.” It appears too
that he had actually performed the task; but that “Mr. Murray altered
his opinion as to the expediency of the publication, and he found to
his annoyance that his time had been employed to no purpose.”

Poor Smedley speaks thus of the project in one of his letters. “I am
making the Faery Queen a poem which may be admitted into _family_
reading, by certain omissions, by modernizing the spelling and by
appending, where necessary, brief glossarial foot-notes. I read
Spenser so very early and made him so much a part of the furniture of
my mind, that until I had my attention drawn to him afresh, I had
utterly forgotten how much he required the pruning-knife, how utterly
impossible it is that he should be read aloud: and I cannot but think
that when fitted for general perusal, he will become more attractive
by a new coat and waistcoat. If we were to print Shakespeare, and
Beaumont and Fletcher, or even Milton, _literatim_ from the first
editions, the spelling would deter many readers. Strange to say, when
Southey was asked some time ago whether he would undertake the task,
he said, ‘No, I shall print every word of him!’ and he has done so, in
a single volume. Can he have daughters? Or any who, like my Mary,
delight in such portions as they are permitted to open?”

Did Southey say so?—Why then, well said Southey! And it is very like
him; for he is not given to speak, as his friends the Portugueze say,
_enfarinhadamente_—which is being interpreted, mealy-mouthedly. Indeed
his moral and intellectual constitution must be much feebler than I
suppose it to be, if his daughters are not ‘permitted to open’ any
book in his library. He must have been as much astonished to hear that
the Faery Queen was unfit for their perusal as he could have been when
he saw it gravely asserted by an American Professor, Critic and Doctor
of Divinity, that his Life of Wesley was composed in imitation of the
Iliad!

Scott felt like Southey upon this subject, and declared that he would
never deal with Dryden as Saturn dealt with his father Uranus. Upon
such publications as the Family Shakespeare he says,—“I do not say but
that it may be very proper to select correct passages for the use of
Boarding-Schools and Colleges, being sensible no improper ideas can be
suggested in these seminaries unless they are introduced or smuggled
under the beards and ruffs of our old dramatists. But in making an
edition of a Man of Genius's Works for libraries and collections, (and
such I conceive a compleat edition of Dryden to be,) I must give my
author as I find him, and will not tear out the page even to get rid
of the blot, little as I like it. Are not the pages of Swift, and even
of Pope, larded with indecency and often of the most disgusting kind,
and do we not see them upon all shelves, and dressing-tables and in
all boudoirs? Is not Prior the most indecent of tale-tellers, not even
excepting La Fontaine, and how often do we see his works in female
hands. In fact it is not passages of ludicrous indelicacy that corrupt
the manners of a people; it is the sonnets which a prurient genius
like Master Little sings _virginibus puerisque_,—it is the sentimental
slang, half lewd, half methodistic, that debauches the understanding,
inflames the sleeping passions, and prepares the reader to give way as
soon as a tempter appears.”

How could Mr. Smedley have allowed himself to be persuaded that a poem
like the Faery Queen which he had made from early youth ‘a part of the
furniture of his own mind,’ should be more injurious to others than it
had proved to himself? It is one of the books which Wesley in the plan
which he drew up for those young Methodists who designed to go through
a course of academical learning, recommended to students of the second
year. Mr. Todd has noticed this in support of his own just estimate of
this admirable poet. “If,” says he, “our conceptions of Spenser's mind
may be taken from his poetry, I shall not hesitate to pronounce him
entitled to our warmest approbation and regard for his gentle
disposition, for his friendly and grateful conduct, for his humility,
for his exquisite tenderness, and above all for his piety and
morality. To these amiable points a fastidious reader may perhaps
object some petty inadvertencies; yet can he never be so ungrateful as
to deny the efficacy which Spenser's general character gives to his
writings,—as to deny that Truth and Virtue are graceful and
attractive, when the road to them is pointed out by such a guide. Let
it always be remembered that this excellent Poet inculcates those
impressive lessons, by attending to which the gay and the thoughtless
may be timely induced to treat with scorn and indignation the
allurements of intemperance and illicit pleasure.”

When Izaak Walton published ‘Thealma and Clearchus,’ a pastoral
history written long since in smooth and easy verse by John Chalkhill,
Esq., he described him in the Title page as “An Acquaintant and Friend
of Edmund Spenser.” He says of him “that he was in his time a man
generally known and as well beloved, for he was humble and obliging in
his behaviour, a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent, and
indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.” Yet to have
been the friend of Edmund Spenser was considered by the biographer of
Hooker and Donne and Bishop Sanderson and George Herbert, as an
honourable designation for this good man, a testimonial of his worth
to posterity, long after both Chalkhill and Spenser had been called to
their reward.

It was well that Mr. Murray gave up the project of a Family Faery
Queen. Mr. Smedley when employed upon such a task ought to have felt
that he was drawing upon himself something like Ham's malediction.

With regard to another part of these projected emendations there is a
fatal objection. There is no good reason why the capricious spelling
of the early editions should be scrupulously and pedantically observed
in Shakespeare, Milton, or any author of their respective times;—no
reason why words which retain the same acceptation, and are still
pronounced in the same manner should not now be spelt according to the
received orthography. Spenser is the only author for whom an exception
must be made from this obvious rule. Malone was wrong when he asserted
that the language of the Faery Queen was that of the age in which
Spenser lived; and Ben Jonson was not right when, saying that Spenser
writ no language, he assigned as the cause for this, his ‘affecting
the Ancients.’ The diction or rather dialect which Spenser
constructed, was neither like that of his predecessors, nor of his
contemporaries. Camoens also wrote a language of his own and thereby
did for the Portugueze tongue the same service which was rendered to
ours by the translators of the Bible. But the Portugueze Poet, who
more than any other of his countrymen refined a language which was
then in the process of refining, attempted to introduce nothing but
what entirely accorded with its character, and with the spirit of that
improvement which was gradually taking place: whereas both the
innovations and renovations which Spenser introduced were against the
grain. Yet such is the magic of his verse, that the Faery Queen if
modernized, even though the structure of its stanza—(the best which
has ever been constructed) were preserved, would lose as much as Homer
loses in the best translation.

Mr. Wordsworth has modernized one of Chaucer's Poems with “no farther
deviation from the original than was necessary for the fluent reading
and instant understanding of the author, supplying the place of
whatever he removed as obsolete with as little incongruity as
possible.” This he has done very skilfully. But the same skill could
not be exercised upon the Faery Queen with the same success. The
peculiarities of language there are systematic; to modernize the
spelling as Mr. Smedley proposed would in very many cases interfere
with the rhyme and thus dislocate the stanza. The task therefore would
have been extremely difficult; it would have been useless, because no
one who is capable of enjoying that delightful Poem ever found any
difficulty in understanding its dialect, and it would have been
mischievous because it would have destroyed the character of the Poem.
And this in the expectation of rendering Spenser more attractive by a
new coat and waistcoat! Spenser of whom it has been truly said that
more poets have sprung from him than from all other English writers;
Spenser by whom Cowley tells us he was made a Poet; of whom Milton
acknowledged to Dryden that he was his original; and in whom Pope says
“there is something that pleases one as strongly in ones old age as it
did in ones youth. I read the Faery Queen,” he proceeds, “when I was
about twelve with a vast deal of delight, and I think it gave me as
much when I read it over about a year or two ago.”

No, a new suit of clothes would not render Spenser more attractive,
not even if to a coat and waistcoat of Stultz's fabric, white satin
pantaloons were added, such as the handsomest and best dressed of
modern patriots, novelists and poets was known by on the public walk
of a fashionable watering place.

Save us from the Ultradelicates and the Extrasuperfines! for if these
are to prevail—

What can it avail
To drive forth a snail
Or to make a sail
Of a herring's tail?
To rhyme or to rail,
To write or to indite
Either for delight
Or else for despite?
Or books to compile
Of divers manner of style,
Vice to revile,
And sin to exile,
To teach or to preach
As reason will reach?

So said Skelton three centuries ago, and for myself I say once more
what Skelton would have been well pleased to have heard said by any
one.

Aballiboozo!

Dear Author, says one of those Readers who deserve to be pleased, and
whom therefore there is a pleasure in pleasing, dear Author! may I not
ask wherefore you have twice in this Chapter Extraordinary given us
part of your long mysterious word, and only part, instead of setting
it before us at full length?

Dear Reader! you may; and you may also ask unblamed whether a part of
the word is not as good, that is to say as significant, as the whole?
You shall have a full and satisfactory answer in the next Chapter.

CHAPTER CXLVIII.

WHEREIN A SUBSTITUTE FOR OATHS, AND OTHER PASSIONATE INTERJECTIONS IS
EXEMPLIFIED.

What have we to do with the times? We cannot cure 'em:
Let them go on: when they are swoln with surfeits
They'll burst and stink: Then all the world shall smell 'em.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Once more Reader I commence with

Aballiboozobanganorribo;

Do not suppose that I am about to let thee into the mysteries of that
great decasyllabon! _Questo è bene uno de' piu profondi segreti ch'
abbia tutto il mondo, e quasi nessuno il sa; e sia certo che ad altri
nol direi giammai._[1] No Reader! not if I were before the High Court
of Parliament, and the House of Commons should exert all its
inquisitorial and tyrannical powers to extort it from me, would I let
the secret pass that _ἐρκος ὀδοντῶν_ within which my little trowel of
speech has learnt not to be an unruly member. I would behave as
magnanimously as Sir Abraham Bradley King did upon a
not-altogether-dissimilar occasion. Sir Abraham might have said of his
secret as Henry More says of the Epicurean Philosophy, “Truly it is a
very venerable secret; and not to be uttered or communicated but by
some old Silenus lying in his obscure grot or cave; nor that neither
but upon due circumstances, and in a right humour, when one may find
him with his veins swelled out with wine, and his garland fallen off
from his head through his heedless drowsiness. Then if some young
Chromis and Mnasylus, especially assisted by a fair and forward Ægle,
that by way of a love-frolic will leave the tracts of their fingers in
the blood of mulberries on the temples and forehead of this aged
Satyr, while he sleeps dog-sleep, and will not seem to see for fear he
forfeit the pleasure of his feeling,—then I say, if these young lads
importune him enough,—he will utter it in a higher strain than ever.”

[Footnote 1: BIBBIENA.]

But by no such means can the knowledge of my profounder mystery be
attained. I will tell thee however, good reader, that the word itself,
apart from all considerations of its mystical meaning, serves me for
the same purpose to which the old tune of Lilliburlero was applied by
our dear Uncle Toby,—_our_ dear Uncle I say, for is he not _your_
Uncle Toby, gentle Reader? yours as well as mine, if you are worthy to
hold him in such relationship; and so by that relationship, you and I
are Cousins.

The Doctor had learnt something from his Uncle William, which he used
to the same effect, tho' not in the same way. William Dove in that
capacious memory of his, into which every thing that he heard was
stored, and out of which nothing was lost, had among the fragments of
old songs and ballads which he had picked up, sundry burdens or
chorusses, as unmeaning as those which O'Keeffe used to introduce in
some of the songs of his farces, always with good farcical effect.
Uncle Toby's favourite was one of them;

Lilli burlero bullen a-la;
Lero lero, lilli burlero, lero lero, bullen a-la;
Lero lero, lilli burlero, lero lero, bullen a-la.

Without knowing that it was designed as an insult to the French, he
used to say and sing in corrupted form,

Suum, mun, hey no nonny,
Dolphin, my boy, my boy,
Sessa, let him trot by.

Another was that from the ballad in honour of the Earl of Essex,
called Queen Elizabeth's Champion, which Johnson quoted in the Isle of
Sky; and Johnson is not the only omnivorous reader in whose memory it
has stuck;

Raderer too, tandaro tee
Radarer, tandorer, tan do ree.

And he had treasured up the elder fragment,

Martin Swart and his men.
Sodledum, sodledum,
Martin Swart and his men,
Sodledum bell,
With hey troly loly lo, whip here Jack,
Alumbeck, sodledum, syllerum ben,
Martin Swart and his merry men.

He had also this relic of the same age, relating as it seems to some
now forgotten hero of the strolling minstrels,

Rory-bull Joyse,
Rumble down, tumble down, hey, go now now.

Here is another, for he uttered these things ‘as he had eaten
ballads.’

A story strange I will you tell,
But not so strange as true,
Of a woman that danced upon the rope,
And so did her husband too:
With a dildo, dildo, dildo,
With a dildo, dildo, dee.

And he had one of Irish growth, which he sometimes tacked on to this
last for the rhyme's sake

Callino, callino,
Callino, castore me,
Era ëe, Era ëe
Loo loo, loo loo lee.

All these were favourites with little Daniel; and so especially for
his name's sake, was

My juggy, my puggy, my honey, my coney,
My deary, my love, my dove.

There was another with which and the Dovean use thereof, it is proper
that the reader should now be made acquainted, for it would otherwise
require explanation, when he meets with it hereafter. This was the one
which, when William Dove trotted little Daniel upon his knee, he used
to sing more frequently than any other, because the child, then in the
most winning stage of childhood, liked it best of all, and it went to
the tune of “God save great George our King” as happily as if that
noble tune had been composed for it. The words were,

Fa la la lerridan,
Dan dan dan derridan,
Dan dan dan derridan,
Derridan dee.

To what old ditty they formed the burden I know not, nor whether it
may be (as I suspect) a different reading of “Down, down, down derry
down,” which the most learned of living Welshmen supposes to be a
Druidical fragment: but the frequent repetition of his own abbreviated
name seldom failed to excite in the child one of those hearty and
happy laughs which are never enjoyed after that blessed age has past.
Most of us have frequently laughed till our sides ached, and many not
unfrequently it may be feared laugh till their hearts ache. But the
pure, fresh, unalloyed innocent laughter of children, in those moods
when they

——seem like birds, created to be glad,[2]—

that laughter belongs to them and to them only. We see it and
understand it in them; but nothing can excite more than a faint
resemblance of it in ourselves.

[Footnote 2: GONDIBERT.]

The Doctor made use of this burden when any thing was told him which
excited his wonder, or his incredulity; and the degree in which either
was called forth might be accurately determined by his manner of using
it. He expressed mirthful surprize, or contemptuous disbelief by the
first line, and the tune proceeded in proportion as the surprize was
greater, or the matter of more moment. But when any thing greatly
astonished him, he went thro' the whole, and gave it in a base voice
when his meaning was to be most emphatic.

In imitation, no doubt, of my venerable friend in this his practice,
though perhaps at first half unconscious of the imitation, I have been
accustomed to use the great decasyllabon, with which this present
Chapter commences, and with which it is to end. In my use of it
however, I observe this caution,—that I do not suffer myself to be
carried away by an undue partiality, so as to employ it in disregard
of ejaculatory propriety or to the exclusion of exclamations which the
occasion may render more fitting. Thus if I were to meet with
Hercules, _Mehercule_ would doubtless be the interjection which I
should prefer; and when I saw the Siamese Twins, I could not but
exclaim _O Gemini!_

Further, good Reader, if thou wouldest profit by these benevolent
disclosures of Danielism and Dovery, take notice I say, and not only
take notice, but take good notice,—N. B.—there was this difference
between the Doctor's use of his burden, and mine of the decasyllabon,
that the one was sung, and the other said, and that they are not
“appointed to be said or sung,” but that the one being designed for
singing must be sung, and the other not having been adapted to music
must be said. And if any great Composer should attempt to set the
Decasyllabon, let him bear in mind that it should be set in the
hypodorian key, the proslambanomenos of which mode is, in the
judgement of the Antients, the most grave sound that the human voice
can utter, and that the hearing can distinctly form a judgement of.

Some such device may be recommended to those who have contracted the
evil habit of using oaths as interjectional safety-valves or
convenient expletives of speech. The manner may be exemplified in
reference to certain recent events of public notoriety.

We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet sphere
By the rough torrent of occasion.[3]

[Footnote 3: SHAKESPEARE.]

Upon hearing one morning that in the Debate of the preceding night Mr.
Brougham had said no change of administration could possibly affect
him, I only exclaimed _A!_ A short-hand writer would have mistaken it
for the common interjection, and have written it accordingly Ah! But
it was the first syllable of my inscrutable word, and signified mere
notation without wonder or belief.

When in the course of the same day there came authentic intelligence
that Mr. Brougham was to be the Lord Chancellor of the New
Administration, so little surprize was excited by the news, that I
only added another syllable and exclaimed _Abal!_

Reading in the morning papers that Sir James Graham was to be first
Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord Althorpe to lead the House of Commons,
the exclamation proceeded one step farther and became _Aballi!_

This was uttered in a tone that implied disbelief; for verily I gave
the Cabinet Makers credit for a grain of sense more than they
possessed, (a _grain_ mark you, because they had nothing to do with
_scruples_;) I supposed there was a mistake as to the persons,—that
Sir James Graham whose chief knowledge was supposed to lie in finance
and his best qualification in his tongue, was to be Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and that Lord Althorpe who had no other claim to
consideration whatever than as being Earl Spencer's eldest son,
(except that as Hodge said of Diccon the Bedlam, he is ‘even as good a
fellow as ever kissed a cow,’) was intended for the Admiralty where
Spencer is a popular name. But when it proved that there was no
mistake in the Newspapers, and that each of these ministers had been
deliberately appointed to the office for which the other was fit, then
I said _Aballiboo!_

The accession of Mr. Charles Grant and his brother to such an
Administration, brought me to _Aballiboozo!_ with a shake of the head
and in a mournful tone; for I could not but think how such a falling
off would astonish the Soul of Canning, if in the intermediate state
there be any knowledge of the events which are passing on earth.

When the Ministry blundered into their Budget, I exclaimed
_Aballiboozobang!_ with a strong emphasis upon the final syllable, and
when they backed out of it, I came to _Aballiboozobanga!_

The Reform Bill upon a first glance at its contents, called forth
_Aballiboozobanganor_—I would have hurried on two steps farther, to
the end of the decasyllabon, if I had not prudently checked myself and
stopt there,—foreseeing that new cause for astonishment must now arise
daily.

When Sir Robert Peel did not upon the first reading kick out this mass
of crudities, and throw out the Cabinet after it, neck and shoulders,
hip and thigh, I said in bitterness _Aballiboozobanganorri!_

And when that Cabinet waxing insolent because they had raised the mob
to back them, declared that they would have the Bill, the whole Bill,
and nothing but the Bill, then I expressed my contempt, amazement, and
indignation, by uttering in its omnisignificant totality the great
word

ABALLIBOOZOBANGANORRIBO.

CHAPTER CXLIX.

Speak what terrible language you will, though you understand it not
yourselves, no matter! Chough's language, gabble enough and good
enough.

SHAKESPEARE.

But here, gentle reader, occurs what Bishop Latimer would call a
parlous question, if he had lived in these portentous times. There is
no apparent meaning in Lilli burlero bullen a-la, nor in Raderer too,
tandaro tee, nor in Dan dan dan derridan, any more than there is in
Farra diddle dyno,—Hayley gayly gamborayly, higgledy piggledy,
galloping draggle-tail dreary dun, and other burthens of a similar
kind, which are to be found in the dramas of poor old blind O'Keeffe,
and in Tom D'Urfey's songs. There is I say no apparent meaning in
them; but we must not too confidently apply the legal maxim in this
case, and conclude that _de non apparente et non existente eadem est
ratio_; for although these choruses are not in any known tongue, they
may by possibility be in an unknown one: and if Mr. Irving has not a
cast in his intellect as well as in his eye, there is mystery in an
unknown tongue; and they who speak it, and consequently they who write
it, may be inspired for the nonce—though they may be as little
conscious of their inspiration as they are of their meaning. There may
be an unknown inspiration as well as an unknown tongue. If so what
mighty revelations may lie unrevealed in the gibberish of Taylor the
Water Poet! Now if Mr. Irving would but read one of the wine-drinking
Water Poet's effusions of this kind, in his chapel, on a day appointed
for that purpose, some of his inspired speakers male or female might
peradventure be moved to expound it in their kindred language; and as
two negatives make an affirmative, it might be found that two
unintelligibles make a meaning, and the whole affair would thus become
intelligible to every one.

Two specimens therefore of the Taylorian tongues I shall here set
before the public, in the hope that this important experiment may be
tried with them. They were both intended as epitaphs for Thomas Coriat
the famous Odcombian traveller; the first was supposed by the inspired
Water Poet to be in the Bermuda tongue.

Hough gruntough wough Thomough Coriatough, Adcough robunquogh
Warawogh bogh Comitogh sogh wogh termonatogrogh,
Callimogh gogh whobogh Ragamogh demagorgogh palemogh,
Lomerogh nogh Tottertogh illemortogh eagh Allaquemquogh
Toracominogh Jagogh Jamerogh mogh Carnogh pelepsogh,
Animogh trogh deradrogh maramogh hogh Flondrogh calepsogh.

This, Taylor says, must be pronounced with the accent of the grunting
of a hog. He gives no directions for pronouncing the second specimen,
which is in the Utopian tongue.

Nortumblum callimumquash omystoliton quashte burashte
Scribuke woshtay solusbay perambulatushte;
Grekay sous Turkay Paphay zums Jerusalushte.
Neptus esht Ealors Interrimoy diz dolorushte,
Confabuloy Odcumbay Prozeugmolliton tymorumynoy,
Omulus oratushte paralescus tolliton umbroy.

The Water Poet gave notice as Professor of these tongues that he was
willing to instruct any gentlemen or others who might be desirous of
learning them.

But with regard to a gift of tongues either known or unknown there are
more things than are dreamt of in the Irvingite philosophy or in the
Lerry-cum-twang school. It was a received opinion in the seventeenth
century that maniacs, and other persons afflicted with morbid
melancholy, spoke in strange languages, and foretold things that were
to come, by virtue,—that is to say—in consequence of their mental
malady. But some philosophers who in the march of intellect were in
advance of their age, denied the fact, and accounted for the
persuasion by supposing that such patients, when in a state of great
agitation, uttered unmeaning words or sounds which ignorant people
took to be Greek, Latin or Hebrew, merely because they could not
understand them. Two questions therefore arose; whether the received
opinion were true? and if it were true, how was the fact to be
accounted for?

The first of these questions was easily disposed of by Sennertus, one
of the most eminent Professors and practitioners of the medical
science in that age. Facts he said, which were attested by
trust-worthy authors, were not to be disputed. Many were the impudent
falsehoods which this great and in other respects wise man, received
implicitly as facts conformably to the maxim which he thus laid down;
and many were the perilous consequences which he deduced in good
faith, and on fair reasoning from such premises. Upon this occasion he
instanced the case of a countryman, who at certain periods of the moon
used to compose Latin verses, though he knew not a word of Latin at
any other time. And of a man who spoke languages which he had never
learnt, and became unable to speak any one of them as soon as he was
restored to health by the effect of some powerful worm-medicines. And
of a sailor's son, who being wounded in the head and becoming
delirious in consequence, made perfect syllogisms in German, but as
soon as his wound was healed, lost all the logic which had been beaten
into his head in so extraordinary a way.

Antonius Guainerius, who vouched for one of these cases as having
witnessed the fact and all its circumstances, accounted for it by a
brave hypothesis. The soul, he said, before its infusion into the
body, possesses a knowledge of all things, and that knowledge is, in a
certain manner, obliterated, or offuscated by its union with the body;
but it is restored either by the ordinary means of instruction or by
the influence of the star which presided at the time of its union. The
body, and the bodily senses resist this influence, but when these are
as it were bound, or suspended, _quod fiat in melancholia_, the stars
can then impart their influences to the soul without obstruction, and
the soul may thus be endowed with the power of effecting what the
stars themselves effect, and thus an illiterate person may become
learned, and may also predict events that are to come. Sennertus is
far from assenting to this theory. He says “_Magna petita sunt quæ
præsupponit et sibi concedi postulat Guainerius._”

A theory quite as extraordinary was advanced by Juan Huarte in his
_Examen de Ingenios_, a book which obtained at one time far more
reputation than it deserved. Take the passage, curious Reader, from
the English version, entitled “The Examination of Men's Wits,” in
which by discovering the variety of natures is shewed for what
profession each one is apt, and how far he shall profit therein.
Translated out of the Spanish tongue by M. Camillo Camilli. Englished
out of his Italian by R. C. Esquire, 1594. “The frantic persons
speaking of Latin, without that he ever learned the same in his
health-time, shews the consonance which the Latin tongue holds with
the reasonable soul; and (as we will prove hereafter,) there is to be
found a particular wit applicable to the invention of languages, and
Latin words; and the phrases of speech in that tongue are so fitting
with the ear, that the reasonable soul, possessing the necessary
temperature for the invention of some delicate language, suddenly
encounters with this. And that two devisers of languages may shape the
like words, (having the like wit and hability) it is very manifest;
pre-supposing, that when God created Adam, and set all things before
him, to the end he might bestow on each its several name whereby it
should be called, he had likewise at that instant molded another man
with the same perfection and supernatural grace; now I demand if God
had placed the same things before this other man, that he might also
set them names whereby they should be called, of what manner those
names should have been? For mine own part I make no doubt but he would
have given these things those very names which Adam did: and the
reason is very apparent, for both carried one self-same eye to the
nature of each thing, which of itself was no more but one. After this
manner might the frantic person light upon the Latin tongue; and speak
the same without ever having learned it in his health; for the natural
temperature of his brain conceiving alteration through the infirmity,
it might for a space become like his who first invented the Latin
tongue, and feign the like words, but yet not with that concert and
continued fineness, for this would give token that the Devil moved
that tongue, as the Church teacheth her Exorcists.”

This theory found as little favour with Sennertus as that of
Guainerius, because he says, Huarte assumes more than can be granted;
and moreover because he supposes that the Latin language has a
peculiar consonance with the rational soul, and that there are certain
natures which are peculiarly constituted for inventing languages. And
therefore if by disease that temperament be excited in the brain which
is necessary for the invention of any most elegant language the
patient would fall into the Latin tongue; and Latin words would occur
to him, without any deliberation, or act of will on his part. This
opinion Sennertus argued cannot be maintained as probable, being
indeed disproved by the very cases upon which the question had been
raised, for Greek and Hebrew had been spoken by some of the patients,
as well as Latin. The facts he admits as not to be doubted, because
they are related by veracious authors; and his way of accounting for
them is by the agency of evil spirits, who take advantage of bodily
diseases and act upon them, especially such as arise from melancholy;
for that humour or passion has such attractions for evil spirits that
it has been called _Balneum Diaboli_, the Devil's Bath. When therefore
a patient speaks in tongues which he has never learnt, _eo ipso Dæmon
se manifeste prodit_.

This opinion than which one of greater weight could not have been
produced in the 17th century, is recommended to the serious
consideration of the Irvingites.

The Doctor would have sung Fa-la-la-lerridan to all this reasoning,
and I say Aballiboo!

CHAPTER CL.

THE WEDDING PEAL AT ST. GEORGE'S, AND THE BRIDE'S APPEARANCE AT
CHURCH.

See how I have strayed! and you'll not wonder when you reflect on the
whence and the whither.

ALEXANDER KNOX.

Well dear Reader, I have answered your question concerning the great
Decasyllabon. I have answered it fairly and explicitly, not like those
Jesuitical casuists

That palter with us in a double sense,
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope.

You have received an answer as full and satisfactory as you could
expect or desire, and yet the more than cabalistic mysteries of the
word are still concealed with Eleusinean secresy. Enough of this. For
the present also we will drop the subject which was broken off by the
extraordinary circumstances that called forth our Chapter
Extraordinary.

_τὸ δε και τετελεσμένον ἔσται_,[1]

for awhile, however, it will be convenient to leave it unfinished, and
putting an end to the parenthesis in the most important part of the
Doctor's life, tell thee that the Interim is past, that in the month
of April 1761, he brought home his bride, and the bells of St. George
rang that peal,—that memorable peal which was anticipatively mentioned
in the 32d chapter. Many such peals have they rung since on similar
occasions, but they have rung their last from St. George's Tower, for
in 1836, it was thought necessary to remove them, lest they should
bring that fine old fabric down.

[Footnote 1: HOMER.]

Webster libelled the most exhilarating and the most affecting of all
measured sounds when he said

those flattering bells have all
One sound at weddings and at funerals.

_Es cierta experiencia que la musica crece la pena donde la halla, y
acrecieuta el plazer en el corazon contento;_ this is more true of
bell ringing than of any other music; but so far are church bells from
having one sound on all occasions, that they carry a different import
on the same to different ears and different minds. The bells of St.
George's told a different tale to Daniel Dove, and to Deborah, on
their wedding day. To her, they said, as in articulate words, varying,
but melancholy alike in import as in cadence,

[Illustration: descending musical tune.]

Deborah Bacon hath changed her name;
Deborah Bacon hath left her home;
Deborah Bacon is now no more.

Yet she had made what in every one's opinion was considered a good
match, and indeed was far better than what is commonly called good; it
promised in all human likelihood to be a happy one, and such it
proved. In the beautiful words of Mrs. Hutchinson, neither she nor her
husband, “ever had occasion to number their marriage among their
infelicities.”

Many eyes were turned on the Doctor's bride when she made her
appearance at St. George's Church. The novelty of the place made her
less regardful of this than she might otherwise have been. Hollis
Pigot who held the vicarage of Doncaster thirty years, and was then in
the last year of his incumbency and his life, performed the service
that day. I know not among what description of preachers he was to be
classed; whether with those who obtain attention, and command respect,
and win confidence, and strengthen belief, and inspire hope, or with
the far more numerous race of Spintexts and of Martexts. But if he had
preached that morning with the tongue of an angel, the bride would
have had no ears for him. Her thoughts were neither upon those who on
their way from church would talk over her instead of the sermon, nor
of the service, nor of her husband, nor of herself in her new
character, but of her father,—and with a feeling which might almost be
called funereal, that she had passed from under his pastoral as well
as his paternal care.

CHAPTER CLI.

SOMETHING SERIOUS.

If thou hast read all this Book, and art never the better, yet catch
this flower before thou go out of the garden, and peradventure the
scent thereof will bring thee back to smell the rest.

HENRY SMITH.

Deborah found no one in Doncaster to supply the place of Betsy Allison
in the daily intercourse of familiar and perfect friendship. That
indeed was impossible; no after-math has the fragrance and the
sweetness of the first crop. But why do I call her Deborah? She had
never been known by that name to her new neighbours; and to her very
Father she was now spoken of as Mrs. Dove. Even the Allisons called
her so in courteous and customary usage, but not without a melancholy
reflection that when Deborah Bacon became Mrs. Dove, she was in a
great measure lost to them.

“Friendship, although it cease not
In marriage, is yet at less command
Than when a single freedom can dispose it.”[1]

[Footnote 1: FORD.]

Doncaster has less of the _Rus in Urbe_ now than it had in those days,
and than Bath had when those words were placed over the door of a
Lodging House, on the North Parade. And the house to which the Doctor
brought home his bride, had less of it than when Peter Hopkins set up
the gilt pestle and mortar there as the cognizance of his vocation. It
had no longer that air of quiet respectability which belongs to such a
dwelling in the best street of a small country town. The Mansion House
by which it was dwarfed and inconvenienced in many ways, occasioned a
stir and bustle about it, unlike the cheerful business of a market
day. The back windows, however, still looked to the fields, and there
was still a garden. But neither fields nor garden could prevail over
the odour of the shop, in which, like

hot, cold, moist and dry, four champions fierce,

in Milton's Chaos, rhubarb and peppermint, and valerian, and
assafetida, “strove for mastery” and to battle brought their atoms.
Happy was the day when peppermint predominated; though it always
reminded Mrs. Dove of Thaxted Grange, and the delight with which she
used to assist Miss Allison in her distillations. There is an Arabian
proverb which says, “the remembrance of youth is a sigh;” Southey has
taken it for the text of one of those juvenile poems in which he
dwells with thoughtful forefeeling upon the condition of declining
life.

Miss Allison had been to her, not indeed as a mother, but as what a
step-mother is, who is led by natural benevolence and a religious
sense of duty, to perform as far as possible a mother's part to her
husband's children. There are more such step-mothers than the world is
willing to believe, and they have their reward here as well as
hereafter. It was impossible that any new friend could fill up her
place in Mrs. Dove's affections,—impossible that she could ever feel
for another woman the respect and reverence, and gratitude, which
blended with her love for this excellent person. Though she was born
within four miles of Doncaster, and had lived till her marriage in the
humble vicarage in which she was born, she had never passed
four-and-twenty hours in that town before she went to reside there;
nor had she the slightest acquaintance with any of its inhabitants,
except the few shop-keepers with whom her little dealings had lain,
and the occasional visitants whom she had met at the Grange.

An Irish officer in the army, happening to be passenger in an armed
vessel during the last war, used frequently to wish that they might
fall in with an enemy's ship, because he said, he had been in many
land battles, and there was nothing in the world which he desired more
than to see what sort of a thing a sea fight was. He had his wish, and
when after a smart action, in which he bore his part bravely, an enemy
of superior force had been beaten off, he declared with the customary
emphasis of an Hibernian adjuration, that a sea-fight was a mighty
_sairious_ sort of thing.

The Doctor and Deborah, as soon as they were betrothed had come to
just the same conclusion upon a very different subject. Till the day
of their engagement, nay till the hour of proposal on his part, and
the very instant of acceptance on hers, each had looked upon marriage,
when the thought of it occurred, as a distant possibility, more or
less desirable, according to the circumstances which introduced the
thought, and the mood in which it was entertained. And when it was
spoken of sportively, as might happen, in relation to either the one
or the other, it was lightly treated as a subject in which they had no
concern. But from the time of their engagement, it seemed to both, the
most serious event of their lives.

In the Dutch village of Broek, concerning which singular as the habits
of the inhabitants are, travellers have related more peculiarities
than ever prevailed there, one remarkable custom shows with how
serious a mind some of the Hollanders regard marriage. The great house
door is never opened but when the Master of the House brings home his
Bride from the altar, and when Husband and Wife are borne out to the
grave. Dr. Dove had seen that village of great Baby-houses, but though
much attached to Holland, and to the Dutch as a people, and disposed
to think that we might learn many useful lessons from our prudent and
thrifty neighbours, he thought this to be as preposterous, if not as
shocking a custom, as it would be to have the bell toll at a marriage,
and to wear a winding sheet for a wedding garment.

We look with wonder at the transformations that take place in insects,
and yet their physical metamorphoses are not greater than the changes
which we ourselves undergo morally and intellectually, both in our
relations to others and in our individual nature. “_Chaque individu,
considéré separément, differe encore de lui même par l'effet du tems;
il devient un autre, en quelque maniere, aux diverses epoques de sa
vie. L'enfant, l'homme fait, le viellard, sont comme autant
d'etrangers unis dans une seule personne par le lien mysterieux du
souvenir._”[2] Of all changes in life marriage is certainly the
greatest, and though less change in every respect can very rarely be
produced by it in any persons than in the Doctor and his wife, it was
very great to both. On his part it was altogether an increase of
happiness; or rather from having been contented in his station he
became happy in it, so happy as to be experimentally convinced that
there can be no “single blessedness” for man. There were some
drawbacks on her part,—in the removal from a quiet vicarage to a busy
street; in the obstacle which four miles opposed to that daily and
intimate intercourse with her friends at the Grange which had been the
chief delight of her maiden life; and above all in the separation from
her father, for even at a distance which may appear so inconsiderable,
such it was; but there was the consolatory reflection that those dear
friends and that dear father concurred in approving her marriage, and
in rejoicing in it for her sake; and the experience of every day and
every year made her more and more thankful for her lot. In the full
liturgic sense of the word, he worshipped her, that is, he loved, and
cherished, and respected, and honoured her; and she would have obeyed
him cheerfully as well as dutifully, if obedience could have been
shown where there was ever but one will.

[Footnote 2: NECKER.]

CHAPTER CLII.

ODD OPINIONS CONCERNING BIOGRAPHY AND EDUCATION. THE AUTHOR MAKES A
SECOND HIATUS AS UNWILLINGLY AS HE MADE THE FIRST, AND FOR THE SAME
COGENT REASON.

_Ya sabes—pero es forzoso
Repetirlo, aunque lo sepas._

CALDERON.

Unwillingly, as the Reader may remember, though he cannot possibly
know with how much unwillingness, I passed over fourteen years of
Daniel Dove's youth, being the whole term of his adolescence, and a
fifth part of that appointed sum, beyond which the prolongation of
human life is but labour and sorrow. Mr. Coleridge has said that “the
history of a man for the nine months preceding his birth would
probably be far more interesting, and contain events of greater moment
than all the threescore and ten years that follow it.” Mr. Coleridge
was a philosopher, in many points, of the first order, and it has been
truly said by one of the antients that there is nothing so absurd but
that some philosopher has advanced it. Mr. Coleridge however was not
always in earnest when he said startling things; and they who suppose
that the opinions of such a man are to be collected from what he says
playfully in the freedom of social intercourse to amuse himself, and
perhaps to astonish others, may as well expect to hold an eel by the
tail.

There were certain French legislators in the days of Liberty and
Equality, who held that education ought to begin before birth, and
therefore they proposed to enact laws for the benefit of the
homunculus during that portion of its existence to which Mr. Coleridge
is said to have attached such metaphysical, or in his own language
such psychological importance. But even these Ultra-philosophers would
not have maintained that a biographer ought to begin before the birth
of his subject. All antecedent matter belongs to genealogical writers;
astrologers themselves are content to commence their calculations from
the hour and minute of the nativity. The fourteen years over which I
formerly passed for the reasons stated in the 25th Chapter of this
Opus, would have supplied more materials than any equal portion of his
life, if the Doctor had been his own historian; for in those years his
removal from home took place, his establishment at Doncaster, and his
course of studies at Leyden, the most momentous events in his
uneventful history, except the great one of marriage,—which either
makes or mars the happiness of both parties.

From the time of that “crowning event” I must pass over another but
longer interval, and represent the Doctor in his married state, such
as he was when it was my fortune in early life to be blessed with his
paternal friendship, for such it might be called. Age like his, and
Youth might well live together, for there was no crabbedness in his
age. Youth therefore was made the better and the happier by such
society. It was full of pleasure instead of care; not like winter, but
like a fine summer evening, or a mild autumn, or like the light of a
harvest moon,

“Which sheds o'er all the sleeping scene
A soft nocturnal day.”[1]

[Footnote 1: JAMES MONTGOMERY.]

CHAPTER CLIII.

MATRIMONY AND RAZORS. LIGHT SAYINGS LEADING TO GRAVE THOUGHTS. USES OF
SHAVING.

I wonder whence that tear came, when I smiled
In the production on't! Sorrow's a thief
That can when joy looks on, steal forth a grief.

MASSINGER.

Oh pitiable condition of human kind! One colour is born to slavery
abroad, and one sex to shavery at home!—A woman to secure her comfort
and well-being in this country stands in need of one thing only, which
is a good husband; but a man hath to provide himself with two things,
a good wife, and a good razor, and it is more difficult to find the
latter than the former. The Doctor made these remarks one day, when
his chin was smarting after an uncomfortable operation; and Mrs. Dove
retorted by saying that women had still the less favourable lot, for
scarce as good razors might be, good husbands were still scarcer.

Aye, said the Doctor, Deborah is right, and it is even so; for the
goodness of wife, husband, and razor depends upon their temper, and
taking in all circumstances and causes natural and adventitious, we
might reasonably conclude that steel would more often be tempered
precisely to the just degree, than that the elements of which humanity
is composed should be all nicely proportioned and amalgamated happily.
Rarely indeed could Nature stand up, and pointing out a sample of its
workmanship in this line say to all the world this is a Man! meaning
thereby what man, rational, civilized, well educated, redeemed,
immortal man, may and ought to be. Where this could be said in one
instance, in a thousand or ten thousand others she might say this is
what Man has by his own devices made himself, a sinful and miserable
creature, weak or wicked, selfish, sensual, earthly-minded, busy in
producing temporal evil for others,—and everlasting evil for himself!

But as it was his delight to find good, or to look for it, in every
thing, and especially when he could discover the good which may be
educed from evil, he used to say that more good than evil resulted
from shaving, preposterous as he knew the practice to be, irrational
as he admitted it was, and troublesome as to his cost, he felt it. The
inconvenience and the discomfort of the operation no doubt were
great,—very great, especially in frosty weather, and during March
winds, and when the beard is a strong beard. He did not extenuate the
greatness of this evil which was moreover of daily recurrence. Nay, he
said, it was so great, that had it been necessary for physical
reasons, that is to say, were it a law of nature, instead of a
practice enjoined by the custom of the country, it would undoubtedly
have been mentioned in the third chapter of the book of Genesis, as
the peculiar penalty inflicted upon the sons of Adam, because of his
separate share in the primal offence. The daughters of Eve, as is well
known, suffer expressly for their mother's sin; and the final, though
not apparent cause why the practice of shaving which is apparently so
contrary to reason, should universally prevail in all civilized
christian countries, the Doctor surmised might be, that by this means
the sexes were placed in this respect upon an equality, each having
its own penalty to bear, and those penalties being—perhaps—on the
whole equal; or if man had the heavier for his portion, it was no more
than he deserved, for having yielded to the weaker vessel. These
indeed are things which can neither be weighed nor measured; but it
must be considered that shaving comes every day to all men of what may
be called the clean classes, and to the poorest labourer or handicraft
once a week; and that if the daily shavings of one year, or even the
weekly ones could be put into one shave, the operation would be
fatal,—it would be more than flesh and blood could bear.

In the case of man this penalty brought with it no after compensation,
and here the female had the advantage. Some good nevertheless resulted
from it, both to the community, and to the individual shaver, unless
he missed it by his own fault.

To the community because it gives employment to Barbers, a lively and
loquacious race, who are everywhere the great receivers and
distributors of all news, private or public in their neighbourhood.

To the individual, whether he were, like the Doctor himself, and as
Zebedee is familiarly said to have been, an autokureus, which is being
interpreted a self-shaver, or shaver of himself; or merely a shavee,
as the laboring classes almost always are, the operation in either
case brings the patient into a frame of mind favorable to his moral
improvement. He must be quiet and composed when under the operator's
hands, and not less so if under his own. In whatever temper or state
of feeling he may take his seat in the barber's chair, or his stand at
the looking-glass, he must at once become calm. There must be no
haste, no impatience, no irritability; so surely as he gives way to
either, he will smart for it. And however prone to wander his thoughts
may be, at other and perhaps more serious times, he must be as
attentive to what he is about in the act of shaving, as if he were
working a problem in mathematics.

As a lion's heart and a lady's hand are among the requisites for a
surgeon, so are they for the Zebedeean shaver. He must have a steady
hand, and a mind steadied for the occasion; a hand confident in its
skill, and a mind assured that the hand is competent to the service
upon which it is ordered. Fear brings with it its immediate punishment
as surely as in a field of battle; if he but think of cutting himself,
cut himself he will.

I hope I shall not do so to-morrow; but if what I have just written
should come into my mind, and doubt come over me in consequence, too
surely then I shall! Let me forget myself therefore as quickly as I
can and fall again into the train of the Doctor's thoughts.

Did not the Duc de Brissac perform the operation himself for a moral
and dignified sentiment, instead of letting himself be shaved by his
valet-de-chambre? Often was he heard to say unto himself in grave
soliloquy, while holding the razor open, and adjusting the blade to
the proper angle, in readiness for the first stroke “Timoleon de
Cossé, God hath made thee a Gentleman, and the King hath made thee a
Duke. It is nevertheless right and fit that thou shouldst have
something to do; therefore thou shalt shave thyself!”—In this spirit
of humility did that great Peer “mundify his muzzel.”

_De sçavoir les raisons pourquoy son pere luy donna ce nom de
Timoleon, encore que ce ne fut nom Chretien, mais payen, il ne se peut
dire; toutesfois, à l'imitation des Italiens et des Grecs, qui ont
emprunté la plus part des noms payens, et n'en sont corrigez pour
cela, et n'en font aucun scruple,—il avoit cette opinion, que son pere
luy avoit donné ce nom par humeur, et venant à lire la vie de Timoleon
elle luy pleut, et pour ce en imposa le nom à son fils, présageant
qu'un jour il luy seroit semblable. Et certes pour si peu qu'il a
vesçu, il luy a ressemblé quelque peu; mais, s'il eust vesçu il ne
l'eust resemblé quelque peu en sa retraite si longue, et en son
temporisement si tardif qu'il fit, et si longue abstinence de guerre;
ainsi que luy-mesme le disoit souvent, qu'il ne demeureroit pour tous
les biens du monde retiré si longuement que fit ce Timoleon._[1] This
in a parenthesis: I return to our philosopher's discourse.

[Footnote 1: BRANTOME.]

And what lectures, I have heard the Doctor say, does the
looking-glass, at such times, read to those men who look in it at such
times only! The glass is no flatterer, the person in no disposition to
flatter himself, the plight in which he presents himself, assuredly no
flattering one. It would be superfluous to have _γνωθι σεαυτον_
inscribed upon the frame of the mirror; he cannot fail to know
himself, who contemplates his own face there, long and steadily, every
day. Nor can he as he waxes old need a death's head for a memento in
his closet or his chamber; for day by day he traces the defeatures
which the hand of Time is making,—that hand which never suspends its
work.

Thus his good melancholy oft began
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime.[2]

[Footnote 2: SHAKESPEARE.]

“When I was a round-faced, red-faced, smooth-faced boy,” said he to me
one day, following the vein upon which he had thus fallen, “I used to
smile if people said they thought me like my father, or my mother, or
my uncle. I now discern the resemblance to each and all of them
myself, as age brings out the primary and natural character of the
countenance, and wears away all that accidental circumstances had
superinduced upon it. The recognitions,—the glimpses which at such
times I get of the departed, carry my thoughts into the past;—and
bitter,—bitter indeed would those thoughts be, if my
anticipations—(wishes I might almost call them, were it lawful as
wishes to indulge in them)—did not also lead me into the future, when
I shall be gathered to my fathers in spirit, though these mortal
_exuviæ_ should not be laid to moulder with them under the same turf.”

There were very few to whom he talked thus. If he had not entirely
loved me, he would never have spoken to me in this strain.

CHAPTER CLIV.

A POET'S CALCULATION CONCERNING THE TIME EMPLOYED IN SHAVING, AND THE
USE THAT MIGHT BE MADE OF IT. THE LAKE POETS LAKE SHAVERS ALSO. A
PROTEST AGAINST LAKE SHAVING.

SHARON TURNER.

The poet Campbell is said to have calculated that a man who shaves
himself every day, and lives to the age of threescore and ten, expends
during his life as much time in the act of shaving, as would have
sufficed for learning seven languages.

The poet Southey is said to carry shaving to its _ne plus ultra_ of
independency, for he shaves _sans_ looking-glass, _sans_
shaving-brush, _sans_ soap, or substitute for soap, _sans_ hot-water,
_sans_ cold-water, _sans_ every thing except a razor. And yet among
all the characters which he bears in the world, no one has ever given
him credit for being a cunning shaver!

(Be it here observed in a parenthesis that I suppose the word _shaver_
in this so common expression to have been corrupted from shaveling;
the old contemptuous word for a Priest.)

But upon reflection, I am not certain whether it is of the poet
Southey that this is said, or of the poet Wordsworth. I may easily
have confounded one with the other in my recollections, just as what
was said of Romulus might have been repeated of Remus while they were
both living and flourishing together; or as a mistake in memory might
have been made between the two Kings of Brentford when they both
quitted the stage, each smelling to his nosegay, which it was who made
his exit P. S. and which O. P.

Indeed we should never repeat what is said of public characters (a
denomination under which all are to be included who figure in public
life, from the high, mighty and most illustrious Duke of Wellington at
this time, down to little Waddington) without qualifying it as common
report, or as newspaper, or magazine authority. It is very possible
that the Lake poets may, both of them, shave after the manner of other
men. The most attached friends of Mr. Rogers can hardly believe that
he has actually said all the good things which are ascribed to him in
a certain weekly journal; and Mr. Campbell may not have made the
remark which I have repeated, concerning the time employed in mowing
the chin, and the use to which the minutes that are so spent might be
applied. Indeed so far am I from wishing to impute to this gentleman
upon common report, anything which might not be to his credit, or
which he might not like to have the credit of, that it is with the
greatest difficulty I can persuade myself to believe in the
authenticity of his letter to Mr. Moore upon the subject of Lord and
Lady Byron, though he has published it himself, and in his own name.

Some one else may have made the calculation concerning shaving and
languages, some other poet, or proser, or one who never attempted
either prose, or rhyme. Was he not the first person who proposed the
establishment of the London University, and if this calculation were
his, is it possible that he should not have proposed a plan for it
founded thereon, which might have entitled the new institution to
assume the title of the Polyglot College?

Be this as it may, I will not try the _sans_-every-thing way of
shaving let who will have invented it: never will I try it, unless
thereto by dire necessity enforced! I will neither shave dry, nor be
dry-shaved, while any of those things are to be obtained which either
mitigate or abbreviate the operation. I will have a brush, I will have
Naples soap, or some substitute for it, which may enable me always to
keep a dry and clean apparatus. I will have hot-water for the sake of
the razor, and I will have a looking-glass for the sake of my chin and
my upper lip. No never will I try Lake shaving, unless thereto by dire
necessity enforced.

Nor would I be enforced to it by any necessity less dire than that
with which King Arthur was threatened by a messager from Kynge Ryons
of North-walys; and Kynge he was of all Ireland and of many Iles. And
this was his message, gretynge wel Kynge Arthur in this manere wyse,
sayenge, “that Kynge Ryons had discomfyte and overcome eleaven Kynges,
and everyche of hem did hym homage, and that was this; they gaf hym
their beardys clene flayne off, as moche as ther was; wherfor the
messager came for King Arthurs beard. For King Ryons had purfyled a
mantel with Kynges berdes, and there lacked one place of the mantel,
wherfor he sent for his berd, or els he wold entre in to his landes,
and brenne and slee, and never leve tyl he have thi hede and thi
berd.” If the King of the Lakes should require me to do him homage by
shaving without soap, I should answer with as much spirit as was shown
in the answer which King Arthur returned to the Messenger from King
Ryons. “Wel, sayd Arthur, thow hast said thy message, the whiche is
the most vylanous and lewdest message that ever man herd sente unto a
Kynge. Also thow mayst see, my berd is ful yong yet to make a purfyl
of hit. But telle thow thy Kynge this; I owe hym none homage, ne none
of mine elders; but or it be longe to, he shall do me homage on bothe
his kneys, or els he shall lese his hede by the feithe of my body, for
this is the most shamefullest message that ever I herd speke of. I
have aspyed, thy King met never yet with worshipful man; but telle
hym, I wyll have his hede without he doo me homage: Then the messager
departed.”

CHAPTER CLV.

THE POET'S CALCULATION TESTED AND PROVED.

Fiddle-faddle, dont tell of this and that, and every thing in the
world, but give me mathematical demonstration.

CONGREVE.

But I will _test_ (as an American would say,—though let it be observed
in passing that I do not _advocate_ the use of Americanisms.) I will
_test_ Mr. Campbell's assertion. And as the Lord President of the New
Monthly Magazine has not favored the world with the calculations upon
which his assertion, if his it be, is founded, I will investigate it,
step by step, with which intent I have this morning, Saturday, May the
fifteenth, 1830, minuted myself during the act of shaving.

The time employed was, within a second or two more or less, nine
minutes.

I neither hurried the operation, nor lingered about it. Every thing
was done in my ordinary orderly way, steadily, and without waste of
time.

Now as to my beard, it is not such a beard as that of Domenico
d'Ancona, which was _delle barbe la corona_, that is to say the crown
of beards, or rather in English idiom the king.

_Una barba la più singulare
Che mai fosse discritta in verso o'n prosa,_
A beard the most unparallell'd
That ever was yet described in prose or rhyme,

and of which Berni says that the Barber ought to have felt less
reluctance in cutting the said Domenico's throat, than in cutting off
so incomparable a beard. Neither do I think that mine ever by
possibility could vie with that of Futteh Ali Shah, King of Persia at
this day: nay, I doubt whether Macassar Oil, Bear's grease, Elephant's
marrow, or the approved recipe of sour milk with which the Persians
cultivate their beards, could ever bring mine to the far inferior
growth of his son's, Prince Abbas Mirza. Indeed no Mussulmen would
ever look upon it, as they did upon Mungo Park's, with envious eyes,
and think that it was too good a beard for a Christian. But for a
Christian and moreover an Englishman, it is a sufficient beard; and
for the individual a desirable one: _nihil me pœnitet hujus barbæ_;
desirable I say, inasmuch as it is in thickness and rate of growth
rather below the average standard of beards. Nine minutes therefore
will be about the average time required for shaving, by a
Zebedeean,—one who shaves himself. A professional operator makes
quicker work; but he cannot be always exactly to the time, and at the
year's end as much may have been lost in waiting for the barber, as is
gained by his celerity of hand.

Assuming then the moderate average of nine minutes, nine minutes per
day amount to an hour and three minutes per week; an hour and three
minutes per week are fifty-four hours thirty-six minutes per year. We
will suppose that our shaver begins to operate every day when he has
completed his twentieth year; many, if not most men, begin earlier;
they will do so if they are ambitious of obtaining whiskers; they must
do so if their beards are black, or carroty, or of strong growth.
There are then fifty years of daily shaving to be computed; and in
that time he will have consumed two thousand, seven hundred and thirty
hours in the act of shaving himself. I have stated the numbers
throughout in words, to guard against the mistakes which always creep
into the after editions of any book, when figures are introduced.

Now let us see whether a man could in that time acquire a competent
knowledge of seven languages.

I do not of course mean such a knowledge as Professor Porson and Dr.
Elmsley had attained of Greek, or as is possessed by Bishop Blomfield
and Bishop Monk,—but a passable knowledge of living languages, such as
would enable a man to read them with facility and pleasure, if not
critically, and to travel without needing either an interpreter—or the
use of French in the countries where they are spoken.

Dividing therefore two thousand seven hundred and thirty, being the
number of hours which might be appropriated to learning languages,—by
seven,—the number of languages to be learnt, we have three hundred and
ninety hours for each language; three hundred and ninety lessons of an
hour long,—wherein it is evident that any person of common capacity
might with common diligence learn to read, speak and
write—sufficiently well for all ordinary purposes, any European
language. The assertion therefore, though it might seem extravagant at
first, is true as far as it goes, and is only inaccurate because it is
far short of the truth.

For take notice that I did not strop the razor this morning, but only
passed it, after the operation, ten or twelve times over the palm of
the hand, according to my every day practice. One minute more at least
would have been required for stropping. There are many men whose
beards render it necessary for them to apply to the strop every day,
and for a longer time,—and who are obliged to try first one razor and
then another. But let us allow only a minute for this—one minute a day
amounts to six hours five minutes in the year; and in fifty years to
three hundred and four hours ten minutes,—time enough for an eighth
language.

Observe also that some languages are so easy, and others so nearly
related to each other, that very much less than half the number of
hours allowed in this computation would suffice for learning them. It
is strictly true that in the time specified a man of good capacity
might add seven more languages to the seven for which that computation
was formed; and that a person who has any remarkable aptitude for such
studies might in that time acquire every language in which there are
books to be procured.

_Hé bien, me suis je enfin rendu croyable? Est-on content?_[1]

[Footnote 1: PIRON.]

See Reader, what the value of time is, when put out at simple
interest. But there is no simple interest in knowledge. Whatever funds
you have in that Bank go on encreasing by interest upon interest,—till
the Bank fails.

CHAPTER CLVI.

AN ANECDOTE OF WESLEY, AND AN ARGUMENT ARISING OUT OF IT, TO SHOW THAT
THE TIME EMPLOYED IN SHAVING IS NOT SO MUCH LOST TIME; AND YET THAT
THE POET'S CALCULATION REMAINS OF PRACTICAL USE.

_Questo medesimo anchora con una altra gagliardissima ragione vi
confermo._

LODOVICO DOMINICHI.

There was a poor fellow among John Wesley's followers, who suffered no
razor to approach his chin, and thought it impossible that any one
could be saved who did: shaving was in his opinion a sin for which
there could be no redemption. If it had been convenient for their
interests to put him out of the way, his next of kin would have had no
difficulty in obtaining a _lettre de cachet_ against him from a
mad-doctor, and he might have been imprisoned for life, for this
harmless madness. This person came one day to Mr. Wesley, after
sermon, and said to him in a manner which manifested great concern,
Sir, you can have no place in Heaven without a beard! therefore, I
entreat you, let your's grow immediately!

Had he put the matter to Wesley as a case of conscience, and asked
that great economist of time how he could allow himself every day of
his life to bestow nine precious minutes upon a needless operation,
the Patriarch of the Methodists might have been struck by the appeal,
but he would soon have perceived that it could not be supported by any
just reasoning.

For in the first place, in a life of such incessant activity as his,
the time which Wesley employed in shaving himself, was so much time
for reflection. However busy he might be, as he always was,—however
hurried he might be on that particular day, here was a portion of
time, small indeed, but still a distinct and apprehensible portion, in
which he could call his thoughts to council. Like our excellent
friend, he was a person who knew this, and he profited by it, as well
knowing what such minutes of reflection are worth. For although
thought cometh, like the wind, when it listeth, yet it listeth to come
at regular appointed times, when the mind is in a state of preparation
for it, and the mind will be brought into that state, unconsciously,
by habit. We may be as ready for meditation at a certain hour, as we
are for dinner, or for sleep; and there will be just as little need
for an effort of volition on our part.

Secondly, Mr. Wesley would have considered that if beards were to be
worn, some care and consequently some time must be bestowed upon them.
The beard must be trimmed occasionally, if you would not have it as
ragged as an old Jew Clothes-man's: it must also be kept clean, if you
would not have it inhabited like the Emperor Julian's; and if you
desired to have it like Aaron's, you would oil it. Therefore it is
probable that a Zebedeean who is cleanly in his habits would not save
any time by letting his beard grow.

But it is certain that the practise of shaving must save time for
fashionable men, though it must be admitted that these are persons
whose time is not worth saving, who are not likely to make any better
use of it, and who are always glad when any plea can be invented for
throwing away a portion of what hangs so heavily upon their hands.

Alas, Sir, what is a Gentleman's time!
——————————there are some brains
Can never lose their time, whate'er they do.[1]

For in former times as much pains were bestowed on dressing the beard,
as in latter ones upon dressing the hair. Sometimes it was braided
with threads of gold. It was dyed to all colours, according to the
mode, and cut to all shapes, as you may here learn from John Taylor's
_Superbiæ Flagellum_.

Now a few lines to paper I will put,
Of men's beards strange and variable cut:
In which there's some do take as vain a pride,
As almost in all other things beside.
Some are reap'd most substantial like a brush,
Which make a natural wit known by the bush:
(And in my time of some men I have heard,
Whose wisdom hath been only wealth and beard)
Many of these the proverb well doth fit,
Which says Bush natural, more hair than wit.
Some seem as they were starched stiff and fine,
Like to the bristles of some angry swine:
And some (to set their Love's desire on edge)
Are cut and pruned like to a quickset hedge.
Some like a spade, some like a fork, some square,
Some round, some mowed like stubble, some stark bare,
Some sharp stiletto fashion, dagger like,
That may with whispering a man's eyes out pike:
Some with the hammer cut or Roman T,
Their beards extravagant reformed must be,
Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion,
Some circular, some oval in translation,
Some perpendicular in longitude,
Some like a thicket for their crassitude,
That heights, depths, breadths, triform, square, oval, round,
And rules geometrical in beards are found;
Beside the upper lips strange variation,
Corrected from mutation to mutation;
As't were from tithing unto tithing sent,
_Pride_ gives to _Pride_ continual punishment.
Some (_spite their teeth_) like thatched eaves downward grows,
And some grow upwards in despite their nose.
Some their mustachios of such length do keep,
That very well they may a manger sweep?
Which in Beer, Ale, or Wine, they drinking plunge,
And suck the liquor up as't were a sponge;
But 'tis a Sloven's beastly _Pride_ I think
To wash his beard where other men must drink.
And some (because they will not rob the cup)
Their upper chaps like pot hooks are turned up,
The Barbers thus (like Tailors) still must be,
Acquainted with each cut's variety.[2]

[Footnote 1: MAY.]

[Footnote 2: TAYLOR _the Water Poet_.]

In comparison with such fashions, clean shaving is clear gain of time.
And to what follies and what extravagances would the whiskerandoed
macaronies of Bond Street and St. James's proceed, if the beard once
more were, instead of the neckcloth, to “make the man!”—They who have
put on the whole armour of Dandeyism, having their loins girt
with—stays, and having put on the breast-plate of—buckram, and having
their feet shod—by Hoby!

I myself, if I wore a beard, should cherish it, as the Cid Campeador
did his, for my pleasure. I should regale it on a summer's day with
rose water; and, without making it an Idol, I should sometimes offer
incense to it, with a pastille, or with lavender and sugar. My
children when they were young enough for such blandishments would have
delighted to stroke and comb and curl it, and my grand-children in
their turn would have succeeded to the same course of mutual
endearment.

Methinks then I have shown that although the Campbellian, or
Pseudo-Campbellian assertion concerning the languages which might be
acquired in the same length of time that is consumed in shaving, is no
otherwise incorrect than as being short of the truth, it is not a
legitimate consequence from that proposition that the time employed in
shaving is lost time, because the care and culture of a beard would in
all cases require as much, and in many would exact much more. But the
practical utility of the proposition, and of the demonstration with
which it has here been accompanied, is not a whit diminished by this
admission. For, what man is there, who, let his business, private or
public be as much as it will, cannot appropriate nine minutes a-day to
any object that he likes?

CHAPTER CLVII.

WHICH THE READER WILL FIND LIKE A ROASTED MAGGOT, SHORT AND SWEET.

_Malum quod minimum est, id minimum est malum._

PLAUTUS.

But here one of those persons who acting upon the proverbial precept
which bids us look before we leap, look so long that they never leap
at all, offers a demurrer.

It may be perfectly true, he observes, that a language may be learnt
in three hundred and ninety lessons of an hour each. But in your
proposition the hour is broken into several small parts; we will throw
in an additional minute, and say six such portions. What I pray you
can a lesson of ten minutes be worth?

To this I reply that short lessons are best, and are specifically
enjoined in the new System of Education. Dr. Bell says in his Manual
of Instructions for conducting Schools, “in the beginning never
prescribe a lesson or task, which the Scholar can require more than
ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, to learn.”

On this authority, and on the authority of experience also, I
recommend short lessons. For the same reasons, or for reasons nearly
or remotely related to them, I like short stages, short accounts,
short speeches, and short sermons; I do not like short measure or
short commons; and, like Mr. Shandy, I dislike short noses. I know
nothing about the relative merit of short-horned cattle. I doubt
concerning the propriety of short meals. I disapprove of short
parliaments and short petticoats; I prefer puff-paste to short
pie-crust; and I cut this chapter short for the sake of those readers
who may like short chapters.

CHAPTER CLVIII.

DR. DOVE'S PRECEPTORIAL PRESCRIPTION, TO BE TAKEN BY THOSE WHO NEED
IT.

Some strange devise, I know, each youthful wight
Would here expect, or lofty brave assay:
But I'll the simple truth in simple wise convey.

HENRY MORE.

Now comes the question of a youth after my own heart, so quick in his
conclusions that his leap seems rather to keep pace with his look than
to follow it. He will begin to-morrow, and only asks my advice upon
the method of proceeding.

Take the Grammar of any modern language, and read the dialogues in it,
till you are acquainted with the common connecting words, and know the
principal parts of speech by sight. Then look at the declensions and
the verbs—you will already have learnt something of their inflections,
and may now commit them to memory, or write them down. Read those
lessons, which you ought to read daily—in a bible of this language,
having the English bible open beside it. Your daily task will soon be
either to learn the vocabulary, or to write exercises, or simply to
read, according to the use which you mean to make of your new
acquirement. You must learn _memoriter_, and exercise yourself in
writing if you wish to educate your ear and your tongue for foreign
service; but all that is necessary for your own instruction and
delight at home may be acquired by the eye alone.

_Qui mihi Discipulus es—cupis atque doceri,_

try this method for ten minutes a day, perseveringly, and you will
soon be surprised at your own progress.

_Quod tibi deest, à te ipso mutuare,_—

it is Cato's advice.

Ten minutes you can bestow upon a modern language, however closely you
may be engaged in pursuits of immediate necessity; even tho' you
should be in a public office from which Joseph Hume, or some of his
worthy compeers, has moved for voluminous returns. (Never work at
extra hours upon such returns, unless extra pay is allowed for the
additional labor and confinement to the desk, as in justice it ought
to be. But if you are required to do so by the superiors who ought to
protect you from such injustice, send petition after petition to
Parliament, praying that when the abolition or mitigation of slavery
shall be taken into consideration, your case may be considered also.)

Any man who will, may command ten minutes. _Exercet philosophia regnum
suum_, says Seneca; _dat tempus, non accipit. Non est res subcisiva,
ordinaria est, domina est; adest, et jubet._ Ten minutes the Under
Graduate who reads this may bestow upon German even though he should
be in training for the University races. Ten minutes he can bestow
upon German, which I recommend because it is a master-key for many
doors both of language and of knowledge. His mind will be refreshed
even by this brief change of scene and atmosphere. In a few weeks (I
repeat) he will wonder at his own progress: and in a few years, if he
is good for anything—if the seed has not been sown upon a stony place,
nor among thorns, he will bless me his unknown benefactor, for showing
him by what small savings of time, a man may become rich in mind. “And
so I end my counsel, beseeching thee to begin to follow it.”[1]

[Footnote 1: EUPHUES, A. M.]

But not unto me be the praise! O Doctor, O my guide, philosopher and
friend!

Like to the bee thou everywhere didst roam
Spending thy spirits in laborious care,
And nightly brought'st thy gathered honey home,
As a true workman in so great affair;
First of thine own deserving take the fame,
Next of thy friend's; his due he gives to thee,
That love of learning may renown thy name,
And leave it richly to posterity.[2]

I have but given freely what freely I have received. This knowledge I
owe,—and what indeed is there in my intellectual progress which I do
not owe to my ever-beloved friend and teacher, my moral physician?

———his plausive words
He scattered not in ears, but grafted them
To grow there and to bear.[3]

To his alteratives and tonics I am chiefly (under Providence) indebted
for that sanity of mind which I enjoy, and that strength,—whatever may
be its measure, which I possess. It was his method,—his _way_, he
called it; in these days when we dignify every thing, it might be
called the Dovean system, or the Columbian, which he would have
preferred.

[Footnote 2: RESTITUTA.]

[Footnote 3: SHAKSPEARE.]

CHAPTER CLIX.

THE AUTHOR COMPARES HIMSELF AND THE DOCTOR TO CARDINAL WOLSEY AND KING
HENRY VIII. AND SUGGESTS SUNDRY SIMILES FOR THE STYLE OF HIS BOOK.

DRYDEN.

It cannot be necessary for me to remind the benevolent reader, that at
those times when a half or a quarter-witted critic might censure me
for proceeding egotistically, I am nevertheless carrying on the
primary intention with which this work was undertaken, as directly as
if the Doctor were the immediate and sole theme of every chapter;—

_Non enim excursus hic—sed opus ipsum est._[1]

For whatever does not absolutely relate to him is derived directly or
indirectly from him; it is directly derivative when I am treating upon
subjects which it has been my good fortune to hear him discuss; and
indirectly when I am led to consider the topics that incidentally
arise, according to the way of thinking in which he trained me to go.

[Footnote 1: PLINY.]

As Wolsey inscribed upon one of his magnificent buildings the words
_Ego et Rex Meus_, so might I place upon the portal of this Edifice
_Ego et Doctor Meus_, for I am as much his creature as Wolsey was the
creature of bluff King Harry,—as confessedly so, and as gratefully.
Without the King's favor Wolsey could not have founded Christ Church;
without the Doctor's friendship I could not have edified this monument
to his memory. Without the King's favor Wolsey would never have
obtained the Cardinal's hat; and had it not been for the favor and
friendship and example of the Doctor, never should I have been
entitled to wear that cap, my reasons for not wearing which have
heretofore been stated, that cap which to one who knows how to wear it
becomingly, is worth more than a coronet or a mitre; and confers upon
the wearer a more lasting distinction.

His happy mind, like the not less happy, and not more active intellect
of Humboldt King of Travellers, was excursive in its habits. To such
discursive—or excursiveness I also was prone, and he who observed in
me this propensity encouraged it, tempering however that encouragement
with his wonted discretion. Let your imagination, he said, fly like
the lady bird

north, south and east and west,

but take care that it always comes home to rest.

Perhaps it may be said therefore of his unknown friend and biographer
as Passovier said of Michel de Montaigne, _il estoit personnage hardy,
qui se croyoit, et comme tel se laissoit aisement emporter a la beauté
de son esprit; tellement que par ses ecrits il prenoit plaisir de
desplaire plaisamment._

Perhaps also some one who for his own happiness is conversant with the
literature of that affluent age, may apply to the said unknown what
Balzac said of the same great Michael, Michael the second, (Michael
Angelo was Michael the first,) _Montaigne sçait bien ce qui il dit;
mais, sans violer le respect qui luy est deu, je pense aussi, qu'il ne
sçait pas toujours ce qu'il va dire._

Dear Reader you may not only say this of the unknown _sans violer le
respect qui luy est deu_, but you will pay him what he will consider
both a great and a just compliment, in saying so.

For I have truly endeavoured to observe the precepts of my revered
Mentor, and to follow his example, which I venture to hope, the
judicious reader will think I have done with some success. He may have
likened me for the manner in which I have conducted this great
argument, to a gentle falcon, which however high it may soar to
command a wider region with its glance, and however far it may fly in
pursuit of its quarry, returns always to the falconer's hand.

Learned and discreet reader, if you should not always discern the
track of associations over which I have passed as fleetly as Camilla
over the standing corn;—if the story which I am relating to thee
should seem in its course sometimes to double like a hare in her
flight, or in her sport,—sometimes to bound forward like a jerboa, or
kangaroo, and with such a bound that like Milton's Satan it overleaps
all bounds; or even to skip like a flea, so as to be here, there and
every where, taking any direction rather than that which will bring it
within your catch;—learned and discreet reader if any of these
similitudes should have occurred to you, think of Pindar, read
Landor's Gebir, and remember what Mr. Coleridge has said for himself
formerly, and prophetically for me, _intelligenda non intellectum
adfero_. Would you have me plod forward like a tortoise in my
narration, foot after foot in minute steps, dragging his slow tail
along? Or with such deliberate preparation for progressive motion that
like a snail the slime of my way should be discernible?

A bye-stander at chess who is ignorant of the game, presently
understands the straight and lateral movement of the rooks, the
diagonal one of the bishops, and the power which the Queen possesses
of using both. But the knight perplexes him, till he discovers that
the knight's leap, eccentric as at first it seems, is nevertheless
strictly regulated.

We speak of erratic motions among the heavenly bodies; but it is
because the course they hold is far beyond our finite comprehension.

Therefore I entreat thee, dear reader, thou who hast the eye of a hawk
or of a sea gull, and the intellectual speed of a greyhound, do not
content thyself with glancing over this book as an Italian Poet says

_Precipitevolissimevolmente_.

But I need not exhort thee thus, who art quick to apprehend and quick
to feel, and sure to like at first sight whatever upon better
acquaintance deserves to be loved.

CHAPTER CLX.

Judge not before
Thou know mine intent;
But read me throughout,
And then say thy fill;
As thou in opinion
Art minded and bent,
Whether it be
Either good or ill.

E. P.

I have heard of a man who made it a law for himself never to read any
book again which had greatly pleased him on a first perusal; lest a
second reading should in some degree disturb the pleasurable
impression which he wished to retain of it. This person must have read
only for his amusement, otherwise he would have known that a book is
worth little if it deserves to be perused but once: and moreover that
as the same landscape appears differently at different seasons of the
year, at morning and at evening, in bright weather and in cloudy, by
moonlight, and at noon-day, so does the same book produce a very
different effect upon the same reader at different times and under
different circumstances.

I have elsewhere said that the man of one book is proverbially
formidable; but the man of one reading, though he should read through
an ample library would never become so.

The studious man who at forty re-peruses books which he has read in
his youth or early manhood, vivid as his recollections of them may be,
finds them new, because he brings another mind to the perusal.
Worthless ones with which he may formerly have been delighted appear
flat and unprofitable to his maturer judgement; and on the other hand
sterling merit which he was before unable to appreciate, he can now
understand and value, having in his acquired knowledge, and habits of
reflection the means of assaying it.

Sometimes a Poet, when he publishes what in America would be called a
lengthy poem, with lengthy annotations, advises the reader in his
preface, not to read the notes in their places, as they occur, lest
they should interrupt his clear perception and enjoyment of the piece,
but to read the poem by itself at first; and then, for his more full
contentment, to begin again, and peruse the notes in their order,
whereby he will be introduced to the more minute and recondite merits
of the work.

If the poets who calculate upon many such readers are not wise in
their generation, they are happy in it.

What I request of my dear readers is far more reasonable, and yet
perhaps not much more likely to be granted; I request them, that in
justice to themselves,—for that they may not lose any part of the
pleasure which I have designed for them; and in justice to me,—that I
may not be defrauded of any portion of that grateful applause, which
after a due perusal they will undoubtedly bestow upon the benevolent
unknown;—and in justice to the ever-honored subject of these
volumes,—lest a hasty and erroneous judgement of his character should
be formed, when it is only partially considered;—I request that they
would not dip into these volumes before they read them, nor while they
are reading them, but that they would be pleased to go through the
book regularly, in the order of the chapters, and that when they
recommend the book to their friends, (as they will do with the
friendly intention of contributing to their entertainment and
instruction,) they would particularly advise them to begin at the
beginning, or more accurately speaking at the seventh chapter before
the beginning, and so peruse it consecutively.

So doing, reader, thou wilt perceive the method and the order of the
work, developing before thee as thou readest; thou wilt then
comprehend and admire the connection of the parts, and their
dependence upon each other, and the coherence and beauty of the whole.
Whereas were you only to dip into it here and there, you would from
such a cursory and insufficient inspection come perhaps to the same
conclusion, “wherein nothing was concluded” as the man did concerning
Bailey's Dictionary, who upon returning the book to a neighbour from
whom he had borrowed it, said that he was much obliged to him for the
loan, and that he had read it through, from beginning to end, and had
often been much entertained by it, and was sure that the Author must
have been a very knowing person;—but—added he to confess the truth, I
have never been able clearly to make out what the book is about.

Now as opposite causes will sometimes produce a like effect, thou
mightest, by reading this book partially, come to the same
inconclusive conclusion concerning it, that our friend did by reading
straight forward through Bailey's Dictionary; though considering what
there is in that Dictionary, his time might have been worse employed—I
very well remember when I was some ten years old, learning from an
abridgement of it as much about Abracadabra as I know now. I exhort
thee therefore to begin _ab ovo_, with the ante-initial chapters, and
to read the whole regularly; and this advice I give, bearing in mind
what Bishop Hacket says in his life of the Lord Keeper, Archbishop
Williams, when he inserts a speech of that Chancellor-Prelate's, at
full length:

“This he delivered, thus much: and I took counsel with myself not to
abbreviate it. For it is so compact and pithy that he that likes a
little, must like it all. Plutarch gives a rule for sanity to him that
eats a tortoise, _᾿η ὅλην, ἠ μη ὃλως_, eat it up all, or not a whit.”
The reason assigned for this rule would look better in Plutarch's
Greek than in the Episcopal English; being paraphrased it imports that
a small portion of such food is apt to produce intestinal pains; but
that a hearty meal has the wholesome effect of those pills which by a
delicate and beautiful euphuism of Dr. Kitchener's are called
Peristaltic Persuaders. “So,” proceeds the Bishop, “the speech of a
great orator is instructive when it is entire: pinch it into an
epitome, you mangle the meaning and avile the eloquence.”

CHAPTER CLXI.

WESLEY AND THE DOCTOR OF THE SAME OPINION UPON THE SUBJECT OF THESE
CHAPTERS. A STUPENDOUS EXAMPLE OF CYCLOPÆDIAN STOLIDITY.

GUESSES AT TRUTH.

Both Mr. Wesley and Dr. Dove, who much as they differed concerning
Methodism, agreed remarkably well in their general method of thinking,
would have maintained the morality and propriety of shaving, against
all objections founded upon the quantity of time expended in that
practice. If the one had preached or the other descanted on the 27th
verse of the 19th Chapter of Leviticus, each would have shown that no
general application could be made of the prohibition therein
contained. But what would they have said to the following physical
argument which is gravely advanced in Dr. Abraham Rees's New
Cyclopædia?

“The practice of cutting the hair of the head and the beard is
attended with a prodigious increase of the secretion of the matter of
hair. It is ascertained that a man of fifty years of age will have cut
from his head above thirteen feet, or twice his own length of hair;
and of his beard, in the last twenty-five years of the same
period—above eight feet. The hair likewise besides this enormous
length, will be thicker than if it had been left uncut, and must lose
most of its juices by evaporation from having its tube and the ends of
its fibres always exposed.—The custom of shaving the beard, and
cutting the hair of the head, has we believe, been justly deprecated
by some physiologists. The latter has been supposed, and with much
apparent reason, to weaken the understanding, by diverting the blood
from the brain to the surface of the head. The connection which exists
between the beard and the organs of generation, and likewise between
the muscular strength of the individual, would seem to render it
improper to interfere with its natural mode of growth. Bichat
attributes the superior strength of the ancients to their custom of
wearing their beards; and those men who do not shave at present are
distinguished for vigor and hardihood.”

Thus far we have had to deal only with a grave folly, and I shall
follow the writer no farther.

What would John Wesley and Daniel Dove have said to the speculations
and assertions in this curious passage? They were both men of reading,
both speculative men and both professors, each in his way, of the art
of medicine. They would have asked what proof could be produced that
men who let their beards grow are stronger than those who shave, or
that the ancients were superior in bodily strength to the men of the
present day? Thus they would have treated his assumed facts; and for
his philosophy, they would have inferred, that if cutting the hair
weakened the understanding, and the story of Samson were a physical
allegory, the person who wrote and reasoned thus must have been
sheared at least twice a week from his childhood.

If on the other hand they had been assured that the writer had worn
his hair long, then they would have affirmed that, as in the case of
the Agonist, it was “robustious to no purpose.”

When the Russian soldiers were first compelled to part with their
beards that they might look like other European troops, they
complained that the cold struck into their jaws and gave them the
tooth-ache. The sudden deprivation of a warm covering might have
occasioned this and other local affections. But they are not said to
have complained that they had lost their wits.

They are said indeed in the days of Peter the Great to have made a
ready use of them in relation to this very subject. Other arguments
had been used in vain for persuading them to part with that
comfortable covering which nature had provided for their cheeks and
chins, when one of their Priests represented to them that their good
Czar had given orders for them to be shaved only from the most
religious motives and a special consideration of what concerned them
most nearly. They were about to march against the Turks. The Turks as
they well knew wore beards and it was of the utmost importance that
they should distinguish themselves from the misbelievers by this
visible mark, for otherwise their protector St. Nicholas in whom they
trusted would not know his own people. This was so cogent a reason
that the whole army assented to it, and a general shaving took place.
But when the campaign against the Turks was over and the same troops
were ordered to march against the Swedes, the soldiers called for the
Priest, and told him they must now let their beards grow again;—for
the Swedes shaved, and they must take care St. Nicholas might know his
friends from his foes.

CHAPTER CLXII.

BISHOP.

It is not often that a sportive or fanciful calculation like that of
Mr. Campbell, can be usefully applied, or in the dialect of the
Evangelical Magazine, improved.

I remember well the look and the voice and the manner with which my
ever-to-be-honored friend pointed out to me a memorable passage of
this kind in the works of the Reverend Augustus Toplady, of whom he
used to say that he was a strong-headed, wrong-headed man; and that in
such men you always found the stronger the head, the wronger the
opinions; and the more wrongly their opinions were taken up, the more
strongly they were persisted in.

Toplady after some whimsical calculations concerning the national
debt, proceeds to a “spiritual improvement” of the subject. He asserts
that because “we never come up to that holiness which God requires, we
commit a sin every second of our existence,” and in this view of the
matter, he says, our dreadful account stands as follows. At ten years
old each of us is chargeable with 315,036,000 sins; and summing up the
account at every intermediate stage of ten years, he makes the man of
fourscore debtor for 2,510,288,000.

In Toplady's creed there were no venial sins, any more than in Sir
George Mackenzie's, who used this impious argument for the immortality
of the soul, that it must needs be immortal because the smallest sin,
“the least peccadillo against the Almighty who is Infinite cannot be
proportionably punished in the swift glass of man's short life.”

And this man, said the Doctor, laying his finger upon Toplady's book,
thinks himself a Christian, and reads the Bible and believes it! He
prints and vouches for the authenticity of a painter's bill at
Cirencester delivered in to the Churchwarden of an adjacent parish in
these words:—Mr. Charles Ferebee, Churchwarden of Siddington to Joseph
Cook, Debtor: To mending the Commandments, altering the Belief, and
making a new Lord's Prayer £1. 1_s._

The Painter made no such alteration in the Christian creed, as he
himself did, (when he added to it) that the Almighty has predestined
the infinitely greater number of his creatures to eternal misery!

God, says good old Adam Littleton, made no man purposely to damn him.
Death was one of man's own inventions, and will be the reward of his
evil actions.

The Roman Catholics have a legend from which we may see what
proportion of the human race they suppose to be redeemed from
perdition: it relates that on the day of St. Bernard's death there
died threescore thousand persons, of whom only four souls were saved,
the Saint's being one;—the salvage therefore is one in fifteen
thousand!

But one legend may be set against another, and Felix Faber the Monk of
Ulm gives us one of better import, when he relates the story of a
lovely child who in her twelfth year was stricken with the plague,
during the great pestilence which in the middle of the fourteenth
century swept off a greater portion of the human race than is ever
known to have perished in any similar visitation. As the disease
increased upon her, she became more beautiful and more cheerful,
looking continually upward and rejoicing; for she said she saw that
Heaven was open and innumerable lights flowing upward thither, as in a
stream,—which were the souls of the elect, ascending as they were
released. When they who stood beside her bed were silent and seemed as
if they gave no credit to her words, she told them that what she saw
was no delusion, and added in token of its sure truth, that her own
death would take place that night, and her father die on the third day
following: she then pointed to seven persons foretelling to each the
day of their decease, and named some others who were not present, who
would in like manner be cut off by the plague, saying at what time
each of them would expire; and in every instance, according to the
legend, the prediction was punctually fulfilled. This is a tale which
may in all its parts be true; for such predictions at such a time,
when whole cities were almost depopulated by the pestilence, were
likely not only to be verified, but in a great degree to bring about
their own verification; and the state of her mind would lead to her
interpretation of those ocular spectra which were probably effects of
the disease, without supposing it to be a happy delirium, heightening
her expectation of that bliss which faith had assured to her, and into
which her innocent spirit was about to enter.

Had the story been fabricated it would not have been of so humane a
character. The Roman Catholics, as is well known, believe that all who
are not of what they please to call the Holy, Roman, Catholic and
Apostolic Church, are doomed to everlasting perdition; this doctrine
is part of the creed which their laity profess, and to which their
clergy swear. If any member of that Church reject an opinion so
uncharitable in itself, and in its consequences so infinitely
mischievous, he may be a Roman Catholic by his connections, by
courtesy, by policy, or by fear; but he is not so in reality, for he
refuses to believe in the infallibility of his Church which has on no
point declared itself more peremptorily than upon this. All other
Christians of every persuasion, all Jews, all Mahometans and all
Heathens are goats; only the Romanists are the Sheep of God's
pasture,—and the Inquisitors, we may suppose, his Lambs! Of this their
own flock they hold that one half are lost sheep; though a liberal
opinion, it is esteemed the most probable one upon that subject, and
the best founded, because it is written that one shall be taken and
one left, and that of the ten virgins who went with their lamps to
meet the bridegroom, five were wise, and five foolish.

An eloquent Jesuit preaching before the Court in his own country
stated this opinion, and made an application from it to his hearers
with characteristic integrity and force. “According to this doctrine,”
said he, “which is held by many Saints, (and is not the most
straitened, but a large and favorable one,) if I were this day
preaching before another auditory, I should say that half of those who
heard me belonged to the right hand, and half unto the left. Truly a
most wonderful and tremendous consideration, that of Christians and
Catholics, enlightened with the faith, bred up with the milk of the
Church, and assisted by so many sacraments and aids, half only should
be saved! That of ten men who believe in Christ, and for whom Christ
died, five should perish! That of an hundred fifty should be
condemned! That of a thousand five hundred go to burn eternally in
Hell! who is there that does not tremble at the thought? But if we
look at the little Christianity and the little fear of God with which
men live, we ought rather to give thanks to the Divine Mercy, than to
be astonished at this justice.

“This is what I should say if I were preaching before a different
audience. But because to-day is a day of undeceiving, (it was the
first Sunday in Advent,) and the present Auditory is what it is, let
not those who hear me think or persuade themselves, that this is a
general rule for all, even although they may be or call themselves
Catholics. As in this life there is a wide difference between the
great and powerful and those who are not so, so will it be in the Day
of Judgement. They are on the right hand to-day, but as the world will
then have had so great a turn, it is much to be feared that many of
them will then be on the left. Of others half are to be saved, and of
the great and powerful, how many? Will there be a third part saved?
Will there be a tenth? I shall only say (and would not venture to say
it, unless it were the expressed oracle and infallible sentence of
supreme Truth,) I shall only say that they will be very few, and those
by great wonder. Let the great and mighty listen, not to any other
than the Lord himself in the Book of Wisdom. _Præbite aurem vos qui
continetis multitudinem, quoniam data est a Domino potestas vobis._
‘Give ear ye that rule the people, for power is given you of the
Lord.’ Ye princes, ye ministers who have the people under your
command, ye to whom the Lord hath given this power to rule and govern
the commonwealth, _præbite aurem_, give ear to me! And what have they
to hear from God who give ear so ill to men? A proclamation of the Day
of Judgement far more portentous and terrible than that which has to
summon the dead! _Judicium durissimum his qui præsunt fiet; exiguo
enim conceditur misericordia; potentes autem potenter tormenta
patientur:_ A sharp judgement shall be to them that be in high places.
For mercy will pardon the mean; but mighty men shall be mightily
tormented. The Judgement with which God will judge those who rule and
govern is to be a sharp Judgement, because mercy will be granted to
the mean; but the mighty shall be mightily tormented, _potentes
potenter tormenta patientur_. See here in what that power is to end
which is so greatly desired, which is so panted after, which is so
highly esteemed, which is so much envied! The mighty fear no other
power now, because the power is in their own hands, but when the sharp
judgement comes they will then see whose Power is greater than theirs;
_potentes potenter patientur_.”

This was a discourse which might have made Felix tremble.

CHAPTER CXLIII.

_Chacun tourne en réalités,
Autant qu'il peut, ses propres songes;
L'homme est de glace aux vérités,
Il est de feu pour les mensonges._

LA FONTAINE.

The translated extract in the preceding Chapter from the most eloquent
of the Portuguese preachers, _el mismissimo Vieyra, en su mesma
mesmedad_, as he is called in Fray Gerundio, brings to my mind the
most eloquent and the most popular of the Spanish divines, P. M. Luis
de Granada. He held an opinion wherein, (as will appear hereafter) the
Philosopher of Doncaster did not agree with him, that every thing
under the sky was created for man directly or indirectly, either for
his own use, or for the use of those creatures which minister to it;
for says the Spaniard if he does not eat mosquitoes he eats the birds
that eat them; if he does not eat the grass of the field, the cattle
graze there that are necessary for his use.

I have a very particular reason for giving the famous and Venerable
Dominican's opinion in his own words.

_Todo quanto ay debaxo del Cielo, ò es para el hombre, ò para cosas de
que se ha de servir el hombre; porque si el no come el mosquito que
buela por el ayre, come lo el pajaro de que el se mantiene; y si el no
pace la yerva del campo, pacela el ganado, de que el tiene
necessidad._

My reason for transcribing this sentence in its original language, is
that by so doing I might confer a great act of kindness upon every
Roman Catholick who reads the present Chapter. For be it known unto
every such reader, that by perusing it, he becomes entitled to an
indulgence of an hundred days, granted by D. Pasqual Aragon, Cardinal
by the Title of Santa Balbina, and Archbishop of Toledo; and moreover
to eighteen several indulgences of forty days each, granted by
eighteen most illustrious and most reverend Lords Archbishops and
Bishops; such indulgences having been proclaimed, _para los que
leyeren, ò oyeren leer qualquier capitulo, parrafo, ò periodo de lo
que escrivio el dicho V. P. M. Fray Luis de Granada._

It might be a question for the casuists whether a good papist reading
the paragraph here presented to him, and not assenting to the opinion
expressed therein would be entitled to this discount of eight hundred
and twenty days from his time due in Purgatory. But if he accords with
the Venerable Dominican, he can no more doubt his own right to
participate in the Episcopal and Archiepiscopal grants, than he can
call in question the validity of the grants themselves.

CHAPTER CLXIV.

AN ENQUIRY, IN THE POULTRY-YARD, INTO THE TRUTH OF AN OPINION
EXPRESSED BY ARISTOTLE.

This is some liquor poured out of his bottle;
A deadly draught for those of Aristotle.

J. C. sometime of M. H. Oxon.

Aristotle was of opinion that those animals which have been tamed, or
are capable of being so, are of a better nature, or higher grade, than
wild ones, and that it is advantageous for them that they should be
brought into subjection by man, because under his protection they are
safe.

_Τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἣμερα τῶν αγριων βελτίω την φυσιν, τούτοις δε πασι βέλτιον
αρχεσθαι ὐπ᾿ ανθρωπου, τυγχάνει γαρ σωτηρίας οὕτως._

Our Philosopher was not better disposed to agree with Aristotle upon
this point, than with the more commonly received notion of Father Luis
de Granada. He thought that unless men were more humane in the days of
Alexander the Great, than they are now, and than they have been in all
times of which we have any knowledge, the Stagyrite must have stated
what ought to be, rather than what is.

So our Philosopher thought; and so I, faithfully retaining the lessons
of my beloved Master am prepared to prove. I will go no farther than
to the Poultry Yard, and borrowing the names of the Dramatis Personæ
from a nursery story, one of his Uncle William's, which has been told
with the greatest possible success to all my children in succession,
as it was to me, and their Uncles and Aunts before them, I will
question the Poultry upon the subject, and faithfully report their
evidence.

_Voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani
Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde
Sotto queste coperte alte e profonde._[1]

[Footnote 1: ORLANDO INNAMORATO.]

“Chick-pick, Chick-pick, which is best for you; to be a wild
Chick-pick, or to live, as you are living, under the protection and
care, and regular government of Man?”

Chick-pick answers and says, “Nature provides for my support quite as
abundantly and as surely as you can do, and more wisely, you do not
make my life happier or more secure while it lasts, and you shorten
it; I have nothing to thank you for.”

“Hen-pen, Hen-pen, which is best for you; to be a wild Hen-pen, or to
live as you are living, under the protection and care, and regular
government of Man?”

Hen-pen answers and says: “Had I been bred up as my mother if she had
been a wild Hen-pen would have bred me, I should have had the free use
of my wings. I have nothing to thank you for! You take my eggs.
Sometimes you make me hatch in their stead a little unnatural brood
who run into the water, in spite of all my fears and of all that I can
do to prevent them. You afford me protection when you can from
foumarts and foxes; and you assist me in protecting my chicken from
the kite, and the hawk, but this is that you may keep them for your
own eating; you fatten them in coops, and then comes the Cook!”

“Cock-lock which is best for you; to be a wild Cock-lock, or to live
as you are living, under the protection and care, and regular
government of Man?”

Cock-lock answers and says, “Is there a man impudent enough to ask me
the question! You squail at us on Shrove Tuesday; you feed us with
Cock-bread, and arm us with steel spurs, that we may mangle and kill
each other for your sport; you build cock-pits; you make us fight
Welsh mains, and give subscription cups to the winner. And what would
that Cock-lock say, who was a Cock-lock till you made him a
Capon-lapon!”

“Duck-luck, Duck-luck, which is best for you, to be a wild Duck-luck,
or to live as you are living under the protection and care, and
regular government of Man?”

Duck-luck answers and says, “I was created to be one of the most
privileged of God's creatures, born to the free enjoyment of three
elements. My wings were to bear me whither I would thro' the sky, as
change of season required change of climate for my well being; the
waters were to afford me pastime and food, the earth repose and
shelter. No bird more joyous, more active, more clean or more
delighting in cleanliness than I should be, if the society of man had
not corrupted my instincts. Under your regular government my wings are
rendered useless to me; I waddle about the miserable precincts to
which I am confined, and dabble in the dirt and grope for garbage in
your gutters. And see there are green peas in the garden!”

“Turkey-lurkey, Turkey-lurkey, which is best for you; to be a wild
Turkey-lurkey, or to live as you are living, under the protection, and
care, and regular government of Man?”

Turkey-lurkey answers and says, “You cram us as if to show that there
may be as much cruelty exercised in giving food as in withholding it.
Look at the Norwich coaches for a week before Christmas! Can we think
of them, think you? without wishing ourselves in the woods like our
blessed ancestors, where chine, sausages and oyster-sauce are
abominations which never have been heard of!” Sir Turkey-lurkey then
shook and ruffled and reddened the collops of his neck, and gobbled
out his curses upon man.

“Goosey-loosey, Goosey-loosey, which is best for you; to be a wild
Goosey-loosey, or to live as you are living, under the protection and
care and regular government of Man?”

Goosey-loosey answers and says, “It is not for any kindness to us that
you turn us into your stubbles. You pluck us that you may lie the
softer upon our feathers. You pull our quills that you may make pens
of them. O St. Michael, what havoc is committed amongst us under the
sanction of your arch-angelic name! And O Satan! what punishment wilt
thou exact from those inhuman wretches who keep us in a state of
continual suffering in order to induce a disease by which our livers
may be enlarged for the gratification of wicked epicures! We might
curse man for all that we know of his protection and care, and regular
government; _but_,—”

BUT! said Goosey-loosey, and lifting up her wings significantly she
repeated a third time that word BUT! and with a toss of the head and a
twist of the snaky neck which at once indicated indignation and
triumph, turned away with all the dignity that Goose-nature could
express.

I understood the meaning of that But.

It was not one of those dreaded, ominous, restrictive, qualifying,
nullifying or negativing Buts of which Daniel, the tenderest of all
tender poets, says,

Ah! now comes that bitter word of _But_
Which makes all nothing that was said before!
That smoothes and wounds, that strokes and dashes more
Than flat denial, or a plain disgrace.

It was not one of those heart-withering, joy-killing, and
hope-annihilating Buts. It was a minatory But, full of meaning as ever
Brewer's Butt was full of beer.

However I will not broach that But in this Chapter.

CHAPTER CLXV.

A QUESTION ASKED AND RIGHTLY ANSWERED, WITH NOTICES OF A GREAT
IMPORTATION ANNOUNCED IN THE LEITH COMMERCIAL LIST.

“But tell me yet what followed on that But.”

DANIEL.

Great, Reader, are the mysteries of Grammarians! Dr. Johnson
considered But as only a Conjunction, whereas, says Mr. Todd, it is in
fact a Conjunction, Preposition, Adverb and Interjection, as Dr. Adam
Smith long since ingeniously proved. With Horne Tooke it is a verb to
boot, being according to him the imperative of the Saxon beon-utan,
_to be out_; but in this Mr. Todd supposes him to be out himself. And
Noah Webster says it is also a Participle and a Noun. Pity that some
one has not proved it to be a Pronoun; for then it would have belonged
to all the eight parts of speech.

Great are the mysteries of Grammarians!

O Reader, had you in your mind
Such stores as subtlety can bring
O gentle Reader, you would find
A mystery in every thing.

For once, dear Reader, I who pride myself upon lucid order of
arrangement, and perspicuity of language, instead of making, which I
have heretofore done, and shall hereafter do, the train of my
associations as visible as the tract of a hare in the dewy grass or in
the snow, will let it be as little apparent as that of a bird in the
air, or a serpent on a rock; or as Walter Landor in his poems, or his
brother Robert's, whose poetry has the true Landorean obscurity, as
well as the Landorean strength of diction and the Landorean truth and
beauty of feeling and of thought: perhaps there is no other instance
of so strongly marked an intellectual family likeness.

Thus having premised, I propound the following question: Of all the
Birds in the air, and all the beasts in the field, and all the fishes
in the sea, and all the creatures of inferior kind, who pass their
lives wholly, or in part, according to their different stages of
existence, in air, earth or water, what creature has produced directly
or indirectly, the most effect upon mankind?—_That_, which you Reader,
will deserve to be called, if you do not after a minute's reflection
answer the question rightly.

The Goose!

Now Reader you have hit the _But_.

Among the imports in the Leith Commercial List, for June 1830, is an
entry of 1,820,000 goose quills, brought by the Anne from Riga, for
Messrs. Alexander Duncan and Son of Edinburgh.

One million, eight hundred and twenty thousand goose quills! The
number will present itself more adequately to thy imagination when it
is thus expressed in words.

O Reader, consider in thy capacious mind the good and the evil in
which that million, eight hundred and twenty thousand quills will be
concerned!

Take notice that the whole quantity is of foreign growth—that they are
all imported quills, and so far from being all that were imported,
that they were brought by one ship, and for only one house. Geese
enough are not bred in Great Britain for supplying pens to schools,
counters, public offices, private families, authors, and last not
least in their consumption of this article, young ladies,—though they
call in the crow-quills to their aid. Think of the Lawyers, Reader!
and thou wilt then acknowledge that even if we were not living at this
time under a government of Newspapers, the Goose is amply revenged
upon mankind.

And now you understand Goosey-loosey's BUT.

CHAPTER CLXVI.

A WISH CONCERNING WHALES, WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THEIR PLACE IN
PHYSICAL AND MORAL CLASSIFICATION. DR. ABRAHAM REES. CAPTAIN SCORESBY.
THE WHALE FISHERY.

Your Whale he will swallow a hogshead for a pill;
But the maker of the mouse-trap is he that hath skill.

BEN JONSON.

When gas-lights came into general use, I entertained a hope that
Whales would no longer be slaughtered for the sake of their oil. The
foolishness of such a hope may be excused for its humanity.

I will excuse you Reader, if in most cases, you distrust that word
humanity. But you are not to be excused if you suspect me of its
counterfeit, that mock humanity which is one characteristic of this
dishonourable and dishonest age. I say you are not to be excused, if
being so far acquainted as by this time you must be with the
philosophy of the Doctor, you suspect me his faithful and dutiful
disciple of this pitiful affectation.

How the thought concerning Whales came just now into my mind will be
seen when its application shall in due course be made apparent. Where
I am is always well known to myself, tho' every Reader may not always
discover my whereabout. And before the thought can be applied I must
show upon what our Philosopher's opinions concerning Whales, or
fancies if you think proper so to call them, were founded; mine—upon
this and most other matters, having been as I gratefully acknowledge,
derived from him.

Linnæus in his classification, as is well known, arranges Whales with
Quadrupeds, an arrangement at which Uncle Toby, if he had been told of
it, would have whistled Lilli-bullero, and the Doctor if he had not
been a man of science himself, would have sung

Fa la la lerridan
Dan dan dan derridan
Dan dan dan derridan
Derridan dee.

But Uncle Toby never could have been told of it, because he good man
died before Linnæus dreamt of forming a system; and Doctor Dove was a
man of science, so that Lillibullero was never whistled upon this
occasion, nor Dan dan dan derridan sung.

Whistle the one Reader, or sing the other, which you will, or if you
will, do both; when you hear that in Dr. Rees's Cyclopædia it is said,
“the Whale has no other claim to a place among fishes, than from its
fish-like appearance and its living in the water.” The Whale has its
place among them whatever the Cyclopædists may think of its claim, and
will never have it any where else; and so very like a fish it is,—so
strongly in the odour of fishiness, which is a good odour if it be not
too strong,—that if the Greenlanders had been converted by the Jesuits
instead of the Moravians, the strictest disciplinarian of that order
would without doubt have allowed his converts to eat Whale upon fish
days.

But whether Whale be fish or flesh, or if makers of system should be
pleased to make it fowl, (for as it is like a Quadruped except that it
has no feet, and cannot live upon land, so it may be like a bird,
except that it has neither legs, wings, nor feathers, and cannot live
in the air,) wherever naturalists may arrange it, its local habitation
is among fishes, and fish in common language it always will be called.
This whole question matters not to our present purpose. Our
Philosopher had regard to its place in the scale of existence, a scale
which he graduated not according to size, (tho' that also must
sometimes be taken into the account,) nor by intellect which is yet of
greater consideration, but according to those affections or moral
feelings, which, little acquainted as we are with the nature of the
lower creatures, are in many instances too evident to be called in
question.

Now in this respect no other creature in the water, ranks so high as
the Whale.

The affection of the parent for its young is both in itself and its
consequences purely good, however those men seek to degrade it who
ascribe all feelings, and all virtuous emotions, whether in man or
beast, to selfishness, being themselves conscious that they have no
worthier motive for any of their own actions. Martin Luther says that
the Hebrew word which we translate by _curse_, carries not with it in
the original language so strong a meaning as is given to it in his
mother tongue,—consequently in ours. The Hebrew imprecation, he says,
imports no more than “ill betide thee!” intending by _ill_ temporal
misfortune, or punishment, the proper reward of ill deeds; not what is
implied by cursing in its dreadful acceptation. A curse then in the
Hebrew sense, be upon those who maintain this sensual, and
sensualizing opinion; an opinion of which it is the sure effect to
make bad men worse, and the folly and falsehood of which birds, and
beasts might teach them, were it not that—because their hearts are
gross, seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they
understand.

The Philosopher of Doncaster affirmed that virtue as well as reason
might be clearly perceived in the inferior creation, and that their
parental affection was proof of it. The longer the continuance of this
affection in any species, the higher he was disposed to place that
species in the scale of animated life. This continuance bears no
relation to their size in birds, and little in quadrupeds; but in the
whale it seems to be somewhat more proportionate, the young depending
upon the mother more than twelve-months certainly, how much longer has
not been ascertained. And so strong is the maternal affection that it
is a common practice among whalers to harpoon the cub as a means of
taking the mother; for this creature altho' harmless and timid at all
other times, totally disregards danger when its young is to be
defended, gives every possible indication of extreme agony for its
young's sake, and suffers itself to be killed without attempting to
escape. The mighty Ceticide Captain Scoresby describes a most
affecting instance of this; “there is something,” he observes,
“extremely painful in the destruction of a whale, when thus evincing a
degree of affectionate regard for its offspring, that would do honour
to the superior intelligence of human nature; yet, he adds, the object
of the adventure, the value of the prize, the joy of the capture,
cannot be sacrificed to feelings of compassion.” That conclusion if it
were pursued to its legitimate consequences would lead farther than
Captain Scoresby would follow it!

The whale fishery has indeed been an object of almost portentous
importance according to the statements made by this well-informed and
very able writer. That on the coast of Greenland proved, he says, in a
short time the most lucrative and the most important branch of
national commerce that had ever been offered to the industry of man.
The net profits which the Dutch derived from the Greenland fishery
during an hundred and seven years are stated at more than 20 millions
sterling.

The class of Captains and seamen, employed in the southern
whale-fishery, says a person engaged in that business himself, are
quite different from any other. Lads taken from the streets without
shoes and stockings, become many of them masters of ships and men of
very large property. “There was an instance, a short time ago of one
dying worth £60,000.: and I can point out twenty instances of persons
worth 7 or 8, or £10,000. who have risen without any patronage
whatever by their own exertions. It does not require any patronage to
get on in the fishery.” Such is the statement of one who was examined
before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1833, upon the state of
Manufactures, Commerce and Shipping.

In a pamphlet written about the middle of the last century to
recommend the prosecution of this trade, it was stated that the
whale-fishery is of the nature of a lottery, where tho' the
adventurers are certain losers on the whole, some are very great
gainers; and this, it was argued, instead of being a discouragement
was in fact the most powerful motive by which men were induced to
engage in it.

If indeed the pleasure of gambling be in proportion to the stake, as
those miserable and despicable persons who are addicted to that vice
seem to think it is; and if the pleasure which men take in field
sports, be in proportion to the excitement which the pursuit calls
forth, whaling must be in both respects the most stimulating of all
maritime adventures. One day's sport in which Captain Scoresby took
three whales, produced a return of £2,100. and several years before he
retired from this calling he had been personally concerned in the
capture of three hundred, and twenty-two. And his father in
twenty-eight voyages, in which he commanded a ship brought home 498
whales, producing 4246 tons of oil, the value of which, with that of
the whale-bone, exceeded £150,000. “all fished for under his own
direction out of the sea.”

The whale fishery is even of more importance as a nursery for seamen,
for of all naval services it is the most severe; and this thorough
seaman describes the excitement and the enjoyment of a whaler's life
as being in proportion to the danger. “The difficulties and
intricacies of the situation, when the vessel is to be forced through
masses of drift ice, afford exercise,” he says, “for the highest
possible exertion of nautical skill, and are capable of yielding to
the person who has the management of a ship, a degree of enjoyment,
which it would be difficult for navigators accustomed to mere common
place operations duly to appreciate. The ordinary management of a
ship, under a strong gale, and with great velocity, exhibits
evolutions of considerable elegance; but these cannot be compared with
the navigation in the intricacies of floating ice, where the
evolutions are frequent, and perpetually varying; where manœuvres are
to be accomplished, that extend to the very limits of possibility; and
where a degree of hazard attaches to some of the operations, which
would render a mistake of the helm,—or a miscalculation of the powers
of a ship, irremediate and destructive.”—How wonderful a creature is
man, that the sense of power should thus seem to constitute his
highest animal enjoyment!

In proportion to the excitement of such a life, Captain Scoresby
describes its religious tendency upon a well disposed mind, and this
certainly has been exemplified in his own person. “Perhaps there is no
situation in life,” he says, “in which an habitual reliance upon
Providence, and a well founded dependance on the Divine protection and
support, is of such sensible value as it is found to be by those
employed in seafaring occupations, and especially in the fishery for
whales. These are exposed to a great variety of dangers, many of which
they must voluntarily face; and the success of their exertions depends
on a variety of causes, over many of which they have no controul. The
anxiety arising from both these causes is greatly repressed, and often
altogether subdued, when, convinced of the infallibility and
universality of Providence by the internal power of religion, we are
enabled to commit all our ways unto God, and to look for his blessing
as essential to our safety, and as necessary for our success.”

John Newton of Olney has in his narrative of his own remarkable life,
a passage that entirely accords with these remarks of Captain
Scoresby, and which is in like manner the result of experience. “A
sea-faring life,” he says, “is necessarily excluded from the benefit
of public ordinances, and christian communion.—In other respects, I
know not any calling that seems more favourable, or affords greater
advantages to an awakened mind, for promoting the life of God in the
soul, especially to a person who has the command of a ship, and
thereby has it in his power to restrain gross irregularities in
others, and to dispose of his own time.—To be at sea in these
circumstances, withdrawn out of the reach of innumerable temptations,
with opportunity and a turn of mind disposed to observe the wonders of
God, in the great deep, with the two noblest objects of sight the
expanded heavens and the expanded ocean, continually in view; and
where evident interpositions of Divine Providence in answer to prayer
occur almost every day; these are helps to quicken and confirm the
life of faith, which in a good measure supply to a religious sailor
the want of those advantages which can be only enjoyed upon the shore.
And indeed though my knowledge of spiritual things (as knowledge is
usually estimated) was at this time very small, yet I sometimes look
back with regret upon those scenes. I never knew sweeter or more
frequent hours of divine communion than in my two last voyages to
Guinea, when I was either almost secluded from society on ship-board,
or when on shore among the natives.”

What follows is so beautiful (except the extravagant condemnation of a
passionate tenderness which he, of all men, should have been the last
to condemn) that the passage though it has set us ashore, must be
continued a little farther. “I have wandered,” he proceeds, “thro' the
woods, reflecting on the singular goodness of the Lord to me in a
place where, perhaps, there was not a person who knew him, for some
thousand miles round me. Many a time upon these occasions I have
restored the beautiful lines of Tibullus,[1] to the right owner; lines
full of blasphemy and madness, when addressed to a creature, but full
of comfort and propriety in the mouth of a believer.

_Sic ego desertis possum bene vivere sylvis,
Quà nulla humano sit via trita pede.
Tu mihi curarum requies, in nocte vel atra
Lumen, et in solis tu mihì turba locis._”

[Footnote 1: Mr. Newton by an easy slip of the memory, has ascribed
the lines to Propertius.]

CHAPTER CLXVII.

A MOTTO WHICH IS WELL CHOSEN BECAUSE NOT BEING APPLICABLE IT SEEMS TO
BE SO. THE AUTHOR NOT ERRANT HERE OR ELSEWHERE. PHILOSOPHY AND
OTHER-OSOPHIES.

CHARLES LLOYD.

The pleasing pensive stanza, which thou, gentle reader hast just
perused, is prefixed to this Chapter because it would be so felicitous
a motto, if only it were applicable; and for that very reason it is
felicitous, its non-applicability furnishing a means of happy
application.

_Il y a du bonheur et de l'esprit à employer les paroles d'un poëte à
une chose à quoy le poëte ne pense jamais, et à les employer si à
propos qu'elles semblent avoir esté faites exprés pour le sujet auquel
elles sont appliquées._[1]

[Footnote 1: P. BOUHOURS.]

“Good Sir, you understand not;”—yet I am not saying with the Pedagogue
at the Ordinary,

Let's keep them
In desperate hope of understanding us;
Riddles and clouds are very lights of speech.
I'll veil my careless anxious thoughts as 'twere
In a perspicuous cloud, that so I may
Whisper in a loud voice, and even be silent
When I do utter words.[2]

Here, as every where my intention is to be perfectly intelligible; I
have not digressed either from my theme or friend; I am neither poor
in stuff for thought, nor in thought for working; nor, (if I may be
permitted so to say) in skill for manipulating it. I have not been
idly musing, nor have I missed my road, but have kept the track
faithfully, and not departed from the way in which I was trained up.
All that I have been saying belongs to, and is derived from the
philosophy of my friend: yes, gentle Reader, all that is set before
thee in these well stored volumes. _Una est enim philosophia,
quascumque in oras disputationis regionesve delata est. Nam sive de
cœli naturâ loquitur, sive de terræ, sive de divinâ vi, sive de
humanâ, sive ex inferiore loco, sive ex æquo, sive ex superiore, sive
ut impellat homines, sive ut doceat, sive ut deterreat, sive ut
concitet, sive ut incendat, sive ut reflectat, sive ut leniat, sive ad
paucos, sive ad multos, sive inter alienos, sive cum suis, sive secum,
rivis est deducta philosophia, non fontibus._

[Footnote 2: CARTWRIGHT.]

We speak of the philosophy of the Porch, and of the Grove, and of the
Sty when we would express ourselves disdainfully of the Epicureans.
But we cannot in like manner, give to the philosophy which pervades
these volumes, a local habitation and a name, because the philosophy
of Doncaster would popularly be understood to mean the philosophy of
the Duke of Grafton, the Marquis of Exeter, and Mr. Gully, tho' that
indeed belongs not to Philosophy but to one of its dialects,
varieties, or corrupted forms, which are many; for example, there is
Fallosophy practised professionally by Advocates, and exhibited in
great perfection by Quacks, and Political Economists; Failosophy, the
science of those who make bankruptcy a profitable adventure;
Fellowsophy, which has its habitat in common rooms at Cambridge, and
Oxford; Feelosophy common to Lawyers and Physicians; Fillyosophy well
understood on the turf, and nowhere better than in Doncaster; and
finally the Foolosophy of Jeremy Bentham, and of all those who have
said in their hearts—what it saddens a compassionate heart to think
that even the Fool should say!

CHAPTER CLXVIII.

NE-PLUS-ULTRA-WHALE-FISHING. AN OPINION OF CAPTAIN SCORESBY'S. THE
DOCTOR DENIES THAT ALL CREATURES WERE MADE FOR THE USE OF MAN. THE
CONTRARY DEMONSTRATED IN PRACTICE BY BELLARMINE.

_Sequar quo vocas, omnibus enim rebus omnibusque sermonibus, aliquid
salutare miscendum est._

SENECA.

The hardiest of Captain Scoresby's sailors would never, methinks have
ventured upon a manner of catching the whale used by the Indians in
Florida, which Sir Richard Hawkins says is worthy to be considered,
inasmuch as the barbarous people have found out so great a secret, by
the industry and diligence of one man, to kill so great, and huge a
monster. Let not the reader think meanly of an able and judicious, as
well as brave adventurous and unfortunate man, because he believed
what he thus relates:

“The Indian discovering a whale, procureth two round billets of wood,
sharpened both at one end, and so binding them together with a cord,
casteth himself with them into the sea, and swimmeth towards the
whale. If he come to him the whale escapeth not; for he placeth
himself upon his neck; and altho' the whale goeth to the bottom, he
must of force rise presently to breathe, for which nature hath given
him two great holes in the top of his head by which every time that he
breatheth, he spouteth out a great quantity of water; the Indian
forsaketh not his hold, but riseth with him, and thrusteth in a log
into one of his spouters, and with the other knocketh it in so fast,
that by no means the whale can get it out: that fastened, at another
opportunity, he thrusteth in the second log into the other spouter,
and with all the force he can, keepeth it in. The whale not being able
to breathe swimmeth presently ashore, and the Indian a cock-horse upon
him!” Hawkins says that many Spaniards had discoursed to him upon this
subject, who had been eye-witnesses of it!

“Most other animals when attacked,” says Captain Scoresby,
“instinctively pursue a conduct which is generally the best calculated
to secure their escape; but not so the whale. Were it to remain on the
surface after being harpooned, to press steadily forward in one
direction, and to exert the wonderful strength that it possesses; or
were it to await the attacks of its enemies, and repel them by
well-timed flourishes of its tremendous tail, it would often
victoriously dispute the field with man whose strength and bulk
scarcely exceed a nine hundredth part of its own. But like the rest of
the lower animals, it was designed by Him who ‘created great whales,’
and every living creature that moveth to be subject to man; and
therefore when attacked by him, it perishes by its simplicity.”

Captain Scoresby now holds a commission in the spiritual service as a
fisher of men,—a commission which I verily believe has been most
properly applied for and worthily bestowed. Whether this extraordinary
change in life has produced any change in his opinion upon this
subject I know not; or whether he still thinks that whales were made
subject to man, in order that man might slaughter them for the sake of
their blubber and their whalebone.

Nevertheless it was a foolish wish of mine that gas-lights might
supersede the use of train-oil; foolish because a little foresight
might have made me apprehend that oil-gas might supersede coal-gas;
and a little reflection would have shown that tho' collieries are much
more necessary than the Greenland fishery can be pretended to be, far
greater evil is connected with them, and that this evil is without any
incidental good. For the Greenland fishery unquestionably makes the
best seamen; and a good seaman, good in the moral and religious, as
well as in the nautical sense of the word, is one of the highest
characters that this world's rough discipline can produce. Aye, says
an old Lieutenant, living frugally upon his poor half-pay, aye that he
is, by ——.

But it was not otherwise a foolish wish; for that the whale was made
for the use of man in any such way as the whalers take for granted, I
am very far from believing.

All creatures animate and inanimate, are constituent parts of one
great system; and so far dependent upon each other, and in a certain
sense each made for all. The whale is a link in the chain, and the
largest that has yet been found, for no one has yet caught a Kraken.

Cicero makes Crassus the orator commend the ancient philosophy which
taught that all things were thus connected:—_mihi quidem veteres illi,
majus quiddam animo complexi, multo plus etiam vidisse videntur, quam
quantum nostrorum ingeniorum acies intueri potest; qui omnia hæc, que
supra et subter, unum esse, et unâ vi atque unâ consensione naturæ
constricta esse dixerunt. Nullum est enim genus rerum quod aut avulsum
a cæteris per seipsum constare, aut, quo cætera si careant, vim suam
atque æternitatem conservare possint._ He expresses a doubt indeed
that _hæc major esse ratio videtur, quam ut hominum possit sensu, aut
cogitatione, comprehendi_: and with the proper reserve of such a
doubt, our Philosopher gave a qualified assent to the opinion,
restricting it however religiously to the inferior and visible
creation: but as to the notion that all things were made for the use
of man, in the sense that vulgar men believe, this he considered to be
as presumptuous and as absurd as the converse of the proposition which
Pope puts into the mouth of the pampered Goose. “The monstrous faith
of many made for one,” might seem reasonable and religious when
compared with such a supposition.

“Made for thy use,” the Doctor would say, “tyrant that thou art, and
weak as thou art tyrannical! Will the unicorn be willing to serve
thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind him with his band in the
furrow; or will he harrow the vallies after thee? Canst thou draw out
leviathan with an hook, will he make a covenant with thee, wilt thou
take him for a servant! Wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? Shall thy
companions make a banquet of him? Shall they part him among the
merchants? Made for thy use,—when so many may seem to have been made
for thy punishment and humiliation!”

There is a use indeed in these, but few men are so ready to
acknowledge, and act upon it as Bellarmine was, who being far more
indulgent to musquitos and other small deer than to heretics, allowed
them free right of pasture upon his corporal domains. He thought they
were created to afford exercise for our patience, and moreover that it
is unjust for us to interrupt them in their enjoyment here, when we
consider that they have no other paradise to expect. Yet when the
Cardinal Controversialist gave breakfast, dinner, or supper of this
kind, he was far from partaking any sympathetic pleasure in the
happiness which he imparted; for it is related of him that at one time
he was so terribly bitten a _bestiolis quibusdam nequam ac
damnificis_, (it is not necessary to enquire of what species) as
earnestly to pray that if there were any torments in Hell itself so
dreadful as what he was then enduring, the Lord would be pleased not
to send him there, for he should not be able to bear it.

What could the Cardinal then have thought of those Convents that were
said to have an apartment or dungeon into which the Friars every day
during the warm season, brushed or shook the fleas from their habits
thro' an aperture above (being the only entrance) and where whenever a
frail brother was convicted of breaking the most fragile of his vows,
he was let down naked and with his hands tied! This earthly Purgatory
was called _la Pulciara_, that is the Fleaery, and there the culprit
was left till it was deemed that he had suffered punishment enough in
this life for his offence.

_Io tengo omai per infallibil cosa,
Che sian per nostro mal nati gl'insetti
Per renderci la vita aspra e nojosa.
Certo in quei primi giorni benedetti
Ne gli orti del piacer non abitaro
Questi sozzi e molesti animaletti;
Ne' con gli altri animali a paro a paro
Per saper come avessero a chiamarsi
Al cospetto d'Adam si presentaro:_

* * * * *

_Nacquero dunque sol per nostro male
Queste malnate bestie, e fur prodotte
In pena de la colpa originate._

* * * * *

_E come l'uomo a sospirar ridutto
Per l'interno sconcerto de gli affetti
Pravi, germoglia miserabil frutto;
Cosè la terra fra suoi varj effetti
Pel reo fermento, onde bollir si sente,
Da se produce i velenosi insetti.
Infin, da la materia putrescente,
Nascon l'abbominevoli bestiuole,
Ed è questa per me cosa evidente.
So che nol voglion le moderne scuole;
Ma ciò che monta? In simile argomento
E'lecito a ciascun dir ciò che vuole._[1]

[Footnote 1: CORDARA.]

CHAPTER CLXIX.

LINKS AND AFFINITIES. A MAP OF THE AUTHOR'S INTELLECTUAL COURSE IN THE
FIVE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

_Ὦ φίλε Φαῖδρε, ποῖ δὴ καὶ πόθεν;_

PLATO.

And now it may be agreeable to the reader to be presented here with a
sort of synopsis, or itinerary, whereby as in a chart he may trace
what he perhaps has erroneously considered the erratic course of
association in the five antecedent Chapters.

First, then Aristotle held that domesticated animals were benefitted
by their connection with man.

Secondly, the Biographer and disciple of Dr. Dove thought that
Aristotle was not altogether right when he held that domesticated
animals were benefitted by their connection with man.

Thirdly, Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and
Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted, confirmed the
opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was
not altogether right when he held that domesticated animals were
benefitted by their connection with man.

Fourthly, it was seen that Goosey-Loosey, ended her speech abruptly
and significantly with the word _But_: When Chick-Pick and Hen-Pen,
and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey,
being consulted, confirmed the opinion of the Biographer and Disciple
of Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was not altogether right when he held that
domesticated animals were benefitted by their connection with man.

Fifthly, it was observed that Grammarians have maintained many and
mysterious opinions concerning the nature of the word _But_, with
which Goosey-Loosey ended her speech abruptly and significantly, after
Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and
Turkey-Lurkey and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted had confirmed the
opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was
not altogether right when he held that domesticated animals were
benefitted by their connection with man.

Sixthly, a question was propounded, after it had been observed that
Grammarians have maintained many and mysterious opinions concerning
the nature of the word _But_, with which Goosey-Loosey ended her
speech, abruptly and significantly, after Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and
Cock-Lock and Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey, being
consulted had confirmed the opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of
Dr. Dove that Aristotle was not altogether right when he held that
domesticated animals were benefitted by their connection with man.

Seventhly, the Reader answered the question which the writer
propounded after it had been observed that Grammarians have maintained
many and mysterious opinions concerning the nature of the word _But_,
with which Goosey-Loosey ended her speech abruptly and significantly,
after Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and
Turkey-Lurkey and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted had confirmed the
opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove that Aristotle was
not altogether right when he held that domesticated animals were
benefitted by their connection with man.

Eighthly, it appeared that the Reader had hit the _But_, when he
answered the question, which the writer propounded, after it had been
observed, that Grammarians have maintained many and mysterious
opinions concerning the nature of the word _But_, with which
Goosey-Loosey, ended her speech abruptly and significantly, after
Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and
Turkey-Lurkey and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted, had confirmed the
opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was
not altogether right when he held that domesticated animals were
benefitted by their connection with man.

Ninthly, there was an entry of one million, eight hundred and twenty
thousand Goose Quills, entered in that place, because the Reader had
hit the _But_, when he answered the question, which the writer
propounded after it had been observed that Grammarians have maintained
many and mysterious opinions concerning the nature of the word _But_,
with which Goosey-Loosey, ended her speech abruptly and significantly,
after Chick-Pick and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and
Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted, had confirmed the
opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was
not altogether right when he held that domesticated animals were
benefitted by their connection with man.

Tenthly, the Reader was called upon to consider the good and evil
connected with those one million, eight hundred, and twenty thousand
goose quills, the entry of which was entered in that place, because
the Reader had hit the _But_, when he answered the question which the
writer propounded after it had been observed that Grammarians have
maintained many and mysterious opinions concerning the nature of the
word _But_, with which Goosey-Loosey ended her speech abruptly and
significantly after Chick-Pick and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and
Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted, had
confirmed the opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove that
Aristotle was not altogether right when he held that domesticated
animals were benefitted by their connection with man.

Eleventhly, a wish concerning Whales was expressed, which was
associated it has not yet appeared how, with the feeling in which the
Reader is called upon to consider the good and the evil connected with
those one million, eight hundred, and twenty thousand goose quills,
the entry of which was entered in that place, because the Reader had
hit the _But_, when he answered the question, which the writer
propounded, after it had been observed that Grammarians have
maintained many and mysterious opinions concerning the nature of the
word _But_, with which Goosey-Loosey, ended her speech abruptly and
significantly, after Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and
Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted, had
confirmed the opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that
Aristotle was not altogether right when he held that domesticated
animals were benefitted by their connection with man.

Twelfthly, Captain Scoresby was introduced in consequence of a wish
concerning Whales having been expressed, which was associated it has
not yet appeared how, with the feeling in which the Reader was called
upon to consider the good and the evil connected with those one
million, eight hundred, and twenty thousand goose quills, the entry of
which was entered in that place, because the Reader had hit the _But_,
when he answered the question, which the writer propounded, after it
had been observed that Grammarians have maintained many and mysterious
opinions concerning the nature of the word _But_, with which
Goosey-Loosey, ended her speech abruptly and significantly, after
Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and
Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted, had confirmed the
opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was
not altogether right when he maintained that domesticated animals were
benefitted by their connection with man.

Thirteenthly, some curious facts concerning the Greenland fishery were
stated on the authority of Captain Scoresby, who was introduced in
consequence of a wish concerning Whales having been expressed, which
was associated, it has not yet appeared how, with the feeling in which
the Reader was called upon to consider the good and the evil connected
with those one million, eight hundred and twenty thousand goose
quills, the entry of which was entered in that place, because the
Reader had hit the _But_, when he answered the question which the
writer propounded after it had been observed that Grammarians have
maintained many and mysterious opinions, concerning the nature of the
word _But_, with which Goosey-Loosey ended her speech, abruptly and
significantly, after Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and
Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey, being consulted,
confirmed the opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that
Aristotle was not altogether right when he held that domesticated
animals were benefitted by their connection with man.

Fourteenthly, a beautiful stanza was quoted from a poem by Mr. Charles
Lloyd which becoming applicable as a motto, because it seemed
inapplicable, was applied, after some curious facts concerning the
Greenland fishery had been stated on the authority of Captain
Scoresby, who was introduced in consequence of a wish concerning
Whales having been expressed, which was associated, it has not yet
appeared how, with the feeling in which the Reader was called upon to
consider the good and the evil connected with those one million, eight
hundred, and twenty thousand goose quills, the entry of which was
entered in that place, because the Reader had hit the _But_, when he
answered the question which the writer propounded, after it had been
observed that Grammarians have maintained many and mysterious opinions
concerning the nature of the word _But_, with which Goosey-Loosey
ended her speech abruptly and significantly, after Chick-Pick, and
Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey, and
Goosey-Loosey, being consulted, confirmed the opinion of the
Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was not altogether
right when he held that domesticated animals were benefitted by their
connection with man.

Fifteenthly, that the writer in all which went before had adhered, and
was at present adhering to the philosophy of Dr. Dove, was shown in
relation to a beautiful stanza that had been quoted from a poem by Mr.
Charles Lloyd; which becoming applicable as a motto because it seemed
to be inapplicable, was applied, after some curious facts concerning
the Greenland fishery had been stated, on the authority of Captain
Scoresby, who was introduced in consequence of a wish concerning
Whales having been expressed; which was associated, it has not yet
appeared how, with the feeling in which the Reader was called upon to
consider the good and the evil connected with those one million, eight
hundred and twenty thousand goose quills, the entry of which was
entered in that place, because the Reader had hit the _But_, when he
answered the question which the writer propounded, after it had been
observed that Grammarians have maintained many and mysterious opinions
concerning the nature of the word _But_, with which Goosey-Loosey
ended her speech abruptly and significantly, after Chick-Pick, and
Hen-Pen, and Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey, and
Goosey-Loosey, being consulted, confirmed the opinion of the
Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was not altogether
right, when he held that domesticated animals were benefitted by their
connection with man.

Sixteenthly, an assertion of Captain Scoresby's that Whales were
created for man was brought forward when it had been shown that the
writer in all which went before had adhered, and was at present
adhering to the philosophy of Dr. Dove, in relation to a beautiful
stanza that had been quoted from a poem by Mr. Charles Lloyd, which
becoming applicable as a motto because it seemed to be inapplicable,
was applied, after some curious facts concerning the Greenland fishery
had been stated on the authority of Captain Scoresby, who was
introduced in consequence of a wish concerning Whales having been
expressed, which was associated, it has not yet appeared how, with the
feeling in which the reader was called upon to consider the good and
the evil connected with those one million, eight hundred, and twenty
thousand goose quills, the entry of which was entered in that place
because the Reader had hit the _But_, when he answered the question
which the writer propounded, after it had been observed that
Grammarians have maintained many and mysterious opinions concerning
the nature of the word _But_, with which Goosey-Loosey ended her
speech, abruptly and significantly, after Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and
Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey, and Goosey-Loosey, being
consulted, confirmed the opinion of the Biographer and Disciple of Dr.
Dove, that Aristotle was not altogether right, when he held that
domesticated animals were benefitted by their connection with man.

Seventeenthly and lastly, the Biographer and Disciple of Dr. Dove
opposed the assertion of Captain Scoresby that Whales were created for
man, which assertion was brought forward when it had been shown, that
the writer in all which went before had adhered and was at present
adhering to the philosophy of Dr. Dove, in relation to a beautiful
stanza that had been quoted from a poem of Mr. Charles Lloyd, which
becoming applicable as a motto because it seemed to be inapplicable,
was applied after some curious facts concerning the Greenland fishery
had been stated on the authority of Captain Scoresby, who was
introduced in consequence of a wish concerning Whales having been
expressed, which was associated, it has not yet appeared how, with the
feeling in which the Reader was called upon to consider the good and
the evil connected with those one million, eight hundred and twenty
thousand goose quills, the entry of which was entered in that place
because the Reader had hit the But, when he answered the question,
which the writer propounded, after it had been observed that
Grammarians have maintained many and mysterious opinions concerning
the nature of the word _But_, with which Goosey-Loosey ended her
speech, abruptly and significantly, after Chick-Pick, and Hen-Pen, and
Cock-Lock, and Duck-Luck, and Turkey-Lurkey and Goosey-Loosey, being
consulted, confirmed the opinion of the Biographer, and Disciple of
Dr. Dove, that Aristotle was not altogether right, when he held that
domesticated animals were benefitted by their connection with man.

You see Reader where we are, and whence we came, and I have thus
retraced for you the seventeen stages of association by which we have
proceeded from the one point to the other, because you will have much
more satisfaction in seeing the substance of the aforesaid five
chapters thus clearly and coherently recapitulated, than if it had
been in the common form, simply and compendiously capitulated at the
head of each. For in this point I agree with that good, patient,
kind-hearted, industrious, ingenious, odd, whimsical and yet withal
_dullus homo_, James Elphinstone, Radical Reformer of English
Orthography. He says, and you shall have the passage in
Elphinstonography, as he printed it, “I own myself an ennemy to
hwatevver seems quaint in dhe verry contents ov a chapter; and dho dhe
starts ov surprize be intollerabell, wons plezzure iz no les balked by
anticipation. Hoo indeed prezents a bil ov fare, widh an
entertainment? Hwen dhe entertainment iz over, dhe bil may doutles com
in, to refresh dhe memmory, edher widh plan or particulers, dhat hav
regaled dhe various pallates ov dhe company.”

CHAPTER CLXX.

ORL. INN.

“Pappa, it's a breathless chapter!” says one whose eyes when they are
turned toward me I never meet without pleasure, unless sorrow has
suffused them, or illness dimmed their light.

Nobody then can give so much effect to it in reading aloud as the Lord
Chancellor Brougham and Vaux, he having made a speech of nine hours
long upon the state of the law and thereby proved himself to be the
most long-winded of living men. And fit it is that he should be so;
for there are very few men to whom whether he be right or wrong, it
can be so well worth while to listen.

Yet give me space a while for to respire,
And I myself shall fairly well out-wind.[1]

[Footnote 1: HENRY MORE.]

For I have read no idle or unprofitable lesson in this remuneration.
Were we thus to retrace the course of our own lives, there are few of
us who would not find that that course had been influenced, and its
most important events brought about, by incidents which might seem as
casually or capriciously connected as the seventeen links of this
mental chain. Investigate any thing backward through seventeen
generations of motives, or moving causes, whether in private, or in
public life: see from what slight and insignificant circumstances
friendships have originated, and have been dissolved; by what
accidents the choice of a profession, or of a wife, have been
determined, and on how inconsiderable a point the good or ill fortune
of a life has depended;—deaths, marriages, wealth or poverty, opinions
more important than all other things, as in their consequence
affecting our happiness not only here but hereafter; victories and
defeats, war and peace, change of ministries and of dynasties,
revolutions, the overthrow of thrones, the degradation and the ruin
and the destruction and the disappearance of nations! Trace any of
these backward link by link, and long before we are lost in the series
of causes, we shall be lost in thought and in wonder; so much will
there be to humble the pride of man, to abate his presumption, and to
call for and confirm his faith.

_On dit que quand les Chinois, qui n'ont pas l'usage des horologes,
commencerent à voir ces rouës, ces balanciers, ces volans, ces
contrepoids, et tout l'attirail de ces grandes machines, considerant
les pieces à part et comme desmembrées, ils n'en firent pas grand
estat, pource qu'ils ne sçavoient à quel usage devoient servir toutes
ces pieces: mais comme elles furent montées, et qu'ils oüyrent les
heures sur le tymbre, ils furent si surpris d'estonnement, qu'ils
s'assembloient à trouppes pour voir le mouvement de l'aiguille, et
pour entendre les heures; et appellerent ces machines en leur langue,_
LE FER QUI PARLE. _Je dis que qui considera les parties de la
Providence Divine comme desmembrées et à piece, tant de ressorts, tant
d'accordans divers, tant d'evenemens qui nous semblent casuels, ne se
pourra jamais imaginer la beauté de cette machine, la sagesse de cette
Providence, la conduitte de ce grand corps; à cause qu'on fait tort à
un ouvrage fait à la Mosaíque de le voir à lambeaux; il le faut voir
monté et rangé par le menu pour marquer sa beauté. Mais quand on
entend l'heure qui sonne sur le tymbre, on commence à cognoistre qu'il
y avoit au dedans une belle et agreable police qui paroist au dehors
par la sonnerie. Ainsi en est il à peu pres de la vie d'un homme._[2]

[Footnote 2: GARASSE.]

May not that which frequently has been, instruct us as to what will
be! is a question which Hobbes proposes, and which he answers in the
negative. “No;” he replies to it, “for no one knows what may be,
except He who knows all things, because all things contribute to every
thing”—

_Nonne
Id quod sæpe fuit, nos docet id quod erit?
Non; scit enim quod erit, nisi qui sciat omnia, nemo;
Omni contribuunt omnia namque rei._

The philosopher of Doncaster was far from agreeing with the
philosopher of Malmesbury upon this as upon many other points. _De
minimis non curat lex_, was a maxim with him in philosophy as well as
in law. There were many things he thought, which ended in as little as
they began, fatherless and childless actions, having neither cause nor
consequence, bubbles upon the stream of events, which rise, burst, and
are no more:—

A moment seen then gone for ever.[3]

[Footnote 3: BURNS.]

What John Newton said is nevertheless true; the way of man is not in
himself! nor can he conceive what belongs to a single step. “When I go
to St. Mary Woolnoth,” he proceeds, “it seems the same whether I turn
down Lothbury or go through the Old Jewry; but the going through one
street and not another may produce an effect of lasting consequence.”
He had proof enough of this in the providential course of his own
eventful life; and who is there that cannot call to mind some striking
instances in his own?

“There is a time coming,” said this good man, “when our warfare shall
be accomplished, our views enlarged, and our light increased; then
with what transports of adoration and love shall we look back upon the
way by which the Lord led us! We shall then see and acknowledge that
mercy and goodness directed every step; we shall see that what our
ignorance once called adversities and evils, were in reality blessings
which we could not have done well without; that nothing befell us
without a cause, that no trouble came upon us sooner, or pressed us
more heavily, or continued longer, than our case required: in a word
that our many afflictions were each in their place, among the means
employed by divine grace and wisdom, to bring us to the possession of
that exceeding and eternal weight of glory which the Lord has prepared
for his people. And even in this imperfect state, though we are seldom
able to judge aright of our present circumstances, yet if we look upon
the years of our past life, and compare the dispensations we have been
brought through, with the frame of our minds under each successive
period; if we consider how wonderfully one thing has been connected
with another; so that what we now number amongst our greatest
advantages, perhaps took their first rise from incidents which we
thought hardly worth our notice; and that we have sometimes escaped
the greatest dangers that threatened us, not by any wisdom or
foresight of our own, but by the intervention of circumstances, which
we neither desired nor thought of;—I say, when we compare and consider
these things by the light afforded us in the Holy Scriptures, we may
collect indisputable proof from the narrow circle of our own concerns,
that the wise and good providence of God watches over his people from
the earliest moment of their life, over-rules and guards them through
all their wanderings in a state of ignorance, and leads them in a way
they know not, till at length his providence and grace concur in those
events and impressions which bring them to the knowledge of Him and
themselves.”

“All things are brought upon us by Nature and Fate,” says the unknown
speculator who foisted his theology upon the world under the false
name of Hermes Trismegistus: “and there is no place deserted by
Providence. But Providence is the reason, perfect in itself, of
super-celestial Deity. From it are the two known Powers, Necessity and
Fate. Fate is the Minister of Providence and of Necessity; and the
Stars are the ministers of Fate. And no one can fly from Fate, nor
protect himself against its mighty force; for the Stars are the arms
of Fate, and according to it all things are affected in Nature and in
Men.” Take the passage in the Latin of Franciscus Patricius who
produced these mystic treatises from the Ranzovian Library.

_Omnia vero fiunt Naturâ et Fato. Et non est locus desertus a
Providentiâ. Providentia vero est per se perfecta ratio supercælestis
Dei. Duæ autem sunt ab eâ notæ potentiæ. Necessitas et Fatum. Fatum
autem ministrum est Providentiæ et Necessitatis. Fati vero ministræ
sunt stellæ. Neque enim Fatum fugere quis potest, neque se custodire
ab ipsius vi magnâ. Arma namque Fati sunt Stellæ, secùndum ipsum
namque cuncta efficiuntur Naturæ et hominibus._

Thus, says P. Garasse, there are six or seven steps down to man;
Providence, Necessity, Fate, the Stars, Nature, and then Man at the
lowest step of the ladder. For Providence, being _ratio absoluta
cælestis Dei_, is _comme hors de pair_: and has under her a servant
who is called Necessity, and Necessity has under her, her valet Fate,
and Fate has the Stars for its weapons, and the Stars have Nature for
their arsenal, and Nature has them for her subjects: The one serves
the other, “_en sorte que le premier qui manque à son devoir,
desbauche tout l'attirail; mais à condition, qu'il est hors de la
puissance des hommes d'eviter les armes du Destin qui sont les
Estoiles. Or je confesse que tout ce discours m'est si obscur et
enigmatique que j'entendrois mieux les resveries d'un phrenetique, ou
les pensées obscures de Lycophron; je m'asseure que Trismegiste ne
s'entendoit non plus lors qu'il faisoit ce discours, que nous
l'entendons maintenant._”

The Jesuit is right. Necessity, Fate and Nature are mere abstractions.
The Stars keep their courses and regard not us. Between Man and his
Maker nothing is interposed; nothing can be interposed between the
Omnipresent Almighty and the creatures of His hand. Receive this truth
into thy soul whoever thou be'est that readest, and it will work in
thee a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness! And ye who
tremble at the aweful thought, remember that though there be nothing
_between_ us and our Judge, we have a Mediator and Advocate _with_
Him, who is the propitiation for our sins, and who is “able to save
them to the uttermost that come to God through Him.”

CHAPTER CLXXI.

CONTAINING PART OF A SERMON, WHICH THE READER WILL FIND WORTH MORE
THAN MOST WHOLE ONES THAT IT MAY BE HIS FORTUNE TO HEAR.

_Je fais une grande provision de bon sens en prenant ce que les autres
en ont._

MADAME DE MAINTENON.

Reader! I set some learning before you in the last chapter, and
“however some may cry out that all endeavours at learning in a book
like this, especially where it steps beyond their little, (or let me
not wrong them) no brain at all, is superfluous, I am contented,” with
great Ben, “that these fastidious stomachs should leave my full
tables, and enjoy at home their clean empty trenchers.”

In pursuance of the same theme I shall set before you here some divine
philosophy in the words of Dr. Scott, the author of the Christian
Life. “The goods and evils that befall us here,” says that wise and
excellent preacher, who being dead yet speaketh, and will continue to
speak while there be any virtue and while there be any praise,—“the
goods and evils, which befall us here, are not so truly to be
estimated by themselves as by their effects and consequents. For the
Divine Providence which runs through all things, hath disposed and
connected them into such a series and order, that there is no single
event or accident (but what is purely miraculous) but depends upon the
whole system, and hath innumerable causes antecedent to it, and
innumerable consequents attending it; and what the consequents will
be, whether good or bad, singly and apart by itself, yet in
conjunction with all those consequents that will most certainly attend
it, the best event, for aught we know, may prove most mischievous, and
the worst most beneficial to us. So that for us boldly to pronounce
concerning the good or evil of events, before we see the train of
consequents that follow them, is very rash and inconsiderate. As for
instance, you see a good man oppressed with sorrows and afflictions,
and a bad man crowned with pleasures and prosperities; and considering
these things apart by themselves, you conclude that the one fares very
ill, and the other very well: but did you at the same time see the
consequents of the one's adversity and the other's prosperity, it's
probable you would conclude the quite contrary, _viz._ that the good
man's adversity was a blessing, and the bad man's prosperity a curse.
For I dare boldly affirm that good men generally reap more substantial
benefit from their afflictions, than bad men do from their
prosperities. The one smarts indeed at present, but what follows?
perhaps his mind is cured by it of some disease that is ten times
worse to him than his outward affliction; of avarice and impatience,
of envy or discontent, of pride or vanity of spirit; his riches are
lessened but his virtues are improved by it; his body is impaired, but
his mind is grown sound and hale by it, and what he hath lost in
health, or wealth, or pleasure, or honour, he hath gained with vast
advantage in wisdom and goodness, in tranquillity of mind and
self-enjoyment, and methinks no man who believes he hath a soul should
grudge to suffer any tolerable affliction for bettering of his mind,
his will, and his conscience.

“On the other hand the bad man triumphs and rejoices at present; but
what follows? His prosperity either shrivels him into miserableness,
or melts him into luxury; the former of which impoverishes, and the
latter diseases him: for if the former be the effect of his
prosperity, it increases his needs, because before he needed only what
he had not, but now he needs both what he hath not, and what he hath,
his covetous desires treating him as the falconer doth his hawk,
luring him off from what he hath seized to fly at new game, and never
permitting him to prey upon his own quarry: and if the latter be the
effect of his prosperity, that is if it melts him into luxury it
thereby wastes his health to be sure, and commonly his estate too, and
so whereas it found him poor and well, it leaves him poor and
diseased, and only took him up from the plough, and sets him down at
the hospital. In general while he is possessed of it, it only bloats
and swells him, makes him proud and insolent, griping and oppressive;
pampers and enrages his lust, stretches out his desires into
insatiable bulimy, sticks his mind full of cares, and his conscience
of guiles, and by all those woeful effects it inflames his reckoning
with God, and treasures up wrath for him against the day of wrath: so
that comparing the consequences of the good man's adversity, with
those of the bad man's prosperity, it is evident that the former fares
well even in his worst condition, and the latter ill in his best. ‘It
is well for me,’ saith David, ‘that I was afflicted, for before I was
afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept thy commandments.’ But on
the contrary, when the wicked spring as the grass, saith the same
author, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, then it is
that they shall be destroyed for ever! If then in the consequents of
things, good men are blessed in their afflictions and bad men plagued
in their prosperities, as it is apparent they generally are, these
unequal distributions are so far from being an argument against
Providence, that they are a glorious instance of it. For wherein could
the divine Providence better express its justice and wisdom together,
than by benefiting the good, and punishing the bad by such cross and
unprobable methods?”

INTERCHAPTER XVII.

A POPULAR LAY NOTICED, WITH SUNDRY REMARKS PERTINENT THERETO,
SUGGESTED THEREBY, OR DEDUCED THEREFROM.

Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit: by and by it will strike.

TEMPEST.

There was a female personage of whom I will venture to say that every
one of my English readers, (Quakers perhaps excepted) has heard tell;
and a great many of my Scotch, Welsh, Irish, and Transatlantic ones
also—I venture to say this because her remarkable story has been
transmitted to us in a Lay, a species of composition the full value of
which has never been understood till the present age. Niebuhr and his
learned followers assure us that the whole early history of Rome is
founded upon no other authority than that of Lays, which have long
since perished. And very possibly there may be German professors of
Divinity who in like manner trace the Jewish history before Samuel to
the Lays of Samson, Jephthah, Gideon, and other heroes of the
Kritarchy, of Joshua, and of Moses, and so of the Patriarchs upwards.

To be sure it might startle us somewhat if these Lays were called by
the old fashioned name of Ballads, or old songs; and had either of
those appellations been used we might hesitate a little before we gave
implicit credit to so great a discovery.

Returning however to the personage of the Lay to which I have alluded,
and which has been handed down from mother and nurse to child by
immemorial tradition, and not stopping to enquire whether the tale
itself is an historical matter of fact, or what is now called a
mythos, and whether the personage is a mythological personage, the Lay
of the Little Woman when reduced to history, or prose narration, says
that she went to market to sell her eggs;—in historifying the fact
from this metrical document, I must take care to avoid any such
collocation of words as might lead me into the worst of all possible
styles, that of poetical prose. Numerous prose indeed not only carries
with it a charm to the ear but affords such facility to the utterance,
that the difference between reading aloud from a book so composed, or
from one which has been written without any feeling of numerousness on
the writer's part, is as great and perceptible as the difference
between travelling upon an old road, or a macadamized one. Twenty
pages of the one will exhaust the reader more than threescore of the
other, just as there was more fatigue in a journey of fifty miles,
fifty years ago, than there is in thrice the distance now. The fact is
certain, and may no doubt be physically explained. But numerous prose
and poetical prose, are things as different as gracefulness and
affectation.

All who remember the story will recollect that the Little Woman fell
asleep by the way side; and probably they will agree with me in
supposing, that this must have happened on her return from market,
after she had sold her eggs, and was tired with the business and
excitement of the day. A different conclusion would perhaps be drawn
from the Lay itself, were it not that in historical Lays many
connecting circumstances are past over because they were so well known
at the time the Lay was composed that it was deemed unnecessary to
touch upon them; moreover it should be observed that in Lays which
have been orally transmitted for many generations before they were
committed to writing, the less important parts are liable to be dropt.
Of this there is evidently an example in the present case. Most
countrywomen who keep the market go on horseback, and it is not
mentioned in the Lay that the Little Woman went on foot; yet that she
did so is certain; for nothing could be more likely than that being
tired with walking she should sit down to rest herself by the way
side, and nothing more unlikely than that if she had been on
horseback, she should have alighted for that purpose.

And here it is proper in this glose, commentary or exposition, to
obviate an injurious suspicion which might arise concerning the
character of the Little Woman, namely, that she must have been in
liquor. Had it been a Lay of present times, this it must be admitted
would have been very probable, the British Parliament having thought
fit to pass an Act, by virtue, or by vice of which, in addition to the
public houses previously established, which were so numerous that they
have long been a curse to the country,—in addition I say to these,
39,654 beer shops, as appears by a Parliamentary paper, were licensed
in the year 1835. This Utilitarian law ought to have been entitled an
Act for the increase of Drunkenness, and the promotion of sedition,
brutality, wretchedness, and pauperism. But the Little Woman lived
when there were not more public houses than were required for the
convenience of travellers; perhaps before there were any, when
strangers were entertained in monasteries, or went to the parsonage,
as was the custom within the present century in some parts of
Switzerland. In Iceland they are lodged in the Church at this time;
but this seems never to have been the case in England.

It was a hot day, probably at the latter end of summer, or perhaps in
autumn; this must be inferred from the circumstances of the story; and
if the Little Woman called at a gossip's house, and was offered some
refreshment, it is very possible that being thirsty she may have drank
a peg lower in the cup than she generally allowed herself to do; and
that being somewhat exhausted, the ale, beer, cyder, or metheglin may
have had more effect upon her than it would have had at another time,
and that consequently she may have felt drowsy as soon as she sate
down. This may be admitted without impeaching her reputation on the
score of temperance; and beyond this it is certain, as will presently
be made appear, that her head could not have been affected.

Sleep however

weigh'd her eye-lids down
And steep'd her senses in forgetfulness.

It will sometimes press heavily on the lids, even when the mind is
wakeful, and feverishly, or miserably employed; but it will seldom
steep the senses unless it be of that sound kind which denotes a
healthy body and a heart at ease. They who sleep soundly must be free
from care. In the south of Europe men of the lower classes lie down in
the sun or shade according to the season, and fall asleep like dogs at
any time. The less they are raised above animal life, the sounder the
sleep is, and the more it seems to be an act of volition with them;
when they close their eyes there is nothing within to keep them
waking.

Well, our Little Woman was sleeping on a bank beside the way, when a
Pedlar happened to come by. Not such a Pedlar as the one in Mr.
Wordsworth's Excursion, who was what Randolph's Pedlar describes
himself to be, “a noble, generous, understanding, royal, magnificent,
religious, heroical, and thrice illustrious Pedlar;” if Randolph had
been a Highlander this description might have been adduced as a proof
of the prophetic faculty,—a second-sight of that glorious poem, the
well established fame of which and the effect which it has produced
and is producing upon the present generation both of authors and
readers must be so peculiarly gratifying to Lord Jeffrey. No; he was
such a Pedlar as Autolycus, and if the Little Woman lived in the days
of King Leontes, it may possibly have been Autolycus himself; for he
had “a quick eye and a nimble hand,” and was one who “held Honesty for
a fool and Trust, his brother, for a very simple gentleman.” The
distance between Bohemia and England makes no difficulty in this
supposition. Gypsies used to be called Bohemians; and more over as
Uncle Toby would have told Trim, Bohemia might have been a maritime
country in those days; and when he found it convenient to return
thither, the readiest way was to get on board ship.

It is said however in the Lay that the Pedlar's name was Stout. It may
have been so; and yet I am disposed to think that this is a corrupt
passage, and that stout in this place is more probably an epithet,
than a name. The verse may probably have run thus,

There came by a Pedlar, a losell stout,

a stout thief being formerly as common a designation as a sturdy
beggar. This rogue seeing her asleep by the way-side, cut her
petticoats all round about up to the knee; whence it appears not only
how soundly she must have been sleeping, and how expert he was in this
branch of his trade, but also that her pockets were in her petticoats
and not a separate article of her dress.

At the marriage of Sir Philip Herbert with the Lady Susan Vere, which
was performed at the Court of Whitehall, in the year 1604, with all
the honour that could be done to a great favourite, many great Ladies
were made shorter by the skirts, like the Little Woman; and Sir Dudley
Carleton says “they were well enough served that they could keep cut
no better.” If the reader asks what is keeping cut? he asks a question
I cannot answer.

I have already observed that the weather was warm, and the proof is
twofold, first in the Little Woman's sitting down by the way, which in
cold weather she would not have done; and secondly, because when she
awoke and discovered the condition in which this cut-purse had left
her, she began to quiver and quake, for these words are plainly
intended to denote at the same time a sense of chilliness, and an
emotion of fear. She quivered perhaps for cold having been deprived of
so great a part of her lower garments; but she quaked for fear,
considering as well the danger she had been in, as the injury which
she had actually sustained. The confusion of mind produced by these
mingled emotions was so remarkable that Mr. Coleridge might have
thought it not unworthy of his psychological and transcendental
investigations; and Mr. Wordsworth might make it the subject of a
modern Lay to be classed either among his poems of the Fancy, or of
the Imagination as might to him seem fit. For the Lay says that the
Little Woman instead of doubting for a while whether she were asleep
or awake, that is to say whether she were in a dream because of the
strange, and indecorous, and uncomfortable and unaccountable condition
in which she found herself, doubted her own identity, and asked
herself whether she were herself, or not? So little was she able to
answer so subtle a question satisfactorily that she determined upon
referring it to the decision of a little dog which she had left at
home, and whose fidelity and instinctive sagacity could not, she
thought, be deceived. “If it be I,” said she, “as I hope it be, he
will wag his little tail for joy at my return; if it be not I, he will
bark at me for a stranger.” Homeward therefore the Little Woman went,
and confused as she was, she found her way there instinctively like
Dr. Southey's Ladurlad, and almost in as forlorn a state. Before she
arrived, night had closed, and it became dark. She had reckoned
rightly upon her dog's fidelity, but counted too much upon his
sagacious instinct. He did not recognise his mistress at that unusual
hour, and in a curtailed dress wherein he had never seen her before,
and instead of wagging his tail, and fawning, and whining, to bid her
welcome as she had hoped, he began to bark angrily, with faithful but
unfortunate vigilance, mistaking her for a stranger who could have no
good reason for coming about the premises at that time of night. And
the Lay concludes with the Little Woman's miserable conclusion that as
the dog disowned her she was not the dog's Mistress, not the person
who dwelt in that house, and whom she had supposed herself to be, in
fact not herself, but somebody else, she did not know who.

INTERCHAPTER XVIII.

_Lo que soy, razona poco
Porque de sombra a mi va nada, o poco._

FUENTE DESEADA.

The sagacious reader will already have applied the Lay of the Little
Woman to the case of Dr. Dove's disciple and memorialist, and mentally
apostrophizing him may have said,—

_de te
Fabula narratur._

Even so, dear reader, the Little Woman was a type of me, and yet but
an imperfect one, for my case is far more complicated than hers. The
simple doubt which distressed her, (and a most distressing one it must
be admitted that it was) was whether she were herself or not; but the
compound question which has been mooted concerning me is whether I am
myself or somebody else, and whether somebody else is himself or me.

When various conjectures were formed and assertions hazarded
concerning the Author or Editor of the Craftsman, some representing
Caleb D'Anvers as an imaginary person, a mere fictitious character
made use of to screen the performances of men in the dark, that
formidable opponent of Sir Robert Walpole's administration said, “I
hope it will not be expected that I should stand still and see myself
reasoned out of my existence.”

Every one knows that it is possible to be reasoned out of our rights
and despoiled in consequence of our property in a court of law; but
every one may not know that it is possible to be reasoned out of our
existence there: I do not mean condemned to death, and executed
accordingly upon the testimony of false witnesses, as those who
suffered for the Popish plot were; or upon circumstantial evidence,
honestly produced, and disproved when it was too late; but that an
individual may be judicially declared to be not in existence, when
actually present in the Court to give the Lawyers and the Law the lie.

On the 2d of March, 1784, the Irish Attorney General was heard before
the Irish House of Lords in the case of Hume and Loftus. In the course
of his argument he contended that judgements were of the most sacred
nature, and that to reverse one was in effect to overturn the law and
the constitution; the record was binding, and a bar to all other
evidence being produced to the Court. “He instanced a case wherein a
judgement had been given on the presumed death of a man's wife, who as
afterwards appeared was not dead, but was produced in person to the
Court and was properly identified, and it was prayed to the Court to
reverse the judgement given on supposition of her death which had been
pronounced by the same Court, as in the pleading stated. Nevertheless
the Court with the Woman before their eyes, pronounced her dead, and
confirmed the judgement, saying, that the verdict was not that which
was binding, but the judgement in consequence of the verdict having
become a record, could not be reversed.”

This woman upon hearing such a decision concerning herself pronounced,
might well have called in question not her identity but the evidence
of her senses, and have supposed that she was dreaming, or out of her
wits rather than that justice could be so outraged, and common sense
so grossly insulted in a Court of Law.

Happily my case is in no worse court than a Court of Criticism, a
Court in which I can neither be compelled to plead nor to appear.

Dr. Wordsworth rendered good service to English History when he asked
who wrote _Εικων Βασιλικη_, for it is a question of great historical
importance, and he has shown, by a careful investigation of all the
evidence which it has been possible to collect, that it is the work of
Charles himself, confirming thus that internal evidence which is of
the most conclusive kind.

Who was Junius is a question which is not likely ever to be determined
by discussion after so many fruitless attempts; but whenever the
secret shall by any chance be discovered, considerable light will be
thrown upon the political intrigues of the earlier part of a most
important reign.

But who or what I am can be of no importance to any but myself.

More than one hundred and fifty treatises are said to have been
published upon the question whether Thomas a Kempis was the Author of
the well known book _de Imitatione Christi_. That question affects the
Augustinians; for if it were proved that this native of Kemp near
Cologne, Thomas Hammerlein by name, were the transcriber only and not
the writer of that famous treatise, they would lose the brightest
ornament of their order. This Hammerlein has never been confounded
with his namesake Felix, once a Doctor and _Precentor Clarissimus_,
under whose portrait in the title page of one of his volumes where he
stands Hammer in hand, there are these verses.

_Felicis si te juvat indulsisse libellis
Malleoli, presens dilige lector opus.
Illius ingenium variis scabronibus actum
Perspicis, et stimulos sustinuisse graves.
Casibus adversis, aurum velut igne, probatus
Hostibus usque suis Malleus acer erat.
Hinc sibi conveniens sortitus nomen, ut esset
Hemmerlin dictus, nomine, reque, statu.
At Felix tandem, vicioque illæsus ab omni
Carceris e tenebris sydera clara subit._

This Hemmerlin in his Dialogue between a Nobleman and a Rustic, makes
the Rustic crave license for his rude manner of speech saying, _si
ruralis consuetudine moris ineptissime loquar per te non corripiar,
quia non sermonis colorum quoque nitorem, sed sensus sententiarumque
requiro rigorem. Nam legitur quod Demon sedebat et braccam cum reste
suebat; et dixit, si non est pulchra, tamen est consucio firma._ The
needle must have been considerably larger than Gammer Gurton's, which
is never-the-less and ever will be the most famous of all needles.

Well was it for Hodge when Diccon the Bedlam gave him the good
openhanded blow which produced the catastrophe of that Right Pithy,
Pleasant, and Merry Comedy entitled Gammer Gurton's Needle, well was
it I say for Hodge that the Needle in the episcopal comedy was not of
such calibre as that wherewith the Auld Gude Man, as the Scotch,
according to Sir Walter, respectfully call the Old Wicked One, in
their caution never to give any unnecessary offence,—Well, again I
say, was it for Hodge that his Gammer's Neele, her dear Neele, her
fair long straight Neele that was her only treasure, was of no such
calibre as the Needle which that Old One used, when mending his breeks
with a rope he observed that though it was not a neat piece of sewing
it was strong,—for if it had been such a Needle, Diccon's manual joke
must have proved fatal. Our Bishops write no such comedies now; yet we
have more than one who could translate it into Aristophanic Greek.

Wherefore did Thomas Warton (never to be named without respect and
gratitude by all lovers of English literature,) say that when the
Sermons of Hugh Latimer were in vogue at Court, the University might
be justified in applauding Gammer Gurton's Needle? How could he who so
justly appreciated the Comedy, disparage those sermons? He has spoken
of the play as the first in our language in which a comic story is
handled with some disposition of plot and some discrimination. “The
writer,” he says, “has a degree of jocularity which sometimes rises
above buffoonery, but is often disgraced by lowness of incident. Yet
in a more polished age he would have chosen, nor would he perhaps have
disgraced, a better subject. It has been thought surprizing that a
learned audience could have endured some of these indelicate scenes.
But the established festivities of scholars were gross, nor was
learning in that age always accompanied by gentleness of manners.” Nor
is it always now, nor has it ever been O Thomas Warton! if it had, you
would not when you wore a great wig, had taken the degree of B.D.,
been Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, and was moreover
Poet Laureate, most worthy of that office of all who have held it
since Great Ben, you would not in your mellow old age, when your
brother was Master of Winchester School, have delighted as you did in
hunting rats with the Winchester Boys.

O Thomas Warton! you had and could not but have a hearty liking for
all that is properly comic in the pithy old episcopal comedy! but that
you should even seem to disparage Latimer's Sermons is to me more than
most strange. For Latimer would have gained for himself a great and
enduring name in the pulpit, if he had not been called upon to bear
the highest and holiest of all titles. The pithy comedy no doubt was
written long before its author was consecrated Bishop of Bath and
Wells, and we may be sure that Bishop Still never reckoned it among
his sins. If its language were rendered every where intelligible and
its dirtiness cleaned away, for there is nothing worse to be removed,
Gammer Gurton's Needle might succeed in these days as a farce.

Fuller says he had read in the Register of Trinity College, Cambridge,
this commendation of Bishop Still that he was _αγαθος κουροτροφος_
_nec Collegio gravis aut onerosus_. Still was Master of that College,
as he had been before of St. Johns.

“What style,” says Sir John Harrington “shall I use to set forth this
Still, whom (well nigh thirty years since) my reverend tutor in
Cambridge styled by this name, ‘Divine Still,’ who, when my self came
to him to sue for my grace to be bachelor, first examined me strictly,
and after answered me kindly, that ‘the grace he granted me was not of
grace but of merit;’ who was often content to grace my young exercises
with his venerable presence; who, from that time to this, hath given
me some helps, more hopes, all encouragements, in my best studies; to
whom I never came, but I grew more religious; from whom I never went,
but I parted better instructed: Of him therefore, my acquaintance, my
friend, my instructor, and last my diocesan; if I speak much it were
not to be marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be blamed; and
though I speak partially, it were to be pardoned. Yet to keep within
my proportion custom and promise, in all these, I must say this much
of him; his breeding was from his childhood in good literature, and
partly in music, which was counted in those days a preparative to
Divinity, neither could any be admitted to _primam tonsuram_, except
he could first _bene le, bene con, bene can_, (as they call it,) which
is to read well, to construe well, and to sing well; in which last he
hath good judgement, and I have heard good music of voices in his
house.

“In his full time, more full of learning, he became Bachelor of
Divinity, and after Doctor; and so famous for a Preacher, and
especially a disputer, that the learned'st were even afraid to dispute
with him; and he finding his own strength would not stick to warn them
in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a perfect
fencer that will tell beforehand in which button he will give the
venew, or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint beforehand
with which pawn, and in what place, he will give the mate.

“One trifling accident happened to his Lordship at Bath, that I have
thought since of more consequence, and I tell him that I never knew
him _non plus_ in argument, but there. There was a craft's-man in
Bath, a recusant puritan, who condemning our Church, our Bishops, our
sacraments, our prayers, was condemned himself to die at the assizes,
but at my request Judge Anderson reprieved him, and he was suffered to
remain at Bath upon bail. The Bishop conferred with him, in hope to
convert him, and first, My Lord alleged for the authority of the
church, St. Augustine! The Shoemaker answered, ‘Austin was but a man.’
He (Still) produced, for the antiquity of Bishops the Fathers of the
Council at Nice. He answered, ‘They were also but men, and might err.’
‘Why then, said the Bishop, thou art but a man, and must, and dost
err.’ ‘No Sir, saith he, the Spirit bears witness to my spirit, I am
the child of God.’ ‘Alas! said the Bishop thy blind spirit will lead
thee to the gallows.’ ‘If I die, saith he, in the Lord's cause, I
shall be a martyr.’ The Bishop turning to me, stirred as much to pity
as impatience;—‘This man, said he, is not a sheep strayed from the
fold, for such may be brought in again on the shepherd's shoulders,
but this is like a wild buck broke out of a park whose pale is thrown
down, that flies the farther off, the more he is hunted.’ Yet this
man, that stopped his ears like the adder to the charms of the Bishop,
was after persuaded by a lay-man, and grew conformable. But to draw to
an end; in one question this Bishop whom I count an oracle for
learning, would never yet give me satisfaction, and that was, when I
asked him his opinion of witches. He saith ‘he knows other men's
opinions, both old and new writers, but could never so digest them, to
make them an opinion of his own.’ All I can get is ‘this, that the
Devil is the old Serpent our enemy, that we pray to be delivered from
daily; as willing to have us think he can do too much as to have us
persuaded he doth nothing.’”

In the account of Webster and his Writings, prefixed to his Works by
their able editor Mr. Dyce, that editor finds it necessary to bestow
much pains in showing that John Webster the Dramatist and Player, was
not John Webster the Puritan and Chaplain in the Army; but on the
other hand Mr. Payne Collier, who is a great authority in our stage
literature, contends that he was one and the same person, and that
when in the Prefatory Address to his Saint's Guide, he speaks of the
“damnable condition” from which the Lord in his wonderful mercy had
brought him, he could hardly mean any thing but his condition as a
player. It remained then to be argued whether either of these persons
were the John Webster, Practitioner in Physic and Chirurgery, who
wrote or compiled a work entitled Metalographia, a volume of Sermons
entitled The Judgement set and the Books opened, and a tract called
_Academiarum Examen_, or the Examination of Academies, wherein is
discussed and examined the Matter, Method, and Customs of Academic and
Scholastic Learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and laid
open: as also some expedients proposed for the reforming of schools
and the perfecting and promoting of all kind of science. A powerful
Tract Mr. Dyce calls it; and it must have been thought of some
importance in its day, for it provoked an answer from Seth Ward
afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and Wilkins afterwards the well known
Bishop of Chester, (from whom Peter Wilkins may perhaps have been
named) wrote in it an Epistle to the Author. One of these Websters
wrote a remarkable book against the then prevalent belief in
witchcraft, though he was himself a believer in astrology and held
that there are great and hidden virtues in metals and precious stones,
as they are by Nature produced, by mystical Chemistry prepared and
exalted, or commixed and insculped in their due and fit constellation.
Which of the John Websters was this? If it has not been satisfactorily
ascertained, whether there were one, two, three or four John Websters
after so much careful investigation by the most eminent bibliologists,
though it is not supposed that on the part of any John Webster there
was any design to conceal himself and mystify the public, by whom can
the question be answered concerning the authorship of this Opus,
except by me the Opifex, and those few persons trusted and worthy of
the trust, who are, like me, secret as the grave?

There is a history (and of no ordinary value) of Great Britain from
the Revolution to the Accession of George I. written in Latin by
Alexander Cunningham, translated from the Author's Manuscript by Dr.
William Thompson, and published in two quarto volumes by Dr.
Hollingbery in 1787. That the Author was Minister for George I. to the
Venetian Republic is certain; but whether he were the Alexander
Cunningham that lived at the same time, whose editions of Virgil and
Horace are well known, and whose reputation as a critic stood high
among the continental scholars of the last century is altogether
doubtful. If they were two persons, each was born in Scotland and
educated in Holland, each a friend and favourite of Carstares, King
William's confidential secretary for Scotch affairs, each a remarkably
good Chess Player, each an accomplished Latinist, and each concerned
in the education of John Duke of Argyle. Upon weaker evidence, says
Dr. Thompson, than that which seems to prove the identity of the two
Cunninghams decisions have been given that have affected fortunes,
fame, life, posterity and all that is dear to mankind; and yet
notwithstanding these accumulated coincidences, he comes at length to
the conclusion, that there are circumstances which seem incompatible
with their identity, and that probably they were different persons.

But what signifies it now to any one whether certain books published
in the seventeenth century were written by one and the same John
Webster, or by four persons of that name? What signifies it whether
Alexander Cunningham the historian was one and indivisible, like the
French Republic, or that there were two Alexander Cunninghams,
resembling each other as much as the two Sosias of the ancient drama,
or the two Dromios and their twin masters in the Comedy of Errors?
What signifies it to any creature upon earth? It may indeed afford
matter for enquiry in a Biographical Dictionary, or in the Gentleman's
Magazine, and by possibility of the remotest kind, for a law-suit. And
can we wonder that an identity of names has sometimes occasioned a
singular confusion of persons, and that Biographers and Bibliographers
should sometimes be thus at fault, when we find that the same thing
has deceived the most unerring of all Messengers,—Death himself.

Thus it was. There was a certain man, Curina by name, who lived in a
village not far from Hippo in the days of St. Augustine. This man
sickened and died; but because there seemed to be some faint and
intermitting appearances of life, his friends delayed burying him for
some days. Those appearances at length ceased; it could no longer be
doubted that he was indeed dead; when behold he opened his eyes, and
desired that a messenger might immediately be sent to his neighbour
and namesake Curina the blacksmith, and enquire how he was. The answer
was that he had just expired. The resuscitated Curina then related
that he himself had verily and indeed died, and that his soul had been
carried before the Judge of the Dead, who had vehemently reproved the
Ministering Spirits that brought him thither, seeing it was not for
him but for Curina the Blacksmith that they had been sent. This was
not only a joyful surprize for the reprieved or replevied Curina, but
a most happy adventure in other respects. He had not only an
opportunity of seeing Paradise in his excursion, but a friendly hint
was given him there, that as soon as his health was restored he should
repair to Hippo and there receive baptism from St. Augustine's hands.

When the wrong soul happens thus to be summoned out of the body, Pope
St. Gregory the Great assures us that there is no mistake; and who
shall question what the Infallible Pope and Saint affirms? “Peter,”
saith he, “in one of his Dialogues, when this happeneth, it is not if
it be well considered, any error, but an admonition. For God of his
great and bountiful mercy so disposeth, that some after their death do
straightways return again to life, in order that having seen the
torments of Hell, which before when they heard of they would not
believe, they may at least tremble at them after they have with their
own eyes beheld them. For a certain Sclavonian who was a Monk, and
lived with me here in this city, in my Monastery, used to tell me,
that at such time as he dwelt in the wilderness, he knew one Peter, a
Monk born in Spain, who lived with him in the vast desert called
Evasa, which Peter, (as he said) told him how before he came to dwell
in that place, he by a certain sickness died, and was straightway
restored to life again, affirming that he had seen the torments and
innumerable places of Hell, and divers who were mighty men in this
world hanging in those flames; and that as himself was carried to be
thrown also into the same fire, suddenly an Angel in a beautiful
attire appeared, who would not suffer him to be cast into those
torments, but spake unto him in this manner: ‘Go thy way back again,
and hereafter carefully look unto thyself how thou leadest thy life!’
after which words his body by little and little became warm, and
himself waking out of the sleep of everlasting death, reported all
such things as had happened about him; after which time he bound
himself to such fasting and watching, that though he had said nothing,
yet his life and conversation did speak what torments he had seen and
was afraid of; and so God's merciful providence wrought in his
temporal death that he died not everlastingly.

“But because man's heart is passing obdurate and hard, hereof it
cometh that though others have the like vision and see the same pains,
yet do they not always keep the like profit. For the honourable man
Stephen, whom you knew very well, told me of himself, that at such
time as he was upon business resident in the City of Constantinople,
he fell sick and died; and when they sought for a surgeon to bowel him
and to embalm his body and could not get any, he lay unburied all the
night following; in which space his soul was carried to the dungeon of
Hell, where he saw many things which before when he heard of, he had
little believed. But when he was brought before the Judge that sat
there, the Judge would not admit him to his presence, saying, ‘I
commanded not this man to be brought, but Stephen the Smith!’ upon
which words he was straightway restored to life, and Stephen the Smith
that dwelt hard by, at that very hour departed this life, whose death
did show that the words which he had heard were most true. But though
the foresaid Stephen escaped death in this manner at that time, yet
three years since in that mortality which lamentably wasted this city,
(and in which, as you know, men with their corporal eyes did behold
arrows that came from Heaven, which did strike divers,) the same man
ended his days. At which time a certain soldier being also brought to
the point of death, his soul was in such sort carried out of his body
that he lay void of all sense and feeling, but coming quickly again to
himself, he told them that were present what strange things he had
seen. For he said, (as many report who knew it very well,) that he saw
a bridge, under which a black and smoaky river did run that had a
filthy and intolerable smell; but upon the further side thereof there
were pleasant green meadows full of sweet flowers; in which also there
were divers companies of men apparelled in white; and such a delicate
savour there was that the fragrant odour thereof did give wonderful
content to all them that dwelt and walked in that place. Divers
particular mansions also there were, all shining with brightness and
light, and especially one magnifical and sumptuous house, which was
a-building, the bricks whereof seemed to be of Gold; but whose it was
that he knew not.

“There were also upon the bank of the foresaid river certain houses,
but some of them the stinking vapour which rose from the river did
touch, and some other it touched not at all. Now those that desired to
pass over the foresaid bridge, were subject to this manner of trial;
if any that was wicked attempted to go over, down he fell into that
dark and stinking river; but those that were just and not hindered by
sin, securely and easily passed over to those pleasant and delicate
places. There he said also that he saw Peter, who was Steward of the
Pope's family and died some four years since, thrust into a most
filthy place, where he was bound and kept down with a great weight of
iron; and enquiring why he was so used, he received this answer, which
all we that knew his life can affirm to be most true; for it was told
him that he suffered that pain, because when himself was upon any
occasion to punish others, that he did it more upon cruelty than to
show his obedience; of which his merciless disposition none that knew
him can be ignorant. There also he said that he saw a Priest whom he
knew, who coming to the foresaid Bridge passed over with as great
security as he had lived in this world sincerely.

“Likewise upon the same Bridge he said that he did see this Stephen
whom before we spake of, who being about to go over, his foot slipped,
and half his body hanging beside the Bridge, he was of certain
terrible men that rose out of the river, drawn by the legs downward,
and by certain other white and beautiful persons he was by the arms
pulled upward, and while they strove thus the wicked spirits to draw
him downward and the good to lift him upward, he that beheld all this
strange sight returned to life, not knowing in conclusion what became
of him. By which miraculous vision we learn this thing concerning the
life of Stephen, to wit, that in him the sins of the flesh did strive
with his works of alms. For in that he was by the legs drawn downward,
and by the arms plucked upward, apparent it is, that both he loved to
give alms, and yet did not perfectly resist the sins of the flesh
which did pull him downward; but in that secret examination of the
Supreme Judge, which of them had the victory, that neither we know nor
he that saw it. Yet more certain it is that the same Stephen after
that he had seen the places of Hell as before was said and returned
again to his body, did never perfectly amend his former wicked life,
seeing many years after he departed this world leaving us in doubt
whether he were saved or damned.”

Hereupon Peter the Deacon said to Pope St. Gregory the Great, “What I
beseech you was meant by the building of that house in those places of
delight, with bricks of gold? For it seemeth very ridiculous that in
the next life we should have need of any such kind of metal.” Pope
Gregory the Great answered and said, “What man of sense can think so?
But by that which was shown there, (whosoever he was for whom that
house was built,) we learn plainly what virtuous works he did in this
world; for he that by plenty of alms doth merit the reward of eternal
light, certain it is that he doth build his house with gold. For the
same soldier who had this vision said also, (which I forgot to tell
you before,) that old men and young, girls and boys, did carry those
bricks of gold for the building of that house, by which we learn that
those to whom we shew compassion in this world do labour for us in the
next. There dwelt hard by us a religious man called Deusdedit who was
a shoemaker, concerning whom another saw by revelation that he had in
the next world an house a-building, but the workmen thereof laboured
only upon the Saturday; who afterward enquiring more diligently how he
lived, found that whatsoever he got by his labour all the week and was
not spent upon necessary provision of meat and apparel, all that upon
the Saturday he bestowed upon the poor in alms, at St. Peter's Church;
and therefore see what reason there was that his building went forward
upon the Saturday.”

It was a very reasonable question that Peter the Deacon asked of
Gregory the Great, when he desired to know how it came to pass that
certain persons who were summoned into the other world, were told when
they got there that they were not the persons who had been sent for.
And it was not ill answered by the Pope that if properly considered,
this when it happeneth is not an error, but an admonition. Yet that
there was a mistake in the two cases of Curina and Stephen and their
respective namesakes and blacksmiths cannot be disputed,—a mistake on
the part of the Ministering Spirits. This may be accounted for by
supposing that inferior Spirits were employed in both cases, those for
whom they were sent not being of a condition to be treated with
extraordinary respect on such an occasion. Comets were never kindled
to announce the death of common men, and the lowest Spirits might be
deputed to take charge of the Blacksmiths. But Azrael himself makes no
mistakes.

Five things the Mahommedans say are known to no created Beings, only
to the Creator; the time of the Day of Judgement; the time of rain;
whether an unborn child shall be male or female; what shall happen
to-morrow, and when any person is to die. These the Arabians call the
five keys of secret knowledge, according to a tradition of their
Prophet, to whom questions of this kind were propounded by Al Hareth
Ebnn Amru. But it may be inferred from a tradition which Al Beidâwi
has preserved that one of these keys is committed to the Angel of
Death, when he is sent out in person to execute the irrevocable
decree.

The Arabians tell us that Solomon was exercising his horses one day
when the hour for evening prayer was announced. Immediately he
alighted, and would not allow either his own horse or any other in the
field to be taken to the stables, but gave orders that they should be
turned loose, being from thenceforth dedicated to the Almighty's
service, which the Arabians we are told call _Rebath fi sebil Allah_.
To reward the king for this instance of his piety, Allah gave him a
mild and pleasant but strong wind to be at his orders from that time
forth and carry him whithersoever he would.

Once on a time Azrael passed by Solomon in a visible form, and in
passing looked earnestly at a certain person who was sitting with the
king. That person not liking the earnestness and the expression of his
look, asked Solomon who it was, and Solomon replied it was the Angel
of Death. He looks as if he wanted me, said the affrighted man, I
beseech you therefore order the Wind to carry me instantly to India!
Solomon spake the word and no sooner was it spoken, than the Wind took
him up and set him down where he desired to be. The Angel then said to
Solomon I looked so earnestly at that Man out of wonder, because that
being commanded to take his soul in India, I found him here with thee
in Palestine.

But my good Reader you and I must make no tarriance now with Solomon
Ben Daoud, wisest of men and mightiest of Magicians, nor with St.
Gregory the Great, Pope and Punster, and his friend Peter the Deacon,
though you and I might delight in the Pope's veracious stories as much
as good Peter himself. We must wind up the volume with one
Interchapter more.

_Saggio e' il consigliator che sol ricorre
A quell' ultimo fin, che in cor si fisse,
Quel sol rimira, e tutto l'altro abborre,
Come al suo proprio danno consentisse;
E' chi farà in tal guisa, raro fia
Che d' incontrare il ver perda la via._[1]

[Footnote 1: L'AVARCHIDE.]

INTERCHAPTER XIX.

THE AUTHOR DIFFERS IN OPINION FROM SIR EGERTON BRYDGES, AND THE
EMPEROR JULIAN. SPEAKS CHARITABLY OF THAT EMPEROR, VINDICATES PROTEUS
FROM HIS CENSURE, AND TALKS OF POSTHUMOUS TRAVELS AND EXTRA MUNDANE
EXCURSIONS, AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN LIMBOLAND.

_Petulant._ If he says black's black,—if I have a humour to say it is
blue—let that pass. All's one for that. If I have a
humour to prove it, it must be granted.

_Witwould._ Not positively must,—But it may, it may.

_Petulant._ Yes, it positively must,—upon proof positive.

_Witwould._ Ay, upon proof positive it must; but upon proof
presumptive it only may. That's a logical distinction now.

CONGREVE.

“In the _ignotum pro magnifico_,” says Umbra “resides a humble
individual's best chance of being noticed or attended to at all.” Yet
many are the attempts which have been made, and are making, in America
too as well in Great Britain by Critics, Critickins and Criticasters,
(for there are of all degrees,) to take from me the _Ignotum_, and
force upon me the _Magnificum_ in its stead, to prove that I am not
the humble, and happily unknown disciple, friend, and however
unworthy, memorialist of Dr. Dove, a nameless individual as regards
the public, holding the tenour of my noiseless way contentedly towards
that oblivion which sooner or later must be the portion of us all; but
that I am what is called a public character, a performer upon the
great stage, whom every one is privileged to hiss or to applaud;
myself a Doctor, L.L.D. according to the old form, according to the
present usage D.C.L.—a Doctor upon whom that triliteral dignity was
conferred in full theatre amid thundering peals of applauding hands,
and who heard himself addressed that day in Phillimorean voice and
fluent latinity by all eulogistic epithets ending in _issimus_ or
_errimus_. I an _issimus_!—I an _errimus_! No other _issimus_ than
that _Ipsissimus ego_ which by these critics I am denied to be.

These critics will have it that I am among living authors what the
ever memorable Countess of Henneberg was among women; that I have more
tails to my name than the greatest Bashaw bears among his standards,
or the largest cuttle fish to his headless body or bodyless head; that
I have executed works more durable than brass, and loftier than the
Pyramids, and that I have touched the stars with my sublime
forehead,—what could have saved my poor head from being moonstruck if
I had.

Believe them not O Reader! I never executed works in any material more
durable than brass, I never built any thing like a pyramid, _Absurdo
de tamaña grandeza no se ha escrito en letras de molde._ And as for
the alledged proofs which depriving me of my individuality and
divesting me even of entity, would consubstantiate me with the most
prolific of living writers, _no son mas que ayre ó menos que ayre, una
sombra ó menos que sombra, pues son nada, y nada es lo que nunca ha
tenido ser verdadero._[1] It is in vain, as Mr. Carlyle says when
apostrophizing Mirabeau the father upon his persevering endeavours to
make his son resemble him in all points of character, and be as it
were his second self, it is in vain. He will not be Thou, but must and
will be himself, another than Thou. In like manner, It is in vain say
I: I am not, and will not and can not be any body but myself; nor is
it of any consequence to any human being who or what I am, though
perhaps those persons may think otherwise who say that “they delight
more in the shadow of something than to converse with a nothing in
substance.”[2]

[Footnote 1: NICOLAS PERES.]

[Footnote 2: HURLOTHRUMBO.]

Lord Shaftesbury has said that “of all the artificial relations formed
between mankind, the most capricious and variable is that of Author
and Reader.” He may be right in this; but when he says 'tis evident
that an Author's art and labour are for his Reader's sake alone, I
cannot assent to the position. For though I have a great and proper
regard for my readers, and entertain all due respect for them, it is
not for their sake alone that my art and labour have been thus
employed,—not for their benefit alone, still less for their amusement
that this Opus has been edified. Of the parties concerned in it, the
Readers, sooth to say, are not those who have been either first or
second in my consideration. The first and paramount object was to
preserve the Doctor's memory; the second to gratify myself by so
doing; for what higher gratification can there be than in the
performance of a debt of gratitude, one of those debts truly to be
called immense, which

A grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged.[3]

That there are some readers who would think themselves beholden,
though in far less degree, to me, as I am to the revered subject of
these memorials, was an after consideration.

[Footnote 3: MILTON.]

Sir Egerton Brydges says he never took up a book which he could read
without wishing to know the character and history of the author. “But
what is it,” he says, “to tell the facts that he was born, married or
lived single and died? What is common to all can convey no
information. We desire to know an author's feelings, his temper, his
disposition, his modes of thinking, his habits; nay even his person,
his voice, and his mode of expressing himself, the society in which he
has lived, and the images and lessons which attended upon his cradle.”
Most of this, Sir Egerton, you can never know otherwise than by guess
work. Yet methinks my feelings, my temper, my disposition and my modes
of thinking are indicated here, as far as a book can indicate them.
You have yourself said; “if it could be proved that what one writes,
is no index to what he thinks and feels, then it would be of little
value and no interest;” but you are confident that such delusive
writers always betray themselves; “Sincerity,” you say, “has always a
breath and spirit of its own.” Yes, Sir Egerton, and if there is not
that spirit in these volumes, there is no vitality in them; if they
have not that breath of life, they must be still-born.

Yet I cannot agree with you in the opinion that those who make a false
display of fine feelings whether in prose or verse, always betray
themselves. The cant of sentimentalism passes as current with the
Reading Public, as cant of a different description with those who call
themselves the Religious Public. Among the latter, the proudest and
the most uncharitable people in this nation are to be found; and in
proof that the most intensely selfish of the human race may be
sentimentalists, and super-sentimentalists, it is sufficient to name
Rousseau.

Perhaps some benevolent and sagacious Reader may say to me as Randolph
said to his friend Owen Feltham,—

Thy book I read, and read it with delight,
Resolving so to live as thou dost write;
And yet I guess thy life thy book produces
And but expresses thy peculiar uses.

But the Reader who should apply to me and my Opus the French lines,

_A l'auteur on connoît l'ouvrage,
A l'ouvrage on connoît l'auteur,_

though he may be equally benevolent, would not be equally sagacious.
It is not for mere caprice that I remain _Ignotus_ and
_Innominabilis_; not a Great Unknown, an _Ignotolemagne_, but simply
an Unknown, _Αγνωστος_, _l'Inconnu_, _Sconciuto_, the _Encubierto_,
the _Desconocido_—

This precious secret let me hide
I'll tell you every thing beside.[4]

[Footnote 4: COTTON.]

Critics, we know, affect always to have strange intelligence; but
though they should say to me

You may
As soon tie up the sunbeams in a net
As keep yourself unknown,[5]

I shall still continue in darkness inscrutable. Nor am I to be moved
from this determination by the opinion which the Emperor Julian
expressed concerning Proteus, when he censured him for changing
himself into divers forms, lest men should compel him to manifest his
knowledge. For said Julian, “if Proteus were indeed wise, and knew as
Homer says many things, I praise him indeed for his knowledge, but I
do not commend his disposition; seeing that he performed the part, not
of a philanthropist, but rather of an imposter, in concealing himself
lest he should be useful to mankind.”

[Footnote 5: SHIRLEY.]

This was forming a severer opinion of the Ancient of the Deep, the old
Prophet of the Sea, than I would pronounce upon Julian himself, though
the name of Apostate clings to him. Unhappy as he was in the most
important of all concerns, he was at least a true believer in a false
religion, and therefore a better man than some of those kings who have
borne the title of most Christian or most Catholic. I wish he had kept
his beard clean! But our follies and weaknesses, when they are nothing
worse, die with us, and are not like unrepented sins to be raised up
in judgement. The beard of the imperial Philosopher is not populous
now. And in my posthumous travels, if in some extramundane excursion I
should meet him in that Limbo which is not a place of punishment but
where odd persons as well as odd things are to be found, and in the
Public Library of that Limbo we should find a certain Opus
conspicuously placed and in high repute, translated, not into the
Limbo tongue alone, but into all languages, and the Imperial
Philosopher should censure the still incognoscible Author for still
continuing in incognoscibility for the same reason that he blamed the
Ancient of the Deep, I should remind him of the Eleusinian Mysteries,
whisper the Great Decasyllabon in his ear, and ask him whether there
are not some secrets which it is neither lawful nor fitting to
disclose.

END OF VOL. V.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. NICOL, PALL-MALL.

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