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Title: The doctor, &c., vol. II (of 7)
Author: Southey, Robert
Language: English
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THE DOCTOR, &c.
[Illustration: a tetrahedron]
VOL. II.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN AND LONGMAN.
1834.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. NICOL, CLEVELAND-ROW, ST. JAMES'S.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXIII. P. I.—p. 1.
DONCASTRIANA. THE RIVER DON.
Rivers from bubbling springs
Have rise at first; and great from abject things.
MIDDLETON.
CHAPTER XXXIV. P. I.—p. 11.
MORAL INTEREST OF TOPOGRAPHICAL WORKS. LOCAL ATTACHMENT.
Let none our Author rudely blame
Who from the story has thus long digrest;
But for his righteous pains may his fair fame
For ever travel, whilst his ashes rest.
SIR WILLILAM DAVENANT.
INTERCHAPTER III.—p. 20.
THE AUTHOR QUESTIONS THE PROPRIETY OF PERSONIFYING CIRCUMSTANCE,
DENIES THE UNITY AND INDIVISIBILITY OF THE PUBLIC, AND MAY EVEN BE
SUSPECTED OF DOUBTING ITS OMNISCIENCE AND ITS INFALLIBILITY.
_Ha forse
Testa la plebe, ove si chiuda in vece
Di senno, altro che nebbia? o forma voce
Chi sta più saggia, che un bebù d'armento?_
CHIABRERA.
CHAPTER XXXV. P. I.—p. 24.
DONCASTRIANA. POTTERIC CARR. SOMETHING CONCERNING THE MEANS OF
EMPLOYING THE POOR, AND BETTERING THEIR CONDITION.
Why should I sowen draf out of my fist
When I may sowen wheat, if that me list?
CHAUCER.
CHAPTER XXXVI. P. I.—p. 32.
REMARKS ON AN OPINION OF MR. CRABBE'S. TOPOGRAPHICAL POETRY. DRAYTON.
Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
What they and what their children owe
To Drayton's name, whose sacred dust
We recommend unto thy trust.
Protect his memory, and preserve his story;
Remain a lasting monument of his glory;
And when thy ruins shall disclaim
To be the treasurer of his name,
His name that cannot fade shall be
An everlasting monument to thee.
EPITAPH IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
CHAPTER XXXVII. P. I.—p. 37.
ANECDOTES OF PETER HEYLYN AND LIGHTFOOT, EXEMPLIFYING THAT GREAT
KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS APPLICABLE TO LITTLE THINGS; AND THAT AS
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, SO IT MAY WITH EQUAL TRUTH SOMETIMES BE SAID
THAT KNOWLEDGE ENDS THERE.
A scholar in his study knows the stars,
Their motion and their influence, which are fix'd,
And which are wandering; can decypher seas,
And give each several land his proper bounds:
But set him to the compass he's to seek,
Where a plain pilot can direct his course
From hence unto both the Indies.
HEYWOOD.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. P. I.—p. 43.
THE READER IS LED TO INFER THAT A TRAVELLER WHO STOPS UPON THE WAY TO
SKETCH, BOTANIZE, ENTOMOLOGIZE OR MINERALOGIZE, TRAVELS WITH MORE
PLEASURE AND PROFIT TO HIMSELF THAN IF HE WERE IN THE MAIL COACH.
_Non servio materiæ sed indulgeo; quæ quo ducit sequendum est, non quo
invitat._
SENECA.
INTERCHAPTER IV.—p. 54.
ETYMOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES CONCERNING THE REMAINS OF VARIOUS TRIBES OR
FAMILIES MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURAL HISTORY.
All things are big with jest; nothing that's plain
But may be witty, if thou hast the vein.
HERBERT.
CHAPTER XXXIX. P. I.—p. 58.
A CHAPTER FOR THE INFORMATION OF THOSE WHO MAY VISIT DONCASTER, AND
ESPECIALLY OF THOSE WHO FREQUENT THE RACES THERE.
My good Lord, there is a Corporation,
A body,—a kind of body.
MIDDLETON.
CHAPTER XL. P. I.—p. 73.
REMARKS ON THE ART OF VERBOSITY. A RULE OF COCCEIUS, AND ITS
APPLICATION TO THE LANGUAGE AND PRACTICE OF THE LAW.
If they which employ their labour and travail about the public
administration of justice, follow it only as a trade, with
unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain, being not in heart
persuaded that justice is God's own work, and themselves his agents in
this business,—the sentence, of right, God's own verdict, and
themselves his priests to deliver it; formalities of justice do but
serve to smother right; and that which was necessarily ordained for
the common good, is through shameful abuse made the cause of common
misery.
HOOKER.
CHAPTER XLI. P. I.—p. 77.
REVENUE OF THE CORPORATION OF DONCASTER WELL APPLIED. DONCASTER RACES.
Play not for gain but sport: who plays for more
Than he can lose with pleasure, stakes his heart;
Perhaps his wife's too, and whom she hath bore.
HERBERT.
INTERCHAPTER V.—p. 84.
WHEREIN THE AUTHOR MAKES KNOWN HIS GOOD INTENTIONS TO ALL READERS, AND
OFFERS GOOD ADVICE TO SOME OF THEM.
I can write, and talk too, as soft as other men, _with submission to
better judgements,—and I leave it to you Gentlemen. I am but one, and
I always distrust myself. I only hint my thoughts: You'll please to
consider whether you will not think that it may seem to deserve your
consideration._—This is a taking way of speaking. But much good may do
them that use it!
ASGILL.
CHAPTER XLII. P. I.—p. 89.
DONCASTER CHURCH. THE RECTORIAL TITHES SECURED BY ARCHBISHOP SHARP FOR
HIS OWN FAMILY.
Say ancient edifice, thyself with years
Grown grey, how long upon the hill has stood
Thy weather-braving tower, and silent mark'd
The human leaf in constant bud and fall?
The generations of deciduous man
How often hast thou seen them pass away!
HURDIS.
CHAPTER XLIII. P. I.—p. 94.
ANTIQUITIES OF DONCASTER. THE DEÆ MATRES. SAXON FONT. THE CASTLE. THE
HELL CROSS.
_Vieux monuments,—
Las, peu à peu cendre vous devenez,
Fable du peuple et publiques rapines!
Et bien qu'au Temps pour un temps facent guerre
Les bastimens, si est ce que le Temps
Oeuvres et noms finablement atterre._
JOACHIM DU BELLAY.
CHAPTER XLIV. P. I.—p. 101.
HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH DONCASTER. THOMAS, EARL OF
LANCASTER. EDWARD IV. ASKE'S INSURRECTION. ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. JAMES
I. BARNABEE. CHARLES I. CHURCH LIBRARY.
They unto whom we shall appear tedious, are in no wise injured by us,
because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they are
not willing to endure.
HOOKER.
CHAPTER XLV. P. I.—p. 109.
CONCERNING THE WORTHIES, OR GOOD MEN, WHO WERE NATIVES OF DONCASTER,
OR OTHERWISE CONNECTED WITH THAT TOWN.
_Vir bonus est quis?_
TERENCE.
INTERCHAPTER VI.—p. 115.
CONTINGENT CAUSES. PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS INDUCED BY REFLECTING ON
THEM. THE AUTHOR TREMBLES FOR THE PAST.
_Vereis que no hay lazada desasida
De nudo y de pendencia soberana;
Ni a poder trastornar la orden del cielo
Las fuerzas llegan, ni el saber del suelo._
BALBUENA.
CHAPTER XLVI. P. I.—p. 120.
DANIEL DOVE'S ARRIVAL AT DONCASTER. THE ORGAN IN ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH.
THE PULPIT. MRS. NEALE'S BENEFACTION.
_Non ulla Musis pagina gratior
Quam quæ severis ludicra jungere
Novit, fatigatamque nugis
Utilibus recreare mentem._
DR. JOHNSON.
CHAPTER XLVII. P. I.—p. 132.
DONCASTRIANA. GUY'S DEATH. SEARCH FOR HIS TOMB-STONE IN INGLETON
CHURCH-YARD.
Go to the dull church-yard and see
Those hillocks of mortality,
Where proudest man is only found
By a small hillock on the ground.
TIXALL POETRY.
CHAPTER XLVIII. P. I.—p. 137.
A FATHER'S MISGIVINGS CONCERNING HIS SON'S DESTINATION. PETER
HOPKINS'S GENEROSITY. DANIEL IS SENT ABROAD TO GRADUATE IN MEDICINE.
Heaven is the magazine wherein He puts
Both good and evil; Prayer's the key that shuts
And opens this great treasure: 'tis a key
Whose wards are Faith and Hope and Charity.
Wouldst thou prevent a judgement due to sin?
Turn but the key and thou may'st lock it in.
Or wouldst thou have a blessing fall upon thee?
Open the door, and it will shower on thee!
QUARLES.
CHAPTER XLIX.—p. 142.
CONCERNING THE INTEREST WHICH DANIEL THE ELDER TOOK IN THE DUTCH WAR,
AND MORE ESPECIALLY IN THE SIEGE AND PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERY OF LEYDEN.
Glory to Thee in thine omnipotence,
O Lord who art our shield and our defence,
And dost dispense,
As seemeth best to thine unerring will,
(Which passeth mortal sense)
The lot of Victory still;
Edging sometimes with might the sword unjust;
And bowing to the dust,
The rightful cause, that so such seeming ill
May thine appointed purposes fulfil;
Sometimes, (as in this late auspicious hour
For which our hymns we raise,)
Making the wicked feel thy present power;
Glory to thee and praise,
Almighty God, by whom our strength was given!
Glory to Thee, O Lord of Earth and Heaven!
SOUTHEY.
CHAPTER L. P. I.—p. 149.
VOYAGE TO ROTTERDAM AND LEYDEN. THE AUTHOR CANNOT TARRY TO DESCRIBE
THAT CITY. WHAT HAPPENED THERE TO DANIEL DOVE.
He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage. As who
doth not that shall attempt the like?—For peregrination charms our
senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him
unhappy that never travelled, a kind of prisoner, and pity his case
that from his cradle to his old age he beholds the same still; still,
still, the same, the same!
BURTON.
CHAPTER LI. P. I.—p. 158.
ARMS OF LEYDEN. DANIEL DOVE, M. D. A LOVE STORY, STRANGE BUT TRUE.
_Oye el extraño caso, advierte y siente;
Suceso es raro, mas verdad ha sido._
BALBUENA.
CHAPTER LII. P. I.—p. 163.
SHEWING HOW THE YOUNG STUDENT FELL IN LOVE—AND HOW HE MADE THE BEST
USE OF HIS MISFORTUNE.
_Il creder, donne vaghe, è cortesia,
Quando colui che scrive o che favella,
Possa essere sospetto di bugia,
Per dir qualcosa troppo rara e bella.
Dunque chi ascolta questa istoria mea
E non la crede frottola o novella
Ma cosa vera—come ella è di fatto,
Fa che di lui mi chiami soddisfatto.
E pure che mi diate piena fede,
De la dubbiezza altrui poco mi cale._
RICCIARDETTO.
CHAPTER LIII. P. I.—p. 169.
OF THE VARIOUS WAYS OF GETTING IN LOVE. A CHAPTER CONTAINING SOME
USEFUL OBSERVATIONS, AND SOME BEAUTIFUL POETRY.
Let cavillers know, that as the Lord John answered the Queen in that
Italian Guazzo, an old, a grave discreet man is fittest to discourse
of love-matters; because he hath likely more experience, observed
more, hath a more staid judgement, can better discern, resolve,
discuss, advise, give better cautions and more solid precepts, better
inform his auditors in such a subject, and by reason of his riper
years, sooner divert.
BURTON.
CHAPTER LIV. P. I.—p. 176.
MORE CONCERNING LOVE AND MARRIAGE, AND MARRIAGE WITHOUT LOVE.
Nay Cupid, pitch thy trammel where thou please,
Thou canst not fail to catch such fish as these.
QUARLES.
CHAPTER LV. P. I.—p. 183.
THE AUTHOR'S LAST VISIT TO DONCASTER.
_Fuere quondam, hæc sed fuere;
Nunc ubi sint, rogitas? Id annos
Scire hos oportet scilicet. O bonæ
Musæ, O Lepôres—O Charites meræ!
O gaudia offuscata nullis
Litibus! O sine nube soles!_
JANUS DOUZA.
CHAPTER LVI. P. I.—p. 189.
A TRUCE WITH MELANCHOLY. GENTLEMEN SUCH AS THEY WERE IN THE YEAR OF
OUR LORD 1747. A HINT TO YOUNG LADIES CONCERNING THEIR GREAT
GRANDMOTHERS.
Fashions that are now called new,
Have been worn by more than you;
Elder times have used the same,
Though these new ones get the name.
MIDDLETON.
CHAPTER LVII. P. I.—p. 195.
AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO REMOVE THE UNPLEASANT IMPRESSION PRODUCED UPON
THE LADIES BY THE DOCTOR'S TYE-WIG AND HIS SUIT OF SNUFF-COLOURED
DITTOS.
So full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
TWELFTH NIGHT.
CHAPTER LVIII. P. I.—p. 199.
CONCERNING THE PORTRAIT OF DR. DANIEL DOVE.
The sure traveller
Though he alight sometimes still goeth on.
HERBERT.
CHAPTER LIX. P. I.—p. 204.
SHOWING WHAT THAT QUESTION WAS, WHICH WAS ANSWERED BEFORE IT WAS
ASKED.
_Chacun a son stile; le mien, comme vouz voyez, n'est pas laconique._
M^E. DE SEVIGNEˊ.
CHAPTER LX. P. I.—p. 208.
SHOWING CAUSE WHY THE QUESTION WHICH WAS NOT ASKED OUGHT TO BE
ANSWERED.
Nay in troth I talk but coarsely,
But I hold it comfortable for the understanding.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
CHAPTER LXI. P. I.—p. 215.
WHEREIN THE QUESTION IS ANSWERED WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN ASKED.
_Ajutami, tu penna, et calamaio,
Ch' io hò tra mano una materia asciutta._
MATTIO FRANZESI.
CHAPTER LXII.—p. 222.
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE DISCOVERY OF A CERTAIN PORTRAIT AT DONCASTER.
Call in the Barber! If the tale be long
He'll cut it short, I trust.
MIDDLETON.
CHAPTER LXIII.—p. 228.
A DISCUSSION CONCERNING THE QUESTION LAST PROPOSED.
_Questo è bene un de' più profondi passi
Che noi habbiamo ancora oggi tentato;
E non è mica da huomini bassi._
AGNUOLO FIRENZUOLA.
CHAPTER LXIV.—p. 234.
DEFENCE OF PORTRAIT-PAINTING. A SYSTEM OF MORAL COSMETICS RECOMMENDED
TO THE LADIES. GWILLIM. SIR T. LAWRENCE. GEORGE WITHER. APPLICATION TO
THE SUBJECT OF THIS WORK.
_Pingitur in tabulis formæ peritura venustas,
Vivat ut in tabulis, quod perit in facie._
OWEN.
CHAPTER LXV.—p. 242.
SOCIETY OF A COUNTRY TOWN. SUCH A TOWN A MORE FAVOURABLE HABITAT FOR
SUCH A PERSON AS DR. DOVE THAN LONDON WOULD HAVE BEEN.
Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;
Inn any where;
And seeing the snail, which every where doth roam,
Carrying his own home still, still is at home,
Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail;
Be thine own Palace, or the World's thy jail.
DONNE.
CHAPTER LXVI.—p. 251.
MR. COPLEY OF NETHERHALL. SOCIETY AT HIS HOUSE. DRUMMOND. BURGH. GRAY.
MASON. MILLER THE ORGANIST AND HISTORIAN OF DONCASTER. HERSCHEL.
All worldly joys go less
To the one joy of doing kindnesses.
HERBERT.
CHAPTER LXVII.—p. 257.
A MYTHOLOGICAL STORY MORALIZED.
_Il faut mettre les fables en presse pour en tirer quelque suc de
verité._
GARASSE.
CHAPTER LXVIII.—p. 270.
ECCENTRIC PERSONS, WHY APPARENTLY MORE COMMON IN ENGLAND THAN IN OTHER
COUNTRIES. HARRY BINGLEY.
Blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please.
HAMLET.
CHAPTER LXIX.—p. 282.
A MUSICAL RECLUSE AND HIS SISTER.
Some proverb maker, I forget who, says, “God hath given to some men
wisdom and understanding, and to others the art of playing on the
fiddle.”
Professor PARK'S Dogmas of the Constitution.
CHAPTER LXX.—p. 288.
SHEWING THAT ANY HONEST OCCUPATION IS BETTER THAN NONE, BUT THAT
OCCUPATIONS WHICH ARE DEEMED HONOURABLE ARE NOT ALWAYS HONEST.
_J'ai peine à concevoir pourquoi le plûpart des hommes ont une si
forte envie d'être heureux, et une si grande incapacité pour le
devenir._
VOYAGES DE MILORD CETON.
CHAPTER LXXI.—p. 295.
TRANSITION IN OUR NARRATIVE PREPARATORY TO A CHANGE IN THE DOCTOR'S
LIFE. A SAD STORY SUPPRESSED. THE AUTHOR PROTESTS AGAINST PLAYING WITH
THE FEELINGS OF HIS READERS. ALL ARE NOT MERRY THAT SEEM MIRTHFUL. THE
SCAFFOLD A STAGE. DON RODRIGO CALDERON. THISTLEWOOD. THE WORLD A
MASQUERADE, BUT THE DOCTOR ALWAYS IN HIS OWN CHARACTER.
This breaks no rule of order.
If order were infringed then should I flee
From my chief purpose, and my mark should miss.
Order is Nature's beauty, and the way
To Order is by rules that Art hath found.
GWILLIM.
CHAPTER LXXII.—p. 313.
IN WHICH THE FOURTH OF THE QUESTIONS PROPOSED IN CHAPTER II. P. I. IS
BEGUN TO BE ANSWERED; SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON ANCESTRY ARE INTRODUCED,
AND THE READER IS INFORMED WHY THE AUTHOR DOES NOT WEAR A CAP AND
BELLS.
Boast not the titles of your ancestors,
Brave youths! they're their possessions, none of yours.
When your own virtues equall'd have their names,
'Twill be but fair to lean upon their fames,
For they are strong supporters; but till then
The greatest are but growing gentlemen.
BEN JONSON.
CHAPTER LXXIII.—p. 318.
RASH MARRIAGES. AN EARLY WIDOWHOOD. AFFLICTION RENDERED A BLESSING TO
THE SUFFERER; AND TWO ORPHANS LEFT, THOUGH NOT DESTITUTE, YET
FRIENDLESS.
Love built a stately house; where Fortune came,
And spinning fancies, she was heard to say
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame;
Whereas they were supported by the same.
But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.
HERBERT.
CHAPTER LXXIV.—p. 324.
A LADY DESCRIBED WHOSE SINGLE LIFE WAS NO BLESSEDNESS EITHER TO
HERSELF OR OTHERS. A VERACIOUS EPITAPH AND AN APPROPRIATE MONUMENT.
Beauty! my Lord,—'tis the worst part of woman!
A weak poor thing, assaulted every hour
By creeping minutes of defacing time;
A superficies which each breath of care
Blasts off; and every humorous stream of grief
Which flows from forth these fountains of our eyes,
Washeth away, as rain doth winter's snow.
GOFF.
CHAPTER LXXV.—p. 331.
A SCENE WHICH WILL PUT SOME OF THOSE READERS WHO HAVE BEEN MOST
IMPATIENT WITH THE AUTHOR, IN THE BEST HUMOUR WITH HIM.
There is no argument of more antiquity and elegancy than is the matter
of Love; for it seems to be as old as the world, and to bear date from
the first time that man and woman was: therefore in this, as in the
finest metal, the freshest wits have in all ages shewn their best
workmanship.
ROBERT WILMOT.
CHAPTER LXXVI.—p. 337.
A STORY CONCERNING CUPID WHICH NOT ONE READER IN TEN THOUSAND HAS EVER
HEARD BEFORE; A DEFENCE OF LOVE WHICH WILL BE VERY SATISFACTORY TO THE
LADIES.
They do lie,
Lie grossly who say Love is blind,—by him
And Heaven they lie! he has a sight can pierce
Thro' ivory, as clear as it were horn,
And reach his object.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
CHAPTER LXXVII.—p. 346.
MORE CONCERNING LOVE AND THE DREAM OF LIFE.
Happy the bonds that hold ye;
Sure they be sweeter far than liberty.
There is no blessedness but in such bondage;
Happy that happy chain; such links are heavenly.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
THE DOCTOR, &c.
CHAPTER XXXIII. P. I.
DONCASTRIANA. THE RIVER DON.
Rivers from bubbling springs
Have rise at first; and great from abject things.
MIDDLETON.
How would it have astonished Peter Hopkins if some one gifted with the
faculty of second sight had foretold to him that, at the sale of Pews
in a new Church at Doncaster, eighteen of those Pews should produce
upwards of sixteen hundred pounds, and that one of them should be
bought at the price of £138,—a sum for which in his days lands enough
might have been purchased to have qualified three men as Yorkshire
Freeholders! How would it have surprized him to have been told that
Doncaster races would become the greatest meeting in the North of
England; that Princes would attend them, and more money would annually
be won and lost there than might in old times have sufficed for a
King's ransom! But the Doncaster of George the fourth's reign is not
more like the Doncaster of George the second's, than George the fourth
himself, in manners, habit, character and person is like his royal
Great Grandfather;—not more like than to the Doncaster of the United
States, if such a place there be there; or to the Doncaster that may
be in New South Wales, Van Diemen's or Swan-river-land. It was a place
of considerable importance when young Daniel first became an
inhabitant of it; but it was very far from having attained all the
advantages arising from its well-endowed corporation, its race-ground,
and its position on the great north road.
It is beyond a doubt that Doncaster may be identified with the Danum
of Antoninus and the Notitia, the Caer Daun of Nennius, and the
Dona-cester of the Saxons: whether it were the Campo-Donum of Bede,—a
royal residence of the Northumbrian Kings, where Paulinus the Romish
Apostle of Northumbria built a Church, which with the town itself was
burnt by the Welsh King Cadwallon, and his Saxon Ally the Pagan Penda,
after a battle in which Edwin fell,—is not so certain; antiquaries
differ upon this point, but they who maintain the affirmative appear
to have the strongest case. In the charter granted to it by Richard
Cœur de Lion the town is called Danecastre.
The name indicates that it was a Roman Station on the river Dan, Don
or Dun, “so called,” says Camden, “because 'tis carried in a low deep
channel, for that is the signification of the British word Dan.” I
thank Dr. Prichard for telling me what it was not possible for Camden
to know,—that Don in the language of the Ossetes, a Caucassian tribe,
means water; and that in a country so remote as New Guinea, Dan has
the same meaning. Our Doctor loved the river for its name's sake; and
the better because the river Dove falls into it. Don however, though
not without some sacrifice of feeling, he was content to call it, in
conformity to the established usage. A more satisfactory reason to him
would have been that of preserving the identity of name with the Don
of Aberdeenshire and of the Cossacks, and the relationship in
etymology with the Donau, but that the original pronunciation which
was, as he deemed, perverted in that latter name was found in Danube;
and that by calling his own river Don it ceased to be homonymous with
that Dan which adds its waters, and its name to the Jor.
But the Yorkshire Don might be liked also for its own sake. Hear how
its course is described in old prose and older verse! “The River Don
or Dun,” says Dodsworth in his Yorkshire collections, “riseth in the
upper part of Pennystone parish near Lady's Cross (which may be called
our Appennines, because the rain water that falleth sheddeth from sea
to sea;) cometh to Birchworth, so to Pennystone, thence to
Boleterstone by Medop, leaveth Wharncliffe Chase (stored with
roebucks, which are decayed since the great frost) on the north
(belonging to Sir Francis Wortley, where he hath great iron works. The
said Wharncliffe affordeth two hundred dozen of coal for ever to his
said works. In this Chase he had red and fallow deer and roes) and
leaveth Bethuns, a Chase and Tower of the Earl of Salop, on the south
side. By Wortley to Waddsley, where in times past Everingham of
Stainber had a park, now disparked. Thence to Sheffield, and washeth
the castle wall; keepeth its course to Attercliffe, where is an iron
forge of the Earl of Salop; from thence to Winkebank, Kymberworth and
Eccles, where it entertaineth the Rother; cometh presently to
Rotherham, thence to Aldwark Hall, the Fitzwilliams' ancient
possession; then to Thriberg Park, the seat of Reresbyes Knights; then
to Mexborough, where hath been a Castle; then to Conisborough Park and
Castle of the Earls of Warrens, where there is a place called Horsas
Tomb. From thence to Sprotebrough, the ancient seat of the famous
family of Fitzwilliam who have flourished since the conquest. Thence
by Newton to Donecastre, Wheatley and Kirk Sandal to Barnby-Dunn; by
Bramwith and Stainforth to Fishlake; thence to Turnbrig, a port town
serving indifferently for all the west parts, where he pays his
tribute to the Ayre.”
Hear Michael Drayton next, who being as determined a personificator as
Darwin himself, makes “the wide West Riding” thus address her favorite
River Don;
Thou first of all my floods, whose banks do bound my south
And offerest up thy stream to mighty Humber's mouth;
Of yew and climbing elm that crown'd with many a spray,
From thy clear fountain first thro' many a mead dost play,
Till Rother, whence the name of Rotherham first begun,
At that her christened town doth lose her in my Don;
Which proud of her recourse, towards Doncaster doth drive,
Her great and chiefest town, the name that doth derive
From Don's near bordering banks; when holding on her race,
She, dancing in and out, indenteth Hatfield Chase,
Whose bravery hourly adds new honors to her bank:
When Sherwood sends her in slow Iddle that, made rank
With her profuse excess, she largely it bestows
On Marshland, whose swoln womb with such abundance flows,
As that her battening breast her fatlings sooner feeds,
And with more lavish waste than oft the grazier needs;
Whose soil, as some reports, that be her borderers, note,
With water under earth undoubtedly doth float,
For when the waters rise, it risen doth remain
High, while the floods are high, and when they fall again,
It falleth: but at last when as my lively Don
Along by Marshland side her lusty course hath run,
The little wandering Trent, won by the loud report
Of the magnific state and height of Humber's court,
Draws on to meet with Don, at her approach to Aire.
Seldon's rich commentary does not extend to that part of the
Polyolbion in which these lines occur, but a comment upon the supposed
rising and falling of the Marshland with the waters, is supplied by
Camden. “The Don,” he says after it has passed Hatfield Chase “divides
itself, one stream running towards the river Idel which comes out of
Nottinghamshire, the other towards the river Aire; in both which they
continue till they meet again, and fall into the Æstuary of Humber.
Within the island, or that piece of ground encompassed by the branches
of these two rivers are Dikemarsh, and Marshland, fenny tracts, or
rather river-islands, about fifteen miles round, which produce a very
green rank grass, and are as it were set round with little villages.
Some of the inhabitants imagine the whole island floats upon the
water; and that sometimes when the waters are encreased 'tis raised
higher; just like what Pomponius Mela tells us of the Isle of Autrum
in Gaul.” Upon this passage Bishop Gibson remarks, “as to what our
author observes of the ground being heaved up, Dr. Johnston affirms he
has spoke with several old men who told him, that the turf-moor
between Thorne and Gowle was so much higher before the draining,
especially in winter time, than it is now, that before they could see
little of the church steeple, whereas now they can see the church-yard
wall.”
The poet might linger willingly with Ebenezer Elliott amid
——rock, vale and wood,—
Haunts of his early days, and still loved well,—
And where the sun, o'er purple moorlands wide,
Gilds Wharncliffe's oaks, while Don is dark below;
And where the black bird sings on Rother's side,
And where Time spares the age of Conisbro';
but we must proceed with good matter of fact prose.
The river has been made navigable to Tinsley, within three miles of
Sheffield, and by this means Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster carry
on a constant intercourse with Hull. A cut was made for draining that
part of Hatfield Chase called the Levels, by an adventurous Hollander,
Cornelius Vermuyden by name, in the beginning of Charles the first's
reign. Some two hundred families of French and Walloon refugees were
induced to colonize there at that time. They were forcibly interrupted
in their peaceful and useful undertaking by the ignorant people of the
country, who were instigated and even led on by certain of the
neighbouring gentry, as ignorant as themselves; but the Government was
then strong enough to protect them; they brought about twenty-four
thousand acres into cultivation, and many of their descendants are
still settled upon the ground which was thus reclaimed. Into this new
cut, which is at this day called the Dutch river, the Don was turned,
its former course having been through Eastoft; but the navigation
which has since proved so beneficial to the country, and toward which
this was the first great measure, produced at first a plentiful crop
of lawsuits, and one of the many pamphlets which this litigation
called forth, bears as an alias in its title, “the Devil upon Don.”
Many vestiges of former cultivation were discovered when this cut was
made,—such (according to Gibson's information) as gates, ladders,
hammers and shoes. The land was observed in some places to lie in
ridges and furrows, as if it had been ploughed; and oaks and fir trees
were frequently dug up, some of which were found lying along, with
their roots still fastened; others as if cut, or burnt, and severed
from the ground. Roots were long to be seen in the great cut, some
very large and standing upright, others with an inclination toward the
east.
About the year 1665 the body of a man was found in a turf pit, some
four yards deep, lying with his head toward the north. The hair and
nails were not decayed, and the skin was like tanned leather; but it
had lain so long there that the bones had become spongy.
CHAPTER XXXIV. P. I.
MORAL INTEREST OF TOPOGRAPHICAL WORKS. LOCAL ATTACHMENT.
Let none our Author rudely blame
Who from the story has thus long digrest;
But for his righteous pains may his fair fame
For ever travel, whilst his ashes rest.
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.
Reader, if thou carest little or nothing for the Yorkshire river Don
and for the town of Doncaster, and for the circumstances connected
with it, I am sorry for thee. My venerable friend the Doctor was of a
different disposition. He was one who loved, like Southey
———uncontrolled, as in a dream
To muse upon the course of human things;
Exploring sometimes the remotest springs,
Far as tradition lends one guiding gleam;
Or following upon Thought's audacious wings
Into Futurity the endless stream.
He could not only find
———tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing,—[1]
but endeavoured to find all he could in them, and for that reason
delighted to enquire into the history of places and of things, and to
understand their past as well as their present state. The revolutions
of a mansion house within his circuit were as interesting to him as
those of the Mogul Empire; and he had as much satisfaction in being
acquainted with the windings of a brook from its springs to the place
where it fell into the Don, as he could have felt in knowing that the
Sources of the Nile had been explored, or the course and termination
of the Niger.
[Footnote 1: SHAKESPEAR.]
Hear, Reader, what a journalist says upon rivers in the newest and
most approved style of critical and periodical eloquence! He says, and
he regarded himself no doubt with no small complacency while so
saying,
“An acquaintance with” Rivers “well deserves to be erected into a
distinct science. We hail _Potamology_ with a cordial greeting, and
welcome it to our studies, parlours, schools, reading-rooms,
lecture-rooms, mechanics' institutes and universities. There is no end
to the interest which Rivers excite. They may be considered
physically, geographically, historically, politically, commercially,
mathematically, poetically, pictorially, morally, and even
religiously—In the world's anatomy they are its veins, as the
primitive mountains, those mighty structures of granite, are its
bones; they minister to the fertility of the earth, the purity of the
air, and the health of mankind. They mark out nature's kingdoms and
provinces, and are the physical dividers and subdividers of
continents. They welcome the bold discoverer into the heart of the
country, to whose coast the sea has borne his adventurous bark. The
richest freights have floated on their bosoms, and the bloodiest
battles have been fought upon their banks. They move the wheels of
cotton mills by their mechanical power, and madden the souls of poets
and painters by their picturesque splendor. They make scenery and are
scenery, and land yields no landscape without water. They are the best
vehicle for the transit of the goods of the merchant, and for the
illustration of the maxims of the moralist. The figure is so familiar,
that we scarcely detect a metaphor when the stream of life and the
course of time flow on into the ocean of Eternity.”
Hear, hear, oh hear!
_Udite—
Fiumi correnti, e rive,—
E voi—fontane vive!_[2]
Yet the person who wrote this was neither deficient in feeling, nor in
power; it is the epidemic vice prevailing in an age of journals that
has infected him. They who frame their style _ad captandum_ fall into
this vein, and as immediate effect is their object they are wise in
their generation. The public to which they address themselves are
attracted by it, as flies swarm about treacle.
[Footnote 2: GIUSTO DE' CONTE.]
We are advanced from the Age of Reason to the Age of Intellect, and
this is the current eloquence of that age!—let us get into an
atmosphere of common sense.
Topographical pursuits, my Doctor used to say, tend to preserve and
promote the civilization of which they are a consequence and a proof.
They have always prospered in prosperous countries, and flourished
most in flourishing times when there have been persons enough of
opulence to encourage such studies, and of leisure to engage in them.
Italy and the Low Countries therefore took the lead in this branch of
literature; the Spaniards and Portugueze cultivated it in their better
days; and beginning among ourselves with Henry 8th, it has been
continued with encreasing zeal down to the present time.
Whatever strengthens our local attachments is favorable both to
individual and national character. Our home,—our birth place,—our
native land,—think for a while what the virtues are which arise out of
the feelings connected with these words; and if thou hast any
intellectual eyes thou wilt then perceive the connection between
topography and patriotism.
Shew me a man who cares no more for one place than another, and I will
shew you in that same person one who loves nothing but himself. Beware
of those who are homeless by choice! You have no hold on a human being
whose affections are without a tap-root. The laws recognize this truth
in the privileges which they confer upon freeholders; and public
opinion acknowledges it also, in the confidence which it reposes upon
those who have what is called a stake in the country. Vagabond and
rogue are convertible terms; and with how much propriety any one may
understand who knows what are the habits of the wandering classes,
such as gypsies, tinkers and potters.
The feeling of local attachment was possessed by Daniel Dove in the
highest degree. Spurzheim and the crazyologists would have found out a
bump on his head for its local habitation;—letting that quackery pass,
it is enough for me to know that he derived this feeling from his
birth as a mountaineer, and that he had also a right to it by
inheritance, as one whose ancestors had from time immemorial dwelt
upon the same estate. Smile not contemptuously at that word, ye, whose
domains extend over more square miles than there were square roods
upon his patrimony! To have held that little patrimony unimpaired, as
well as unenlarged, through so many generations implies more
contentment, more happiness, and a more uniform course of steadiness
and good conduct, than could be found in the proudest of your
genealogies!
The most sacred spot upon earth to him was his father's hearth-stead.
Rhine, Rhone, Danube, Thames or Tyber, the mighty Ganges or the
mightier Maranon, even Jordan itself, affected his imagination less
than the Greta, or Wease as he was wont to call it, of his native
fields; whose sounds in his boyhood were the first which he heard at
morning and the last at night, and during so many peaceful and happy
years made as it were an accompaniment to his solitary musings, as he
walked between his father's house and his schoolmaster's, to and fro.
Next to that wild river Wease whose visible course was as delightful
to the eye and ear, as its subterranean one was to the imagination, he
loved the Don. He was not one of those refined persons who like to
lessen their admiration of one object by comparing it with another. It
entered as little into his mind to depreciate the Don because it was
not a mountain stream, as it did into Corporal Trim's or Uncle Toby's
to think the worse of Bohemia because it has no sea coast. What if it
had no falls, no rapids or resting-places, no basins whose pellucid
water might tempt Diana and the Oreades to bathe in it; instead of
these the Don had beauties of its own, and utilities which give to
such beauties when combined with them an additional charm. There was
not a more pleasing object in the landscape to his eyes than the broad
sail of a barge slowly moving between the trees, and bearing into the
interior of England the produce of the Baltic, and of the East and
West.
The place in the world which he loved best was Ingleton, because in
that little peaceful village, as in his childhood it was, he had once
known every body and every body had known him; and all his
recollections of it were pleasurable, till time cast over them a
softening but a pensive hue. But next to Ingleton he loved Doncaster.
And wherefore did he thus like Doncaster? For a better reason than the
epigrammatist could give for not liking Dr. Fell, though perhaps many
persons have no better than that epigrammatist had in this case, for
most of their likings and dislikings. He liked it because he must have
been a very unreasonable man if he had not been thankful that his lot
had fallen there—because he was useful and respected there, contented,
prosperous, happy; finally because it is a very likeable place, being
one of the most comfortable towns in England: for it is clean,
spacious, in a salubrious situation, well-built, well-governed, has no
manufactures, few poor, a greater proportion of inhabitants who are
not engaged in any trade or calling, than perhaps any other town in
the kingdom, and moreover it sends no members to parliament.
INTERCHAPTER III.
THE AUTHOR QUESTIONS THE PROPRIETY OF PERSONIFYING CIRCUMSTANCE,
DENIES THE UNITY AND INDIVISIBILITY OF THE PUBLIC, AND MAY EVEN BE
SUSPECTED OF DOUBTING ITS OMNISCIENCE AND ITS INFALLIBILITY.
_Ha forse
Testa la plebe, ove si chiuda in vece
Di senno, altro che nebbia? o forma voce
Chi sta più saggia, che un bebù d'armerito?_
CHIABRERA.
“What a kind of Being is circumstance!” says Horace Walpole in his
atrocious tragedy of the Mysterious Mother.—A very odd kind of Being
indeed. In the course of my reading I remember but three Beings
equally remarkable,—as personified in prose and verse. Social-Tie was
one; Catastrophe another; and Inoculation, heavenly Maid! the third.
But of all ideal Beings the most extraordinary is that which we call
the Public. The Public and Transubstantiation I hold to be the two
greatest mysteries in, or out of nature. And there are certain points
of resemblance between them.—For as the Priest creates the one
mystery, so the author, or other appellant to the said Public, creates
the other, and both bow down in worship, real or simulated, before the
Idol of their own creation. And as every fragment of the wafer break
it into as many as you may, contains in itself the whole entire
mystery of Transubstantiation, just in the same manner every
fractional part of the Public assumes to itself the powers, privileges
and prerogatives of the whole, as virtually, potentially and
indefeasably its own. Nay, every individual who deems himself a
constituent member of the said Public arrogates them also, and when he
professes to be acting _pro bono publico_, the words mean with him all
the good he can possibly get for himself.
The old and famous illustration of Hermes may be in part applied to
the Public; it is a circle of which the centre is every where: in part
I say, for its circumference is defined. It is bounded by language,
and has many intercircles. It is indeed a confused multiplicity of
circles intersecting each other, perpetually in motion and in change.
Every man is the centre of some circle, and yet involved in others; he
who is not sometimes made giddy by their movements, has a strong head;
and he who is not sometimes thrown off his balance by them, stands
well upon his legs.
Again, the Public is like a nest of patent coffins packed for
exportation, one within another. There are Publics of all sizes, from
the _genus generalissimum_, the great general universal Public, whom
London is not large enough to hold, to the _species specialissima_,
the little Thinking Public, which may find room in a nutshell.
There is the Fashionable Public, and the Religious Public, and the
Play-going Public, and the Sporting Public, and the Commercial Public,
and the Literary Public, and the Reading Public, and Heaven knows how
many Publics more. They call themselves Worlds sometimes,—as if a
certain number of worldlings made a World!
He who pays his homage to any or all of these Publics, is a Publican
and a Sinner.
“_Nunquam valui populo placere; nam quæ ego scio non probat populus;
quæ probat populas, ego nescio._”[1]
“_Bene et ille, quisquis fuit, (ambigitur enim de auctore,) cum
quæreretur ab illo, quo tanta diligentia artis spectaret ad
paucissimos perventuræ? Satis sunt, inquit, mihi pauci; satis est
unus; satis est nullus._”[2]
[Footnote 1: SENECA, 2, 79.]
[Footnote 2: IB, _ib._ 17.]
CHAPTER XXXV. P. I.
DONCASTRIANA. POTTERIC CARR. SOMETHING CONCERNING THE MEANS OF
EMPLOYING THE POOR, AND BETTERING THEIR CONDITION.
Why should I sowen draf out of my fist
When I may sowen wheat, if that me list?
CHAUCER.
Doncaster is built upon a peninsula, or ridge of land, about a mile
across, having a gentle slope from east to west, and bounded on the
west by the river; this ridge is composed of three strata; to wit,—of
the alluvial soil deposited by the river in former ages, and of
limestone on the north and west; and of sandstone to the south and
east. To the south of this neck of land lies a tract called Potteric
Carr which is much below the level of the river, and was a morass, or
range of fens when our Doctor first took up his abode in Doncaster.
This tract extends about four miles in length and nearly three in
breadth, and the security which it afforded against an attack on that
side, while the river protected the peninsula by its semicircular bend
on the other, was evidently one reason why the Romans fixed upon the
site of Doncaster for a station. In Brockett's Glossary of
North-Country words, Carr is interpreted to mean “flat marshy land; a
pool or lake;” but the etymology of the word is yet to be discovered.
These fens were drained and enclosed pursuant to an Act of Parliament
which was obtained for that purpose in the year 1766. Three principal
drains were then cut, fourteen feet wide, and about four miles long,
into which the water was conducted from every part of the Carr,
southward, to the little river Torne at Rossington Bridge, whence it
flows into the Trent. Before these drainings the ground was liable to
frequent inundations; and about the centre there was a decoy for wild
ducks: there is still a deep water there of considerable extent, in
which very large pike and eels are found. The soil, which was so boggy
at first that horses were lost when attempting to drink at the drains,
has been brought into good cultivation (as all such ground may be) to
the great improvement of the district; for till this improvement was
effected intermittent fevers and sore throats were prevalent there,
and they have ceased from the time that the land was drained. The most
unhealthy season now is the Spring, when cold winds from the North and
North East, usually prevail during some six weeks; at other times
Doncaster is considered to be a healthy place. It has been observed
that when endemic diseases arrive there, they uniformly come from the
south; and that the state of the weather may be foretold from a
knowledge of what it has been at a given time in London, making an
allowance of about three days, for the chance of winds. Here, as in
all places which lie upon a great and frequented road, the
transmission of diseases has been greatly facilitated by the increase
of travelling.
But before we leave Potteric Carr, let us try reader, whether we
cannot improve it in another way, that is in the dissenting and, so
called, evangelical sense of the word, in which sense the battle of
Trafalgar was improved, in a sermon by the Reverend John Evans. Gentle
Reader, let you and I in like manner endeavour to improve this
enclosure of the Carr.
Four thousand acres of bog whereof that Carr consisted, and upon which
common sand, coal ashes, and the scrapings of a limestone road were
found the best manure, produce now good crops of grain and excellent
pasturage.
There are said to be in England and Wales at this time 3,984,000 acres
of uncultivated but cultivable ground; 5,950,000 in Scotland;
4,900,000 in Ireland; 166,000 in the smaller British Islands. Crags,
woods, and barren land are not included in this statement. Here are
15,000,000 acres, the worst of which is as good as the morass which
has been reclaimed near Doncaster, and the far greater part very
materially better.
I address myself now to any one of my readers who pays poor rates; but
more especially to him who has any part in the disposal of those
rates; and most especially to a clergyman, a magistrate, and a member
of Parliament.
The money which is annually raised for poor-rates in England and Wales
has for some years amounted to from five to six millions. With all
this expenditure cases are continually occurring of death from
starvation, either of hunger or cold, or both together; wretches are
carried before the magistrates for the offence of lying in the streets
or in unfinished houses, when they have not where to hide their heads;
others have been found dead by the side of limekilns, or brickkilns,
whither they had crept to save themselves from perishing for cold; and
untold numbers die of the diseases produced by scanty and unwholesome
food.
This money moreover is for the most part so applied, that they who
have a rightful claim upon it, receive less than in justice, in
humanity, and according to the intent of a law wisely and humanely
enacted, ought to be their portion; while they who have only a legal
claim upon it, that claim arising from an evil usage which has become
prescriptive, receive pay where justice, policy, and considerate
humanity, and these very laws themselves if rightly administered,
would award restraint or punishment.
Thus it is in those parts of the United Kingdom, where a provision for
the poor is directly raised by law. In Scotland the proportion of
paupers is little less, and the evils attendant upon poverty are felt
in an equal or nearly equal degree. In Ireland they exist to a far
greater extent, and may truly be called terrible.
Is it fitting that this should be while there are fifteen millions of
cultivable acres lying waste? Is it possible to conceive grosser
improvidence in a nation, grosser folly, grosser ignorance of its duty
and interest, or grosser neglect of both, than are manifested in the
continuance and growth and increase of this enormous evil, when the
means of checking it are so obvious, and that too by a process in
which every step must produce direct and tangible good?
But while the Government is doing those things which it ought not to
have done, and leaves undone those which it ought to do, let Parishes
and Corporations do what is in their power for themselves. And bestir
yourselves in this good work ye who can! The supineness of the
Government is no excuse for you. It is in the exertions of individuals
that all national reformation must begin. Go to work cautiously,
experimentally, patiently, charitably, and in faith! I am neither so
enthusiastic as to suppose, nor so rash as to assert, that a cure may
thus be found for the complicated evils arising from the condition of
the labouring classes. But it is one of those remedial means by which
much misery may be relieved, and much of that profligacy that arises
from hopeless wretchedness be prevented. It is one of those means from
which present relief may be obtained, and future good expected. It is
the readiest way in which useful employment can be provided for the
industrious poor. And if the land so appropriated should produce
nothing more than is required for the support of those employed in
cultivating it, and who must otherwise be partly or wholly supported
by the poor-rates, such cultivation would even then be profitable to
the public. Wherever there is heath, moor or fen,—which there is in
every part of the Island,—there is work for the spade; employment and
subsistence for man is to be found there, and room for him to encrease
and multiply for generations.
Reader, if you doubt that bog and bad land may be profitably
cultivated, go and look at Potteric Carr; (the members of both Houses
who attend Doncaster Races, may spare an hour for this at the next
meeting). If you desire to know in what manner the poor who are now
helpless may be settled upon such land, so as immediately to earn
their own maintenance, and in a short time to repay the first cost of
their establishment, read the account of the Pauper Colonies in
Holland; for there the experiment has been tried, and we have the
benefit of their experience.
As for the whole race of Political Economists, our Malthusites,
Benthamites, Utilitarians or Futilitarians, they are to the Government
of this Country such counsellors as the magicians were to Pharaoh;
whosoever listens to them has his heart hardened.—But they are no
conjurors.
CHAPTER XXXVI. P. I.
REMARKS ON AN OPINION OF MR. CRABBE'S. TOPOGRAPHICAL POETRY. DRAYTON.
Do, pious marble, let thy readers know
What they and what their children owe
To Drayton's name, whose sacred dust
We recommend unto thy trust.
Protect his memory, and preserve his story;
Remain a lasting monument of his glory;
And when thy ruins shall disclaim
To be the Treasurer of his name,
His name that cannot fade shall be
An everlasting monument to thee.
EPITAPH IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
The Poet Crabbe has said that there subsists an utter repugnancy
between the studies of topography and poetry. He must have intended by
topography when he said so, the mere definition of boundaries and
specification of land-marks, such as are given in the advertisement of
an estate for sale; and boys in certain parts of the country are
taught to bear in mind by a remembrance in tail when the bounds of a
parish are walked by the local authorities. Such topography indeed
bears as little relation to poetry as a map or chart to a picture.
But if he had any wider meaning, it is evident, by the number of
topographical poems, good, bad and indifferent, with which our
language abounds, that Mr. Crabbe's predecessors in verse, and his
contemporaries also, have differed greatly from him in opinion upon
this point. The Poly-olbion, notwithstanding its common-place
personifications and its inartificial transitions, which are as abrupt
as those in the Metamorphoses and the Fasti, and not so graceful, is
nevertheless a work as much to be valued by the students and lovers of
English literature, as by the writers of local history. Drayton
himself, whose great talents were deservedly esteemed by the ablest of
his contemporaries in the richest age of English poetry, thought he
could not be more worthily employed than in what he calls the
Herculean task of this topographical poem; and in that belief he was
encouraged by his friend and commentator Selden, to whose name the
epithet of learned was in old times always and deservedly affixed.
With how becoming a sense of its dignity and variety the Poet entered
upon his subject, these lines may shew:
Thou powerful God of flames, in verse divinely great,
Touch my invention so with thy true genuine heat,
That high and noble things I slightly may not tell,
Nor light and idle toys my lines may vainly swell;
But as my subject serves so high or low to strain,
And to the varying earth so suit my varying strain,
That Nature in my work thou mayest thy power avow;
That as thou first found'st art, and didst her rules allow,
So I, to thine own self that gladly near would be,
May herein do the best in imitating thee.
As thou hast here a hill, a vale there, there a flood,
A mead here, there a heath, and now and then a wood,
These things so in my song I naturally may show;
Now as the mountain high, then as the valley low;
Here fruitful as the mead; there as the heath be bare,
Then as the gloomy wood I may be rough, tho' rare.
I would not say of this Poet, as Kirkpatrick says of him, that when he
———————his Albion sung
With their own praise the echoing vallies rung;
His bounding Muse o'er every mountain rode
And every river warbled where he flowed;
but I may say that if instead of sending his Muse to ride over the
mountains, and resting contented with her report, he had ridden or
walked over them himself, his poem would better have deserved that
praise for accuracy which has been bestowed upon it by critics who had
themselves no knowledge which could enable them to say whether it were
accurate or not. Camden was more diligent; he visited some of the
remotest counties of which he wrote.
This is not said with any intention of detracting from Michael
Drayton's fame: the most elaborate criticism could neither raise him
above the station which he holds in English literature, nor degrade
him from it. He is extolled not beyond the just measure of his deserts
in his epitaph which has been variously ascribed to Ben Jonson, to
Randolph, and to Quarles, but with most probability to the former, who
knew and admired and loved him.
He was a poet by nature, and carefully improved his talent;—one who
sedulously laboured to deserve the approbation of such as were capable
of appreciating, and cared nothing for the censures which others might
pass upon him. “Like me that list,” he says,
my honest rhymes,
Nor care for critics, nor regard the times.
And though he is not a poet _virûm volitare per ora_, nor one of those
whose better fortune it is to live in the hearts of their devoted
admirers, yet what he deemed his greatest work will be preserved by
its subject; some of his minor poems have merit enough in their
execution to ensure their preservation, and no one who studies poetry
as an art will think his time mis-spent in perusing the whole,—if he
have any real love for the art which he is pursuing. The youth who
enters upon that pursuit without a feeling of respect and gratitude
for those elder poets, who by their labours have prepared the way for
him, is not likely to produce any thing himself that will be held in
remembrance by posterity.
CHAPTER XXXVII. P. I.
ANECDOTES OF PETER HEYLYN AND LIGHTFOOT, EXEMPLIFYING THAT GREAT
KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ALWAYS APPLICABLE TO LITTLE THINGS; AND THAT AS
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, SO IT MAY WITH EQUAL TRUTH SOMETIMES BE SAID
THAT KNOWLEDGE ENDS THERE.
A scholar in his study knows the stars,
Their motion and their influence, which are fix'd,
And which are wandering; can decypher seas,
And give each several land his proper bounds:
But set him to the compass he's to seek,
Where a plain pilot can direct his course
From hence unto both the Indies.
HEYWOOD.
There was a Poet who wrote a descriptive poem, and then took a journey
to see the scenes which he had described. Better late than never, he
thought; and thought wisely in so thinking. Drayton was not likely to
have acted thus upon after consideration, if in the first conception
of his subject he did not feel sufficient ardour for such an
undertaking. It would have required indeed a spirit of enterprize as
unusual in those days as it is ordinary now. Many a long day's ride
must he have taken over rough roads, and in wild countries; and many a
weary step would it have cost him, and many a poor lodging must he
have put up with at night, where he would have found poor fare, if not
cold comfort. So he thought it enough, in many if not most parts, to
travel by the map, and believed himself to have been sufficiently
“punctual and exact in giving unto every province its peculiar bounds,
in laying out their several land-marks, tracing the course of most of
the principal rivers, and setting forth the situation and estate of
the chiefest towns.”
Peter Heylyn who speaks thus of his own exactness in a work partaking
enough of the same nature as the Poly-olbion to be remembered here,
though it be in prose and upon a wider subject, tells a humourous
anecdote of himself, in the preface to his Cosmography. “He that shall
think this work imperfect,” says he, “(though I confess it to be
nothing but imperfections) for some deficiencies of this kind, may be
likened to the country fellow, (in Aristophanes, if my memory fail
not,) who picked a great quarrel with the map because he could not
find where his own farm stood. And such a country customer I did meet
with once, a servant of my elder brother, sent by him with some horses
to Oxford, to bring me and a friend of mine unto his house; who having
lost his way as we passed through the forest of Whichwood, and not
being able to recover any beaten track, did very earnestly entreat me
to lead the way, till I had brought him past the woods to the open
fields. Which when I had refused to do, as I had good reason,
alledging that I had never been there before, and therefore that I
could not tell which way to lead him; ‘that's strange!’ said he; ‘I
have heard my old master, your Father, say that you made a book of all
the world; and cannot you find your way out of the wood?’”
Peter Heylyn was one who fell on evil times, and on whom, in
consequence, evil tongues have fallen. But he was an able, honest,
brave man who “stood to his tackling when he was tasted.” And if thou
hast not read his Survey of the State of France, Reader, thou hast not
read one of our liveliest books of travels in its lighter parts; and
one of the wisest and most replete with information that ever was
written by a young man.
His more learned contemporary Lightfoot, who steered a safer but not
so straight a course, met with an adventure not unlike that of
Heylyn's in the forest; but the application which in the
cosmographist's case was ridiculously made by an ignorant and simple
man was in this instance self-originated.
Lightfoot had promised to set forth as an accompaniment to his Harmony
of the Evangelists, “A chorographical description of the land of
Canaan, and those adjoining places, that we have occasion to look upon
as we read the Gospels.”—“I went on in that work,” he says, “a good
while, and that with much cheerfulness and content; for methought a
Talmudical survey and history of the land of Canaan, (not omitting
collections to be taken up out of the Scripture, and other writers) as
it would be new and rare, so it might not prove unwelcome nor
unprofitable to those that delighted in such a subject.”—It cost him
as much pains to give the description as it would have done to travel
thither; but says one of his Editors “the unhappy chance that hindered
the publishing this elaborate piece of his, which he had brought to
pretty good perfection, was the edition of Doctor Fuller's Pisgah
Sight; great pity it was that so good a book should have done so much
harm; for that book, handling the same matters and preventing his,
stopped his resolution of letting his labors on that subject see the
light. Though he went a way altogether different from Dr. Fuller; and
so both might have shown their face together in the world; and the
younger sister, if we may make comparisons, might have proved the
fairer of the two.”
It is pleasant to see how liberally and equitably both Lightfoot and
Fuller speak upon this matter;—“But at last,” says the former, “I
understood that another workman, a far better artist than myself, had
the description of the Land of Israel, not only in hand, but even in
the press; and was so far got before me in that travel that he was
almost at his journey's end, when I was but little more than setting
out. It was grievous to me to have lost my labour, if I should now sit
down; and yet I thought it wisdom not to lose more in proceeding
farther, when one on the same subject, and of far more abilities in
it, had got the start so far before me.
“And although I supposed, and at last was assured, even by that Author
himself (my very learned and worthy friend) that we should not thrust
nor hinder one another any whit at all, though we both went at once in
the perambulation of that land, because he had not meddled with that
Rabbinic way that I had gone; yet, when I considered what it was to
glean after so clean a reaper, and how rough a Talmudical pencil would
seem after so fine a pen, I resolved to sit down, and to stir no more
in that matter, till time and occasion did show me more encouragement
thereunto, than as yet I saw. And thus was my promise fallen to the
ground, not by any carelessness or forgetfulness of mine, but by the
happy prevention of another hand, by whom the work is likely to be
better done. Yet was I unwilling to suffer my word utterly to come to
nothing at all, though I might evade my promise by this fair excuse:
but I was desirous to pay the reader something in pursuance of it,
though it were not in this very same coin, nor the very same sum, that
I had undertaken. Hereupon I turned my thoughts and my endeavours to a
description of the Temple after the same manner, and from the same
authors, that I had intended to have described the Land; and that the
rather, not only that I might do some thing towards making good my
promise; but also, that by a trial in a work of this nature of a
lesser bulk, I might take some pattern and assay how the other, which
would prove of a far larger pains and volume, would be accepted, if I
should again venture upon it.”
Lightfoot was sincere in the commendation which he bestowed upon
Fuller's diligence, and his felicitous way of writing. And Fuller on
his part rendered justice in the same spirit to Lightfoot's well known
and peculiar erudition. “Far be it from me,” he says, “that our pens
should fall out, like the herdsmen of Lot and Abraham, the land not
being able to bear them both, that they might dwell together. No such
want of room in this subject, being of such latitude and receipt, that
both we and hundreds more, busied together therein, may severally lose
ourselves in a subject of such capacity. The rather, because we
embrace several courses in this our description; it being my desire
and delight, to stick only to the written word of God, whilst my
worthy friend takes in the choicest Rabbinical and Talmudical
relations, being so well seen in these studies, that it is
questionable whether his skill or my ignorance be the greater
therein.”
Now then—(for now and then go thus lovingly together, in familiar
English—)—after these preliminaries, the learned Lightfoot, who at
seven years of age, it is said could not only read fluently the
biblical Hebrew, but readily converse in it, may tell his own story.
“Here by the way,” he says, “I cannot but mention, and I think I can
never forget, a handsome and deserved check that mine own heart,
meeting with a special occasion, did give me, upon the laying down of
the other task, and the undertaking of this, for my daring to enter
either upon the one or the other. That very day wherein I first set
pen to paper to draw up the description of the Temple, having but
immediately before laid aside my thoughts of the description of the
Land, I was necessarily called out, towards the evening, to go to view
a piece of ground of mine own, concerning which some litigiousness was
emerging, and about to grow. The field was but a mile from my constant
residence and habitation, and it had been in mine owning divers years
together; and yet till that very time, had I never seen it, nor looked
after it, nor so much as knew whereabout it lay. It was very unlikely
I should find it out myself, being so utterly ignorant of its
situation; yet because I desired to walk alone, for the enjoying of my
thoughts upon that task that I had newly taken in hand, I took some
direction which way to go, and would venture to find out the field
myself alone. I had not gone far, but I was at a loss; and whether I
went right or wrong I could not tell; and if right thither, yet I knew
not how to do so farther; and if wrong I knew not which way would
prove the right, and so in seeking my ground I had lost myself. Here
my heart could not but take me to task; and, reflecting upon what my
studies were then, and had lately been upon, it could not but call me
fool; and methought it spake as true to me, as ever it had done in all
my life,—but only when it called me sinner. A fool that was so
studious, and had been so searching about things remote, and that so
little concerned my interest,—and yet was so neglective of what was
near me, both in place, and in my particular concernment! And a fool
again, who went about to describe to others, places and buildings that
lay so many hundred miles off, as from hence to Canaan, and under so
many hundred years' ruins,—and yet was not able to know, or find the
way to a field of mine own, that lay so near me!
“I could not but acknowledge this reproof to be both seasonable, and
seasoned both with truth and reason; and it so far prevailed with me,
that it not only put me upon a resolution to lay by that work that I
had newly taken in hand that morning, but also to be wiser in my
bookishness for the time to come, than for it, and through it, to
neglect and sink my estate as I had done. And yet within a little time
after, I know not how, I was fallen to the same studies and
studiousness again,—had got my laid-up task into my hands again before
I was aware,—and was come to a determination to go on in that work,
because I had my notes and collections ready by me as materials for
it; and when that was done, then to think of the advice that my heart
had given me, and to look to mine own business.
“So I drew up the description of the Temple itself, and with it the
History of the Temple-service.”
Lightfoot's heart was wise when it admonished him of humility; but it
was full of deceit when it read him a lesson of worldly wisdom, for
which his conscience and his better mind would have said to him “Thou
Fool!” if he had followed it.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. P. I.
THE READER IS LED TO INFER THAT A TRAVELLER WHO STOPS UPON THE WAY TO
SKETCH, BOTANIZE, ENTOMOLOGIZE OR MINERALOGIZE, TRAVELS WITH MORE
PLEASURE AND PROFIT TO HIMSELF THAN IF HE WERE IN THE MAIL COACH.
_Non servio materiæ sed indulgeo; quæ quo ducit sequendum est, non quo
invitat._
SENECA.
Fear not, my patient reader, that I should lose myself and bewilder
you, either in the Holy land, or Whichwood forest, or in the wide
fields of the Poly-olbion, or in Potteric Carr, or in any part of the
country about Doncaster, most fortunate of English towns for
circumstances which I have already stated, and henceforth to be the
most illustrious, as having been the place where my
never-to-be-forgotten Philosopher and friend, passed the greater part
of his innocent and useful and happy life. Good patient reader, you
may confide in me as in one who always knows his whereabout, and whom
the Goddess Upibilia will keep in the right way.
In treating of that flourishing and every way fortunate town, I have
not gone back to visionary times, like the author who wrote a
description and drew a map of Anglesea, as it was before the flood.
Nor have I touched upon the ages when hyenas prowled over what is now
Doncaster race-ground, and great lizards, huge as crocodiles, but with
long necks and short tails, took their pleasure in Potteric Carr. I
have not called upon thee, gentle and obsequious reader, to accompany
me into a Præadamite world, nor even into the antediluvian one. We
began with the earliest mention of Doncaster—no earlier; and shall
carry our summary notices of its history to the Doctor's time,—no
later. And if sometimes the facts on which I may touch should call
forth thoughts, and those thoughts remind me of other facts, anecdotes
leading to reflection, and reflection producing more anecdotes, thy
pleasure will be consulted in all this, my good and patient reader,
and thy profit also as much as mine; nay, more in truth, for I might
think upon all these things in silence, and spare myself the trouble
of relating them.
O Reader, had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader, you would find
A Tale in every thing![1]
[Footnote 1: WORDSWORTH.]
I might muse upon these things and let the hours pass by unheeded as
the waters of a river in their endless course. And thus I might live
in other years,—with those who are departed, in a world of my own, by
force of recollection;—or by virtue of sure hope in that world which
is theirs now, and to which I shall ere long be promoted.
For thy pleasure, Reader, and for thy improvement, I take upon myself
the pains of thus materializing my spiritual stores. Alas! their
earthly uses would perish with me unless they were thus embodied!
“The age of a cultivated mind,” says an eloquent and wise and
thoughtful author, “is often more complacent, and even more luxurious,
than the youth. It is the reward of the due use of the endowments
bestowed by nature: while they who in youth have made no provision for
age, are left like an unsheltered tree, stripped of its leaves and its
branches, shaking and withering before the cold blasts of winter.
“In truth nothing is so happy to itself and so attractive to others,
as a genuine and ripened imagination, that knows its own powers, and
throws forth its treasures with frankness and fearlessness. The more
it produces, the more capable it becomes of production; the creative
faculty grows by indulgence; and the more it combines, the more means
and varieties of combinations it discovers.
“When Death comes to destroy that mysterious and magical union of
capacities and acquirements which has brought a noble genius to this
point of power, how frightful and lamentable is the effect of the
stroke that stops the current which was wont to put this mighty
formation into activity! Perhaps the incomprehensible Spirit may have
acted in conjunction with its corporeal adherents to the last. Then in
one moment, what darkness and destruction follows a single gasp of
breath!”[2]
[Footnote 2: SIR EGERTON BRYDGES.]
This fine passage is as consolatory in its former part, as it is
gloomy at the conclusion; and it is gloomy there, because the view
which is there taken is imperfect. Our thoughts, our reminiscences,
our intellectual acquirements, die with us to this world,—but to this
world only. If they are what they ought to be, they are treasures
which we lay up for Heaven. That which is of the earth, earthly,
perishes with wealth, rank, honours, authority, and other earthly and
perishable things. But nothing that is worth retaining can be lost.
When Ovid says in Ben Jonson's play
We pour out our affections with our blood,
And with our blood's affections fade our loves,
the dramatist makes the Roman Poet speak like a sensualist, as he was,
and the philosophy is as false as it is foul. Affections well placed
and dutifully cherished; friendships happily formed and faithfully
maintained; knowledge acquired with worthy intent, and intellectual
powers that have been diligently improved as the talents which our
Lord and Master has committed to our keeping; these will accompany us
into another state of existence, as surely as the soul in that state
retains its identity and its consciousness.
INTERCHAPTER IV.
ETYMOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES CONCERNING THE REMAINS OF VARIOUS TRIBES OR
FAMILIES MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURAL HISTORY.
All things are big with jest; nothing that's plain
But may be witty if thou hast the vein.
HERBERT.
That the lost ten Tribes of Israel may be found in London, is a
discovery which any person may suppose he has made, when he walks for
the first time from the city to Wapping. That the tribes of Judah and
Benjamin flourish there is known to all mankind; and from them have
sprung the Scripites, and the Omniumites and the Threepercentites.
But it is not so well known that many other tribes noticed in the Old
Testament are to be found in this Island of Great Britain.
There are the Hittites, who excel in one branch of gymnastics. And
there are the Amorites, who are to be found in town and country; and
there are the Gadites who frequent watering places, and take
picturesque tours.
Among the Gadites I shall have some of my best readers, who being in
good humour with themselves and with every thing else, except on a
rainy day, will even then be in good humour with me. There will be
Amorites in their company; and among the Amorites too there will be
some, who in the overflowing of their love, will have some liking to
spare for the Doctor and his faithful memorialist.
The Poets, those especially who deal in erotics, lyrics, sentimentals
or sonnets, are the Ah-oh-ites.
The gentlemen who speculate in chapels are the Puh-ites.
The chief seat of the Simeonites is at Cambridge; but they are spread
over the land. So are the Man-ass-ites of whom the finest specimens
are to be seen in St. James's Street, at the fashionable time of day
for exhibiting the dress and the person upon the pavement.
The free-masons are of the family of the Jachinites.
The female Haggites are to be seen, in low life wheeling barrows, and
in high life seated at card tables.
The Shuhamites are the cordwainers.
The Teamanites attend the sales of the East India Company.
Sir James Mackintosh, and Sir James Scarlett, and Sir James Graham,
belong to the Jim-nites.
Who are the Gazathites if the people of London are not, where any
thing is to be seen? All of them are Gettites when they can, all would
be Havites if they could.
The journalists should be Geshurites, if they answered to their
profession: instead of this they generally turn out to be Geshuwrongs.
There are however three Tribes in England, not named in the Old
Testament, who considerably out number all the rest. These are the
High Vulgarites, who are the children of Rahank and Phashan: the
Middle Vulgarites, who are the children of Mammon and Terade, and the
Low Vulgarites, who are the children of Tahag, Rahag, and Bohobtay-il.
With the Low Vulgarites I have no concern; but with the other two
tribes, much. Well it is that some of those who are _fruges consumere
nati_, think it proper that they should consume books also: if they
did not, what a miserable creature wouldst thou be, Henry Colburn, who
art their Bookseller! I myself have that kind of respect for the
consumers which we ought to feel for every thing useful. If not the
salt of the earth they are its manure, without which it could not
produce so abundantly.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
A CHAPTER FOR THE INFORMATION OF THOSE WHO MAY VISIT DONCASTER, AND
ESPECIALLY OF THOSE WHO FREQUENT THE RACES THERE.
My good Lord, there is a Corporation,
A body,—a kind of body.
MIDDLETON.
Well, reader, I have told thee something concerning the topography of
Doncaster: and now in due order, and as in duty bound, will I give
thee a sketch of its history; “_summa sequar fastigia rerum_,” with
becoming brevity, according to my custom, and in conformity with the
design of this book. The Nobility and Gentry who attend the races
there, will find it very agreeable to be well acquainted with every
thing relating to the place: and I particularly invite their attention
to that part of the present chapter which concerns the Doncaster
charters, because as a wise and ancient author hath said, _turpe est
homini nobili ejus civitatis in quâ versetur, jus ignorare_, which may
be thus applied, that every gentleman who frequents Doncaster races
ought to know the form and history of its corporation.
In Edward the Confessor's reign, the soccage part of Doncaster and of
some adjoining townships was under the manor of Hexthorp, though in
the topsy-turveying course of time Hexthorp has become part of the
soke of Doncaster. Earl Tostig was the Lord of that manor, one of Earl
Godwin's sons, and one who holds like his father no honorable place in
the records of those times, but who in the last scene of his life
displayed a heroism that may well redeem his name. The manor being two
miles and a half long, and one and a half broad, was valued at
eighteen pounds yearly rent; but when Doomsday book was compiled that
rent had decreased one third. It had then been given by the Conqueror
to his half-brother Robert Earl of Montaigne in Normandy, and of
Cornwall in England. The said Earl was a lay-pluralist of the first
magnitude, and had no fewer than seven hundred and fifty manors
bestowed upon him as his allotment of the conquered kingdom. He
granted the lordship and soke of Doncaster with many other possessions
to Nigel de Fossard, which Nigel is believed to have been the Saxon
noble who at the time of the conquest held these same possessions
under the crown.
The Fossard family ended in an heiress in Cœur-de-Lion's reign; and
the only daughter of that heiress was given in marriage by John
Lackland to Peter de Malolieu or Maulay, as a reward for his part in
the murder of Prince Arthur. Peter de Maulay, bore, as such a service
richly deserved, an ill name in the nation, being moreover a favorite
of King John's, and believed to be one of his evil counsellors as well
as of his wicked instruments: but the name was in good odour with his
descendants, and was borne accordingly by eight Peters in succession.
The eighth had no male issue; he left two daughters, and daughters are
said by Fuller to be “silent strings sending no sound to posterity,
but losing their own surnames in their matches.” Ralph Salvayne or
Salvin, a descendant of the younger coheiress, in the reign of James
I. claimed the Lordship of Doncaster; and William his son after a long
suit with the Corporation resigned his claim for a large sum of money.
The Burgesses had obtained their Charter from Richard I. in the fifth
year of his reign, that king confirming to them their Soke, and Town
or Village of Danecastre, to hold of him and his heirs, by the ancient
rent, and over and above that rent, by an annual payment at the same
time of twenty-five marks of silver. For this grant the Burgesses gave
the king fifty marks of silver, and were thereby entitled to hold
their Soke and Town “effectually and peaceably, freely and quietly,
fully and honorably, with all the liberties and free customs to the
same appertaining, so that none hereupon might them disturb.” This
charter with all and singular the things therein contained was
ratified and confirmed by Richard II. to his beloved the then
Burgesses of the aforesaid Town.
The Burgesses fearing that they might be molested in the enjoyment of
these their liberties and free customs, through defect of a
declaration and specification of the same, petitioned Edward IV. in
the 7th year of his reign, that he would graciously condescend those
liberties and free customs, under specifical declaration and express
terms, to them and their heirs and successors, incorporating them, and
making them persons fit and capable, with perpetual succession.
Accordingly the king granted that Doncaster should be a free borough,
and that the burgesses, tenants, resiants, and inhabitants and their
successors, should be free burgesses and might have a Gild Merchant,
and continue to have the same liberties and free customs, as they and
their predecessors had theretofore reasonably used and enjoyed. And
that they from thenceforth might be, in reality and name, one body and
one perpetual community; and every year chuse out of themselves one
fit person to be the Mayor, and two other fit persons for the
Serjeants at Mace, of the same town, within the same town dwelling, to
rule and govern the community aforesaid, for ever. And further of his
more abundant grace the King granted that the cognizance of all manner
of pleas of debt, trespass, covenant, and all manner of other causes
and contracts whatsoever within the same borough, should be holden
before the Mayor. He granted also to the corporation the power of
attachment for debt, by their Serjeants at Mace; and of his abundant
grace that the Mayor should hold and exercise the office of Coroner
also, during his year; and should be also a Justice and Keeper of the
King's peace within the said borough. And he granted them of his same
abundant grace the right of having a Fair at the said Borough every
year upon the vigil, and upon the feast, and upon the morrow of the
Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to be held, and for the same
three days to continue, with all liberties and free customs to this
sort of fair appertaining, unless that fair should be to the detriment
of the neighbouring fairs.
There appear to this Charter among others as witnesses, the memorable
names of “our dearest brothers George of Clarence, and Richard of
Gloucester, Dukes; Richard Wydevile de Ryvers, our Treasurer of
England, Earl; and our beloved and faithful William Hastynges de
Hastynges, Chamberlain of our Household, and Anthony Wydevile de
Scales, Knights.” The charter is moreover decorated with the armorial
bearings of the Corporation, a Lion sejeant, upon a cushion powdered
ermine, holding in his paws and legs a banner with the castle thereon
depicted, and this motto, _Son Comfort et Liesse_, his Comfort and
Joy.
Henry VII. enlarged the charter, giving of his special grace, to the
Mayor and Community all and singular the messuages, marshes, lands,
tenements, rents, reversions and services, advowsons of churches,
chantries and chapels, possessions and all hereditaments whatsoever
within the Lordship and its dependencies, “with the court-leets,
view-of-frank-pledges-courts, waters, mills, entry and discharge of
waters, fairs, markets, tolls, picages, stallages, pontages, passages,
and all and singular profits, commodities and emoluments whatsoever
within that lordship and its precincts to the King, his heirs and
successors howsoever appertaining, or lately belonging. And all and
singular the issues, revenues, and profits of the aforesaid courts,
view of frank pledge, waters, mills, fairs, markets, tolls, picages,
stallages, pontages, passages, and the rest of the premises in what
manner so ever accruing or arising.” For this the Mayor and Community
were to pay into the Exchequer yearly in equal portions, at the feasts
of St. Michael the Archangel, and Easter, without fee, or any other
charge, the sum of seventy and four pounds, thirteen shillings eleven
pence and an halfpenny. Further of his more extensive grace, he
granted them to hold twice in every year a leet or view of frank
pledge; and that they might have the superintendency of the assize of
bread and ale, and other victuals vendible whatsoever, and the
correction and punishment of the same, and all and whatsoever, which
to a leet or view of frank pledge appertaineth, or ought to appertain.
And that they might have all issues and profits and perquisites,
fines, penalties, redemptions, forfeitures, and amerciaments in all
and singular these kind of leets, or frank pledge to be forfeited, or
assessed, or imposed; and moreover wayf, strayf, infang-thief, and
outfang-thief; and the goods and chattels of all and singular felons,
and the goods of fugitives, convicts and attainted, and the goods and
chattels of outlaws and waived; and the wreck of sea when it should
happen, and goods and chattels whatsoever confiscated within the
manor, lordship, soke, towns, villages, and the rest of the premises
of the precincts of the same, and of every of them found, or to be
found for ever.
In what way any wreck of sea could be thrown upon any part of the
Doncastrian jurisdiction is a question which might have occasioned a
curious discussion between Corporal Trim and his good master. How it
could happen I cannot comprehend, unless “the fatal Welland,”
according to old saw,
—————which God forbid!
Should drown all Holland with his excrement.[1]
Nor indeed do I see how it could happen then, unless Humber should at
the same time drown all Lindsey, and the whole of the Yorkshire plain,
and Trent bear a part also with all his thirty tributary streams, and
the plain land of all the midland counties be once more flooded, “as
it was in the days of Noah.” But if the official person who drew up
this charter of Henry the Seventh contemplated any such contingency,
he must have been a whimsical person; and moreover an unreasonable one
not to have considered that Doncaster itself must be destroyed by such
a catastrophe, and consequently that its corporation even then could
derive no benefit from wreck at sea.
[Footnote 1: SPENSER.]
Further of his more abundant grace King Henry granted to the Mayor and
Community that they might hold two markets in the week for ever, to
wit every Tuesday and every Saturday; and that they might hold a
second fair, which was to be upon the vigil, and upon the day of St.
James the Apostle, and upon the morrow of the day immediately
following to continue: and that they might chuse a Recorder; and hold
a weekly court in their Guild Hall, which court should be a Court of
Record: and that the Recorder and three of the Aldermen should be
Justices as well as the Mayor, and that they might have a gaol within
the precincts of their town.
Henry VIII. confirmed this his father's charter, and Elizabeth that
her father's confirmation. In the next reign when the corporation,
after having “endured the charge of many great and tedious suits” had
compounded with Ralph Salvin for what they called his pretended title,
they petitioned the King that he would be pleased to accept from them
a surrender of their estates, together with an assurance of Salvin's
title, and then graciously assure and convey the said manors and
premises to them and their successors, so to secure them against any
farther litigation.
This accordingly was done. In the fourth year after the Restoration
the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses petitioned for a ratification of
their existing privileges and for an enlargement of them, which
Charles II. granted, “the borough being an ancient and populous
borough, and he being desirous that for the time to come, for ever,
one certain and invariable method might be had of, for, and in the
preservation of our peace, and in the rule and governance of the same
borough, and of our people in the same inhabiting, and of others
resorting thither; and that that borough in succeeding times, might
be, and remain a borough of harmony and peace, to the fear and terror
of the wicked, and for the support and reward of the good.” Wherefore
he the King of his special grace, certain knowledge and mere motion,
willed, granted, constituted, declared and confirmed, and by his then
presents did will, grant, constitute, declare and confirm, that
Doncaster should be, and continue for ever, a free borough itself; and
that the Mayor and community, or commonalty thereof, should be one
body corporate and politic in reality, deed and name, by the name of
Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the borough of Doncaster in the
County of York, and by that name be capacitated and enabled to plead,
and to be impleaded, answer and be answered; defend and be defended;
and to have, purchase, receive, possess, give, grant and demise.
This body corporate and politic which was to have perpetual
succession, was by the Charter appointed to consist of one Mayor,
twelve Aldermen, and twenty-four capital Burgesses, the Aldermen to be
“of the better and more excellent inhabitants of the borough,” and the
capital Burgesses of the better, more reputable and discreet, and
these latter were to be “for ever in perpetual future times, the
Common Council of the borough.” The three Estates of the Borough as
they may be called, in court or convocation gathered together and
assembled, were invested “with full authority, power and ability of
granting, constituting, ordaining, making, and rendering firm, from
time to time, such kind of laws, institutes, bye-laws, ordinances and
constitutions, which to them, or the greater part of them, shall seem
to be, according to their sound understandings, good, salutary,
profitable, honest or honorable, and necessary for the good rule and
governance of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses, and of all and
singular, and other the inhabitants of the borough aforesaid; and of
all the officers, ministers, artificers, and resiants whatsoever
within the borough aforesaid, for the time being; and for the
declaring in what manner and form, the aforesaid Mayor, Aldermen and
Burgesses, and all and singular other the ministers, officers,
artificers, inhabitants, and resiants of the borough aforesaid, and
their factors or agents, servants and apprentices, in their offices,
callings, mysteries, artifices and businesses, within the borough
aforesaid, and the liberties of the same for the time being, shall
have, behave and use themselves, and otherwise for the more ultimate
public good, common utility and good regimen of the borough
aforesaid.” And for the victualling of the borough, and for the better
preservation, governance, disposing, letting and demising of the
lands, tenements, possessions, revenues and hereditaments, vested in
their body corporate, they had power to ordain and enforce such
punishments, penalties, inflictions and imprisonments of the body, or
by fines and amerciaments, or by both of them, against and upon all
delinquents and offenders against these their laws as might to them
seem necessary, so that nevertheless this kind of laws, ordinances,
institutions and constitutions be not repugnant, nor contrary to the
laws and statutes of the kingdom.
Persons refusing to accept the office of Mayor, Alderman, Capital
Burgess, or any other inferior office of the borough, except the
Recorders, might be committed to gaol, till they consented to serve,
or fined at the discretion of the Corporation, and held fast in their
gaol till the fine was paid.
This Charter also empowered the Corporation to keep a fair on the
Saturday before Easter, and thenceforth on every alternate Saturday
until the feast of St. Andrew, for cattle, and to hold at such times a
court of pie-powder.
James II. confirmed the corporation in all their rights and
privileges, and by the Charter of Charles II., thus confirmed,
Doncaster is governed at this day.
It was during the mayoralty of Thomas Pheasant that Daniel Dove took
up his abode in Doncaster.
CHAPTER XL. P. I.
REMARKS ON THE ART OF VERBOSITY. A RULE OF COCCEIUS, AND ITS
APPLICATION TO THE LANGUAGE AND PRACTICE OF THE LAW.
If they which employ their labour and travail about the public
administration of justice, follow it only as a trade, with
unquenchable and unconscionable thirst of gain, being not in heart
persuaded that justice is God's own work, and themselves his agents in
this business,—the sentence, of right, God's own verdict, and
themselves his priests to deliver it; formalities of justice do but
serve to smother right; and that which was necessarily ordained for
the common good, is through shameful abuse made the cause of common
misery.
HOOKER.
Reader, thou mayest perhaps have thought me at times disposed to be
circumambagious in my manner of narration. But now, having cast thine
eyes over the Doncaster charters, even in the abridged form in which I
have considerately presented them, thou knowest what a round-about
style is when amplified with all possible varieties of professional
tautology.
You may hear it exemplified to a certain degree, in most sermons of
the current standard, whether composed by those who inflict them upon
their congregation, or purchased ready made and warranted orthodox as
well as original. In a still greater degree you may hear it in the
extempore prayers of any meeting-house, and in those with which the
so-called Evangelical Clergymen of the Establishment think proper
sometimes to prologize and epilogize their grievous discourses. But in
tautology the Lawyers beat the Divines hollow.
Cocceius laid it down as a fundamental rule of interpretation in
theology, that the words and phrases of scripture are to be understood
in every sense of which they are susceptible; that is, that they
actually signify every thing that they can possibly signify. The
Lawyers carry this rule farther in their profession than the Leyden
Professor did in his: they deduce from words not only every thing that
they can possibly signify, but sometimes a great deal more; and
sometimes they make them bear a signification precisely opposite to
what they were intended to express.
That crafty politician who said the use of language is to conceal our
thoughts, did not go farther in his theory, than the members of the
legal profession in their practice; as every deed which comes from
their hands may testify, and every Court of Law bears record. You
employ them to express your meaning in a deed of conveyance, a
marriage settlement, or a will; and they so smother it with words, so
envelope it with technicalities, so bury it beneath redundancies of
speech, that any meaning which is sought for may be picked out, to the
confusion of that which you intended. Something at length comes to be
contested: you go to a Court of Law to demand your right; or you are
summoned into one to defend it. You ask for justice, and you receive a
nice distinction—a forced construction,—a verbal criticism. By such
means you are defeated and plundered in a civil cause; and in a
criminal one a slip of the pen in the indictment brings off the
criminal scot free. As if slips of the pen in such cases were always
accidental! But because Judges are incorruptible, (as blessed be God
they still are in this most corrupt nation) and because Barristers are
not to be suspected of ever intentionally betraying the cause which
they are fee'd to defend, it is taken for granted that the same
incorruptibility, and the same principled integrity, or gentlemanly
sense of honor which sometimes is its substitute, are to be found
among all those persons who pass their miserable lives in
quill-driving, day after day, from morning till night, at a
scrivener's desk, or in an attorney's office!
CHAPTER XLI. P. I.
REVENUE OF THE CORPORATION OF DONCASTER WELL APPLIED.
Play not for gain but sport: who plays for more
Than he can lose with pleasure, stakes his heart;
Perhaps his wife's too, and whom she hath bore.
HERBERT.
Well, gentle Reader, we have made our way through the Charters, and
seen that the Borough of Doncaster is, as it may be called, an
_imperium in imperio_—or _regnum_, or rather if there were such word
_regnulum, in regno_, (such a word there ought to be, and very
probably was, and most certainly would be if the Latin were a living
language)—a little kingdom in itself, modelled not unhappily after the
form of that greater one whereof it is a part; differing from it, for
reasons so evident that it would be a mere waste of words and time to
explain them,—in being an elective instead of an hereditary monarchy,
and also because the monarchy is held only for a year, not for life;
and differing in this respect likewise that its three estates are
analogous to the vulgar and mistaken notion of the English
constitution, not to what that constitution is, as transmitted to us
by our fathers.
We have seen that its Mayor (or Monarch,) its twelve Aldermen (or
House of Lords,) all being of the better and more excellent
inhabitants, and its four and twenty capital Burgesses (or House of
Commons,) all of the better, more reputable and discreet Doncastrians,
constitute one body corporate and politic in reality, deed and name,
to the fear and terror of the wicked, and for the support and reward
of the good; and that the municipal government has been thus
constituted expressly to the end that Doncaster might remain for ever
a borough of harmony and peace: to the better effecting of which most
excellent intent, a circumstance which has already been adverted to,
contributes greatly, to wit, that Doncaster sends no members to
Parliament.
Great are the mysteries of Corporations; and great the good of them
when they are so constituted, and act upon such principles as that of
Doncaster.
There is an old Song which says
Oh London is a gallant town
A most renowned city;
'Tis governed by the scarlet gown,
Indeed, the more's the pity.
The two latter verses could never be applied to Doncaster. In the
middle of the last century the revenues of the Corporation did not
exceed £1500. a year: at the beginning of this they had encreased to
nearly £6000., and this income was principally expended, as it ought
to be, for the benefit of the Town. The public buildings have been
erected from these funds; and liberal donations made from them to the
Dispensary and other eleemosynary institutions. There is no
constable-assessment, none for paving and lighting the street; these
expences are defrayed by the Corporation, and families are supplied
with river water chiefly at its expence.
Whether this body corporate should be commended or condemned for
encouraging the horse-races, by building a grand stand upon the
course; and giving annually a plate of the value of £50. to be run
for, and two sums of twenty guineas each toward the stakes, is a
question which will be answered by every one according to his estimate
of right and wrong. Gentlemen of the Turf will approve highly of their
conduct, so will those Gentlemen whose characteristics are either
light fingers or black legs. Put it to the vote in Doncaster, and
there will be few voices against them: take the sense of the nation
upon it by universal suffrage, and there would be a triumphant
majority in their favour.
In this, and alas! in too many other cases _vox populi est vox
diaboli_.
A greater number of families are said to meet each other at Doncaster
races, than at any other meeting of the same kind in England. That
such an assemblage contributes greatly to the gaiety and prosperity of
the town itself, and of the country round about, is not to be
disputed. But horse races excite evil desires, call forth evil
passions, encourage evil propensities, lead the innocent into
temptation, and give opportunities to the wicked. And the good which
arises from such amusements, either as mere amusement (which is in
itself unequivocally a good when altogether innocent)—or by
circulating money in the neighbourhood,—or by tending to keep up an
excellent breed of horses, for purposes of direct utility,—these
consequences are as dust in the balance when compared with the guilt
and misery that arise from gambling.
Lord Exeter and the Duke of Grafton may perhaps be of a different
opinion. So should Mr. Gully whom Pindar may seem to have
prophetically panegyrized as
’Ολυμπιονἰκαν
’Ανδρα,—πὺξ αρετὰν
Εὑρόντα. Ol. 7. 162.
That gentleman indeed may with great propriety congratulate himself
upon his knowledge of what is called the world, and the ability with
which he has turned it to a good practical account. But Lord Burleigh
methinks would shake his head in the antechamber of Heaven if he could
read there the following paragraph from a Sunday Newspaper.
“PLEASURES AND PROFITS OF THE TURF.—We stated in a former number that
Lord Exeter's turf-profits were for the previous season £26,000., this
was intended to include bets. But we have now before us a correct and
consecutive account of the Duke of Grafton's winnings from 1811 to
1829 inclusive, taking in merely the value of the stakes for which the
horses ran, and which amounts to no less a sum than £99,211. 3_s._
4_d._ or somewhat more than £5000. per annum. This, even giving in a
good round sum for training and outlay, will leave a sufficiently
pleasant balance in hand; to say nothing of the betting book, not
often, we believe, light in figures. His Grace's greatest winnings
were in 1822 and 1825: in the former of these years they amounted to
£11,364. 5_s._—in the latter £12,668. 16_s._ 8_d._”
It is to be hoped that the Duke has with his crest and coronet his
motto also upon the covers of his racing and betting books, and upon
his prize plates and cups;
ET DECUS ET PRETIUM RECTI.
Before we pass from the Race-ground let me repeat to the reader a wish
of Horace Walpole's that “some attempt were made to ennoble our
horse-races, by associating better arts with the courses, as by
contributing for odes, the best of which should be rewarded by medals.
Our nobility,” says he, “would find their vanity gratified; for as the
pedigrees of their steeds would soon grow tiresome, their own
genealogies would replace them, and in the mean time poetry and medals
would be improved. Their lordships would have judgement enough to know
if the horse (which should be the impression on one side) were not
well executed; and as I hold that there is no being more difficult to
draw well than a horse, no bad artist could be employed. Such a
beginning would lead farther; and the cup or plate for the prize might
rise into beautiful vases.”
Pity that the hint has not been taken, and an auxiliary sporting
society formed for promoting the education of Pindars and Benvenuto
Cellinis!
INTERCHAPTER V.
WHEREIN THE AUTHOR MAKES KNOWN HIS GOOD INTENTIONS TO ALL READERS, AND
OFFERS GOOD ADVICE TO SOME OF THEM.
I can write, and talk too, as soft as other men, _with submission to
better judgements,—and I leave it to you Gentlemen. I am but one, and
I always distrust myself. I only hint my thoughts: You'll please to
consider whether you will not think that it may seem to deserve your
consideration._—This is a taking way of speaking. But much good may do
them that use it!
ASGILL.
Reader, my compliments to you!
This is a form of courtesy which the Turks use in their compositions,
and being so courteous a form, I have here adopted it. Why not? Turks
though they are, we learnt inoculation from them, and the use of
coffee; and hitherto we have taught them nothing but the use of
tobacco in return.
Reader, my compliments to you!
Why is it that we hear no more of Gentle Readers? Is it that having
become critical in this age of Magazines and Reviews, they have ceased
to be gentle? But all are not critical;
The baleful dregs
Of these late ages,—that Circæan draught
Of servitude and folly, have not yet,—
Yet have not so dishonour'd, so deform'd
The native judgement of the human soul.[1]
[Footnote 1: AKENSIDE.]
In thus applying these lines I mean the servitude to which any
rational man degrades his intellect when he submits to receive an
opinion from the dictation of another, upon a point whereon he is just
as capable of judging for himself;—the intellectual servitude of being
told by Mr. A. B. or C. whether he is to like a book or not,—or why he
is to like it: and the folly of supposing that the man who writes
anonymously, is on that very account entitled to more credit for
judgement, erudition and integrity, than the author who comes forward
in his own person, and stakes his character upon what he advances.
All Readers however,—thank Heaven, and what is left among us of that
best and rarest of all senses called Common Sense,—all Readers however
are not critical. There are still some who are willing to be pleased,
and thankful for being pleased; and who do not think it necessary that
they should be able to _parse_ their pleasure, like a lesson, and give
a rule or a reason why they are pleased, or why they ought not to be
pleased. There are still readers who have never read an Essay upon
Taste;—and if they take my advice they never will; for they can no
more improve their taste by so doing, than they could improve their
appetite or their digestion by studying a cookery book.
I have something to say to all classes of Readers: and therefore
having thus begun to speak of one, with that class I will proceed. It
is to the youthful part of my lectors—(why not lectors as well as
auditors?) it is _virginibus puerisque_ that I now address myself.
Young Readers, you whose hearts are open, whose understandings are not
yet hardened, and whose feelings are neither exhausted nor encrusted
by the world, take from me a better rule than any professors of
criticism will teach you!
Would you know whether the tendency of a book is good or evil, examine
in what state of mind you lay it down. Has it induced you to suspect
that what you have been accustomed to think unlawful may after all be
innocent, and that that may be harmless which you have hitherto been
taught to think dangerous? Has it tended to make you dissatisfied and
impatient under the controul of others; and disposed you to relax in
that self government, without which both the laws of God and man tell
us there can be no virtue—and consequently no happiness? Has it
attempted to abate your admiration and reverence for what is great and
good, and to diminish in you the love of your country and your fellow
creatures? Has it addressed itself to your pride, your vanity, your
selfishness, or any other of your evil propensities? Has it defiled
the imagination with what is loathsome, and shocked the heart with
what is monstrous? Has it disturbed the sense of right and wrong which
the Creator has implanted in the human soul? If so—if you are
conscious of all or any of these effects,—or if having escaped from
all, you have felt that such were the effects it was intended to
produce, throw the book in the fire whatever name it may bear in the
title page! Throw it in the fire, young man, though it should have
been the gift of a friend!—young lady, away with the whole set, though
it should be the prominent furniture of a rose-wood book case!
CHAPTER XLII. P. I.
DONCASTER CHURCH. THE RECTORIAL TITHES SECURED BY ARCHBISHOP SHARP FOR
HIS OWN FAMILY.
Say ancient edifice, thyself with years
Grown grey, how long upon the hill has stood
Thy weather-braving tower, and silent mark'd
The human leaf in constant bud and fall?
The generations of deciduous man
How often hast thou seen them pass away!
HURDIS.
The ecclesiastical history of Doncaster is not so much to the credit
of all whom it concerns, as the municipal. Nigel Fossard in the year
1100, granted the advowson of its church to St. Mary's Abbey, York;
and it was for rather more than two hundred years a rectory of two
medieties, served by two resident rectors whom the Abbey appointed. In
1303, Archbishop Corbridge appropriated it to the abbey, and ordained
it a perpetual vicarage. Fifty marks a year out of the profits of the
rectory were then allowed for the Vicar's support, and he held the
house and garden also which had formerly appertained to one of the
Rectors. When upon the dissolution of the monasteries it fell to the
crown, Henry VIII. gave it with other monastic impropriations to
Archbishop Holgate, as some compensation for the valuable manors which
he made the see of York alienate to himself. The church of Doncaster
gained nothing by this transfer. The rectory was secured by Archbishop
Sharp for his own family. At the beginning of the present century it
was worth from £1000. to £1200. a year, while the Vicar had only an
annual income of £80. charged upon that rectory, and £20. charged upon
a certain estate. He had no tithes, no Easter offerings, and no other
glebe than the church-yard, and an orchard attached to the vicarage.
And he had to pay a curate to do the duty at Loversall church.
There is one remarkable epitaph in this church upon a monument of the
altar form, placed just behind the reading desk.
How, how, who is here?
I Robin of Doncaster, and Margaret my fere.
That I spent, that I had;
That I gave, that I have;
That I left, that I lost. A. D. 1579.
Quoth Robertus Byrkes who in this world did reign
Threescore years and seven, and yet lived not one.
Robin of Doncaster as he is now familiarly called by persons
connected, or acquainted with the church, is remembered only by this
record which he has left of himself: perhaps the tomb was spared for
the singularity of the epitaph, when prouder monuments in the same
church were despoiled. He seems to have been one who thinking little
of any thing beyond the affairs of this world till the last year of
his pilgrimage, lived during that year a new life. It may also be
inferred that his property was inherited by persons to whom he was
bound by no other ties than those of cold affinity; for if he had felt
any concern for their welfare, he would not have considered those
possessions as lost which were left to them.
Perhaps a farther inference may be fairly drawn, that though the
deceased had stood in this uncomfortable relation to his heirs at law,
he was too just a man to set aside the course of succession which the
law appointed. They who think that in the testamentary disposal of
their property they have a right to do whatever it is legally in their
power to do, may find themselves woefully mistaken when they come to
render their account. Nothing but the weightiest moral considerations
can justify any one in depriving another of that which the law of the
land would otherwise in its due course have assigned him. But rights
of descent cease to be held sacred in public opinion in proportion as
men consider themselves exempt from all duty to their forefathers; and
that is in proportion as principles become sophisticated, and society
more and more corrupt.
St. George's is the only church in Doncaster, a town which in the year
1800, contained 1246 houses, 5697 souls: twenty years afterwards the
houses had increased to 1729, and the inhabitants to 8544. The state
having made no other provision for the religious instruction of the
townspeople than one church, one vicar, and one curate—if the vicar
from other revenues than those of his vicarage can afford to keep
one—the far greater part of the inhabitants are left to be absenters
by necessity, or dissenters by choice. It was the boast of the
corporation in an address to Charles II. that they had not “one
factious seditious person” in their town, “being all true sons of the
Church of England and loyal subjects;” and that “in the height of all
the late troubles and confusion (that is during the civil wars and the
commonwealth,—which might more truly have been called the common-woe)
they never had any conventicle amongst them, the nurseries and seed
plots of sedition and rebellion.”—There are conventicles there now of
every denomination. And this has been occasioned by the great sin of
omission in the Government, and the great sin of commission in that
Prelate who appropriated the property of the church to his own family.
Hollis Pigot was Vicar when Daniel Dove began to reside in Doncaster;
and Mr. Fawkes was his Curate.
CHAPTER XLIII. P. I.
ANTIQUITIES OF DONCASTER. THE DEÆ MATRES. SAXON FONT. THE CASTLE. THE
HELL CROSS.
_Vieux monuments,—
Las, peu à peu cendre vous devenez,
Fable du peuple et publiques rapines!
Et bien qu'au Temps pour un temps facent guerre
Les bastimens, si est ce que le Temps
Oeuvres et noms finablement atterre._
JOACHIM DU BELLAY.
The oldest monument in Doncaster is a Roman altar, which was
discovered in the year 1781, in digging a cellar six feet deep, in St.
Sepulchre's gate. An antiquary of Ferrybridge congratulated the
corporation “on the great honor resulting therefrom.”
Was it a great honour to Doncaster,—meaning by Doncaster, its Mayor,
its Aldermen, its capital burgesses, and its whole people,—was it, I
say, an honour, a great honour to it, and these, and each and all of
these, that this altar should have been discovered? Did the
corporation consider it to be so? Ought it to be so considered? Did
they feel that pleasurable though feverish excitement at the discovery
which is felt by the fortunate man at the moment when his deserts have
obtained their honorable meed? Richard Staveley was Mayor that year:
Was it an honour to him and his mayoralty as it was to King Ferdinand
of Spain that when he was King, Christopher Columbus discovered the
New World,—or to Queen Elizabeth, that Shakespeare flourished under
her reign? Was he famous for it, as old Mr. Bramton Gurdon of
Assington in Suffolk, was famous, about the year 1627, for having
three sons parliament men? If he was thus famous, did he “blush to
find it fame,” or smile that it should be accounted so? What is fame?
what is honour? But I say no more. “He that hath knowledge spareth his
words; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of
understanding.”
It is a votive altar, dedicated to the _Deæ Matres_, with this
inscription:
MATRIBUS
M. NAN-
TONIUS.
ORBIOTAL.
VOTUM. SOLVIT. LUBENS. MERITO.
and it is curious because it is only the third altar dedicated to
those Goddesses which has yet been found: the other two were also
found in the North of England, one at Binchester near Durham, the
other at Ribchester in Lancashire.
Next in antiquity to this Roman altar, is a Saxon font in the church;
its date which is now obliterated, is said to have been A. D. 1061.
Not a wreck remains of any thing that existed in Doncaster between the
time when Orbiotal erected his altar to the local Goddesses, and when
the baptismal font was made: nor the name of a single individual; nor
memorial, nor tradition of a single event.
There was a castle there, the dykes of which might partly be seen in
Leland's time, and the foundation of part of the walls,—nothing more,
so long even then had it been demolished. In the area where it stood
the church was built, and Leland thought that great part of the ruins
of one building were used for the foundations of the other, and for
filling up its walls. It is not known at what time the church was
founded. There was formerly a stone built into its east end, with the
date of A. D. 1071; but this may more probably have been originally
placed in the castle than the church. Different parts of the building
are of different ages, and the beautiful tower is supposed to be of
Henry the third's age.
The Hall Cross, as it is now called, bore this inscription;
ICEST : EST : LACRUICE : OTE : D : TILLI : A : KI :
ALME : DEU : EN : FACE : MERCI : AM :
There can be little doubt that this Otto de Tilli is the same person
whose name appears as a witness to several grants about the middle of
the twelfth century, and who was Seneschal to the Earl of
Conisborough. It stood uninjured till the Great Rebellion, when the
Earl of Manchester's army, on their way from the South to the siege of
York in the year 1644, chose to do the Lord service by defacing it.
“And the said Earl of Manchester's men, endeavouring to pull the whole
shank down, got a smith's forge-hammer and broke off the four corner
crosses; and then fastened ropes to the middle cross which was
stronger and higher, thinking by that to pull the whole shank down.
But a stone breaking off, and falling upon one of the men's legs,
which was nearest it, and breaking his leg, they troubled themselves
no more about it.” This account with a drawing of the cross in its
former state was in Fairfax's collection of antiquities, and came
afterwards into Thoresby's possession. The Antiquarian Society
published an engraving of it by that excellent and upright artist
Vertue, of whom it is recorded that he never would engrave a
fictitious portrait. The pillar was composed of five columns, a large
one in the middle, and four smaller ones around it, answering pretty
nearly to the cardinal points: each column was surmounted by a cross,
that in the middle being the highest and proportionally large. There
were numeral figures on the south face, near the top, which seem to
have been intended for a dial; the circumference of the pillar was
eleven feet seven, the height eighteen feet.
William Paterson, in the year of his mayoralty 1678, “beautified it
with four dials, ball and fane:” in 1792, when Henry Heaton was Mayor,
it was taken down, because of its decayed state, and a new one of the
same form was erected by the road side, a furlong to the south of its
former site, on Hop-cross hill. This was better than destroying the
cross; and as either renovation or demolition had become necessary,
the Corporation are to be commended for what they did. But it is no
longer the same cross, nor on the same site which had once been
consecrated, and where many a passing prayer had been breathed in
simplicity and sincerity of heart.
What signifies the change? Both place and monument had long been
desecrated. As little religious feeling was excited by it as would
have been by the altar to the _Deæ Matres_ if it had stood there. And
of the hundreds of travellers who daily pass it in, or outside of
stage coaches, in their own carriages, on horseback, or on foot; and
of the thousands who flock thither during the races; and of the
inhabitants of Doncaster itself, not a single soul cares whether it be
the original cross or not, nor where it was originally erected, nor
when, nor wherefore, nor by whom!
“I wish I did not!” said Dr. Dove, when some one advanced this
consideration with the intent of reconciling him to the change. “I am
an old man,” said he, “and in age we dislike all change as naturally,
and therefore no doubt, as fitly as in youth we desire it. The
youthful generation in their ardour for improvement and their love of
novelty, strive to demolish what ought religiously to be preserved;
the elders in their caution and their fear endeavour to uphold what
has become useless, and even injurious. Thus in the order of
Providence we have both the necessary impulse and the needful check.
“But I miss the old cross from its old place. More than fifty years
had I known it there; and if fifty years acquaintance did not give us
some regard even for stocks and stones, we must be stocks and stones
ourselves.”
CHAPTER XLIV. P. I.
HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH DONCASTER. THOMAS, EARL OF
LANCASTER. EDWARD IV. ASKE'S INSURRECTION. ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. JAMES
I. BARNABEE. CHARLES I. CHURCH LIBRARY.
They unto whom we shall appear tedious, are in no wise injured by us,
because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they are
not willing to endure.
HOOKER.
Nothing more than the scanty notices which have already been mentioned
is recorded concerning the history of Doncaster, till King John
ordered it “to be enclosed with hertstone and pale, according as the
ditch required; and that a light brecost or barbican should be made
upon the bridge, to defend the town if need should be.” The bridge was
then of wood; in the following reign the townsmen “gave aid to make a
stone bridge there:” in that reign a hospital for sick and leprous
people was built there, the priories of St. James and St. Nicholas
founded, a Dominican convent, and a Franciscan one. Henry III. slept
there on his way to York. In the 23d year of Edward I. the borough was
first summoned to send members to Parliament, from which burthen as it
was then considered, it was relieved in the ensuing year.
In 1321, Thomas Earl of Lancaster held a council here with other
discontented Barons against Edward II.; in its results it brought many
of them to an untimely death, and Lancaster himself suffered by the
axe at Pomfret, as much in revenge for Gaveston, as for this
rebellion. “In this sort,” says an old chronicler, “came the mighty
Earl of Lancaster to his end, being the greatest Peer in this realm,
and one of the mightiest Earls in Christendom: for when he began to
levy war against the King, he was possessed of five earldoms,
Lancaster, Lincoln, Salisbury, Leicester and Derby, beside other
seigniories, lands and possessions, great to his advancement in honor
and puissance. But all this was limited within prescription of time,
which being expired both honor and puissances were cut off with
dishonor and death; for (O miserable state!)
_Invida fatorum series, summisque negatum
Stare diu._
“But now touching the foresaid Earl of Lancaster, great strife rose
afterwards amongst the people, whether he ought to be reputed for a
saint, or no. Some held that he ought to be no less esteemed, for that
he did many alms-deeds in his lifetime, honored men of religion, and
maintained a true quarrel till his life's end. Also his enemies
continued not long after, but came to evil ends. Others conceived
another opinion of him, alledging that he favoured not his wife, but
lived in spouse-breach, defiling a great number of damsels and
gentlewomen. If any offended him, he slew him shortly after in his
wrathful mood. Apostates and other evil doers he maintained, and would
not suffer them to be punished by due order of law. All his doings he
used to commit to one of his secretaries, and took no heed himself
thereof; and as for the manner of his death, he fled shamefully in the
fight, and was taken and put to death against his will; yet by reason
of certain miracles which were said to be done near the place both
where he suffered and where he was buried, caused many to think he was
a Saint. Howbeit, at length by the King's commandment the church doors
of the Priory where he was buried, were shut and closed, so that no
man might be suffered to come to the tomb to bring any offerings, or
to do any other kind of devotion to the same. Also the hill where he
suffered was kept by certain Gascoigners appointed by the Lord Hugh
Spenser his son, then lying at Pomfret, to the end that no people
should come and make their prayers there in worship of the said Earl,
whom they took verily for a martyr.”
The next confederacy at Doncaster was more successful though it led
eventually to bloodier consequences. Bolingbroke after landing at
Ravensburg, was met here by Northumberland, Hotspur, Westmorland, and
others, who engaged with him there, some of them probably not knowing
how far his ambitious views extended, and who afterwards became the
victims of their own turbulent policy. The Dragon's teeth which were
then sown produced a plentiful harvest threescore years afterwards,
when more than six and thirty thousand Englishmen fell by each others
hands at Towton, between this town and York. Edward IV. beheaded Sir
Robert Willis and Sir Ralph Grey here, whom he had taken in the rout
of Lose-coat field; and when he mustered his people here to march
against Warwick and Clarence whose intentions began then to be
discovered, “it was said that never was seen in England so many goodly
men and so well arranged in a field.” Afterwards he past through
Doncaster when he returned from exile, on the way to his crowning
victory at Barnet.
Richard III. also past through this place on the way to York where he
was crowned. In Henry VIII's reign it became the actual seat of war,
and a battle would have been fought there, if the Don had not by its
sudden rising twice prevented Aske and his army of insurgents from
attacking the Duke of Norfolk, with so superior a force that success
would have been almost certain, and the triumph of the popish party a
probable result. Here Norfolk, profiting by that delay, treated with
the insurgents, and finally by offering them a free pardon, and
engaging that a free Parliament should be held in the North, induced
them to disperse.
In 1538 John Grigge the Mayor, lost a thumb in an affray at Marshgate,
and next year the Prior of Doncaster was hanged for treason. In 1551
the town was visited by the plague: in that of 1582, 908 persons died
here.
The next noticeable circumstance in the annals of Doncaster, is that
James I. lodged there, at the sign of the Sun and Bear, on his way
from Scotland to take possession of the Crown of England.
The maypole in the market place was taken down in 1634, and the market
cross erected there in its place. But the removal of the maypole seems
to have been no proof of any improved state of morals in the town; for
Barnabee, the illustrious potator, saw there the most unbecoming sight
that he met with in all his travels. On his second visit the frail
Levite was dead; and I will not pick out a name from the succession of
Vicars which might suit the time of the poem, because though Doncaster
was the scene it does not follow that the Vicar was the actor; and
whoever he may have been his name can be no object of legitimate
curiosity, though Barnabee's justly was, till it was with so much
ingenuity determined by Mr. Haslewood.
When the army which had been raised against the Scots was disbanded,
Charles I. dined there at the house of Lady Carlingford, and a pear
tree which he is said to have planted is now standing there in Mr.
Maw's garden. Charles was there again in 1644, and attended service in
the church. And from a house in the butter market it was that Morris
with two companions attempted to carry off the parliamentary commander
Rainsborough at noon-day, and failing in the attempt, killed him upon
the spot.
A Church Library was founded here by the contributions of the clergy
and gentry of the surrounding country in 1726. A chamber over the
church porch was appropriated for the books, with the Archbishop's
licence; and there was one curate of this town whose love of reading
was so great, that he not only passed his days in this library, but
had a bed fixed there, and spent his nights there also.
In 1731 all the streets were new paved, and the sign posts taken down;
and in 1739, Daniel Dove, in remembrance of whom these volumes are
composed, came to reside in Doncaster.
CHAPTER XLV. P. I.
CONCERNING THE WORTHIES, OR GOOD MEN, WHO WERE NATIVES OF DONCASTER OR
OTHERWISE CONNECTED WITH THAT TOWN.
_Vir bonus est quis?_
TERENCE.
Let good old Fuller answer the well-known question which is conveyed
in the motto to this chapter. “And here,” he says, “be it remembered,
that the same epithet in several places accepts sundry
interpretations. He is called a Good Man in common discourse, who is
not dignified with gentility: a Good Man upon the Exchange, who hath a
responsible estate; a Good Man in a Camp, who is a tall man of his
arms; a Good Man in the Church who is pious and devout in his
conversation. Thus whatever is fixed therein in other relations, that
person is a Good Man in history, whose character affords such matter
as may please the palate of an ingenuous reader.”
Two other significations may be added which Fuller has not
pretermitted, because he could not include them, they being relatively
to him, of posthumous birth. A Good Man upon State trials, or in
certain Committees which it might not be discreet to designate, is one
who will give his verdict without any regard to his oath in the first
case or to the evidence in both. And in the language of the Pugilists
it signifies one who can bear a great deal of beating: Hal Pierce, the
Game Chicken and unrivalled glory of the ring, pronounced this
eulogium upon Mr. Gully, the present honorable member for Pontefract,
when he was asked for a candid opinion of his professional
merits:—“Sir he was the very Best Man as ever I had.”
Among the Good Men, in Fuller's acceptation of the term, who have been
in any way connected with Doncaster, the first in renown as well as in
point of time, is Robin Hood. Many men talk of him who never shot in
his bow; but many think of him when they drink at his Well, which is
at Skelbroke by the way side, about six miles from Doncaster on the
York road. There is a small inn near with Robin Hood for its sign;
this country has produced no other hero whose popularity has endured
so long. The Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Cumberland, and the
Marquis of Granby have flourished upon sign-posts, and have faded
there; so have their compeers Prince Eugene and Prince Ferdinand.
Rodney and Nelson are fading; and the time is not far distant when
Wellington also will have had his day. But while England shall be
England Robin Hood will be a popular name.
Near Robin Hood's Well, and nearer to Doncaster, the Hermit of Hampole
resided, at the place from which he was so called, “where living he
was honored, and dead was buried and sainted.” Richard Role, however,
for that was his name, was no otherwise sainted than by common opinion
in those parts. He died in 1349, and is the oldest of our known Poets.
His writings both in verse and prose which are of considerable extent
ought to be published at the expense of some national institution.
In the next generation John Marse, who was born in a neighbouring
village of that name, flourished in the Carmelite Convent at
Doncaster, and obtained great celebrity in his time for writing
against—a far greater than himself—John Wickliffe.
It is believed that Sir Martin Frobisher was born at Doncaster, and
that his father was Mayor of that place. “I note this the rather,”
says Fuller, “because learned Mr. Carpenter, in his Geography,
recounts him among the famous men of Devonshire; but why should
Devonshire which hath a flock of Worthies of her own, take a lamb from
another country.” This brave seaman when he left his property to a
kinsman who was very likely to dissipate it, said, “it was gotten at
sea, and would never thrive long at land.”
Lord Molesworth having purchased the estate at Edlington, four miles
from Doncaster, formerly the property of Sir Edward Stanhope, resided
there occasionally in the old mansion, during the latter part of his
life. His Account of Denmark is a book which may always be read with
profit. The Danish Ambassador complained of it to King William, and
hinted that if one of his Danish Majesty's subjects had taken such
liberties with the King of England, his master would upon complaint,
have taken off the author's head. “That I cannot do,” replied William;
“but if you please I will tell him what you say, and he shall put it
into the next edition of his book.”
Other remarkable persons who were connected with Doncaster, and were
contemporaries with Dr. Dove will be noticed in due time. Here I shall
only mention two who have distinguished themselves since his days
(alas!) and since I took my leave of a place endeared to me by so many
recollections. Mr. Bingley well known for his popular works upon
Natural History, and Mr. Henry Lister Maw, the adventurous naval
officer who was the first Englishman that ever came down the great
river Amazons, are both natives of this town. I know not whether the
Doncaster Maws are of Hibernian descent; but the name of M‛Coglan is
in Ireland beautified and abbreviated into Maw; the M‛Coglan, or head
of the family was called the Maw; and a district of King's County was
known within the memory of persons now living by the appellation of
the Maws County.
For myself, I am behind a veil which is not to be withdrawn:
nevertheless I may say, without consideration of myself, that in
Doncaster both because of the principal scene and of the subject of
this work
HONOS ERIT HUIC QUOQUE TOMO.
INTERCHAPTER VI.
CONTINGENT CAUSES. PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS INDUCED BY REFLECTING ON
THEM. THE AUTHOR TREMBLES FOR THE PAST.
_Vereis que no hay lazada desasida
De nudo y de pendencia soberana;
Ni a poder trastornar la orden del cielo
Las fuerzas llegan, ni el saber del suelo._
BALBUENA.
“There is no action of man in this life,” says Thomas of Malmesbury,
“which is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences, as
that no human providence is high enough to give us a prospect to the
end.” The chain of causes however is as long as the chain of
consequences,—peradventure longer; and when I think of the causes
which have combined to procreate this book, and the consequences which
of necessity it must produce, I am lost in admiration.
How many accidents might for ever have impossibilitated the existence
of this incomparable work! If, for instance, I the Unknown, had been
born in any other part of the world than in the British dominions; or
in any other age than one so near the time in which the venerable
subject of these memoirs flourished; or in any other place than where
these localities could have been learnt, and all these personalities
were remembered; or if I had not counted it among my felicities like
the philosopher of old, and the Polish Jews of this day, (who thank
God for it in their ritual), to have been born a male instead of a
female; or if I had been born too poor to obtain the blessings of
education, or too rich to profit by them: or if I had not been born at
all. If indeed in the course of six thousand years which have elapsed
since the present race of intellectual inhabitants were placed upon
this terraqueous globe, any chance had broken off one marriage among
my innumerable married progenitors, or thwarted the courtship of those
my equally innumerable ancestors who lived before that ceremony was
instituted, or in countries where it was not known,—where, or how
would my immortal part have existed at this time, or in what shape
would these bodily elements have been compounded with which it is
invested? A single miscarriage among my millions of grandmothers might
have cut off the entail of my mortal being!
_Quid non evertit primordia frivola vitæ?
Nec mirum, vita est integra pene nihil.
Nunc perit, ah! tenui pereuntis odore lucernæ,
Et fumum hunc fumus fortior ille fugat.
Totum aquilis Cæsar rapidis circumvolet orbem,
Collegamque sibi vix ferat esse Jovem.
Quantula res quantos potuisset inepta triumphos,
Et magnum nasci vel prohibere Deum!
Exhæredasset moriente lucernula flammâ
Tot dominis mundum numinibusque novis.
Tu quoque tantilli, juvenis Pellæe, perisses,
(Quam gratus terris ille fuisset odor!)
Tu tantùm unius qui pauper regulus orbis,
Et prope privatus visus es esse tibi.
Nec tu tantùm, idem potuisset tollere casus
Teque Jovis fili, Bucephalumque tuum:
Dormitorque urbem malè delevisset agaso
Bucephalam è vestris, Indica Fata, libris._[1]
The snuff of a candle,—a fall,—a fright,—nay, even a fit of anger!
Such things are happening daily,—yea, hourly, upon this peopled earth.
One such mishap among so many millions of cases, millions ten million
times told, centillions multiplied beyond the vocabulary of
numeration, and ascending to ψαμμακοσὶα,—which word having been coined
by a certain Alexis (perhaps no otherwise remembered,) and latinized
_arenaginta_ by Erasmus, is now Anglicized _sandillions_ by me;—one
such among them all!—I tremble to think of it!
[Footnote 1: COWLEY.]
Again. How often has it depended upon political events! If the Moors
had defeated Charles Martel; if William instead of Harold had fallen
in the Battle of Hastings; if bloody Queen Mary had left a child; or
if blessed Queen Mary had not married the Prince of Orange! In the
first case the English might now have been Musselmen; in the second
they would have continued to use the Saxon tongue, and in either of
those cases the Ego could not have existed; for if Arabian blood were
put in, or Norman taken out, the whole chain of succession would have
been altered. The two latter cases perhaps might not have affected the
bodily existence of the Ego; but the first might have entailed upon
him the curse of Popery, and the second if it had not subjected him to
the same curse, would have made him the subject of a despotic
government. In neither case could he have been capable of excogitating
lucubrations, such as this high history contains: for either of these
misfortunes would have emasculated his mind, unipsefying and
unegofying the _Ipsissimus Ego_.
Another chance must be mentioned. One of my ancestors was, as the
phrase is, out in a certain rebellion. His heart led him into the
field and his heels got him out of it. Had he been less nimble,—or had
he been taken and hanged, and hanged he would have been if
taken,—there would have been no Ego at this day, no history of Dr.
Daniel Dove. The Doctor would have been like the heroes who lived
before Agamemnon, and his immortalizer would never have lived at all.
CHAPTER XLVI. P. I.
DANIEL DOVE'S ARRIVAL AT DONCASTER. THE ORGAN IN ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH.
THE PULPIT. MRS. NEALE'S BENEFACTION.
_Non ulla Musis pagina gratior
Quam quæ severis ludicra jungere
Novit, fatigatamque nugis
Utilibus recreare mentem._
DR. JOHNSON.
It was in the Mayoralty of Thomas Pheasant (as has already been said)
and in the year of our Lord 1739, that Daniel Dove the younger, having
then entered upon his seventeenth year, first entered the town of
Doncaster and was there delivered by his excellent father to the care
of Peter Hopkins. They loved each other so dearly, that this, which
was the first day of their separation, was to both the unhappiest of
their lives.
The great frost commenced in the winter of that year; and with the
many longing lingering thoughts which Daniel cast towards his home, a
wish was mingled that he could see the frozen waterfall in Weathercote
Cave.
It was a remarkable era in Doncaster also, because the Organ was that
year erected, at the cost of five hundred guineas, raised by voluntary
subscription among the parishioners. Harris and Byfield were the
builders, and it is still esteemed one of the best in the kingdom.
When it was opened, the then curate, Mr. Fawkes, preached a sermon for
the occasion, in which after having rhetorized in praise of sacred
music, and touched upon the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery,
dulcimer and all kinds of instruments, he turned to the organ and
apostrophized it thus;—“But O what—O what—what shall I call _thee_ by?
thou divine Box of sounds!”
That right old worthy Francis Quarles of quaint memory,—and the more
to be remembered for his quaintness,—knew how to _improve_ an organ
somewhat better than Mr. Fawkes. His poem upon one is the first in his
Divine Fancies, and whether he would have it ranked among Epigrams,
Meditations, or Observations, perhaps he could not himself tell. The
Reader may class it as he pleases.
Observe this Organ: mark but how it goes!
'Tis not the hand alone of him that blows
The unseen bellows, nor the hand that plays
Upon the apparent note-dividing keys,
That makes these well-composed airs appear
Before the high tribunal of thine ear.
They both concur; each acts his several part;
The one gives it breath, the other lends it art.
Man is this Organ; to whose every action
Heaven gives a breath, (a breath without coaction,)
Without which blast we cannot act at all;
Without which Breath the Universe must fall
To the first nothing it was made of—seeing
In Him we live, we move, we have our being.
Thus filled with His diviner breath, and back't
With His first power, we touch the keys and act:
He blows the bellows: as we thrive in skill,
Our actions prove, like music, good or ill.
The question whether instrumental music may lawfully be introduced
into the worship of God in the Churches of the New Testament, has been
considered by Cotton Mather and answered to his own satisfaction and
that of his contemporary countrymen and their fellow puritans, in his
“Historical Remarks upon the discipline practised in the Churches of
New England.”—“The Instrumental Music used in the old Church of
Israel,” he says, “was an Institution of God; it was the Commandment
of the Lord by the Prophets; and the Instruments are called God's
Instruments, and Instruments of the Lord. Now there is not one word of
Institution in the New Testament for Instrumental Music in the Worship
of God. And because the holy God rejects all he does not command in
his worship, he now therefore in effect says to us, _I will not hear
the melody of thy Organs_. But on the other hand the rule given doth
abundantly intimate that no voice is now heard in the Church but what
is significant, and edifying by signification; which the voice of
Instruments is not.”
Worse logic than this and weaker reasoning no one would wish to meet
with in the controversial writings of a writer from whose opinions he
differs most widely. The Remarks form part of that extraordinary and
highly interesting work the _Magnalia Christi Americana_. Cotton
Mather is such an author as Fuller would have been if the old English
Worthy, instead of having been from a child trained up in the way he
should go, had been calvinisticated till the milk of human kindness
with which his heart was always ready to overflow had turned sour.
“Though Instrumental Music,” he proceeds to say, “were admitted and
appointed in the worship of God under the Old Testament, yet we do not
find it practised in the Synagogue of the Jews, but only in the
Temple. It thence appears to have been a part of the ceremonial
Pedagogy which is now abolished; nor can any say it was a part of
moral worship. And whereas the common usage now hath confined
Instrumental Music to Cathedrals, it seems therein too much to
Judaize,—which to do is a part of the Anti-Christian Apostacy,—as well
as to Paganize.—If we admit Instrumental Music in the worship of God,
how can we resist the imposition of all the instruments used among the
ancient Jews? Yea, Dancing as well as playing, and several other
Judaic actions?”
During the short but active reign of the Puritans in England, they
acted upon this preposterous opinion, and sold the Church organs,
without being scrupulous concerning the uses to which they might be
applied. A writer of that age, speaking of the prevalence of
drunkenness, as a national vice, says, “that nothing may be wanting to
the height of luxury and impiety of this abomination, they have
translated the organs out of the Churches to set them up in taverns,
chaunting their dithyrambics and bestial bacchanalias to the tune of
those instruments which were wont to assist them in the celebration of
God's praises, and regulate the voices of the worst singers in the
world,—which are the English in their churches at present.”
It cannot be supposed that the Organs which were thus disposed of,
were instruments of any great cost or value. An old pair of Organs,
(for that was the customary mode of expression, meaning a set,—and in
like manner a pair of cards, for a pack;)—an old pair of this kind
belonging to Lambeth Church was sold in 1565 for £1. 10_s._ Church
Organs therefore, even if they had not been at a revolutionary price,
would be within the purchase of an ordinary vintner. “In country
parish Churches,” says Mr. Denne the Antiquary, “even where the
district was small, there was often a choir of singers, for whom
forms, desks and books were provided; and they probably most of them
had benefactors who supplied them with a pair of organs that might
more properly have been termed a box of whistles. To the best of my
recollection there were in the chapels of some of the Colleges in
Cambridge very, very, indifferent instruments. That of the chapel
belonging to our old house was removed before I was admitted.”
The use of the organ has occasioned a great commotion, if not a
schism, among the methodists of late. Yet our holy Herbert could call
Church music the “sweetest of sweets;” and describe himself when
listening to it, as disengaged from the body, and “rising and falling
with its wings.”
Harris, the chief builder of the Doncaster Organ, was a contemporary
and rival of Father Smith, famous among Organists. Each built one for
the Temple Church, and Father Smith's had most votes in its favor. The
peculiarity of the Doncaster Organ, which was Harris's masterpiece,
is, its having, in the great organ, two trumpets and a clarion,
throughout the whole compass; and these stops are so excellent, that a
celebrated musician said every pipe in them was worth its weight in
silver.
Our Doctor dated from that year, in his own recollections, as the
great era of his life. It served also for many of the Doncastrians, as
a date to which they carried back their computations, till the
generation which remembered the erecting of the organ was extinct.
This was the age of Church improvement in Doncaster,—meaning here by
Church, the material structure. Just thirty years before, the Church
had been beautified and the ceiling painted, too probably to the
disfigurement of works of a better architectural age. In 1721 the old
peal of five bells was replaced with eight new ones, of new metal,
heretofore spoken of. In 1723 the church floor and church yard, which
had both been unlevelled by Death's levelling course, were levelled
anew, and new rails were placed to the altar. Two years later the
Corporation gave the new Clock, and it was fixed to strike on the
watch bell,—that clock which numbered the hours of Daniel Dove's life
from the age of seventeen till that of seventy. In 1736 the west
gallery was put up, and in 1741, ten years after the organ, a new
pulpit, but not in the old style; for pulpits which are among the
finest works of art in Brabant and Flanders, had degenerated in
England, and in other protestant countries.
This probably was owing, in our own country, as much to the prevalence
of puritanism, as to the general depravation of taste. It was for
their beauty or their splendour that the early Quakers inveighed with
such vehemence against pulpits, “many of which places,” saith George
Keith in his quaking days, “as we see in England and many other
countries, have a great deal of superfluity, and vain and superfluous
labour and pains of carving, painting and varnishing upon them,
together with your cloth and velvet cushion in many places; because of
which, and not for the height of them above the ground, we call them
Chief Places. But as for a commodious place above the ground whereon
to stand when one doth speak in an assembly, it was never condemned by
our friends, who also have places whereupon to stand, when to
minister, as they had under the Law.”
In 1743 a marble Communion Table was placed in the Church,
and—(passing forward more rapidly than the regular march of this
narration, in order to present these ecclesiastical matters without
interruption,)—a set of chimes were fixed in 1754—merry be the memory
of those by whom this good work was effected! The north and south
galleries were re-built in 1765; and in 1767 the church was
white-washed, a new reading desk put up, the pulpit removed to what
was deemed a more convenient station, and Mrs. Neale gave a velvet
embroidered cover and cushion for it,—for which her name is enrolled
among the benefactors of St. George's Church.
That velvet which, when I remember it, had lost the bloom of its
complexion, will hardly have been preserved till now even by the
dyer's renovating aid: and its embroidery has long since passed
through the goldsmith's crucible. _Sic transit_ excites a more
melancholy feeling in me when a recollection like this arises in my
mind, than even the “forlorn _hic jacet_” of a neglected tombstone.
Indeed such is the softening effect of time upon those who have not
been rendered obdurate and insensible by the world and the world's
law, that I do not now call to mind without some emotion even that
pulpit, to which I certainly bore no good will in early life, when it
was my fortune to hear from it so many somniferous discourses; and to
bear away from it, upon pain of displeasure in those whose displeasure
to me was painful, so many texts, chapter and verse, few or none of
which had been improved to my advantage. “Public sermons”—(hear! hear!
for Martin Luther speaketh!) “public sermons do very little edify
children, who observe and learn but little thereby. It is more needful
that they be taught and well instructed with diligence in schools; and
at home that they be orderly heard and examined in what they have
learned. This way profiteth much; it is indeed very wearisome, but it
is very necessary.” May I not then confess that no turn of expression
however felicitous,—no collocation of words however emphatic and
beautiful—no other sentences whatsoever, although rounded, or pointed
for effect with the most consummate skill, have ever given me so much
delight, as those dear phrases which are employed in winding up a
sermon, when it is brought to its long-wished-for close.
It is not always, nor necessarily thus; nor ever would be so if these
things were ordered as they might and ought to be. Hugh Latimer,
Bishop Taylor, Robert South, John Wesley, Robert Hall, Bishop Jebb,
Bishop Heber, Christopher Benson, your hearers felt no such tedium!
when you reached that period it was to them like the cessation of a
strain of music, which while it lasted had rendered them insensible to
the lapse of time.
“I would not,” said Luther, “have preachers torment their hearers and
detain them with long and tedious preaching.”
CHAPTER XLVII.
DONCASTRIANA. GUY'S DEATH. SEARCH FOR HIS TOMB-STONE IN INGLETON
CHURCH-YARD.
Go to the dull church-yard and see
Those hillocks of mortality,
Where proudest man is only found
By a small hillock in the ground.
TIXALL POETRY.
The first years of Daniel's abode in Doncaster were distinguished by
many events of local memorability. The old Friar's bridge was taken
down, and a new one with one large arch built in its stead. Turnpikes
were erected on the roads to Saltsbrook and to Tadcaster; and in 1742
Lord Semple's regiment of Highlanders marched through the town, being
the first soldiers without breeches who had ever been seen there since
breeches were in use. In 1746 the Mansion House was begun, next door
to Peter Hopkins's, and by no means to his comfort while the work was
going on, nor indeed after it was completed, its effect upon his
chimnies having heretofore been noticed. The building was interrupted
by the rebellion. An army of six thousand English and Hessians was
then encamped upon Wheatley Hills; and a Hessian general dying there,
was buried in St. George's Church; from whence his leaden coffin was
stolen by the grave-digger.
Daniel had then compleated his twenty-second year. Every summer he
paid a month's visit to his parents; and those were happy days, not
the less so to all parties because his second home had become almost
as dear to him as his first. Guy did not live to see the progress of
his pupil; he died a few months after the lad had been placed at
Doncaster, and the delight of Daniel's first return was overclouded by
this loss. It was a severe one to the elder Daniel, who lost in the
Schoolmaster his only intellectual companion.
I have sought in vain for Richard Guy's tombstone in Ingleton
churchyard. That there is one there can hardly, I think, be doubted;
for if he left no relations who regarded him, nor perhaps effects
enough of his own to defray this last posthumous and not necessary
expence; and if Thomas Gent of York, who published the old poem of
Flodden Field from his transcript, after his death, thought he
required no other monument; Daniel was not likely to omit this last
tribute of respect and affection to his friend. But the churchyard,
which, when his mortal remains were deposited there, accorded well
with its romantic site, on a little eminence above the roaring
torrent, and with the then retired character of the village, and with
the solemn use to which it was consecrated, is now a thickly-peopled
burial-ground. Since their time manufactures have been established in
Ingleton, and though eventually they proved unsuccessful, and were
consequently abandoned, yet they continued long enough in work largely
to encrease the population of the church-yard. Amid so many tombs the
stone which marked poor Guy's resting-place might escape even a more
diligent search than mine. Nearly a century has elapsed since it was
set up: in the course of that time its inscription not having been
re-touched, must have become illegible to all but an antiquary's
poring and practised eyes; and perhaps to them also unless aided by
his tracing tact, and by the conjectural supply of connecting words,
syllables or letters: indeed the stone itself has probably become half
interred, as the earth around it has been disturbed and raised. Time
corrodes our epitaphs, and buries our very tombstones.
Returning pensively from my unsuccessful search in the churchyard to
the little inn at Ingleton, I found there upon a sampler, worked in
1824 by Elizabeth Brown, aged 9, and framed as an ornament for the
room which I occupied, some lines in as moral a strain of verse, as
any which I had that day perused among the tombs. And I transcribed
them for preservation, thinking it not improbable that they had been
originally composed by Richard Guy for the use of his female scholars,
and handed down for a like purpose, from one generation to another.
This may be only a fond imagination, and perhaps it might not have
occurred to me at another time; but many compositions have been
ascribed in modern as well as ancient times, and indeed daily are so,
to more celebrated persons, upon less likely grounds. These are the
verses;
Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand
As the first effort of an infant's hand;
And as her fingers on the sampler move,
Engage her tender heart to seek thy love;
With thy dear children may she have a part,
And write thy name thyself upon her heart.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
A FATHER'S MISGIVINGS CONCERNING HIS SON'S DESTINATION. PETER
HOPKINS'S GENEROSITY. DANIEL IS SENT ABROAD TO GRADUATE IN MEDICINE.
Heaven is the magazine wherein He puts
Both good and evil; Prayer's the key that shuts
And opens this great treasure: 'tis a key
Whose wards are Faith and Hope and Charity.
Wouldst thou present a judgment due to sin?
Turn but the key and thou may'st lock it in.
Or wouldst thou have a blessing fall upon thee?
Open the door, and it will shower on thee!
QUARLES.
The elder Daniel saw in the marked improvement of his son at every
yearly visit more and more cause to be satisfied with himself for
having given him such a destination, and to thank Providence that the
youth was placed with a master whose kindness and religious care of
him might truly be called fatherly. There was but one consideration
which sometimes interfered with that satisfaction, and brought with it
a sense of uneasiness. The Doves from time immemorial had belonged to
the soil as fixedly as the soil had belonged to them. Generation after
generation they had moved in the same contracted sphere, their wants
and wishes being circumscribed alike within their own few hereditary
acres. Pride, under whatever form it may shew itself, is of the Devil;
and though Family Pride may not be its most odious manifestation, even
that child bears a sufficiently ugly likeness of its father. But
Family Feeling is a very different thing, and may exist as strongly in
humble as in high life. Naboth was as much attached to the vineyard,
the inheritance of his fathers, as Ahab could be to the throne which
had been the prize, and the reward, or punishment, of his father
Omri's ambition.
This feeling sometimes induced a doubt in Daniel whether affection for
his son had not made him overlook his duty to his forefathers;—whether
the fixtures of the land are not happier and less in the way of evil
than the moveables;—whether he had done right in removing the lad from
that station of life in which he was born, in which it had pleased God
to place him; divorcing him as it were from his paternal soil, and
cutting off the entail of that sure independence, that safe
contentment, which his ancestors had obtained and preserved for him,
and transmitted to his care to be in like manner by him preserved and
handed down. The latent poetry which there was in the old man's heart
made him sometimes feel as if the fields and the brook, and the hearth
and the graves reproached him for having done this! But then he took
shelter in the reflection that he had consulted the boy's true
welfare, by giving him opportunities of storing and enlarging his
mind; that he had placed him in the way of intellectual advancement,
where he might improve the talents which were committed to his charge,
both for his own benefit and for that of his fellow-creatures. Certain
he was that whether he had acted wisely or not, he had meant well. He
was conscious that his determination had not been made without much
and anxious deliberation, nor without much and earnest prayer;
hitherto, he saw, that the blessing which he prayed for had followed
it, and he endeavoured to make his heart rest in thankful and pious
hope that that blessing would be continued. “Wouldst thou know,” says
Quarles, “the lawfulness of the action which thou desirest to
undertake, let thy devotion recommend it to divine blessing. If it be
lawful thou shalt perceive thy heart encouraged by thy prayer; if
unlawful thou shalt find thy prayer discouraged by thy heart. That
action is not warrantable which either blushes to beg a blessing, or,
having succeeded, dares not present a thanksgiving.” Daniel might
safely put his conduct to this test; and to this test in fact his own
healthy and uncorrupted sense of religion led him, though probably he
had never read these golden words of Quarles the Emblemist.
It was therefore with no ordinary delight that our good Daniel
received a letter from his son, asking permission to go to Leyden, in
conformity with his Master's wishes, and there prosecute his studies
long enough to graduate as a Doctor in medicine. Mr. Hopkins, he said,
would generously take upon himself the whole expence, having adopted
him as his successor, and almost as a son; for as such he was treated
in all respects, both by him and by his mistress, who was one of the
best of women. And indeed it appeared that Mr. Hopkins had long
entertained this intention, by the care which he had taken to make him
keep up and improve the knowledge of Latin which he had acquired under
Mr. Guy.
The father's consent as might be supposed was thankfully given; and
accordingly Daniel Dove in the twenty-third year of his age embarked
from Kingston upon Hull for Rotterdam, well provided by the care and
kindness of his benevolent master with letters of introduction and of
credit; and still better provided with those religious principles
which though they cannot ensure prosperity in this world, ensure to us
things of infinitely greater moment,—good conduct, peace of mind, and
the everlasting reward of the righteous.
CHAPTER XLIX.
CONCERNING THE INTEREST WHICH DANIEL THE ELDER TOOK IN THE DUTCH WAR,
AND MORE ESPECIALLY IN THE SIEGE AND PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERY OF LEYDEN.
Glory to Thee in thine omnipotence,
O Lord who art our shield and our defence,
And dost dispense,
As seemeth best to thine unerring will,
(Which passeth mortal sense)
The lot of Victory still;
Edging sometimes with might the sword unjust;
And bowing to the dust,
The rightful cause, that so such seeming ill
May thine appointed purposes fulfil;
Sometimes, as in this late auspicious hour
For which our hymns we raise,
Making the wicked feel thy present power;
Glory to thee and praise,
Almighty God, by whom our strength was given!
Glory to Thee, O Lord of Earth and Heaven!
SOUTHEY.
There were two portions of history with which the elder Daniel was
better acquainted than most men,—that of Edward the Third's reign, and
that of the Wars in the Netherlands down to the year 1608. Upon both
subjects he was _homo unius libri_; such a man is proverbially
formidable at his own weapon; and the book with which Johnson
immortalized Osborne the bookseller, by knocking him down with it, was
not a more formidable folio than either of those from which Daniel
derived this knowledge.
Now of all the events in the wars of the Low Countries, there was none
which had so strongly affected his imagination as the siege of Leyden.
The patient fortitude of the besieged, and their deliverance, less by
the exertions of man, (though no human exertions were omitted), than
by the special mercy of Him whom the elements obey, and in whom they
had put their trust, were in the strong and pious mind of Daniel,
things of more touching interest than the tragedy of Haarlem, or the
wonders of military science and of courage displayed at the siege of
Antwerp. Who indeed could forget the fierce answer of the Leydeners
when they were, for the last time, summoned to surrender, that the men
of Leyden would never surrender while they had one arm left to eat,
and another to fight with! And the not less terrible reply of the
Burgemeester Pieter Adriaanzoon Vander Werf, to some of the townsmen
when they represented to him the extremity of famine to which they
were reduced; “I have sworn to defend this city,” he made answer, “and
by God's help I mean to keep that oath! but if my death can help ye
men, here is my body! cut it in pieces, and share it among ye as far
as it will go.” And who without partaking in the hopes and fears of
the contest, almost as if it were still at issue, can peruse the
details of that _amphibious_ battle (if such an expression may be
allowed) upon the inundated country, when, in the extremity of their
distress, and at a time when the Spaniards said that it was as
impossible for the Hollanders to save Leyden from their power, as it
was for them to pluck the stars from heaven, “a great south wind,
which they might truly say came from the grace of God,” set in with
such a spring tide, that in the course of eight and forty hours, the
inundation rose half a foot, thus rendering the fields just passable
for the flat-bottomed boats which had been provided for that service!
A naval battle, among the trees; where the besieged, though it was
fought within two miles of their walls, could see nothing because of
the foliage; and amid such a labyrinth of dykes, ditches, rivers and
fortifications, that when the besiegers retired from their palisades
and sconces, the conquerors were not aware of their own success, nor
the besieged of their deliverance!
“In this delivery,” says the historian, “and in every particular of
the enterprise, doubtless all must be attributed to the mere
providence of God, neither can man challenge any glory therein; for
without a miracle all the endeavours of the Protestants had been as
wind. But God who is always good, would not give way to the cruelties
wherewith the Spaniards threatened this town, with all the insolencies
whereof they make profession in the taking of towns (although they be
by composition) without any respect of humanity or honesty. And there
is not any man but will confess with me, if he be not some atheist, or
epicure, (who maintain that all things come by chance,) that this
delivery is a work which belongs only unto God. For if the Spaniards
had battered the town but with four cannons only, they had carried it,
the people being so weakened with famine, as they could not endure any
longer: besides a part of them were ill affected, and very many of
their best men were dead of the plague. And for another testimony that
it was God only who wrought, the town was no sooner delivered, but the
wind which was south-west, and had driven the water out of the sea
into the country, turned to north-east, and did drive it back again
into the sea, as if the south-west wind had blown those three days
only to that effect; wherefore they might well say that both the winds
and the sea had fought for the town of Leyden. And as for the
resolution of the States of Holland to drown the country, and to do
that which they and their Prince, together with all the commanders,
captains and soldiers of the army shewed in this sea-course, together
with the constancy and resolution of the besieged to defend
themselves, notwithstanding so many miseries which they suffered, and
so many promises and threats which were made unto them, all in like
sort proceeded from a divine instinct.”
In the spirit of thoughtful feeling that this passage breathes, was
the whole history of that tremendous struggle perused by the elder
Daniel; and Daniel the son was so deeply imbued with the same feeling,
that if he had lived till the time of the Peninsular War, he would
have looked upon the condition to which Spain was reduced, as a
consequence of its former tyranny, and as an awful proof how surely,
soon or late, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.
Oh that all history were regarded in this spirit! “Even such as are in
faith most strong, of zeal most ardent, should not,” says one of the
best and wisest of Theologians, “much mispend their time in comparing
the degenerate fictions, or historical relations of times ancient or
modern, with the everlasting truth. For though this method could not
add much increase either to their faith or zeal, yet would it
doubtless much avail for working placid and mild affections. The very
penmen of Sacred Writ themselves were taught patience, and instructed
in the ways of God's providence, by their experience of such events as
the course of time is never barren of; not always related by canonical
authors, nor immediately testified by the Spirit; but oftimes believed
upon a moral certainty, or such a resolution of circumstances
concurrent into the first cause or disposer of all affairs as we might
make of modern accidents, were we otherwise partakers of the Spirit,
or would we mind heavenly matters as much as earthly.”
CHAPTER L. P. I.
VOYAGE TO ROTTERDAM AND LEYDEN. THE AUTHOR CANNOT TARRY TO DESCRIBE
THAT CITY. WHAT HAPPENED THERE TO DANIEL DOVE.
He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage. As who
doth not that shall attempt the like?—For peregrination charms our
senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him
unhappy that never travelled, a kind of prisoner, and pity his case
that from his cradle to his old age he beholds the same still; still,
still, the same, the same!
BURTON.
“Why did Dan remain in ships?” says Deborah the Prophetess in that
noble song, which if it had been composed in Greek instead of Hebrew
would have made Pindar hide his diminished head, or taught him a
loftier strain than even he has reached in his eagle flights—“Why did
Dan remain in ships?” said the Prophetess. Our Daniel during his rough
passage from the Humber to the Maese, thought that nothing should make
him do so. Yet when all danger real or imaginary was over, upon that
deep
Where Proteus' herds and Neptune's orcs do keep,
Where all is ploughed, yet still the pasture's green,
The ways are found, and yet no paths are seen:—[1]
when all the discomforts and positive sufferings of the voyage were at
an end; and when the ship,—
Quitting her fairly of the injurious sea,[2]
had entered the smooth waters of that stately river, and was gliding
Into the bosom of her quiet quay;[2]
he felt that the delight of setting foot on shore after a sea voyage,
and that too the shore of a foreign country, for the first time, is
one of the few pleasures which exceed any expectation that can be
formed of them.
[Footnote 1: B. JONSON, v. 8, p. 37.]
[Footnote 2: QUARLES.]
He used to speak of his landing, on a fine autumnal noon, in the
well-wooded and well-watered city of Rotterdam, and of his journey
along what he called the high-turnpike canal from thence to Leyden, as
some of the pleasantest recollections of his life. Nothing he said was
wanting to his enjoyment, but that there should have been some one to
have partaken it with him in an equal degree. But the feeling that he
was alone in a foreign land sate lightly on him, and did not continue
long,—young as he was, with life and hope before him, healthful of
body and of mind, cheerful as the natural consequence of that health
corporeal and mental, and having always much to notice and enough to
do—the one being an indispensable condition of happiness, the other a
source of pleasure as long as it lasts; and where there is a quick eye
and an enquiring mind, the longest residence abroad is hardly long
enough to exhaust it.
No day in Daniel's life had ever passed in such constant and
pleasurable excitement as that on which he made his passage from
Rotterdam to Leyden, and took possession of the lodgings which Peter
Hopkins's correspondent had engaged for him. His reception was such as
instantly to make him feel that he was placed with worthy people. The
little apprehensions, rather than anxieties, which the novelty of his
situation occasioned, the sight of strange faces with which he was to
be domesticated, and the sound of a strange language, to which, harsh
and uninviting as it seemed, his ear and speech must learn to accustom
themselves, did not disquiet his first night's rest. And having fallen
asleep notwithstanding the new position to which a Dutch bolster
constrained him, he was not disturbed by the storks,
all night
Beating the air with their obstreperous beaks,
(for with Ben Jonson's leave, this may much more appropriately be said
of them than of the ravens) nor by the watchmen's rappers, or
clap-sticks, which seem to have been invented in emulous imitation of
the stork's instrumental performance.
But you and I, Reader, can afford to make no tarriance in Leyden. I
cannot remain with you here till you could see the Rector Magnificus
in his magnificence. I cannot accompany you to the monument of that
rash Baron who set the crown of Bohemia in evil hour upon the Elector
Palatine's unlucky head. I cannot take you to the graves of Boerhaave
and of Scaliger. I cannot go with you into that library of which
Heinsius said, when he was Librarian there, “I no sooner set foot in
it and fasten the door, but I shut out ambition, love, and all those
vices of which idleness is the mother and ignorance the nurse; and in
the very lap of Eternity among so many illustrious souls I take my
seat, with so lofty a spirit that I then pity the great who know
nothing of such happiness.”—_Plerunque in quâ simulac pedem posui,
foribus pessulum abdo, ambitionem autem, amorem, libidinem, &c.
excludo, quorum parens est ignavia, imperitia nutrix; et in ipso
æternitatis gremio, inter tot illustres animas sedem mihi sumo, cum
ingenti quidem animo, ut subinde magnatum me misereat qui felicitatem
hanc ignorant!_ I cannot walk with you round the ramparts, from which
wide circling and well shaded promenade you might look down upon a
large part of the more than two thousand gardens which a century ago
surrounded this most horticultural city of a horticultural province,
the garden, as it was called of Holland, that is of the land of
Gardeners. I cannot even go up the Burgt with you, though it be
pretended that the Hengist of Anglo-Saxon history erected it; nor can
I stop at the entrance of that odd place, for you to admire, (as you
could not but admire,) the Lion of the United Provinces, who stands
there erect and rampant in menacing attitude, grinning horribly a
ghastly smile, his eyes truculent, his tail in full elevation, and in
action correspondent to his motto _Pugno pro Patria_, wielding a drawn
sword in his dreadful right paw.
Dear reader, we cannot afford time for going to Oegstgeest, though the
first Church in Holland is said to have been founded there by St.
Willebord, and its burial ground is the Campo Santo of the Dutch Roman
Catholics, as Bunhill Fields of the English Dissenters. Nor can I
accompany thee to Noortwyck and describe to thee its fish-ponds, its
parterres, the arabesque carpet work of its box, and the espalier
walls or hedges, with the busts which were set in the archways, such
as they existed when our Doctor, in his antedoctorial age, was a
student at Leyden, having been kept up till that time in their old
fashion by the representatives of Janus Dousa. We cannot, dear Reader,
tarry to visit the gardens in that same pleasant village from which
the neighbouring cities are supplied with medicinal plants; where beds
of ranunculuses afford, when in blossom, a spectacle which no
exhibition of art could rival in splendour and in beauty; and from
whence rose leaves are exported to Turkey, there to have their
essential oil extracted for Mahometan luxury.
We must not go to see the sluices of the Rhine, which Daniel never
saw, because in his time the Rhine had no outlet through these Downs.
We cannot walk upon the shore at Katwyck, where it was formerly a
piece of Dutch courtship for the wooer to take his mistress in his
arms, carry her into the sea till he was more than knee deep, set her
down upon her feet, and then bearing her out again, roll her over and
over upon the sand hills by way of drying her. We have no time for
visiting that scene of the Batavian Arcadia. No, reader, I cannot
tarry to shew thee the curiosities of Leyden, nor to talk over its
_memorabilia_, nor to visit the pleasant parts of the surrounding
country; though Gerard Goris says, that _comme la Ville de Leide,
entourée par les plaisants villages de Soeterwoude, Stompvic,
Wilsveen, Tedingerbroek, Ougstgeest, Leiderdorp et Vennep, est la
Cêntre et la Delice de toute Hollande, ainsi la Campagne à l'entour de
cette celèbre Ville est comme un autre Eden ou Jardin de plaisance,
qui avec ses beaux attraits tellement transporte l'attention du
spectateur qu'il se trouve contraint, comme par un ravissment
d'esprit, de confesser qu'il n'a jamais veu pais au monde, ou l'art et
la nature si bien ont pris leurs mesures pour aporter et entremêler
tout ce qui peut servir à l'aise, a la recreation, et au profit_.
No, Reader, we must not linger here,
_Hier, waar in Hollands heerlijkste oorden
De lieve Lente zoeter lacht,
Het schroeiend Zud, het grijnzend Noorden
Zijn' gloed en strenge kou verzacht;
Waar nijverheid en blij genoegen,
Waar stilte en vlijt zich_[3] _samenvoegen._
[Footnote 3: LEYDEN'S RAMP.]
We must return to Doncaster. It would not be convenient for me to
enter minutely, even if my materials were sufficient for that purpose,
into the course of our student's life, from the time when he was
entered among the Greenies of this famous University; nor to describe
the ceremonies which were used at his _ungreening_, by his associates;
nor the academical ones with which at the termination of his regular
terms his degree in medicine was conferred. I can only tell thee that
during his residence at Leyden he learnt with exemplary diligence
whatever he was expected to learn there, and by the industrious use of
good opportunities a great deal more.
But,—he fell in love with a Burgemeester's Daughter.
CHAPTER LI.
ARMS OF LEYDEN. DANIEL DOVE, M. D. A LOVE STORY, STRANGE BUT TRUE.
_Oye el extraño caso, advierte y siente;
Suceso es raro, mas verdad ha sido._
BALBUENA.
The arms of Leyden are two cross keys, gules in a field argent; and
having been entrusted with the power of those keys to bind and to
loose,—and moreover to bleed and to blister, to administer at his
discretion pills, potions, and powders, and employ the whole artillery
of the pharmacopœia,—Daniel returned to Doncaster. The papal keys
convey no such general power as the keys of Leyden: they give
authority over the conscience and the soul; now it is not every man
that has a conscience, or that chuses to keep one; and as for souls,
if it were not an article of faith to believe otherwise,—one might
conclude that the greater part of mankind had none from the utter
disregard of them which is manifested in the whole course of their
dealings with each other. But bodily diseases are among the
afflictions which flesh is heir to; and we are not more surely _fruges
consumere nati_, than we are born to consume physic also, greatly to
the benefit of that profession in which Daniel Dove had now obtained
his commission.
But though he was now M. D. in due form, and entitled to the insignia
of the professional wig, the muff, and the gold-headed cane, it was
not Mr. Hopkins's intention that he should assume his title, and
commence practice as a physician. This would have been an unpromising
adventure; whereas on the other hand the consideration which a regular
education at Leyden, then the most flourishing school of medicine,
would obtain for him in the vicinity, was a sure advantage. Hopkins
could now present him as a person thoroughly qualified to be his
successor: and if at any future time Dove should think proper to
retire from the more laborious parts of his calling, and take up his
rank, it would be in his power to do so.
But one part of my Readers are I suspect, at this time a little
impatient to know something about the Burgemeester's Daughter; and I,
because of the
allegiance and fast fealty
Which I do owe unto all womankind,[1]
am bound to satisfy their natural and becoming curiosity. Not however
in this place; for though love has its bitters I never will mix it up
in the same chapter with physic. Daniel's passion for the
Burgemeester's Daughter must be treated of in a chapter by itself,
this being a mark of respect due to the subject, to her beauty, and to
the dignity of Mynheer, her Wel Edel, Groot, Hoogh-Achtbaer father.
[Footnote 1: SPENSER.]
First however I must dispose of an objection.
There may be readers who, though they can understand why a lady
instead of telling her love, should
——let concealment like a worm in the bud
Feed on her damask cheek,
will think it absurd to believe that any man should fix his affections
as Daniel did upon the Burgemeester's Daughter, on a person whom he
had no hopes of obtaining, and with whom, as will presently appear, he
never interchanged a word. I cannot help their incredulity. But if
they will not believe me they may perhaps believe the newspapers which
about the year 1810 related the following case in point.
“A short time since a curious circumstance happened. The Rector of St.
Martin's parish was sent for to pray by a gentleman of the name of
Wright, who lodged in St. James' street, Pimlico. A few days
afterwards Mr. Wright's solicitor called on the Rector, to inform him
that Mr. Wright was dead, and had made a codicil to his will wherein
he had left him £1000., and Mr. Abbott the Speaker of the House of
Commons £2000., and all his personal property and estates, deer-park
and fisheries &c. to Lady Frances Bruce Brudenell, daughter of the
Earl of Ailesbury. Upon the Rector's going to Lord Ailesbury's to
inform her Ladyship, the house steward said she was married to Sir
Henry Wilson of Chelsea Park, but he would go to her Ladyship and
inform her of the matter. Lady Frances said she did not know any such
person as Mr. Wright, but desired the Steward to go to the Rector to
get the whole particulars, and say she would wait on him the next day:
she did so, and found to her great astonishment that the whole was
true. She afterwards went to St. James' Street and saw Mr. Wright in
his coffin; and then she recollected him, as having been a great
annoyance to her many years ago at the Opera House, where he had a box
next to hers: he never spoke to her, but was continually watching her,
look wherever she would, till at length she was under the necessity of
requesting her friends to procure another box. The estates are from 20
to £30,000. a-year. Lady Frances intends putting all her family into
mourning out of respect.”
Whether such a bequest ought to have been held good in law, and if so,
whether it ought in conscience to have been accepted, are points upon
which I should probably differ both from the Lord Chancellor, and the
Lady Legatee.
CHAPTER LII.
SHEWING HOW THE YOUNG STUDENT FELL IN LOVE—AND HOW HE MADE THE BEST
USE OF HIS MISFORTUNE.
_Il creder, donne vaghe, è cortesia,
Quando colui che scrive o che favella,
Possa essere sospetto di bugia,
Per dir qualcosa troppo rara e bella.
Dunque chi ascolta questa istoria mea
E non la crede frottola o novella
Ma cosa vera—come ella è di fatto,
Fa che di lui mi chiami soddisfatto._
_E pure che mi diate piena fede,
De la dubbiezza altrui poco mi cale._
RICCIARDETTO.
Dear Ladies, I can neither tell you the name of the Burgemeester's
Daughter, nor of the Burgemeester himself. If I ever heard them they
have escaped my recollection. The Doctor used to say his love for her
was in two respects like the small-pox; for he took it by inoculation,
and having taken it, he was secured from ever having the disease in a
more dangerous form.
The case was a very singular one. Had it not been so it is probable I
should never have been made acquainted with it. Most men seem to
consider their unsuccessful love, when it is over, as a folly which
they neither like to speak of, nor to remember.
Daniel Dove never was introduced to the Burgemeester's Daughter, never
was in company with her, and as already has been intimated never spoke
to her. As for any hope of ever by any possibility obtaining a return
of his affection, a devout Roman Catholic might upon much better
grounds hope that Saint Ursula, or any of her Eleven Thousand Virgins
would come from her place in Heaven to reward his devotion with a
kiss. The gulph between Dives and Lazarus was not more insuperable
than the distance between such an English Greeny at Leyden and a
Burgemeester's Daughter.
Here, therefore, dear Ladies, you cannot look to read of
_Le speranze, gli affetti,
La data fe', le tenerezze, i primi
Scambievoli sospiri, i primi sguardi._[1]
Nor will it be possible for me to give you
_—l'idea di quel volto
Dove apprese il suo core
La prima volta a sospirar d'amore._[1]
This I cannot do; for I never saw her picture, nor heard her features
described. And most likely if I had seen her herself, in her youth and
beauty, the most accurate description that words could convey might be
just as like Fair Rosamond, Helen, Rachæl, or Eve. Suffice it to say
that she was confessedly the beauty of that city, and of those parts.
[Footnote 1: METASIA.]
But it was not for the fame of her beauty that Daniel fell in love
with her: so little was there of this kind of romance in his nature,
that report never raised in him the slightest desire of seeing her.
Her beauty was no more than Hecuba's to him, till he saw it. But it so
happened that having once seen it, he saw it frequently, at leisure,
and always to the best advantage: “and so,” said he, “I received the
disease by inoculation.”
Thus it was. There was at Leyden an English Presbyterian Kirk for the
use of the English students, and any other persons who might chuse to
frequent it. Daniel felt the want there of that Liturgy in the use of
which he had been trained up: and finding nothing which could attract
him to that place of worship except the use of his own language,—which
moreover was not used by the preacher in any way to his
edification,—he listened willingly to the advice of the good man with
whom he boarded, and this was that, as soon as he had acquired a
slight knowledge of the Dutch tongue, he should, as a means of
improving himself in it, accompany the family to their parish church.
Now this happened to be the very church which the Burgemeester and his
family attended: and if the allotment of pews in that church had been
laid out by Cupid himself, with the fore-purpose of catching Daniel as
in a pitfall, his position there in relation to the Burgemeester's
Daughter could not have been more exactly fixed.
“God forgive me!” said he; “for every Sunday while she was worshipping
her Maker, I used to worship her.”
But the folly went no farther than this; it led him into no act of
absurdity, for he kept it to himself; and he even turned it to some
advantage, or rather it shaped for itself a useful direction, in this
way: having frequent and unobserved opportunity of observing her
lovely face, the countenance became fixed so perfectly in his mind,
that even after the lapse of forty years, he was sure, he said, that
if he had possessed a painter's art he could have produced her
likeness. And having her beauty thus impressed upon his imagination,
any other appeared to him only as a foil to it, during that part of
his life when he was so circumstanced that it would have been an act
of imprudence for him to run in love.
I smile to think how many of my readers when they are reading this
chapter aloud in a domestic circle will _bring up_ at the expression
of _running in love_;—like a stage-coachman who driving at the smooth
and steady pace of nine miles an hour on a macadamized road, comes
upon some accidental obstruction only just in time to check the
horses.
Amorosa who flies into love; and Amatura who flutters as if she were
about to do the same; and Amoretta who dances into it, (poor
creatures, God help them all three!) and Amanda,—Heaven bless her!—who
will be led to it gently and leisurely along the path of discretion,
they all make a sudden stop at the words.
CHAPTER LIII. P. I.
OF THE VARIOUS WAYS OF GETTING IN LOVE. A CHAPTER CONTAINING SOME
USEFUL OBSERVATIONS, AND SOME BEAUTIFUL POETRY.
Let cavillers know, that as the Lord John answered the Queen in that
Italian Guazzo, an old, a grave discreet man is fittest to discourse
of love-matters; because he hath likely more experience, observed
more, hath a more staid judgement, can better discern, resolve,
discuss, advise, give better cautions and more solid precepts, better
inform his auditors in such a subject, and by reason of his riper
years, sooner divert.
BURTON.
Slips of the tongue are sometimes found very inconvenient by those
persons who, owing to some unlucky want of correspondence between
their wits and their utterance, say one thing when they mean to say
another, or bolt out something which the slightest degree of
forethought would have kept unsaid. But more serious mischief arises
from that misuse of words which occurs in all inaccurate writers. Many
are the men, who merely for want of understanding what they say, have
blundered into heresies and erroneous assertions of every kind, which
they have afterwards passionately and pertinaciously defended, till
they have established themselves in the profession, if not in the
belief, of some pernicious doctrine or opinion, to their own great
injury and that of their deluded followers, and of the commonwealth.
There may be an opposite fault; for indeed upon the agathokakological
globe there are opposite qualities always to be found in parallel
degrees, north and south of the equator.
A man may dwell upon words till he becomes at length a mere precisian
in speech. He may think of their meaning till he loses sight of all
meaning, and they appear as dark and mysterious to him as chaos and
outer night. “Death! Grave!” exclaims Goethe's suicide, “I understand
not the words!” and so he who looks for its quintessence might exclaim
of every word in the dictionary.
They who cannot swim should be contented with wading in the shallows:
they who can may take to the deep water, no matter how deep so it be
clear. But let no one dive in the mud.
I said that Daniel fell in love with the Burgemeester's Daughter, and
I made use of the usual expression because there it was the most
appropriate: for the thing was accidental. He himself could not have
been more surprized if, missing his way in a fog, and supposing
himself to be in the Breedestraat of Leyden where there is no canal,
he had fallen into the water;—nor would he have been more completely
over head and ears at once.
A man falls in love, just as he falls down stairs. It is an
accident,—perhaps, and very probably a misfortune; something which he
neither intended, nor foresaw, nor apprehended. But when he runs in
love it is as when he runs in debt; it is done knowingly and
intentionally; and very often rashly, and foolishly, even if not
ridiculously, miserably and ruinously.
Marriages that are made up at watering-places are mostly of this
running sort; and there may be reason to think that they are even less
likely to lead to—I will not say happiness, but to a very humble
degree of contentment,—than those which are a plain business of
bargain and sale; for into these latter a certain degree of prudence
enters on both sides. But there is a distinction to be made here: the
man who is married for mere worldly motives, without a spark of
affection on the woman's part, may nevertheless get, in every worldly
sense of the word, a good wife; and while English women continue to be
what, thank Heaven they are, he is likely to do so: but when a woman
is married for the sake of her fortune, the case is altered, and the
chances are five hundred to one that she marries a villain, or at best
a scoundrel.
Falling in love, and running in love are both, as every body knows,
common enough; and yet less so than what I shall call catching love.
Where the love itself is imprudent, that is to say where there is some
just prudential cause or impediment why the two parties should not be
joined together in holy matrimony, there is generally some degree of
culpable imprudence in catching it, because the danger is always to be
apprehended, and may in most cases be avoided. But sometimes the
circumstances may be such as leave no room for censure, even when
there may be most cause for compassion; and under such circumstances
our friend, though the remembrance of the Burgemeester's daughter was
too vivid in his imagination for him ever to run in love, or at that
time deliberately to walk into it, as he afterwards did,—under such
circumstances I say, he took a severe affection of this kind. The
story is a melancholy one, and I shall relate not it in this place.
The rarest, and surely the happiest marriages are between those who
have grown in love. Take the description of such a love in its rise
and progress, ye thousands and tens of thousands who have what is
called a taste for poetry,—take it in the sweet words of one of the
sweetest and tenderest of English Poets; and if ye doubt upon the
strength of my opinion whether Daniel deserves such praise, ask Leigh
Hunt, or the Laureate, or Wordsworth, or Charles Lamb.
Ah! I remember well (and how can I
But evermore remember well) when first
Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The flame we felt; when as we sat and sighed
And looked upon each other, and conceived
Not what we ailed,—yet something we did ail;
And yet were well, and yet we were not well,
And what was our disease we could not tell.
Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look: and thus
In that first garden of our simpleness
We spent our childhood. But when years began
To reap the fruit of knowledge, ah how then
Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow,
Check my presumption and my forwardness;
Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show
What she would have me, yet not have me know.
Take also the passage that presently follows this; it alludes to a
game which has long been obsolete,—but some fair reader I doubt not
will remember the lines when she dances next.
And when in sport with other company
Of nymphs and shepherds we have met abroad,
How would she steal a look, and watch mine eye
Which way it went? And when at Barley-break
It came unto my turn to rescue her,
With what an earnest, swift and nimble pace
Would her affection make her feet to run,
And further run than to my hand! her race
Had no stop but my bosom, where no end.
And when we were to break again, how late
And loth her trembling hand would part with mine;
And with how slow a pace would she set forth
To meet the encountering party who contends
To attain her, scarce affording him her fingers' ends![1]
[Footnote 1: HYMEN'S TRIUMPH.]
CHAPTER LIV. P. I.
MORE CONCERNING LOVE AND MARRIAGE, AND MARRIAGE WITHOUT LOVE.
Nay Cupid, pitch thy trammel where thou please,
Thou canst not fail to catch such fish as these.
QUARLES.
Whether chance or choice have most to do in the weighty concerns of
love and matrimony, is as difficult a question, as whether chance or
skill have most influence upon a game at backgammon. Both enter into
the constitution of the game; and choice will always have some little
to do with love, though so many other operating motives may be
combined with it, that it sometimes bears a very insignificant part:
but from marriage it is too frequently precluded on the one side,
unwilling consent, and submission to painful circumstances supplying
its place; and there is one sect of Christians, (the Moravians,) who
where they hold to the rigour of their institute, preclude it on both
sides. They marry by lot; and if divorces ever take place among them,
the scandal has not been divulged to the profaner world.
Choice however is exercised among all other Christians; or where not
exercised, it is presumed by a fiction of law or of divinity, call it
which you will. The husband even insists upon it in China where the
pig is bought in a poke; for when pigsnie arrives and the purchaser
opens the close sedan chair in which she has been conveyed to his
house, if he does not like her looks at first sight, he shuts her up
again and sends her back.
But when a batchelor who has no particular attachment, makes up his
mind to take unto himself a wife, for those reasons to which Uncle
Toby referred the Widow Wadman as being to be found in the Book of
Common Prayer, how then to choose is a matter of much more difficulty,
than one who has never considered it could suppose. It would not be
paradoxical to assert that in the sort of choice which such a person
makes, chance has a much greater part than either affection or
judgement. To set about seeking a wife is like seeking ones fortune,
and the probability of finding a good one in such a quest is less,
though poor enough Heaven knows, in both cases.
The bard has sung, God never form'd a soul
Without its own peculiar mate, to meet
Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole
Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most compleat!
But thousand evil things there are that hate
To look on happiness; these hurt, impede,
And leagued with time, space, circumstance and fate,
Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine and pant and bleed.
And as the dove to far Palmyra flying,
From where her native founts of Antioch beam,
Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing,
Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream;
So many a soul o'er life's drear desert faring,
Love's pure congenial spring unfound, unquaff'd,
Suffers, recoils, then thirsty and despairing
Of what it would, descends and sips the nearest draught.[1]
So sings Maria del Occidente, the most empassioned and most
imaginative of all poetesses.
[Footnote 1: ZOPHIEL.]
According to the new revelation of the Saint Simonians, every
individual human being has had a fitting mate created, the one and
only woman for every individual man, and the one and only man for
every individual woman; and unless the persons so made, fitted and
intended for each other, meet and are joined together in matrimonial
bonds, there can be no perfect marriage for either, that harmonious
union for which they were designed being frustrated for both. Read the
words of the Chief of the New Hierarchy himself, Father Bazard: _Il
n'y a sur la terre pour chaque homme qu'une seule femme, et pour
chaque femme qu'un seul homme, qui soient destinés à former dans le
mariage l'union harmonique du couple.—Grâce aux lumieres de cette
revelation, les individus les plus avancés peuvent aussi dès
aujourd'hui sentir et former le lien qui doit les unir dans le
mariage._
But if Sinner Simon and his disciples,—(most assuredly they ought to
be unsainted!) were right in this doctrine, happy marriages would be
far more uncommon than they are; the man might with better likelihood
of finding it look for a needle in a bottle of hay, than seek for his
other half in this wide world; and the woman's chance would be so
immeasurably less, that no intelligible form of figures could express
her fraction of it.
The man who gets in love because he has determined to marry, instead
of marrying because he is in love, goes about to private parties and
to public places in search of a wife; and there he is attracted by a
woman's appearance, and the figure which she makes in public, not by
her amiable deportment, her domestic qualities and her good report.
Watering places might with equal propriety be called fishing places,
because they are frequented by female anglers, who are in quest of
such prey, the elder for their daughters, the younger for themselves.
But it is a dangerous sport, for the fair Piscatrix is not more likely
to catch a bonito, or a dorado, than she is to be caught by a shark.
Thomas Day, not old Thomas Day of the old glee, nor the young Thomas
Day either,—a father and son whose names are married to immortal
music,—but the Thomas Day who wrote Sandford and Merton, and who had a
heart which generally led him right, and a head which as generally led
him wrong; that Thomas Day thought that the best way of obtaining a
wife to his mind, was to breed one up for himself. So he selected two
little orphan girls from a charity school, with the intention of
marrying in due time the one whom he should like best. Of course such
proper securities as could alone justify the managers of the charity
in consenting to so uncommon a transaction, were required and given.
The experiment succeeded in every thing—except its specific object;
for he found at last that love was not a thing thus to be bespoken on
either side; and his Lucretia and Sabrina, as he named them, grew up
to be good wives for other men. I do not know whether the life of
Thomas Day has yet found its appropriate place in the Wonderful
Magazine, or in the collection entitled Eccentric Biography,—but the
Reader may find it livelily related in Miss Seward's Life of Darwin.
The experiment of breeding a wife is not likely to be repeated. None
but a most determined theorist would attempt it; and to carry it into
effect would require considerable means of fortune, not to mention a
more than ordinary share of patience: after which there must needs be
a greater disparity of years than can be approved in theory upon any
due consideration of human nature, and any reasonable estimate of the
chances of human life.
CHAPTER LV. P. I.
THE AUTHOR'S LAST VISIT TO DONCASTER.
_Fuere quondam hæc sed fuere;
Nunc ubi sint, rogitas? Id annos
Scire hos oportet scilicet. O bonæ
Musæ, O Lepôres—O Charites meræ!
O gaudia offuscata nullis
Litibus! O sine nube soles!_
JANUS DOUZA.
I have more to say, dear Ladies, upon that which to you is, and ought
to be, the most interesting of all worldly subjects, matrimony, and
the various ways by which it is brought about; but this is not the
place for saying it. The Doctor is not at this time thinking of a
wife: his heart can no more be taken so long as it retains the lively
image of the Burgemeester's Daughter, than Troy-town while the
Palladium was safe.
Imagine him, therefore, in the year of our Lord 1747, and in the
twenty-sixth year of his age, returned to Doncaster, with the
Burgemeester's Daughter, seated like the Lady in the Lobster, in his
inmost breast; with physic in his head and at his fingers' ends; and
with an appetite for knowledge which had long been feeding
voraciously, digesting well, and increasing in its growth by what it
fed on. Imagine him returned to Doncaster, and welcomed once more as a
son by the worthy old Peter Hopkins and his good wife, in that
comfortable habitation which I have heretofore described, and of which
(as was at the same time stated) you may see a faithful representation
in Miller's History of that good town; a faithful representation, I
say, of what it was in 1804; the drawing was by Frederic Nash; and
Edward Shirt made a shift to engrave it; the house had then undergone
some alterations since the days when I frequented it; and now!—
Of all things in this our mortal pilgrimage one of the most joyful is
the returning home after an absence which has been long enough to make
the heart yearn with hope, and not sicken with it, and then to find
when you arrive there that all is well. But the most purely painful of
all painful things is to visit after a long long interval of time the
place which was once our home;—the most purely painful, because it is
unmixed with fear, anxiety, disappointment, or any other emotion but
what belongs to the sense of time and change, then pressing upon us
with its whole unalleviated weight.
It was my fortune to leave Doncaster early in life, and, having passed
_per varios casus_, and through as large a proportion of good and evil
in my humble sphere, as the pious Æneas, though not exactly _per tot
discrimina rerum_, not to see it again till after an absence of more
than forty years, when my way happened to lie through that town. I
should never have had heart purposely to visit it, for that would have
been seeking sorrow; but to have made a circuit for the sake of
avoiding the place would have been an act of weakness; and no man who
has a proper degree of self-respect will do any thing of which he
might justly feel ashamed. It was evening, and late in autumn when I
entered Doncaster, and alighted at the Old Angel Inn. “The _Old_
Angel!” said I to my fellow-traveller; “you see that even Angels on
earth grow old!”
My companion knew how deeply I had been indebted to Dr. Dove, and with
what affection I cherished his memory. We presently sallied forth to
look at his former habitation. Totally unknown as I now am in
Doncaster, (where there is probably not one living soul who remembers
either me, or my very name,) I had determined to knock at the door, at
a suitable hour on the morrow, and ask permission to enter the house
in which I had passed so many happy and memorable hours, long ago. My
age and appearance I thought might justify this liberty; and I
intended also to go into the garden and see if any of the fruit trees
were remaining, which my venerable friend had planted, and from which
I had so often plucked and ate.
When we came there, there was nothing by which I could have recognized
the spot, had it not been for the Mansion House that immediately
adjoined it. Half of its site had been levelled to make room for a
street or road which had been recently opened. Not a vestige remained
of the garden behind. The remaining part of the house had been
re-built; and when I read the name of R. DENNISON on the door, it was
something consolatory to see that the door itself was not the same
which had so often opened to admit me.
Upon returning to the spot on the following morning I perceived that
the part which had been re-built is employed as some sort of official
appendage to the Mansion House; and on the naked side-wall now open to
the new street, or road, I observed most distinctly where the old tall
chimney had stood, and the outline of the old pointed roof. These were
the only vestiges that remained; they could have no possible interest
in any eyes but mine, which were likely never to behold them again;
and indeed it was evident that they would soon be effaced as a
deformity, and the naked side-wall smoothed over with plaster. But
they will not be effaced from my memory, for they were the last traces
of that dwelling which is the _Kebla_ of my retrospective day-dreams,
the _Sanctum Sanctorum_ of my dearest recollections; and like an
apparition from the dead, once seen, they were never to be forgotten.
CHAPTER LVI.
A TRUCE WITH MELANCHOLY. GENTLEMEN SUCH AS THEY WERE IN THE YEAR OF
OUR LORD 1747. A HINT TO YOUNG LADIES CONCERNING THEIR GREAT
GRANDMOTHERS.
Fashions that are now called new,
Have been worn by more than you;
Elder times have used the same,
Though these new ones get the name.
MIDDLETON.
Well might Ben Jonson call bell-ringing “the poetry of steeples!” It
is a poetry which in some heart or other is always sure to move an
accordant key; and there is not much of the poetry, so called by
courtesy because it bears the appearance of verse, of which this can
be said with equal truth. Doncaster since I was one of its inhabitants
had been so greatly changed,—(improved I ought to say, for its outward
changes had really been improvements,—) that there was nothing but my
own recollections to carry me back into the past, till the clock of
St. George's struck nine, on the evening of our arrival, and its
chimes began to measure out the same time in the same tones, which I
used to hear as regularly as the hours came round, forty long years
ago.
Enough of this! My visit to Doncaster was incidentally introduced by
the comparison which I could not chuse but make between such a return,
and that of the Student from Leyden. We must now revert to the point
from whence I strayed and go farther back than the forty years over
which the chimes as if with magic had transported me. We must go back
to the year 1747, when gentlemen wore sky-blue coats, with silver
button holes and huge cuffs extending more than half way from the
middle of the hand to the elbow, short breeches just reaching to the
silver garters at the knee, and embroidered waistcoats with long flaps
which came almost as low. Were I to describe Daniel Dove in the wig
which he then wore, and which observed a modest mean between the bush
of the Apothecary and the consequential foretop of the Physician with
its depending knots, fore and aft; were I to describe him in a sober
suit of brown or snuff-coloured dittos such as beseemed his
profession, but with cuffs of the dimensions, waistcoat-flaps of the
length, and breeches of the brevity before mentioned; Amorosa and
Amatura and Amoretta would exclaim that love ought never to be named
in connection with such a figure,—Amabilis, sweet girl in the very
bloom of innocence and opening youth, would declare she never could
love such a creature, and Amanda herself would smile, not
contemptuously, nor at her idea of the man, but at the mutability of
fashion. Smile if you will, young Ladies! your great grandmothers wore
large hoops, peaked stomachers, and modesty-bits; their riding-habits
and waistcoats were trimmed with silver, and they had very
gentleman-like perukes for riding in, as well as gentleman-like cocked
hats. Yet, young Ladies, they were as gay and giddy in their time as
you are now, they were as attractive and as lovely; they were not less
ready than you are to laugh at the fashions of those who had gone
before them; they were wooed and won by gentlemen in short breeches,
long flapped waistcoats, large cuffs and tie wigs; and the wooing and
winning proceeded much in the same manner as it had done in the
generations before them, as the same agreeable part of this world's
business proceeds among yourselves, and as it will proceed when you
will be as little thought of by your great-grand-daughters as your
great-grand-mothers are at this time by you. What care you for your
great-grand-mothers!
The law of entails sufficiently proves that our care for our posterity
is carried far, sometimes indeed beyond what is reasonable and just.
On the other hand it is certain that the sense of relationship in the
ascending line produces in general little other feeling than that of
pride in the haughty and high-born. That it should be so to a certain
degree, is in the order of nature and for the general good: but that
in our selfish state of society this indifference for our ancestors is
greater than the order of nature would of itself produce, may be
concluded from the very different feeling which prevailed among some
of the ancients, and still prevails in other parts of the world.
He who said that he did not see why he should be expected to do any
thing for Posterity, when Posterity had done nothing for him, might be
deemed to have shown as much worthlessness as wit in this saying, if
it were any thing more than the sportive sally of a light-hearted man.
Yet one who “keeps his heart with all diligence,” knowing that “out of
it are the issues of life,” will take heed never lightly to entertain
a thought that seems to make light of a duty,—still less will he give
it utterance. We owe much to Posterity, nothing less than all that we
have received from our Forefathers. And for myself I should be
unwilling to believe that nothing is due from us to our ancestors. If
I did not acquire this feeling from the person who is the subject of
these volumes, it was at least confirmed by him. He used to say that
one of the gratifications which he promised himself after death, was
that of becoming acquainted with all his progenitors, in order, degree
above degree, up to Noah, and from him up to our first parents. “But,”
said he, “though I mean to proceed regularly step by step, curiosity
will make me in one instance trespass upon this proper arrangement,
and I shall take the earliest opportunity of paying my respects to
Adam and Eve.”
CHAPTER LVII.
AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO REMOVE THE UNPLEASANT IMPRESSION PRODUCED UPON
THE LADIES BY THE DOCTOR'S TYE-WIG AND HIS SUIT OF SNUFF-COLOURED
DITTOS.
So full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
TWELFTH NIGHT.
I must not allow the feminine part of my readers to suppose that the
Doctor when in his prime of life, was not a very likeable person in
appearance, as well as in every thing else, although he wore what in
the middle of the last century, was the costume of a respectable
country practitioner in medicine. Though at Leyden he could only look
at a Burgemeester's daughter as a cat may look at a King, there was
not a Mayor or Alderman's daughter in Doncaster who would have thought
herself disparaged if he had fixed his eyes upon her, and made her a
proffer of his hand.
Yet as in the opinion of many dress “makes the man,” and any thing
which departs widely from the standard of dress, “the fellow,” I must
endeavour to give those young Ladies who are influenced more than they
ought to be, and perhaps more than they are aware, by such an opinion,
a more favourable notion of the Doctor's appearance, than they are
likely to have if they bring him before their eyes in the fashion of
his times. It will not assist this intention on my part, if I request
you to look at him as you would look at a friend who was dressed in
such a costume for a masquerade or a fancy ball; for your friend would
expect and wish to be laughed at, having assumed the dress for that
benevolent purpose. Well then, let us take off the aforesaid sad
snuff-colour coat with broad deep cuffs; still the waistcoat with its
long flaps, and the breeches that barely reach to the knee will
provoke your merriment. We must not proceed farther in undressing him;
and if I conceal these under a loose morning gown of green damask, the
insuperable perriwig would still remain.
Let me then present him to your imagination, setting forth on
horseback in that sort of weather which no man encounters voluntarily,
but which men of his profession who practise in the Country are called
upon to face at all seasons and all hours. Look at him in a great coat
of the closest texture that the looms of Leeds could furnish,—one of
those dreadnoughts the utility of which sets fashion at defiance. You
will not observe his boot-stockings coming high above the knees; the
coat covers them; and if it did not, you would be far from despising
them now. His tie-wig is all but hidden under a hat, the brim of which
is broad enough to answer in some degree the use of an umbrella. Look
at him now, about to set off on some case of emergency; with haste in
his expressive eyes, and a cast of thoughtful anxiety over one of the
most benignant countenances that Nature ever impressed with the
characters of good humour and good sense!
Was he then so handsome? you say. Nay, Ladies, I know not whether you
would have called him so: for among the things which were too
wonderful for him, yea, which he knew not, I suspect that Solomon
might have included a woman's notion of handsomeness in man.
CHAPTER LVIII.
CONCERNING THE PORTRAIT OF DR. DANIEL DOVE.
The sure traveller
Though he alight sometimes still goeth on.
HERBERT.
There is no portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove.
And there Horrebow, the Natural Historian of Iceland,—if Horrebow had
been his biographer—would have ended this chapter.
“Here perchance,”—(observe, Reader, I am speaking now in the words of
the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon,)—“here perchance a question would
be asked,—(and yet I do marvel to hear a question made of so plain a
matter,)—what should be the cause of this? If it were asked,” (still
the Lord Keeper speaketh) “thus I mean to answer: That I think no man
so blind but seeeth it, no man so deaf but heareth it, nor no man so
ignorant but understandeth it.” “_Il y a des demandes si sottes qu'on
ne les sçauroit resoudre par autre moyen que par la moquerie et les
absurdities; afin qu'une sottise pousse l'autre._”[1]
[Footnote 1: GARASSE.]
But some reader may ask what have I answered here, or rather what have
I brought forward the great authority of the Lord Keeper Sir Nicholas
Bacon and the arch-vituperator P. Garasse, to answer for me? Do I take
it for granted that the cause wherefore there is no portrait of Dr.
Daniel Dove, should be thus apparent? or the reason why, there being
no such portrait, Horrebow should simply have said so, and having so
said, end therewith the chapter which he had commenced upon the
subject.
O gentle reader you who ask this pertinent question,—I entirely agree
with you! there is nothing more desirable in composition than
perspicuity; and in perspicuity precision is implied. Of the Author
who has attained it in his style, it may indeed be said, _omne tulit
punctum_, so far as relates to style; for all other graces, those only
excepted which only genius can impart, will necessarily follow.
Nothing is so desirable, and yet it should seem that nothing is so
difficult. He who thinks least about it when he is engaged in
composition will be most likely to attain it, for no man ever attained
it by labouring for it. Read all the treatises upon composition that
ever were composed, and you will find nothing which conveys so much
useful instruction as the account given by John Wesley of his own way
of writing. “I never think of my style,” says he; “but just set down
the words that come first. Only when I transcribe any thing for the
press, then I think it my duty to see that every phrase be clear, pure
and proper: conciseness which is now as it were natural to me, brings
_quantum sufficit_ of strength. If after all I observe any stiff
expression, I throw it out neck and shoulders.” Let your words take
their course freely; they will then dispose themselves in their
natural order, and make your meaning plain;—that is, Mr. Author,
supposing you have a meaning; and that it is not an insidious, and for
that reason, a covert one. With all the head-work that there is in
these volumes, and all the heart-work too, I have not bitten my nails
over a single sentence which they contain. I do not say that my hand
has not sometimes been passed across my brow; nor that the fingers of
my left hand have not played with the hair upon my forehead,—like
Thalaba's with the grass that grew beside Oneiza's tomb.
No people have pretended to so much precision in their language as the
Turks. They have not only verbs active, passive, transitive, and
reciprocal, but also verbs co-operative, verbs meditative, verbs
frequentative, verbs negative, and verbs impossible; and moreover they
have what are called verbs of opinion, and verbs of knowledge. The
latter are used when the speaker means it to be understood that he
speaks of his own sure knowledge, and is absolutely certain of what he
asserts; the former when he advances it only as what he thinks likely,
or believes upon the testimony of others.
Now in the Turkish language the word whereon both the meaning and the
construction of the sentence depend, is placed at the end of a
sentence which extends not unfrequently to ten, fifteen or twenty
lines. What therefore they might gain in accuracy by this nice
distinction of verbs must be more than counterbalanced by the
ambiguity consequent upon long-windedness. And notwithstanding their
conscientious moods, they are not more remarkable for veracity than
their neighbours who in ancient times made so much use of the
indefinite tenses, and were said to be always liars.
We have a sect in our own country who profess to use a strict and
sincere plainness of speech; they call their dialect _the plain
language_, and yet they are notorious for making a studied precision
in their words, answer all the purposes of equivocation.
CHAPTER LIX.
SHOWING WHAT THAT QUESTION WAS, WHICH WAS ANSWERED BEFORE IT WAS
ASKED.
_Chacun a son stile; le mien, comme vouz voyez, n'est pas laconique._
M^E. DE SEVIGNEˊ.
In reporting progress upon the subject of the preceding chapter, it
appears that the question asked concerning the question that was
answered, was not itself answered in that chapter; so that it still
remains to be explained what it was that was so obvious as to require
no other answer than the answer that was there given; whether it was
the reason why there is no portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove? or the reason
why Horrebow, if he had been the author of this book, would simply
have said that there was none, and have said nothing more about it?
The question which was answered related to Horrebow. He would have
said nothing more about the matter, because he would have thought
there was nothing more to say; or because he agreed with Britain's old
rhyming Remembrancer, that although
More might be said hereof to make a proof,
Yet more to say were more than is enough.
But if there be readers who admire a style of such barren brevity, I
must tell them in the words of Estienne Pasquier that _je fais grande
conscience d'alambiquer mon esprit en telle espece d'escrite pour leur
complaire_. Do they take me for a Bottle-Conjurer that I am to
compress myself into a quart, wine-merchants' measure, and be corked
down? I must have “ample room and verge enough,”—a large canvas such
as Haydon requires, and as Rubens required before him. When I pour out
nectar for my guests it must be into
a bowl
Large as my capacious soul.
It is true I might have contented myself with merely saying there is
no portrait of my venerable friend; and the benevolent reader would
have been satisfied with the information, while at the same time he
wished there had been one, and perhaps involuntarily sighed at
thinking there was not. But I have duties to perform; first to the
memory of my most dear philosopher and friend; secondly, to myself;
thirdly, to posterity, which in this matter I cannot conscientiously
prefer either to myself or my friend; fourthly, to the benevolent
reader who delighteth in this book, and consequently loveth me
therefore, and whom therefore I love, though, notwithstanding here is
love for love between us, we know not each other now, and never shall!
fourthly, I say to the benevolent reader, or rather readers,
_utriusque generis_, and fifthly to the Public for the time being.
“England expects every man to do his duty;” and England's expectation
would not be disappointed if every Englishman were to perform his as
faithfully and fully as I will do mine. Mark me, Reader, it is only of
my duties to England, and to the parties above-mentioned that I speak;
other duties I am accountable for elsewhere. God forbid that I should
ever speak of them in this strain, or ever think of them otherwise
than in humility and fear!
CHAPTER LX.
SHOWING CAUSE WHY THE QUESTION WHICH WAS NOT ASKED OUGHT TO BE
ANSWERED.
Nay in troth I talk but coarsely,
But I hold it comfortable for the understanding.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
“What, more buffoonery!” says the Honorable Fastidious Feeble-wit who
condescends to act occasionally as Small Critic to the Court
Journal:—“what, still more of this buffoonery!”
“Yes, Sir,—_vous ne recevrez de moy, sur le commencement et milieu de
celuy-cy mien chapitre que bouffonnerie; et toutesfois bouffonnerie
qui porte quant à soy une philosophie et contemplation generale de la
vanité de ce monde._”[1]
[Footnote 1: PASQUIER.]
“More absurdities still!” says Lord Make-motion Ganderman, “more and
more absurdities!”
“Aye, my Lord!” as the Gracioso says in one of Calderon's Plays,
_¿sino digo lo que quiero,
de que me sirve ser loco?_
“Aye, my Lord!” as the old Spaniard says in his national poesy, “_mas,
y mas, y mas, y mas_,” more and more and more and more. You may live
to learn what vaunted maxims of your political philosophy are nothing
else than absurdities in masquerade; what old and exploded follies
there are, which with a little vamping and varnishing pass for new and
wonderful discoveries;
What a world of businesses
Which by interpretation are mere nothings![2]
This you may live to learn. As for my absurdities, they may seem very
much beneath your sapience; but when I say _hæ nugæ seria ducunt_,
(for a trite quotation when well-set is as good as one that will be
new to every body) let me add, my Lord, that it will be well both for
you and your country, if your practical absurdities do not draw after
them consequences of a very different dye!
[Footnote 2: BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.]
No, my Lord, as well as Aye, my Lord!
Never made man of woman born
Of a bullock's tail, a blowing-horn;
Nor can an ass's hide disguise
A lion, if he ramp and rise.[3]
[Footnote 3: PEELE.]
“More fooling,” exclaims Dr. Dense: he takes off his spectacles, lays
them on the table beside him, with a look of despair, and applies to
the snuff-box for consolation. It is a capacious box, and the Doctor's
servant takes care that his master shall never find in it a deficiency
of the best rappee. “More fooling!” says that worthy Doctor.
Fooling, say you, my learned Dr. Dense? Chiabrera will tell you
_——che non è ria
Una gentil follia,—_
my erudite and good Doctor;
But do you know what fooling is? true fooling,—
The circumstances that belong unto it?
For every idle knave that shews his teeth,
Wants, and would live, can juggle, tumble, fiddle,
Make a dog-face, or can abuse his fellow,
Is not a fool at first dash.[4]
[Footnote 4: BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.]
It is easy to talk of fooling and of folly, _mais d'en savoir les
ordres, les rangs, les distinctions; de connoître ces differences
delicates qu'il y a de Folie à Folie; les affinités et les alliances
qui se trouvent entrè la Sagesse et cette meme Folie_, as Saint
Evremond says; to know this is not under every one's nightcap; and
perhaps my learned Doctor, may not be under your wig, orthodox and in
full buckle as it is.
The Doctor is all astonishment, and almost begins to doubt whether I
am fooling in earnest. Aye, Doctor! you meet in this world with false
mirth as often as with false gravity; the grinning hypocrite is not a
more uncommon character than the groaning one. As much light discourse
comes from a heavy heart, as from a hollow one; and from a full mind
as from an empty head. “Levity,” says Mr. Danby, “is sometimes a
refuge from the gloom of seriousness. A man may whistle ‘for want of
thought,’ or from having too much of it.”
“Poor creature!” says the Reverend Philocalvin Frybabe. “Poor
creature! little does he think what an account he must one day render
for every idle word!”
And what account, odious man, if thou art a hypocrite, and hardly less
odious if thou art sincere in thine abominable creed,—what account
wilt thou render for thine extempore prayers and thy set discourses!
My words, idle as thou mayest deem them, will never stupify the
intellect, nor harden the heart, nor besot the conscience like an
opiate drug!
“Such facetiousness,” saith Barrow, “is not unreasonable or unlawful
which ministereth harmless divertisement and delight to conversation;
harmless, I say, that is, not entrenching upon piety, not infringing
charity or justice, not disturbing peace. For Christianity is not so
tetrical, so harsh, so envious as to bar us continually from innocent,
much less from wholesome and useful pleasure, such as human life doth
need or require. And if jocular discourse may serve to good purposes
of this kind; if it may be apt to raise our drooping spirits, to allay
our irksome cares, to whet our blunted industry, to recreate our
minds, being tired and cloyed with graver occupations; if it may breed
alacrity, or maintain good humour among us; if it may conduce to
sweeten conversation and endear society, then is it not inconvenient,
or unprofitable. If for those ends we may use other recreations,
employing on them our ears and eyes, our hands and feet, our other
instruments of sense and motion; why may we not as well to them
accommodate our organs of speech and interior sense? Why should those
games which excite our wit and fancies be less reasonable than those
whereby our grosser parts and faculties are exercised? yea, why are
not those more reasonable, since they are performed in a manly way,
and have in them a smack of reason; seeing also they may be so
managed, as not only to divert and please, but to improve and profit
the mind, rousing and quickening it, yea, sometimes enlightening and
instructing it, by good sense conveyed in jocular expression.”
But think not that in thus producing the authority of one of the
wisest and best of men, I offer any apology for my levities to your
Gravityships! they need it not and you deserve it not.
_Questi—
Son fatti per dar pasto a gl' ignoranti;
Ma voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani,
Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde
Sotto queste coperte alte e profonde.
Le cose belle, e preziose, e care,
Saporite, soavi e dilicate,
Scoperte in man non si debbon portare
Perchè da' porci non sieno imbrattate._[5]
[Footnote 5: ORLANDO INNAMORATO.]
Gentlemen, you have made me break the word of promise both to the eye
and ear. I began this chapter with the intention of showing to the
reader's entire satisfaction, why the question which was not asked,
ought to be answered; and now another chapter must be appropriated to
that matter! Many things happen between the cup and the lip, and
between the beginning of a chapter and the conclusion thereof.
CHAPTER LXI.
WHEREIN THE QUESTION IS ANSWERED WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN ASKED.
_Ajutami, tu penna, et calamaio,
Ch' io hò tra mano una materia asciutta._
MATTIO FRANZESI.
Wherefore there is no portrait of my excellent friend, is a question
which ought to be answered, because the solution will exhibit
something of what in the words of the old drinking song he used to
call his “poor way of thinking.” And it is a question which may well
be asked, seeing that in the circle wherein he moved, there were some
persons of liberal habits and feelings as well as liberal fortune, who
enjoyed his peculiarities, placed the fullest reliance upon his
professional skill, appreciated most highly his moral and intellectual
character, and were indeed personally attached to him in no ordinary
degree.
For another reason also ought this question to be resolved; a reason
which whatever the reader may think, has the more weight with me,
because it nearly concerns myself. “There is indeed,” says the
Philosopher of Bemerton, “a near relation between seriousness and
wisdom, and one is a most excellent friend to the other. A man of a
serious, sedate and considerate temper, as he is always in a ready
disposition for meditation, (the best improvement both of knowledge
and manners,) so he thinks without disturbance, enters not upon
another notion till he is master of the first, and so makes clean work
with it:—whereas a man of a loose, volatile and shattered humour,
thinks only by fits and starts, now and then in a morning interval,
when the serious mood comes upon him; and even then too, let but the
least trifle cross his way, and his desultorious fancy presently takes
the scent, leaves the unfinished and half-mangled notion, and skips
away in pursuit of the new game.” Reader, it must be my care not to
come under this condemnation; and therefore I must follow to the end
the subject which is before me: _quare autem nobis—dicendum videtur,
ne temere secuti putemur; et breviter dicendum, ne in hujusmodi rebus
diutius, quam ratio præcipiendi postulet commoremur._[1]
[Footnote 1: CICERO.]
Mr. Copley of Netherhall was particularly desirous of possessing this
so-much-by-us-now-desiderated likeness, and would have invited an
Artist from London, if the Doctor could have been prevailed upon to
sit for it; but to this no persuasions could induce him. He never
assigned a reason for this determination, and indeed always evaded the
subject when it was introduced, letting it at the same time plainly be
perceived that he was averse to it, and wished not to be so pressed as
to draw from him a direct refusal. But once when the desire had been
urged with some seriousness, he replied that he was the last of his
race, and if he were to be the first who had his portrait taken, well
might they who looked at it, exclaim with Solomon, “Vanity of
vanities!”
In that thought indeed it was that the root of his objection lay.
“_Pauli in domo, præter se nemo superest_,” is one of the most
melancholy reflections to which Paulus Æmilius gave utterance in that
speech of his which is recorded by Livy. The speedy extinction of his
family in his own person was often in the Doctor's mind; and he would
sometimes touch upon it when, in his moods of autumnal feeling, he was
conversing with those persons whom he had received into his heart of
hearts. Unworthy as I was, it was my privilege and happiness to be one
of them; and at such times his deepest feelings could not have been
expressed more unreservedly, if he had given them utterance in poetry
or in prayer.
Blest as he had been in all other things to the extent of his wishes,
it would be unreasonable in him, he said, to look upon this as a
misfortune; so to repine would indicate little sense of gratitude to
that bountiful Providence which had so eminently favored him; little
also of religious acquiescence in its will. It was not by any sore
calamity nor series of afflictions that the extinction of his family
had been brought on; the diminution had been gradual, as if to show
that their uses upon earth were done. His grandfather had only had two
children; his parents but one, and that one was now _ultimus suorum_.
They had ever been a family in good repute, walking inoffensively
towards all men, uprightly with their neighbours, and humbly with
their God; and perhaps this extinction was their reward. For what
Solon said of individuals, that no one could truly be called happy
till his life had terminated in a happy death, holds equally true of
families.
Perhaps too this timely extinction was ordained in mercy, to avert
consequences which might else so probably have arisen from his
forsaking the station in which he was born; a lowly, but safe station,
exposed to fewer dangers, trials or temptations, than any other in
this age or country, with which he was enabled to compare it. The
sentiment with which Sanazzaro concludes his Arcadia was often in his
mind, not as derived from that famous author, but self-originated:
_per cosa vera ed indubitata tener ti puoi, che chi più di nascoso e
più lontano dalla moltitudine vive, miglior vive; e colui trà mortali
si può con più verità chiamar beato, che senza invidia delle altrui
grandezze, con modesto animo della sua fortuna si contenta._ His
father had removed him from that station; he would not say unwisely,
for his father was a wise and good man, if ever man deserved to be so
called; and he could not say unhappily; for assuredly he knew that all
the blessings which had earnestly been prayed for, had attended the
determination. Through that blessing he had obtained the whole benefit
which his father desired for him, and had escaped evils which perhaps
had not been fully apprehended. His intellectual part had received all
the improvement of which it was capable, and his moral nature had
sustained no injury in the process; nor had his faith been shaken, but
stood firm, resting upon a sure foundation. But the entail of humble
safety had been, as it were, cut off; the birth-right—so to speak—had
been renounced. His children, if God had given him children, must have
mingled in the world, there to shape for themselves their lot of good
or evil; and he knew enough of the world to know how manifold and how
insidious are the dangers, which, in all its paths, beset us. He never
could have been to them what his father had been to him;—that was
impossible. They could have had none of those hallowing influences
both of society and solitude to act upon them, which had imbued his
heart betimes, and impressed upon his youthful mind a character that
no after circumstances could corrupt. They must inevitably have been
exposed to more danger, and could not have been so well armed against
it. That consideration reconciled him to being childless. God, who
knew what was best for him, had ordained that it should be so; and he
did not, and ought not to regret, that having been the most cultivated
of his race, and so far the happiest, it was decreed that he should be
the last. God's will is best.
Ὣς ἔφατ ἔυχὸμενος; for with some aspiration of piety he usually
concluded his more serious discourse, either giving it utterance, or
with a silent motion of the lips, which the expression of his
countenance, as well as the tenour of what had gone before, rendered
intelligible to those who knew him as I did.
CHAPTER LXII.
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE DISCOVERY OF A CERTAIN PORTRAIT AT DONCASTER.
Call in the Barber! If the tale be long
He'll cut it short, I trust.
MIDDLETON.
Here I must relate a circumstance which occurred during the few hours
of my last, and by me ever-to-be-remembered visit to Doncaster. As we
were on the way from the Old Angel Inn to the Mansion House, adjoining
which stood, or to speak more accurately had stood, the Kebla to which
the steps of my pilgrimage were bent, we were attracted by a small but
picturesque groupe in a shaving-shop, exhibited in strong relief by
the light of a blazing fire, and of some glaring lamps. It was late in
autumn and on a Saturday evening, at which time those persons in
humble life, who cannot shave themselves, and whose sense of religion
leads them to think that what may be done on the Saturday night ought
not to be put off till the Sunday morning, settle their weekly account
with their beards. There was not story enough in the scene to have
supplied Wilkie with a subject for his admirable genius to work upon,
but he would certainly have sketched the groupe if he had seen it as
we did. Stopping for a minute, at civil distance from the door, we
observed a picture over the fire-place, and it seemed so remarkable
that we asked permission to go in and look at it more nearly. It was
an unfinished portrait, evidently of no common person, and by no
common hand; and as evidently it had been painted many years ago. The
head was so nearly finished that nothing seemed wanting to complete
the likeness; the breast and shoulders were faintly sketched in a sort
of whitewash which gave them the appearance of being covered with a
cloth. Upon asking the master of the shop if he could tell us whose
portrait it was, Mambrino, who seemed to be a good-natured fellow, and
was pleased at our making the enquiry, replied that it had been in his
possession many years, before he knew himself. A friend of his had
made him a present of it, because, he said, the gentleman looked by
his dress as if he was just ready to be shaved, and had an apron under
his chin; and therefore his shop was the properest place for it. One
day however the picture attracted the notice of a passing stranger, as
it had done ours, and he recognized it for a portrait of Garrick. It
certainly was so; and any one who knows Garrick's face may satisfy
himself of this when he happens to be in Doncaster. Mambrino's shop is
not far from the Old Angel, and on the same side of the street.
My companion told me that when we entered the shop he had begun to
hope it might prove to be a portrait of my old friend: he seemed even
to be disappointed that we had not fallen upon such a discovery,
supposing that it would have gratified me beyond measure. But upon
considering in my own mind if this would have been the case, two
questions presented themselves. The first was, whether knowing as I
did that the Doctor never sate for his portrait, and knowing also
confidentially the reason why he never could be persuaded to do so, or
rather the feeling which possessed him on that subject,—knowing these
things, I say, the first question was, whether if a stolen likeness
had been discovered, I ought to have rejoiced in the discovery. For as
I certainly should have endeavoured to purchase the picture, I should
then have had to decide whether or not it was my duty to destroy it;
for which,—or on the other hand for preserving it,—so many strong
reasons and so many refined ones, might have been produced, _pro_ and
_con_, that I could not have done either one or the other, without
distrusting the justice of my own determination; if I preserved it, I
should continually be self-accused for doing wrong; if I destroyed it,
self-reproaches would pursue me for having done what was
irretrievable; so that while I lived I should never have been out of
my own Court of Conscience. And let me tell you, Reader, that to be
impleaded in that Court is even worse than being brought into the
Court of Chancery.
Secondly, the more curious question occurred, whether if there had
been a portrait of Dr. Dove, it would have been like him.
“That” says Mr. Everydayman, “is as it might happen.”
“Pardon me, Sir; my question does not regard happening. Chance has
nothing to do with the matter. The thing queried is whether it could,
or could not have been.”
And before I proceed to consider that question, I shall take the
counsel which Catwg the Wise, gave to his pupil Taliesin; and which by
these presents I recommend to every reader who may be disposed to
consider himself for the time being as mine:
“Think before thou speakest;
First, what thou shalt speak;
Secondly, why thou shouldest speak;
Thirdly, to whom thou mayest have to speak;
Fourthly, about whom (or what) thou art to speak;
Fifthly, what will come from what thou mayest speak;
Sixthly, what may be the benefit from what thou shalt speak;
Seventhly, who may be listening to what thou shalt speak.
“Put thy word on thy fingers' ends before thou speakest it, and turn
it these seven ways before thou speakest it; and there will never come
any harm from what thou shalt say!
“Catwg the Wise delivered this counsel to Taliesin, Chief of Bards, in
giving him his blessing.”
CHAPTER LXIII.
A DISCUSSION CONCERNING THE QUESTION LAST PROPOSED.
_Questo è bene un de' più profondi passi
Che noi habbiamo ancora oggi tentato;
E non è mica da huomini bassi._
AGNOLO FIRENZUOLA.
Good and satisfactory likenesses may, beyond all doubt, be taken of
Mr. Everydayman himself, and indeed of most persons: and were it
otherwise, portrait-painting would be a worse profession than it is,
though too many an unfortunate artist has reason bitterly to regret
that he possessed the talents which tempted him to engage in it. There
are few faces of which even a mediocre painter cannot produce what is
called a staring likeness, and Sir Thomas Lawrence a handsome one; Sir
Thomas is the painter who pleases every body!
But there are some few faces with which no artist can succeed so as to
please himself, (if he has a true feeling for his own art,) or to
content those persons who are best acquainted with the living
countenance. This is the case where the character predominates over
the features, and that character itself is one in which many and
seemingly opposite qualities are compounded. Garrick in Abel Drugger,
Garrick in Sir John Brute and Garrick in King Lear presented three
faces as different as were the parts which he personated; yet the
portraits which have been published of him in those parts, may be
identified by the same marked features, which flexible as they were
rendered by his histrionic power, still under all changes retained
their strength and their peculiarity. But where the same flexibility
exists and the features are not so peculiar or prominent, the
character is then given by what is fleeting, not by what is fixed; and
it is more difficult to hit a likeness of this kind than to paint a
rainbow.
Now I cannot but think that the Doctor's countenance was of this kind.
I can call it to mind as vividly as it appears to me in dreams; but I
could impart no notion of it by description. Words cannot delineate a
single feature of his face,—such words at least as my knowledge
enables me to use. A sculptor, if he had measured it, might have given
you technically the relative proportions of his face in all its parts:
a painter might describe the facial angle, and how the eyes were set,
and if they were well-slit, and how the lips were formed, and whether
the chin was in the just mean between rueful length and spectatorial
brevity; and whether he could have passed over Strasburgh Bridge
without hearing any observations made upon his nose. My own opinion is
that the centinel would have had something to say upon that subject;
and if he had been a Protestant Soldier (which if an Alsacian, he was
likely to be) and accustomed to read the Bible, he might have been
reminded by it of the Tower of Lebanon, looking toward Damascus; for
as an Italian Poet says,
_in prospettiva
Ne mostra un barbacane sforacchiato._[1]
I might venture also to apply to the Doctor's nose that safe
generality by which Alcina's is described in the Orlando Furioso.
“_Quindi il naso, per mezzo il viso scende,
Che non trova l'invidia ove l'emende._”
But farther than this, which amounts to no more than a doubtful
opinion and a faint adumbration, I can say nothing that would assist
any reader to form an idea at once definite and just of any part of
the Doctor's face. I cannot even positively say what was the colour of
his eyes. I only know that mirth sparkled in them, scorn flashed from
them, thought beamed in them, benevolence glistened in them; that they
were easily moved to smiles, easily to tears. No barometer ever
indicated more faithfully the changes of the atmosphere than his
countenance corresponded to the emotions of his mind; but with a mind
which might truly be said to have been
so various, that it seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome,
thus various not in its principles or passions or pursuits, but in its
enquiries and fancies and speculations, and so alert that nothing
seemed to escape its ever watchful and active apprehension,—with such
a mind the countenance that was its faithful index, was perpetually
varying: its likeness therefore at any one moment could but represent
a fraction of the character which identified it, and which left upon
you an indescribable and inimitable impression resulting from its
totality, though in its totality, it never was and never could be
seen.
[Footnote 1: MATTIO FRANZESI.]
Have I made myself understood?
I mean to say that the ideal face of any one to whom we are strongly
and tenderly attached,—that face which is enshrined in our heart of
hearts and which comes to us in dreams long after it has mouldered in
the grave,—that face is not the exact mechanical countenance of the
beloved person, not the countenance that we ever actually behold, but
its abstract, its idealization, or rather its realization; the spirit
of the countenance, its essence and its life. And the finer the
character, and the more various its intellectual powers, the more must
this true εἴδωλον differ from the most faithful likeness that a
painter or a sculptor can produce.
Therefore I conclude that if there had been a portrait of Dr. Daniel
Dove, it could not have been like him, for it was as impossible to
paint the character which constituted the identity of his countenance,
as to paint the flavour of an apple, or the fragrance of a rose.
CHAPTER LXIV.
DEFENCE OF PORTRAIT-PAINTING. A SYSTEM OF MORAL COSMETICS RECOMMENDED
TO THE LADIES. GWILLIM. SIR T. LAWRENCE. GEORGE WITHER. APPLICATION TO
THE SUBJECT OF THIS WORK.
_Pingitur in tabulis formæ peritura venustas,
Vivat ut in tabulis, quod perit in facie._
OWEN.
The reader will mistake me greatly if he supposes that in showing why
it was impossible there should be a good portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove,
I meant to depreciate the art of portrait painting. I have a very high
respect for that art, and no person can be more sincerely persuaded of
its moral uses. The great number of portraits in the annual
exhibitions of our Royal Academy is so far from displeasing me that I
have always regarded it as a symptom of wholesome feeling in the
nation,—an unequivocal proof that the domestic and social affections
are still existing among us in their proper strength, and cherished as
they ought to be. And when I have heard at any time observations of
the would-be-witty kind upon the vanity of those who allow their
portraits thus to be hung up for public view, I have generally
perceived that the remark implied a much greater degree of conceit in
the speaker. As for allowing the portrait to be exhibited, that is no
more than an act of justice to the artist, who has no other means of
making his abilities known so well, and of forwarding himself in his
profession. If we look round the rooms at Somerset House, and observe
how large a proportion of the portraits represent children, the old,
and persons in middle life, we shall see that very few indeed are
those which can have been painted, or exhibited for the gratification
of personal vanity.
Sir Thomas Lawrence ministers largely to self-admiration: and yet a
few years ripen even the most flattering of his portraits into moral
pictures;
_Perchè, donne mie care, la beltà
Ha l' ali al capo, a le spalle ed a' piè:
E vola si, che non si scorge più
Vestigio alcun ne' visi, dove fù._[1]
[Footnote 1: RICCIARDETTO.]
Helen in her old age, looking at herself in a mirror, is a subject
which old sonneteers were fond of borrowing from the Greek Anthology.
Young Ladies! you who have sate to Sir Thomas, or any artist of his
school, I will tell you how your portraits may be rendered more useful
monitors to you in your progress through life than the mirror was to
Helen, and how you may derive more satisfaction from them when you are
grown old. Without supposing that you actually “called up a look,” for
the painter's use, I may be certain that none of you during the times
of sitting permitted any feeling of ill humour to cast a shade over
your countenance; and that if you were not conscious of endeavouring
to put on your best looks for the occasion, the painter was desirous
of catching them, and would catch the best he could. The most
thoughtless of you need not be told that you cannot retain the charms
of youthful beauty; but you may retain the charm of an amiable
expression through life: Never allow yourselves to be seen with a
worse than you wore for the painter! Whenever you feel ill-tempered,
remember that you look ugly; and be assured that every emotion of
fretfulness, of ill-humour, of anger, of irritability, of impatience,
of pride, haughtiness, envy, or malice, any unkind, any uncharitable,
any ungenerous feeling, lessens the likeness to your picture, and not
only deforms you while it lasts, but leaves its trace behind; for the
effect of the passions upon the face is more rapid and more certain
than that of time.
“His counsel,” says Gwillim the Pursuivant, “was very behoveful, who
advised all gentlewomen often to look on glasses, that so, if they saw
themselves beautiful, they might be stirred up to make their minds as
fair by virtue as their faces were by nature; but if deformed, they
might make amends for their outward deformity, with their intern
pulchritude and gracious qualities. And those that are proud of their
beauty should consider that their own hue is as brittle as the glass
wherein they see it; and that they carry on their shoulders nothing
but a skull wrapt in skin which one day will be loathsome to be looked
on.”
The conclusion of this passage accorded not with the Doctor's
feelings. He thought that whatever tended to connect frightful and
loathsome associations with the solemn and wholesome contemplation of
mortality, ought to be avoided as injudicious and injurious. So too
with regard to age: if it is dark and unlovely “the fault,” he used to
say, “is generally our own; Nature may indeed make it an object of
compassion, but not of dislike, unless we ourselves render it so. It
is not of necessity that we grow ugly as well as old.” Donne says
No spring, nor summer's beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face;
he was probably speaking of his wife, for Donne was happy in his
marriage, as he deserved to be. There is a beauty which, as the
Duchess of Newcastle said of her mother's, is “beyond the reach of
time;” that beauty depends upon the mind, upon the temper,—Young
Ladies, upon yourselves!
George Wither wrote under the best of his portraits,
What I WAS, is passed by;
What I AM, away doth fly;
What I SHALL BE, none do see;
Yet in THAT my beauties be.
He commenced also a Meditation upon that portrait in these impressive
lines;
When I behold my Picture and perceive
How vain it is our Portraitures to leave
In lines and shadows (which make shews to-day
Of that which will to-morrow fade away)
And think what mean resemblances at best
Are by mechanic instruments exprest,
I thought it better much to leave behind me,
Some draught, in which my living friends might find me,
The same I am, in that which will remain
Till all is ruined and repaired again.
In the same poem he says,
A Picture, though with most exactness made,
Is nothing but the shadow of a shade.
For even our living bodies (though they seem
To others more, or more in our esteem)
Are but the shadow of that Real Being,
Which doth extend beyond the fleshly seeing,
And cannot be discerned, until we rise
Immortal objects for immortal eyes.
Like most men, George Wither, as he grew more selfish, was tolerably
successful in deceiving himself as to his own motives and state of
mind. If ever there was an honest enthusiast, he had been one;
afterwards he feathered his nest with the spoils of the Loyalists and
of the Bishops; and during this prosperous part of his turbulent life
there must have been times when the remembrance of his former self
brought with it more melancholy and more awful thoughts than the sight
of his own youthful portrait, in its fantastic garb, or of that more
sober resemblance upon which his meditation was composed.
Such a portraiture of the inner or real being as Wither in his better
mind wished to leave in his works, for those who knew and loved him,
such a portraiture am I endeavouring to compose of Dr. Dove, wherein
the world may see what he was, and so become acquainted with his
intellectual lineaments, and with those peculiarities, which forming
as it were the idiosyncrasy of his moral constitution, contributed in
no small degree to those ever-varying lights and shades of character,
and feeling in his living countenance which, I believe, would have
baffled the best painter's art.
_Poi voi sapete quanto egli è dabbene,
Com' ha giudizio, ingegno, e discrezione,
Come conosce il vero, il bello, e 'l bene._[2]
[Footnote 2: BERNI.]
CHAPTER LXV.
SOCIETY OF A COUNTRY TOWN. SUCH A TOWN A MORE FAVOURABLE HABITAT FOR
SUCH A PERSON AS DR. DOVE THAN LONDON WOULD HAVE BEEN.
Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;
Inn any where;
And seeing the snail, which every where doth roam,
Carrying his own home still, still is at home,
Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail;
Be thine own Palace, or the World's thy jail.
DONNE.
Such then as Daniel Dove was in the twenty-sixth year of his age we
are now to consider him, settled at Doncaster, and with his way of
life chosen, for better for worse, in all respects; except, as my
female readers will remember, that he was neither married, nor
engaged, nor likely to be so.
One of the things for which he used to thank God was that the world
had not been all before him where to chuse, either as to calling or
place, but that both had been well chosen for him. To chuse upon such
just motives as can leave no rational cause for after repentance
requires riper judgement than ought to be expected at the age when the
choice is to be made; it is best for us therefore at a time of life
when though perhaps we might chuse well, it is impossible that we
could chuse wisely, to acquiesce in the determination of others, who
have knowledge and experience to direct them. Far happier are they who
always know what they are to do, than they who have to determine what
they will do.
_Bisogna far quel che si deve fare,
E non gia tutto quello che si vuole._[1]
Thus he was accustomed to think upon this subject.
[Footnote 1: PANANTI.]
But was he well placed at Doncaster?
It matters not where those men are placed, who, as South says, “have
souls so dull and stupid as to serve for little else but to keep their
bodies from putrefaction.” Ordinary people whether their lot be cast
in town or country, in the metropolis or in a village, will go on in
the ordinary way, conforming their habits to those of the place. It
matters nothing more to those who live less in the little world about
them, than in a world of their own, with the whole powers of the head
and of the heart too (if they have one) intently fixed upon some
favourite pursuit:—if they have a heart I say, for it sometimes
happens that where there is an excellent head, the heart is nothing
more than a piece of hard flesh. In this respect, the highest and the
meanest intellects are, in a certain sense, alike self-sufficient;
that is they are so far independent of adventitious aid, that they
derive little advantage from society and suffer nothing from the want
of it. But there are others for whose mental improvement, or at least
mental enjoyment, collision and sympathy and external excitement seem
almost indispensable. Just as large towns are the only places in which
first-rate workmen in any handycraft business can find employment, so
men of letters and of science generally appear to think that no where
but in a metropolis can they find the opportunities which they desire
of improvement or of display. These persons are wise in their
generation, but they are not children of light.
Among such persons it may perhaps be thought that our friend should be
classed; and it cannot be doubted that in a more conspicuous field of
action, he might have distinguished himself, and obtained a splendid
fortune. But for distinction he never entertained the slightest
desire, and with the goods of fortune which had fallen to his share he
was perfectly contented. But was he favourably situated for his
intellectual advancement?—which if such an enquiry had come before him
concerning any other person, is what he would have considered to be
the question-issimus. I answer without the slightest hesitation, that
he was.
In London he might have mounted a Physician's wig, have ridden in his
carriage, have attained the honours of the College, and added F. R. S.
to his professional initials. He might, if Fortune opening her eyes
had chosen to favour desert, have become Sir Daniel Dove, Bart.
Physician to his Majesty. But he would then have been a very different
person from the Dr. Dove of Doncaster, whose memory will be
transmitted to posterity in these volumes, and he would have been much
less worthy of being remembered. The course of such a life would have
left him no leisure for himself; and metropolitan society in rubbing
off the singularities of his character, would just in the same degree
have taken from its strength.
It is a pretty general opinion that no society can be so bad as that
of a small country town; and certain it is that such towns offer
little or no choice. You must take what they have and make the best of
it. But there are not many persons to whom circumstances allow much
latitude of choice any where except in those public places, as they
are called, where the idle and the dissipated, like birds of a
feather, flock together. In any settled place of residence men are
circumscribed by station and opportunities, and just as much in the
capital, as in a provincial town. No one will be disposed to regret
this, if he observes where men have most power of chusing their
society, how little benefit is derived from it, or in other words with
how little wisdom it is used.
After all, the common varieties of human character will be found
distributed in much the same proportion everywhere, and in most places
there will be a sprinkling of the uncommon ones. Everywhere you may
find the selfish and the sensual, the carking and the careful, the
cunning and the credulous, the worldling and the reckless. But kind
hearts are also every where to be found, right intentions, sober
minds, and private virtues,—for the sake of which let us hope that God
may continue to spare this hitherto highly-favoured nation,
notwithstanding the fearful amount of our public and manifold
offences.
The society then of Doncaster, in the middle of the last century, was
like that of any other country town which was neither the seat of
manufactures, nor of a Bishop's see; in either of which more
information of a peculiar kind would have been found,—more active
minds, or more cultivated ones. There was enough of those
eccentricities for which the English above all other people are
remarkable, those aberrations of intellect which just fail to
constitute legal insanity, and which, according to their degree,
excite amusement, or compassion. Nor was the town without its full
share of talents; these there was little to foster and encourage, but
happily there was nothing to pervert and stimulate them to a premature
and mischievous activity.
In one respect it more resembled an episcopal than a trading city. The
four kings and their respective suits of red and black were not upon
more frequent service in the precincts of a cathedral, than in the
good town of Doncaster. A stranger who had been invited to spend the
evening with a family there, to which he had been introduced, was
asked by the master of the house to take a card as a matter of course;
upon his replying that he did not play at cards, the company looked at
him with astonishment, and his host exclaimed—“What, Sir! not play at
cards? the Lord help you!”
I will not say the Lord helped Daniel Dove, because there would be an
air of irreverence in the expression, the case being one in which he,
or any one, might help himself. He knew enough of all the games which
were then in vogue to have played at them, if he had so thought good;
and he would have been as willing, sometimes, in certain moods of
mind, to have taken his seat at a card-table, in houses where
card-playing did not form part of the regular business of life, as to
have listened to a tune on the old-fashioned spinnet, or the then
new-fashioned harpsichord. But that which as an occasional pastime he
might have thought harmless and even wholesome, seemed to him
something worse than folly when it was made a kill-time,—the serious
occupation for which people were brought together,—the only one at
which some of them ever appeared to give themselves the trouble of
thinking. And seeing its effects upon the temper, and how nearly this
habit was connected with a spirit of gambling, he thought that cards
had not without reason been called the Devil's Books.
I shall not therefore introduce the reader to a Doncaster card-party,
by way of shewing him the society of the place. The Mrs. Shuffles,
Mrs. Cuts and Miss Dealems, the Mr. Tittles and Mrs. Tattles, the
Humdrums and the Prateapaces, the Fribbles and the Feebles, the Perts
and the Prims, the Littlewits and the Longtongues, the Heavyheads and
the Broadbelows, are to be found everywhere.
“It is quite right,” says one of the Guessers at Truth, “that there
should be a heavy duty on cards: not only on moral grounds; not only
because they act on a social party like a torpedo, silencing the merry
voice and numbing the play of the features; not only to still the
hunger of the public purse, which reversing the qualities of
Fortunatus's, is always empty, however much you may put into it; but
also because every pack of cards is a malicious libel on courts, and
on the world, seeing that the trumpery with number one at the head, is
the best part of them; and that it gives kings and queens no other
companions than knaves.”
CHAPTER LXVI.
MR. COPLEY OF NETHERHALL. SOCIETY AT HIS HOUSE. DRUMMOND. BURGH. GRAY.
MASON. MILLER THE ORGANIST AND HISTORIAN OF DONCASTER. HERSCHEL.
All worldly joys go less
To the one joy of doing kindnesses.
HERBERT.
There was one house in Doncaster in which cards were never introduced;
this house was Netherhall the seat of Mr. Copley; and there Dr. Dove
had the advantage of such society as was at that time very rarely, and
is still not often, to be enjoyed anywhere.
The Copleys are one of the most ancient families in Doncaster: Robert
Grosseteste, one of the most eminent of our English churchmen before
the Reformation was a branch from their stock. Robert Copley who in
the middle of the last century represented the family, was brought up
at Westminster School, and while there took, what is very unusual for
boys at Westminster or any other school to take, lessons in music. Dr.
Crofts was his master, and made him, as has been said by a very
competent judge, a very good performer in thorough-bass on the
harpsichord. He attempted painting also, but not with equal success;
the age of painting in this country had not then arrived.
Mr. Copley's income never exceeded twelve hundred a-year; but this
which is still a liberal income, was then a large one, in the hands of
a wise and prudent man. Netherhall was the resort of intellectual men,
in whose company he delighted; and the poor were fed daily from his
table. Drummond, afterwards Archbishop of York, was his frequent
guest; so was Mason; so was Mason's friend Dr. Burgh; and Gray has
sometimes been entertained there. One of the “strong names” of the
King of Dahomey means, when interpreted, “wherever I rub, I leave my
scent.” In a better sense than belongs to this metaphorical boast of
the power and the disposition to be terrible, it may be said of such
men as Gray and Mason that wherever they have resided, or have been
entertained as abiding guests, an odour of their memory remains. Who
passes by the house at Streatham that was once Mrs. Thrale's without
thinking of Dr. Johnson?
During many years Mr. Copley entertained himself and his friends with
a weekly concert at Netherhall, he himself, Sir Brian Cooke and some
of his family, and Dr. Miller the organist, and afterwards Historian
of Doncaster, being performers. Miller, who was himself a remarkable
person, had the fortune to introduce a more remarkable one to these
concerts; it is an interesting anecdote in the history of that person,
of Miller, and of Doncaster.
About the year 1760 as Miller was dining at Pontefract with the
officers of the Durham militia, one of them, knowing his love of
music, told him they had a young German in their band as a performer
on the hautboy, who had only been a few months in England, and yet
spoke English almost as well as a native, and who was also an
excellent performer on the violin; the officer added, that if Miller
would come into another room this German should entertain him with a
solo. The invitation was gladly accepted, and Miller heard a solo of
Giardini's executed in a manner that surprized him. He afterwards took
an opportunity of having some private conversation with the young
musician, and asked him whether he had engaged himself for any long
period to the Durham militia? The answer was, “only from month to
month.” “Leave them then,” said the organist, “and come and live with
me. I am a single man, and think we shall be happy together; and
doubtless your merit will soon entitle you to a more eligible
situation.” The offer was accepted as frankly as it was made: and the
reader may imagine with what satisfaction Dr. Miller must have
remembered this act of generous feeling, when he hears that this young
German was Herschel the Astronomer.
“My humble mansion,” says Miller, “consisted at that time, but of two
rooms. However, poor as I was, my cottage contained a small library of
well chosen books; and it must appear singular that a foreigner who
had been so short a time in England should understand even the
peculiarities of the language so well, as to fix upon Swift for his
favourite author.” He took an early opportunity of introducing his new
friend at Mr. Copley's concerts; the first violin was resigned to him:
and never, says the organist, had I heard the concertos of Corelli,
Geminiani and Avison, or the overtures of Handel, performed more
chastely, or more according to the original intention of the composers
than by Mr. Herschel. I soon lost my companion: his fame was presently
spread abroad; he had the offer of pupils, and was solicited to lead
the public concerts both at Wakefield and Halifax. A new organ for the
parish church of Halifax was built about this time, and Herschel was
one of the seven candidates for the organist's place. They drew lots
how they were to perform in succession. Herschel drew the third, the
second fell to Mr., afterwards Dr. Wainwright of Manchester, whose
finger was so rapid that old Snetzler, the organ-builder, ran about
the church, exclaiming, _Te Tevel, te Tevel! he run over te keys like
one cat; he will not give my piphes room for to shpeak._ “During Mr.
Wainwright's performance,” says Miller, “I was standing in the middle
isle with Herschel; what chance have you, said I, to follow this man?”
He replied, “I don't know; I am sure fingers will not do.” On which he
ascended the organ loft, and produced from the organ so uncommon a
fulness,—such a volume of slow solemn harmony, that I could by no
means account for the effect. After this short extempore effusion, he
finished with the old hundredth-psalm-tune, which he played better
than his opponent. _Aye, aye,_ cried old Snetzler, _tish is very goot,
very goot indeet; I vil luf tish man, for he gives my piphes room for
to shpeak._ Having afterwards asked Mr. Herschel by what means in the
beginning of his performance, he produced so uncommon an effect, he
replied, “I told you fingers would not do!” and producing two pieces
of lead from his waistcoat pocket, “one of these,” said he, “I placed
on the lowest key of the organ, and the other upon the octave above;
thus by accommodating the harmony, I produced the effect of four hands
instead of two.”
CHAPTER LXVII.
A MYTHOLOGICAL STORY MORALIZED.
_Il faut mettre les fables en presse pour en tirer quelque suc de
verité._
GARASSE.
It is related of the great mythological personage Baly, that Veeshnoo,
when he dispossessed him of his impious power, allowed him in
mitigation of his lot, to make his choice, whether he would go to the
Swerga, and take five ignorant persons with him who were to be his
everlasting companions there, or to Padalon and have five Pundits in
his company. Baly preferred the good company with the bad quarters.
That that which is called good company has led many a man to a place
which it is not considered decorous to mention before “ears polite,”
is a common and, therefore, the more an awful truth. The Swerga and
Padalon are the Hindoo Heaven and Hell; and if the Hindoo fable were
not obviously intended to extol the merits of their Pundits, or
learned men, as the missionary Ward explains the title, it might with
much seeming likelihood bear this moral interpretation; that Baly
retained the pride of knowledge even when convinced by the deprivation
of his power that the pride of power was vanity, and in consequence
drew upon himself a further punishment by his choice.
For although Baly, because of the righteousness with which he had used
his power, was so far favoured by the Divinity whom he had offended,
that he was not condemned to undergo any of those torments of which
there was as rich an assortment and as choice a variety in Padalon, as
ever monkish imagination revelled in devising, it was at the best a
dreadful place of abode: and so it would appear if Turner were to
paint a picture of its Diamond City from Southey's description. I say
Turner, because though the subject might seem more adapted to Martin's
cast of mind, Turner's colouring would well represent the fiery
streams and the sulphureous atmosphere; and that colouring being
transferred from earthly landscapes to its proper place his rich
genius would have full scope for its appropriate display. Baly no
doubt, as a state prisoner who was to be treated with the highest
consideration as well as with the utmost indulgence, would have all
the accommodations that Yamen could afford him. There he and the
Pundits might
reason high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And find no end, in wandering mazes lost.
They might argue there of good and evil,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;
and such discourses possibly
—with a pleasing sorcery might charm
Pain for awhile and anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
But it would only be _for awhile_ that they could be thus beguiled by
it, for it is
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!
it would be only for a while, and they were there for a time which in
prospect must appear all but endless. The Pundits would not thank him
for bringing them there; Baly himself must continually wish he were
breathing the heavenly air of the Swerga in the company of ignorant
but happy associates, and he would regret his unwise choice even more
bitterly than he remembered the glorious city wherein he had reigned
in his magnificence.
He made a great mistake. If he had gone with the ignorant to Heaven he
would have seen them happy there, and partaken their happiness, though
they might not have been able to derive any gratification from his
wisdom;—which said wisdom, peradventure, he himself when he was there
might have discovered to be but foolishness. It is only in the company
of the good that real enjoyment is to be found; any other society is
hollow and heartless. You may be excited by the play of wit, by the
collision of ambitious spirits, and by the brilliant exhibition of
self-confident power; but the satisfaction ends with the scene. Far
unlike this is the quiet confiding intercourse of sincere minds and
friendly hearts, knowing and loving and esteeming each other; and such
intercourse our philosopher enjoyed in Doncaster.
Edward Miller the Organist was a person very much after Daniel Dove's
own heart. He was a warm-hearted, simple-hearted, right-hearted man;
an enthusiast in his profession, yet not undervaluing, much less
despising, other pursuits. The one Doctor knew as little of music as
the other did of medicine; but Dr. Dove listened to Miller's
performance with great pleasure, and Dr. Miller when he was indisposed
took Dove's physic with perfect faith.
This musician was brother to William Miller, the bookseller, well
known in the early part of the present century as a publisher of
splendid works, to whose flourishing business in Albemarle Street the
more flourishing John Murray succeeded. In the worldly sense of the
word the musician was far less fortunate than the bibliopole, a
doctorate in his own science, being the height of the honours to which
he attained, and the place of organist at Doncaster the height of the
preferment. A higher station was once presented to his hopes. The
Marquis of Rockingham applied in his behalf for the place of Master of
his Majesty's band of musicians, then vacated by the death of Dr.
Boyce; and the Duke of Manchester, who was at that time Lord
Chamberlain, would have given it him if the King had not particularly
desired him to bestow it on Mr. Stanley, the celebrated blind
performer on the organ. Dr. Miller was more gratified by this proof of
the Marquis's good will towards him than disappointed at its failure.
Had the application succeeded he would not have written the History of
Doncaster; nor would he have borne a part in a well-intended and
judicious attempt at reforming our church psalmody, in which part of
our church service reformation is greatly needed. This meritorious
attempt was made when George Hay Drummond, whose father had been
Archbishop of York, was Vicar of Doncaster, having been presented to
that vicarage in 1785, on the demise of Mr. Hatfield.
At that time the Parish Clerk used there as in all other parish
churches to chuse what psalm should be sung “to the praise and glory
of God,” and what portions of it; and considering himself as a much
more important person in this department of his office than the
organist, the only communication upon the subject which he held with
Dr. Miller, was to let him know what tune he must play, and how often
he was to repeat it. “Strange absurdity!” says Miller. “How could the
organist placed in this degrading situation, properly perform his part
of the church service? Not knowing the words, it was impossible for
him to accommodate his music to the various sentiments contained in
different stanzas; consequently his must be a mere random performance,
and frequently producing improper effects.” This however is what only
a musician would feel; but it happened one Sunday that the clerk gave
out some verses which were either ridiculously inapplicable to the
day, or bore some accidental and ludicrous application, so that many
of the congregation did not refrain from laughter. Mr. Drummond upon
this, for he was zealously attentive to all the duties of his calling,
said to Miller, “that in order to prevent any such occurrence in
future he would make a selection of the best verses in each psalm,
from the authorized version of Tate and Brady, and arrange them for
every Sunday and festival throughout the year, provided he, the
organist, who was perfectly qualified for such a task, would adapt
them to proper music.” To such a man as Miller this was the greatest
gratification that could have been afforded; and it proved also to be
the greatest service that was ever rendered to him in the course of
his life; for through Mr. Drummond's interest, the King and the Bishop
patronized the work, and nearly five thousand copies were subscribed
for, the list of subscribers being, it is believed, longer than had
ever been obtained for any musical publication in this kingdom.
Strange to say, nothing of this kind had been attempted before; for
the use of psalmody in our churches was originally no part of the
service; but having as it were, crept in, and been at first rather
suffered than encouraged, and afterwards allowed and permitted only,
not enjoined, no provision seems ever to have been made for its
proper, or even decent performance. And when an arrangement like this
of Mr. Drummond's had been prepared, and Dr. Miller, with sound
judgement, had adapted it where that could be done, to the most
popular of the old and venerable melodies which had been so long in
possession, it may seem more strange that it should not have been
brought into general use. This I say might be thought strange, if any
instance of that supine and sinful negligence which permits the
continuance of old and acknowledged defects in the church
establishment, and church service, could be thought so.
Mr. Drummond had probably been led to think upon this subject by
Mason's conversation, and by his Essays, historical and critical, on
English Church Music. Mason who had a poet's ear and eye was ambitious
of becoming both a musician and a painter. According to Miller he
succeeded better in his musical than in his pictorial attempts, for he
performed decently on the harpsichord; but in painting he never
arrived even at a degree of mediocrity, and in music it was not
possible to teach him the principles of composition, Miller and others
having at his own desire attempted in vain to instruct him.
Nevertheless, such a man, however superficial his knowledge of the
art, could not but feel and reason justly upon its use and abuse in
our Church Service; and he was for restricting the organist much in
the same way that Drummond and Miller were for restraining the clerk.
For after observing that what is called the voluntary requires an
innate inventive faculty, which is certainly not the lot of many; and
that the happy few who possess it will not at all times be able to
restrain it within the bounds which reason and, in this case, religion
would prescribe, he said, “it was to be wished therefore that in our
established church extempore playing were as much discountenanced as
extempore praying; and that the organist were as closely obliged in
this solo and separate part of his office to keep to set forms, as the
officiating minister; or as he himself is when accompanying the choir
in an anthem, or a parochial congregation in a psalm.” He would have
indulged him however with a considerable quantity of these set forms,
and have allowed him, if he approached in some degree to Rousseau's
high character of a Preluder, “to descant on certain single grave
texts which Tartini, Geminiani, Corelli or Handel would abundantly
furnish, and which may be found at least of equal elegance and
propriety in the Largo and Adagio movements of Haydn or Pleyel.”
Whatever Miller may have thought of this proposal, there was a passage
in Mason's Essay in favour of voluntaries which was in perfect accord
with Dr. Dove's notions. “Prompt and as it were casual strains,” says
the Poet, “which do not fix the attention of the hearer, provided they
are the produce of an original fancy, which scorns to debase itself by
imitating common and trivial melodies, are of all others the best
adapted to induce mental serenity. We in some sort listen to such
music as we do to the pleasing murmur of a neighbouring brook, the
whisper of the passing breeze, or the distant warblings of the lark
and nightingale; and if agreeable natural voices have the power of
soothing the contemplative mind, without interrupting its
contemplations, simple musical effusions must assuredly have that
power in a superior degree. All that is to be attended to by the
organist is to preserve such pleasing simplicity; and this musical
measures will ever have, if they are neither strongly accented, nor
too regularly rhythmical. But when this is the case, they cease to
soothe us, because they begin to affect us. Add to this that an air
replete with short cadences and similar passages is apt to fix itself
too strongly on the memory; whereas a merely melodious or harmonical
movement glides, as it were, through the ear, awakens a transient
pleasing sensation, but leaves behind it no lasting impression. Its
effect ceases, when its impulse on the auditory nerve ceases;—an
impulse strong enough to dispel from the mind _all eating care_ (to
use our great Poet's own expression) but in no sort to rouze or ruffle
any of its faculties, save those only which attend truly devotional
duty.”
This passage agreed with some of the Doctor's peculiar notions. He
felt the power of devotional music both in such preparatory strains as
Mason has here described, and in the more exciting emotions of
congregational psalmody. And being thus sensible of the religious uses
which may be drawn from music, he was the more easily led to entertain
certain speculations concerning its application in the treatment of
diseases, as will be related hereafter.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
ECCENTRIC PERSONS, WHY APPARENTLY MORE COMMON IN ENGLAND THAN IN OTHER
COUNTRIES. HARRY BINGLEY.
Blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please.
HAMLET.
There is a reason why eccentricity of character seems to be much more
frequent in England than in other countries.—
Here some reflective reader, methinks, interrupts me with—“seems, good
Author?”
“Aye, and it is!”
Have patience good reader, and hear me to the end! There is a reason
why it seems so; and the reason is, because all such eccentricities
are recorded here in newspapers and magazines, so that none of them
are lost; anti the most remarkable are brought forward from time to
time, in popular compilations. A collection of what is called
Eccentric Biography is to form a portion of Mr. Murray's Family
Library.
But eccentric characters probably are more frequent among us than
among most other nations; and for this there are two causes. The first
is to be found in that spirit of independence upon which the English
pride themselves, and which produces a sort of Drawcansir-like bravery
in men who are eccentrically inclined. It becomes a perverse sort of
pleasure in them to act preposterously, for the sake of showing that
they have a right to do as they please, and the courage to exercise
that right, let the rest of the world think what it will of their
conduct.
The other reason is that mad-houses very insufficiently supply the
place of convents, and very ill also. It might almost be questioned
whether convents do not well nigh make amends to humanity for their
manifold mischiefs and abominations, by the relief which they afford
as asylums for insanity, in so many of its forms and gradations. They
afford a cure also in many of its stages, and precisely upon the same
principle on which the treatment in mad-houses is founded: but oh! how
differently is that principle applied! That passive obedience to
anothers will which in the one case is exacted by authority acting
through fear, and oftentimes enforced by no scrupulous or tender
means, is in the other required as a religious duty—an act of
virtue,—a voluntary and accepted sacrifice,—a good work which will be
carried to the patient's account in the world to come. They who enter
a convent are to have no will of their own there; they renounce it
solemnly upon their admission; and when this abnegation is sincerely
made, the chief mental cause of insanity is removed. For assuredly in
most cases madness is more frequently a disease of the will than of
the intellect. When Diabolus appeared before the town of Mansoul, and
made his oration to the citizens at Ear-Gate, Lord Will-be-will was
one of the first that was for consenting to his words, and letting him
into the town.
We have no such asylums in which madness and fatuity receive every
possible alleviation, while they are at the same time subjected to the
continual restraint which their condition requires. They are wanted
also for repentant sinners, who when they are awakened to a sense of
their folly and their guilt, and their danger, would fain find a place
of religious retirement, wherein they might pass the remainder of
their days in preparing for death. Lord Goring, the most profligate
man of his age, who by his profligacy, as much as by his frequent
misconduct, rendered irreparable injury to the cause which he intended
to serve, retired to Spain after the ruin of that cause, and there
ended his days as a Dominican Friar. If there be any record of him in
the Chronicles of the Order, the account ought to be curious at least,
if not edifying. But it is rather (for his own sake) to be hoped than
supposed that he did not hate and despise the follies and the frauds
of the fraternity into which he had entered more heartily than the
pomps and vanities of the world which he had left.
On the other hand wherever convents are among the institutions of the
land, not to speak of those poor creatures who are thrust into them
against their will, or with only a mockery of freedom in the
choice,—it must often happen that persons enter them in some fit of
disappointment, or resentment, or grief, and find themselves when the
first bitterness of passion is past, imprisoned for life by their own
rash but irremediable act and deed. The woman, who when untoward
circumstances have prevented her from marrying the man she loves,
marries one for whom she has no affection, is more likely (poor as her
chance is) to find contentment and perhaps happiness, than if for the
same cause she had thrown herself into a nunnery. Yet this latter is
the course to which if she were a Roman Catholic, her thoughts would
perhaps preferably at first have turned, and to which they would
probably be directed by her confessor.
Men who are weary of the ways of the world, or disgusted with them,
have more licence, as well as more resources than women. If they do
not enter upon some dangerous path of duty, or commence wanderers,
they may chuse for themselves an eccentric path, in which if their
habits are not such as expose them to insult, or if their means are
sufficient to secure them against it, they are not likely to be
molested,—provided they have no relations whose interest it may be to
apply for a statute of lunacy against them.
A gentleman of this description, well known in London towards the
close of George the Second's reign by the name of Harry Bingley, came
in the days of Dr. Dove to reside upon his estate in the parish of
Bolton upon Derne, near Doncaster. He had figured as an orator and
politician in coffee houses at the west end of the town, and enjoyed
the sort of notoriety which it was then his ambition to obtain; but
discovering with the Preacher that this was vanity and vexation of
spirit, when it was either too late for him to enter upon domestic
life, or his habits had unfitted him for it, he retired to his estate
which with the house upon it he had let to a farmer; in that house he
occupied two rooms, and there indulged his humour as he had done in
London, though it had now taken a very different direction.
“Cousin-german to Idleness,” says Burton, is “_nimia solitudo_, too
much solitariness. Divers are cast upon this rock for want of means;
or out of a strong apprehension of some infirmity, disgrace, or
through bashfulness, rudeness, simplicity, they cannot apply
themselves to others company. _Nullum solum infelici gratius
solitudine, ubi nullus sit qui miseriam exprobret._ This enforced
solitariness takes place and produceth his effect soonest in such as
have spent their time, jovially peradventure, in all honest
recreations, in good company, in some great family, or populous city;
and are upon a sudden confined to a desert country cottage far off,
restrained of their liberty and barred from their ordinary associates.
Solitariness is very irksome to such, most tedious, and a sudden cause
of great inconvenience.”
The change in Bingley's life was as great and sudden as that which the
Anatomist of Melancholy has here described; but it led to no bodily
disease nor to any tangible malady. His property was worth about
fourteen hundred a year. He kept no servant, and no company; and he
lived upon water-gruel and celery, except at harvest time, when he
regaled himself with sparrow pies, made of the young birds just
fledged, for which he paid the poor inhabitants who caught them two
pence a head. Probably he supposed that it was rendering the
neighbourhood a service thus to rid it of what he considered both a
nuisance and a delicacy. This was his only luxury; and his only
business was to collect about a dozen boys and girls on Sundays, and
hear them say their Catechism, and read a chapter in the New
Testament, for which they received remuneration in the intelligible
form of two pence each, but at the feasts and statutes, “most sweet
guerdon, better than remuneration,” in the shape of sixpence. He stood
godfather for several poor people's children, they were baptized by
his surname; when they were of proper age he used to put them out as
apprentices, and in his will he left each of them an hundred guineas
to be paid when they reached the age of twenty-five if they were
married, but not till they married; and if they reached the age of
fifty without marrying, the legacy was then forfeited. There were two
children for whom he stood godfather, but whose parents did not chuse
that they should be named after him; he never took any notice of these
children, nor did he bequeath them any thing; but to one of the others
he left the greater part of his property.
This man used every week day to lock himself in the church and pace
the aisles for two hours, from ten till twelve o'clock. An author who
in his own peculiar and admirable way, is one of the most affecting
writers of any age or country, has described with characteristic
feeling the different effects produced upon certain minds by entering
an empty or a crowded church. “In the latter,” he says, “it is chance
but some present human frailty,—an act of inattention on the part of
some of the auditory,—or a trait of affectation, or worse vain-glory
on that of the preacher,—puts us by our best thoughts, disharmonizing
the place and the occasion. But wouldst thou know the beauty of
holiness?—go alone on some week day, borrowing the keys of good master
Sexton; traverse the cool aisles of some country church; think of the
piety that has kneeled there,—-the congregations old and young that
have found consolation there,—the meek pastor,—the docile
parishioners,—with no disturbing emotions, no cross conflicting
comparisons, drink in the tranquillity of the place, till thou thyself
become as fixed and motionless as the marble effigies that kneel and
weep around thee!”[1]
[Footnote 1: The Last Essays of Elia.]
Harry Bingley died in lodgings at Rotherham, whither he had removed
when he felt himself ill, that he might save expence by being nearer a
physician. According to his own directions his body was brought back
from thence to the village, and interred in the churchyard; and he
strictly enjoined that no breast-plate, handles or any ornaments
whatever should be affixed to his coffin, nor any gravestone placed to
mark the spot where his remains were deposited.
Would or would not this godfather-general have been happier in a
convent or a hermitage, than he was in thus following his own humour?
It was Dr. Dove's opinion that upon the whole he would; not that a
conventual, and still less an eremital way of life would have been
more rational, but because there would have been a worthier motive for
chusing it; and if not a more reasonable hope, at least a firmer
persuasion that it was the sure way to salvation.
That Harry Bingley's mind had taken a religious turn, appeared by his
chusing the church for his daily place of promenade. Meditation must
have been as much his object as exercise, and of a kind which the
place invited. It appeared also by the sort of Sunday-schooling which
he gave the children, long before Sunday Schools,—whether for good or
evil,—were instituted, or as the phrase is, invented by Robert Raikes
of eccentric memory. (Patrons and Patronesses of Sunday Schools, be
not offended if a doubt concerning their utility be here implied! The
Doctor entertained such a doubt; and the why and the wherefore shall
in due time be fairly stated.) But Bingley certainly came under the
description of a humourist, rather than of a devotee or religious
enthusiast; in fact he bore that character. And the Doctor's knowledge
of human nature led him to conclude that solitary humourists are far
from being happy. You see them, as you see the blind, at their
happiest times, when they have something to divert their thoughts. But
in the humourist's course of life, there is a sort of defiance of the
world and the world's law; indeed any man who departs widely from its
usages, avows this; and it is, as it ought to be, an uneasy and
uncomfortable feeling, wherever it is not sustained by a high state of
excitement; and that state, if it be lasting, becomes madness. Such
persons when left to themselves and to their own reflections, as they
necessarily are for the greater part of their time, must often stand
not only self-arraigned for folly, but self-condemned for it.
CHAPTER LXIX.
A MUSICAL RECLUSE AND HIS SISTER.
Some proverb maker, I forget who, says, “God hath given to some men
wisdom and understanding, and to others the art of playing on the
fiddle.”
Professor PARK'S Dogmas of the Constitution.
The Doctor always spoke of Bingley as a melancholy example of strength
of character misapplied. But he used to say that strength of character
was far from implying strength of mind; and that strength of mind
itself was no more a proof of sanity of mind, than strength of body
was of bodily health. Both may coexist with mortal maladies, and both
when existing in any remarkable degree may oftentimes be the cause of
them.
Alas for man!
Exuberant health diseases him, frail worm!
And the slight bias of untoward chance
Makes his best virtues from the even line,
With fatal declination, swerve aside.[1]
[Footnote 1: RODERICK.]
There was another person within his circuit who had taken umbrage at
the world, and withdrawn from it to enjoy, or rather solace himself
according to his own humour in retirement; not in solitude, for he had
a sister, who with true sisterly affection accommodated herself to his
inclinations, and partook of his taste. This gentleman, whose name was
Jonathan Staniforth, had taken out a patent for a ploughing machine,
and had been deprived, unjustly as he deemed, of the profits which he
had expected from it, by a lawsuit. Upon this real disappointment,
aggravated by the sense, whether well or ill founded of injustice, he
retired to his mansion in the village of Firbeck, about ten miles
south of Doncaster, and there discarding all thoughts of mechanics,
which had been his favourite pursuit, he devoted himself to the
practice of music;—devoted is not too strong an expression. He had
passed the middle of his life before the Doctor knew him; and it was
not till some twenty years later that Miller became acquainted with
him.
“I was introduced,” says the Organist, “into a room where was sitting
a thin old Gentleman, upwards of seventy years of age, playing on the
violin. He had a long time lived sequestered from the world, and
dedicated not less than eight hours a day to the practice of music.
His shrunk shanks were twisted in a peculiar form, by the constant
posture in which he sate; and so indifferent was he about the goodness
of his instrument, that to my astonishment, he always played on a
common Dutch fiddle, the original price of which could not be more
than half a guinea; the strings were bad, and the whole instrument
dirty and covered with resin. With this humble companion, he used to
work hard every morning on the old solos of Vivaldi, Tessarini,
Corelli, and other ancient composers. The evening was reserved for
mere amusement, in accompanying an ancient sister, who sung most of
the favourite songs from Handel's old Italian Operas, which he
composed soon after his arrival in England. These Operas she had heard
on their first representation in London; consequently her performance
was to me an uncommon treat. I had an opportunity of comparing the
different manner of singing in the beginning of the century, to that
which I had been accustomed to hear. And indeed the style was so
different, that musically considered, it might truly be called a
different language. None of the present embellishments or graces in
music were used,—no _appoggiatura_,—no unadorned sustaining, or
swelling long notes; they were warbled by a continual tremulous accent
from beginning to end; and when she arrived at the period of an air,
the brother's violin became mute, and she, raising her eyes to the top
of the room, and stretching out her throat, executed her extempore
cadence in a succession of notes perfectly original, and concluded
with a long shake something like the bleating of a lamb.”
Miller's feelings during this visit were so wholly professional, that
in describing this brother and sister forty years afterwards, he
appears not to have been sensible in how affecting a situation they
were placed. Crabbe would have treated these characters finely had
they fallen in his way. And so Chancey Hare Townsend could treat them,
who has imitated Crabbe with such singular skill, and who has moreover
music in his soul and could give the picture the soft touches which it
requires.
I must not omit to say that Mr. Staniforth and his sister were
benevolent, hospitable, sensible, worthy persons. Thinkest thou,
reader, that they gave no proof of good sense in thus passing their
lives? Look round the circle of thine acquaintance, and ask thyself
how many of those whose time is at their own disposal, dispose of it
more wisely,—that is to say more beneficially to others, or more
satisfactorily to themselves? The sister fulfilled her proper duties
in her proper place, and the brother in contributing to her comfort
performed his; to each other they were as their circumstances required
them to be, all in all; they were kind to their poor neighbours, and
they were perfectly inoffensive toward the rest of the world.—They who
are wise unto salvation, know feelingly when they have done best, that
their best works are worth nothing; but they who are conscious that
they have lived inoffensively may have in that consciousness, a
reasonable ground of comfort.
The Apostle enjoins us to “eschew evil and do good.” To do good is not
in every one's power; and many who think they are doing it, may be
grievously deceived for lack of judgement, and be doing evil the while
instead, with the best intentions, but with sad consequences to
others, and eventual sorrow for themselves. But it is in every one's
power to eschew evil, so far as never to do wilful harm; and if we
were all careful never unnecessarily to distress or disquiet those who
are committed to our charge, or who must be affected by our
conduct,—if we made it a point of conscience never to disturb the
peace, or diminish the happiness of others,—the mass of moral evil by
which we are surrounded would speedily be diminished, and with it no
inconsiderable portion of those physical ones would be removed, which
are the natural consequence and righteous punishment of our misdeeds.
CHAPTER LXX.
SHEWING THAT ANY HONEST OCCUPATION IS BETTER THAN NONE, BUT THAT
OCCUPATIONS WHICH ARE DEEMED HONOURABLE ARE NOT ALWAYS HONEST.
_J'ai peine à concevoir pourquoi le plûpart des hommes ont une si
forte envie d'être heureux, et une si grande incapacité pour le
devenir._
VOYAGES DE MILORD CETON.
“Happy,” said Dr. Dove, “is the man, who having his whole time thrown
upon his hands makes no worse use of it than to practise eight hours a
day upon a bad fiddle.” It was a sure evidence, he insisted, that Mr.
Staniforth's frame of mind was harmonious; the mental organ was in
perfect repair, though the strings of the material instrument jarred;
and he enjoyed the scientific delight which Handel's composition gave
him abstractedly, in its purity and essence.
“There can now,” says an American preacher,[1] “be no doubt of this
truth because there have been so many proofs of it; that the man who
retires completely from business, who is resolved to do nothing but
enjoy himself, never attains the end at which he aims. If it is not
mixed with other ingredients, no cup is so insipid, and at the same
time so unhealthful, as the cup of pleasure. When the whole enjoyment
of the day is to eat and drink and sleep, and talk and visit, life
becomes a burden too heavy to be supported by a feeble old man, and he
soon sinks into the arms of spleen, or falls into the jaws of death.”
[Footnote 1: FREEMAN'S Eighteen Sermons.]
Alas! it is neither so easy a thing, nor so agreeable a one as men
commonly expect, to dispose of leisure, when they retire from the
business of the world. Their old occupations cling to them, even when
they hope that they have emancipated themselves.
Go to any sea-port town and you will see that the Sea-Captain who has
retired upon his well-earned savings, sets up a weathercock in full
view from his windows, and watches the variations of the wind as duly
as when he was at sea, though no longer with the same anxiety.
Every one knows the story of the Tallow Chandler who having amassed a
fortune, disposed of his business, and taken a house in the country,
not far from London, that he might enjoy himself, after a few months
trial of a holiday life requested permission of his successor to come
into town, and assist him on melting days. I have heard of one who
kept a retail spirit-shop, and having in like manner retired from
trade, used to employ himself by having one puncheon filled with
water, and measuring it off by pints into another. I have heard also
of a butcher in a small country town, who some little time after he
had left off business, informed his old customers that he meant to
kill a lamb once a week, just for his amusement.
There is no way of life to which the generality of men cannot conform
themselves; and it seems as if the more repugnance they may at first
have had to overcome, the better at last they like the occupation.
They grow insensible to the loudest and most discordant sounds, or
remain only so far sensible of them, that the cessation will awaken
them from sleep. The most offensive smells become pleasurable to them
in time, even those which are produced by the most offensive
substances. The temperature of a glass-house is not only tolerable but
agreeable to those who have their fiery occupation there. Wisely and
mercifully was this power of adaptation implanted in us for our good;
but in our imperfect and diseased society it is grievously perverted.
We make the greater part of the evil circumstances in which we are
placed; and then we fit ourselves for those circumstances by a process
of systematic degradation, the effect of which most people see in the
classes below them, though they may not be conscious that it is
operating in a different manner but with equal force upon themselves.
For there is but too much cause to conclude that our moral sense is
more easily blunted than our physical sensations. Roman Ladies
delighted in seeing the gladiators bleed and die in the public
theatre. Spanish Ladies at this day clap their hands in exultation at
spectacles which make English Soldiers sicken and turn away. The most
upright Lawyer acquires a sort of Swiss conscience for professional
use; he is soon taught that considerations of right and wrong have
nothing to do with his brief, and that his business is to do the best
he can for his client however bad the case. If this went no farther
than to save a criminal from punishment, it might be defensible on the
ground of humanity, and of charitable hope. But to plead with the
whole force of an artful mind in furtherance of a vexatious and
malicious suit,—and to resist a rightful claim with all the devices of
legal subtlety, and all the technicalities of legal craft,—I know not
how he who considers this to be his duty toward his client can
reconcile it with his duty toward his neighbour; or how he thinks it
will appear in the account he must one day render to the Lord for the
talents which have been committed to his charge.
There are persons indeed who have so far outgrown their catechism as
to believe that their only duty is to themselves; and who in the march
of intellect have arrived at the convenient conclusion that there is
no account to be rendered after death. But they would resent any
imputation upon their honour or their courage as an offence not to be
forgiven; and it is difficult therefore to understand how even such
persons can undertake to plead the cause of a scoundrel in cases of
seduction,—how they can think that the acceptance of a dirty fee is to
justify them for cross-examining an injured and unhappy woman with the
cruel wantonness of unmanly insult, bruising the broken reed, and
treating her as if she were as totally devoid of shame, as they
themselves of decency and of humanity. That men should act thus and be
perfectly unconscious the while that they are acting a cowardly and
rascally part,—and that society should not punish them for it by
looking upon them as men who have lost their caste, would be
surprizing if we did not too plainly see to what a degree the moral
sense, not only of individuals but of a whole community, may be
corrupted.
Physiologists have observed that men and dogs are the only creatures
whose nature can accommodate itself to every climate, from the burning
sands of the desart to the shores and islands of the frozen ocean. And
it is not in their physical nature alone that this power of
accommodation is found. Dogs who beyond all reasonable question have a
sense of duty and fidelity and affection toward their human
associates,—a sense altogether distinct from fear and selfishness,—who
will rush upon any danger at their master's bidding, and die
broken-hearted beside his body, or upon his grave,—dogs, I say, who
have this capacity of virtue, have nevertheless been trained to act
with robbers against the traveller, and to hunt down human beings and
devour them. But depravity sinks deeper than this in man; for the dog
when thus deteriorated acts against no law natural or revealed, no
moral sense; he has no power of comparing good and evil, and chusing
between them, but may be trained to either, and in either is
performing his intelligible duty of obedience.
CHAPTER LXXI.
TRANSITION IN OUR NARRATIVE PREPARATORY TO A CHANGE IN THE DOCTOR'S
LIFE. A SAD STORY SUPPRESSED. THE AUTHOR PROTESTS AGAINST PLAYING WITH
THE FEELINGS OF HIS READERS. ALL ARE NOT MERRY THAT SEEM MIRTHFUL. THE
SCAFFOLD A STAGE. DON RODRIGO CALDERON. THISTLEWOOD. THE WORLD A
MASQUERADE, BUT THE DOCTOR ALWAYS IN HIS OWN CHARACTER.
This breaks no rule of order.
If order were infringed then should I flee
From my chief purpose, and my mark should miss.
Order is Nature's beauty, and the way
To Order is by rules that Art hath found.
GWILLIM.
The question “Who was the Doctor?” has now methinks been answered,
though not fully, yet sufficiently for the present stage of our
memorials, while he is still a bachelor, a single man, an imperfect
individual, half only of the whole being which by the laws of nature,
and of Christian polity it was designed that man should become.
The next question therefore that presents itself for consideration
relates to that other, and as he sometimes called it better half,
which upon the union of the two moieties made him a whole man.—Who was
Mrs. Dove?
The reader has been informed how my friend in his early manhood when
about-to-be-a-Doctor, fell in love. Upon that part of his history I
have related all that he communicated, which was all that could by me
be known, and probably all there was to know. From that time he never
fell in love again; nor did he ever run into it; but as was formerly
intimated, he once caught the affection. The history of this
attachment I heard from others; he had suffered too deeply ever to
speak of it himself; and having maturely considered the matter I have
determined not to relate the circumstances. Suffice it to say that he
might at the same time have caught from the same person an insidious
and mortal disease, if his constitution had been as susceptible of the
one contagion, as his heart was of the other. The tale is too painful
to be told. There are authors enough in the world who delight in
drawing tears; there will always be young readers enough who are not
unwilling to shed them; and perhaps it may be wholesome for the young
and happy upon whose tears there is no other call.
Not that the author is to be admired, or even excused, who draws too
largely upon our lacrymal glands. The pathetic is a string which may
be touched by an unskilful hand, and which has often been played upon
by an unfeeling one.
For my own part, I wish neither to make my readers laugh or weep. It
is enough for me, if I may sometimes bring a gleam of sunshine upon
thy brow, Pensoso; and a watery one over thy sight, Buonallegro; a
smile upon Penserosa's lips, a dimple in Amanda's cheek, and some
quiet tears, Sophronia, into those mild eyes, which have shed so many
scalding ones! When my subject leads me to distressful scenes, it will
as Southey says, not be
—my purpose e'er to entertain
The heart with useless grief; but, as I may,
Blend in my calm and meditative strain
Consolatory thoughts, the balm for real pain.[1]
[Footnote 1: Tale of PARAGUAY.]
The maxim that an author who desires to make us weep must be affected
himself by what he writes, is too trite to be repeated in its original
language. Both authors and actors however can produce this effect
without eliciting a spark of feeling from their own hearts; and what
perhaps may be deemed more remarkable, they can with the same success
excite merriment in others, without partaking of it in the slightest
degree themselves. No man ever made his contemporaries laugh more
heartily than Scarron, whose bodily sufferings were such that he
wished for himself
_à toute heure
Ou la mort, ou santé meilleure:_
And who describes himself in his epistle to Sarazin, as
_Un Pauvret
Tres-maigret;
Au col tors,
Dont le corps
Tout tortu,
Tout bossu,
Suranné,
De'charné,
Est reduit
Jour et nuit,
A souffrir
Sans guerir
Des tourmens
Vehemens._
It may be said perhaps that Scarron's disposition was eminently
cheerful, and that by indulging in buffoonery he produced in himself a
pleasurable excitement not unlike that which others seek from strong
liquors, or from opium; and therefore that his example tends to
invalidate the assertion in support of which it was adduced. This is a
plausible objection; and I am far from undervaluing the philosophy of
Pantagruelism, and from denying that its effects may, and are likely
to be as salutary, as any that were ever produced by the proud
doctrines of the Porch. But I question Scarron's right to the
appellation of a Pantagruelist; his humour had neither the heighth nor
the depth of that philosophy.
There is a well-known anecdote of a physician, who being called in to
an unknown patient, found him suffering under the deepest depression
of mind, without any discoverable disease, or other assignable cause.
The physician advised him to seek for cheerful objects, and
recommended him especially to go to the theatre and see a famous actor
then in the meridian of his powers, whose comic talents were
unrivalled. Alas! the comedian who kept crowded theatres in a roar was
this poor hypochondriac himself!
The state of mind in which such men play their part, whether as
authors or actors, was confessed in a letter written from Yarmouth
Gaol to the Doctor's friend Miller, by a then well-known performer in
this line, George Alexander Stevens. He wrote to describe his distress
in prison, and to request that Miller would endeavour to make a small
collection for him, some night at a concert; and he told his sad tale
sportively. But breaking off that strain he said; “You may think I can
have no sense, that while I am thus wretched I should offer at
ridicule! But, Sir, people constituted like me, with a
disproportionate levity of spirits, are always most merry when they
are most miserable; and quicken like the eyes of the consumptive,
which are always brightest the nearer a patient approaches to
dissolution.”
It is one thing to jest, it is another to be mirthful. Sir Thomas More
jested as he ascended the scaffold. In cases of violent death, and
especially upon an unjust sentence, this is not surprizing; because
the sufferer has not been weakened by a wasting malady, and is in a
state of high mental excitement and exertion. But even when
dissolution comes in the course of nature, there are instances of men
who have died with a jest upon their lips. Garci Sanchez de Badajoz
when he was at the point of death desired that he might be dressed in
the habit of St. Francis; this was accordingly done, and over the
Franciscan frock they put on his habit of Santiago, for he was a
knight of that order. It was a point of devotion with him to wear the
one dress, a point of honour to wear the other; but looking at himself
in this double attire, he said to those who surrounded his death-bed,
“The Lord will say to me presently, my friend Garci Sanchez, you come
very well wrapt up! (_muy arropado_) and I shall reply, Lord, it is no
wonder, for it was winter when I set off.”
The author who relates this anecdote, remarks that _o morrer com graça
he muyto bom, e com graças he muyto māo_: the observation is good but
untranslateable, because it plays upon the word which means grace as
well as wit. The anecdote itself is an example of the ruling humour
“strong in death;” perhaps also of that pride or vanity, call it which
we will, which so often, when mind and body have not yielded to
natural decay, or been broken down by suffering, clings to the last in
those whom it has strongly possessed. Don Rodrigo Calderon whose fall
and exemplary contrition served as a favourite topic for the poets of
his day, wore a Franciscan habit at his execution, as an outward and
visible sign of penitence and humiliation; as he ascended the
scaffold, he lifted the skirts of the habit with such an air that his
attendant confessor thought it necessary to reprove him for such an
instance of ill-timed regard to his appearance. Don Rodrigo excused
himself by saying that he had all his life carried himself gracefully!
The author by whom this is related calls it an instance of illustrious
hypocrisy. In my judgement the Father Confessor who gave occasion for
it deserves a censure far more than the penitent sufferer. The
movement beyond all doubt was purely habitual, as much so as the act
of lifting his feet to ascend the steps of the scaffold; but the
undeserved reproof made him feel how curiously whatever he did was
remarked; and that consciousness reminded him that he had a part to
support, when his whole thoughts would otherwise have been far
differently directed.
A personage in one of Webster's Plays says,
I knew a man that was to lose his head
Feed with an excellent good appetite
To strengthen his heart, scarce half an hour before,
And if he did, it only was to speak.
Probably the dramatist alluded to some well known fact which was at
that time of recent occurrence. When the desperate and atrocious
traitor Thistlewood was on the scaffold, his demeanour was that of a
man who was resolved boldly to meet the fate he had deserved; in the
few words which were exchanged between him and his fellow criminals he
observed, that the grand question whether or not the soul was immortal
would soon be solved for them. No expression of hope escaped him, no
breathing of repentance; no spark of grace appeared. Yet (it is a
fact, which whether it be more consolatory or awful, ought to be
known,) on the night after the sentence, and preceding his execution,
while he supposed that the person who was appointed to watch him in
his cell, was asleep, this miserable man was seen by that person
repeatedly to rise upon his knees, and heard repeatedly calling upon
Christ his Saviour, to have mercy upon him, and to forgive him his
sins!
All men and women are verily, as Shakespear has said of them, merely
players,—when we see them upon the stage of the world; that is when
they are seen any where except in the freedom and undressed intimacy
of private life. There is a wide difference indeed in the performers,
as there is at a masquerade between those who assume a character, and
those who wear dominos; some play off the agreeable, or the
disagreeable for the sake of attracting notice; others retire as it
were into themselves; but you can judge as little of the one as of the
other. It is even possible to be acquainted with a man long and
familiarly, and as we may suppose intimately, and yet not to know him
thoroughly or well. There may be parts of his character with which we
have never come in contact,—recesses which have never been opened to
us,—springs upon which we have never touched. Many there are who can
keep their vices secret; would that all bad men had sense and shame
enough to do so, or were compelled to it by the fear of public
opinion! Shame of a very different nature,—a moral
shamefacedness,—which if not itself an instinctive virtue, is near
akin to one, makes those who are endowed with the best and highest
feelings, conceal them from all common eyes; and for our performance
of religious duties,—our manifestations of piety,—we have been warned
that what of this kind is done to be seen of men, will not be rewarded
openly before men and angels at the last.
If I knew my venerable friend better than I ever knew any other man,
it was because he was in many respects unlike other men, and in few
points more unlike them than in this, that he always appeared what he
was,—neither better nor worse. With a discursive intellect and a
fantastic imagination, he retained his simplicity of heart. He had
kept that heart unspotted from the world; his father's blessing was
upon him, and he prized it beyond all that the world could have
bestowed. Crowe says of us,
Our better mind
Is as a Sunday's garment, then put on
When we have nought to do; but at our work
We wear a worse for thrift!
It was not so with him: his better mind was not as a garment to be put
on and off at pleasure; it was like its plumage to a bird, its beauty
and its fragrance to a flower, except that it was not liable to be
ruffled, nor to fade, nor to exhale and pass away. His mind was like a
peacock always in full attire; it was only at times indeed, (to pursue
the similitude,) that he expanded and displayed it; but its richness
and variety never could be concealed from those who had eyes to see
them.
—His sweetest mind
'Twixt mildness tempered and low courtesy,
Could leave as soon to be, as not be kind.
Churlish despite ne'er looked from his calm eye,
Much less commanded in his gentle heart;
To baser men fair looks he would impart;
Nor could he cloak ill thoughts in complimental art.[2]
What he was in boyhood has been seen, and something also of his
manlier years; but as yet little of the ripe fruits of his
intellectual autumn have been set before the readers. No such banquet
was promised them as that with which they are to be regaled. “The
booksellers,” says Somner the antiquary, in an unpublished letter to
Dugdale, “affect a great deal of title as advantageous for the sale;
but judicious men dislike it, as savouring of too much ostentation,
and suspecting the wine is not good where so much bush is hung out.”
Somebody, I forget who, wrote a book upon the titles of books,
regarding the title as a most important part of the composition. The
bookseller's fashion of which Somner speaks has long been obsolete;
mine is a brief title promising little, but intending much. It
specifies only the Doctor; but his gravities and his levities, his
opinions of men and things, his speculations moral and political,
physical and spiritual, his philosophy and his religion, each blending
with each, and all with all, these are comprised in the &c. of my
title page,—these and his Pantagruelism to boot. When I meditate upon
these I may exclaim with the poet:—
Mnemosyne hath kiss'd the kingly Jove,
And entertained a feast within my brain.[3]
These I shall produce for the entertainment of the idle reader, and
for the recreation of the busy one; for the amusement of the young,
and the contentment of the old; for the pleasure of the wise, and the
approbation of the good; and these when produced will be the monument
of Daniel Dove. Of such a man it may indeed be said that he
Is his own marble; and his merit can
Cut him to any figure, and express
More art than Death's Cathedral palaces,
Where royal ashes keep their court![4]
Some of my contemporaries may remember a story once current at
Cambridge, of a luckless undergraduate, who being examined for his
degree, and failing in every subject upon which he was tried,
complained that he had not been questioned upon the things which he
knew. Upon which the examining master, moved less to compassion by the
impenetrable dulness of the man than to anger by his unreasonable
complaint, tore off about an inch of paper, and pushing it towards
him, desired him to write upon that all he knew!
[Footnote 2: PHINEAS FLETCHER, 186.]
[Footnote 3: ROBERT GREEN.]
[Footnote 4: MIDDLETON.]
And yet bulky books are composed, or compiled by men who know as
little as this poor empty individual. Tracts and treatises and tomes,
may be, and are written by persons, to whom the smallest square sheet
of delicate note paper, rose-coloured, or green, or blue, with its
embossed border, manufactured expressly for ladies' fingers and crow
quills, would afford ample room, and verge enough, for expounding the
sum total of their knowledge upon the subject whereon they undertake
to enlighten the public.
Were it possible for me to pour out all that I have taken in from him,
of whose accumulated stores I, alas! am now the sole living
depository, I know not to what extent the precious reminiscences might
run.
_Per sua gratia singulare
Par ch' io habbi nel capo una seguenza,
Una fontana, un fiume, un lago, un mare,
Id est un pantanaccio d'eloquenza._[5]
[Footnote 5: MATTEO FRANZESI.]
Sidronius Hosschius has supplied me with a simile for this stream of
recollections.
_Æstuat et cursu nunquam cessante laborat
Eridanus, fessis irrequietus aquis;
Spumeus it, fervensque, undamque supervenit unda;
Hæc illam, sed et hanc non minus ista premit.
Volvitur, et volvit pariter, motuque perenni
Truditur à fluctu posteriore prior._
As I shall proceed
_Excipiet curam nova cura, laborque laborem,
Nec minus exhausto quod superabit erit._
But for stores which in this way have been received, the best
compacted memory is like a sieve; more of necessity slips through than
stops upon the way; and well is it, if that which is of most value be
what remains behind. I have pledged myself, therefore, to no more than
I can perform; and this the reader shall have within reasonable
limits, and in due time, provided the performance be not prevented by
any of the evils incident to human life.
At present, my business is to answer the question “Who was Mrs. Dove?”
CHAPTER LXXII.
IN WHICH THE FOURTH OF THE QUESTIONS PROPOSED IN CHAPTER II. P. I. IS
BEGUN TO BE ANSWERED; SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON ANCESTRY ARE INTRODUCED,
AND THE READER IS INFORMED WHY THE AUTHOR DOES NOT WEAR A CAP AND
BELLS.
Boast not the titles of your ancestors,
Brave youths! they're their possessions, none of yours.
When your own virtues equall'd have their names,
'Twill be but fair to lean upon their fames,
For they are strong supporters; but till then
The greatest are but growing gentlemen.
BEN JONSON.
Who was Mrs. Dove?
A woman of the oldest family in this or any other kingdom, for she was
beyond all doubt a legitimate descendant of Adam. Her husband perhaps
might have rather said that she was a daughter of Eve. But he would
have said it with a smile of playfulness, not of scorn.
To trace her descent somewhat lower, and bring it nearer to the stock
of the Courtenays, the Howards, the Manriques, the Bourbons and
Thundertentronks, she was a descendant of Noah, and of his eldest son
Japhet. She was allied to Ham however in another way, besides this
remote niece-ship.
As how I pray you, Sir?
Her maiden name was Bacon.
Grave Sir, be not disconcerted. I hope you have no antipathy to such
things: or at least that they do not act upon you, as the notes of a
bagpipe are said to act upon certain persons whose unfortunate
idiosyncrasy exposes them to very unpleasant effects from the sound.
Mr. Critickin,—for as there is a diminutive for cat, so should there
be for critic,—I defy you! Before I can be afraid of your claws, you
must leave off biting your nails.
I have something better to say to the Reader, who follows wherever I
lead up and down, high and low, to the hill and to the valley,
contented with his guide, and enjoying the prospect which I shew him
in all its parts, in the detail and in the whole, in the foreground
and home scene, as well as in the Pisgah view. I will tell him before
the chapter is finished, why I do not wear a cap and bells.
To you my Lady, who may imagine that Miss Bacon was not of a good
family, (Lord Verulam's line, as you very properly remark, being
extinct,) I beg leave to observe that she was certainly a cousin of
your own; somewhere within the tenth and twentieth degrees, if not
nearer. And this I proceed to prove.
Every person has two immediate parents, four ancestors in the second
degree, eight in the third, and so the pedigree ascends, doubling at
every step, till in the twentieth generation, he has no fewer than one
million, thirty thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six
Great, great, great,
great, great, great,
great, great, great,
great, great, great,
great, great, great,
great, great, great,
grandfathers and grandmothers. Therefore my Lady, I conceive it to be
absolutely certain, that under the Plantagenets, if not in the time of
the Tudors, some of your ancestors must have been equally ancestors of
Miss Deborah Bacon.
“At the conquest,” says Sir Richard Phillips, “the ancestry of every
one of the English people was the whole population of England; while
on the other hand, every one having children at that time, was the
direct progenitor of the whole of the living race.”
The reflecting reader sees at once that it must be so. _Plato ait,
Neminem regem non ex servis esse oriendum, neminem non servum ex
regibus. Omnia ista longa varietas miscuit, et sursum deorsum fortuna
versavit. Quis ergo generosus? ad virtutem bene à natura compositus.
Hoc unum est intuendum: alioqui, si ad vetera revocas, nemo non inde
est, ante quod nihil_[1] _est._ And the erudite Ihre in the _Proemium_
to his invaluable Glossary, says, _ut aliquoto cognationis gradu, sed
per monumentorum defectum hodie inexplicabile, omnes homines inter se
connexi sunt._
[Footnote 1: SENECA.]
Now then to the gentle reader. The reason why I do not wear a cap and
bells is this.
There are male caps of five kinds which are worn at present in this
kingdom; to wit, the military cap, the collegiate cap, the jockey cap,
the travelling cap, and the night cap. Observe reader, I said _kinds_,
that is to say in scientific language _genera_,—for the _species_ and
varieties are numerous, especially in the former _genus_.
I am not a soldier; and having long been weaned from Alma Mater, of
course have left off my college cap. The gentlemen of the ——— hunt
would object to my going out with the bells on, it would be likely to
frighten their horses; and were I to attempt it, it might involve me
in unpleasant disputes, which might possibly lead to more unpleasant
consequences. To my travelling cap the bells would be an inconvenient
appendage; nor would they be a whit more comfortable upon my
night-cap. Besides, my wife might object to them.
It follows that if I would wear a cap and bells, I must have a cap
made on purpose. But this would be rendering myself singular; and of
all things a wise man will most avoid any ostentatious appearance of
singularity.
Now I am certainly not singular in playing the fool without one.
And indeed if I possessed such a cap, it would not be proper to wear
it in this part of my history.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
RASH MARRIAGES. AN EARLY WIDOWHOOD. AFFLICTION RENDERED A BLESSING TO
THE SUFFERERS; AND TWO ORPHANS LEFT, THOUGH NOT DESTITUTE, YET
FRIENDLESS.
Love built a stately house; where Fortune came,
And spinning fancies, she was heard to say
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame;
Whereas they were supported by the same.
But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.
HERBERT.
Mrs. Dove was the only child of a clergyman who held a small vicarage
in the West Riding. Leonard Bacon her father had been left an orphan
in early youth. He had some wealthy relations by whose contributions
he was placed at an endowed grammar school in the country, and having
through their influence gained a scholarship to which his own deserts
might have entitled him, they continued to assist him—sparingly enough
indeed—at the University, till he succeeded to a fellowship. Leonard
was made of Nature's finest clay, and Nature had tempered it with the
choicest dews of Heaven.
He had a female cousin about three years younger than himself, and in
like manner an orphan, equally destitute, but far more forlorn. Man
hath a fleece about him which enables him to bear the buffetings of
the storm;—but woman when young, and lovely and poor, is as a shorn
lamb for which the wind has not been tempered.
Leonard's father and Margaret's had been bosom friends. They were
subalterns in the same regiment, and being for a long time stationed
at Salisbury had become intimate at the house of Mr. Trewbody, a
gentleman of one of the oldest families in Wiltshire. Mr. Trewbody had
three daughters. Melicent the eldest was a celebrated beauty, and the
knowledge of this had not tended to improve a detestable temper. The
two youngest Deborah and Margaret, were lively, good-natured,
thoughtless, and attractive. They danced with the two Lieutenants,
played to them on the spinnet, sung with them and laughed with
them,—till this mirthful intercourse became serious, and knowing that
it would be impossible to obtain their father's consent they married
the men of their hearts without it. Palmer and Bacon were both without
fortune, and without any other means of subsistence than their
commissions. For four years they were as happy as love could make
them; at the end of that time Palmer was seized with an infectious
fever. Deborah was then far advanced in pregnancy, and no
solicitations could induce Bacon to keep from his friend's bed-side.
The disease proved fatal; it communicated to Bacon and his wife, the
former only survived his friend ten days, and he and Margaret were
then laid in the same grave. They left an only boy of three years old,
and in less than a month the widow Palmer was delivered of a daughter.
In the first impulse of anger at the flight of his daughters and the
degradation of his family, (for Bacon was the son of a tradesman, and
Palmer was nobody knew who) Mr. Trewbody had made his will, and left
the whole sum which he had designed for his three daughters, to the
eldest. Whether the situation of Margaret and the two orphans might
have touched him is perhaps doubtful,—for the family were either
light-hearted, or hard-hearted, and his heart was of the hard sort;
but he died suddenly a few months before his sons-in-law. The only
son, Trewman Trewbody, Esq. a Wiltshire fox-hunter like his father,
succeeded to the estate; and as he and his eldest sister hated each
other cordially, Miss Melicent left the manor-house and established
herself in the Close at Salisbury, where she lived in that style which
a portion of £6000. enabled her in those days to support.
The circumstance which might appear so greatly to have aggravated Mrs.
Palmer's distress, if such distress be capable of aggravation,
prevented her perhaps from eventually sinking under it. If the birth
of her child was no alleviation of her sorrow, it brought with it new
feelings, new duties, new cause for exertion, and new strength for it.
She wrote to Melicent and to her brother, simply stating her own
destitute situation, and that of the orphan Leonard; she believed that
their pride would not suffer them either to let her starve or go to
the parish for support, and in this she was not disappointed. An
answer was returned by Miss Trewbody informing her that she had nobody
to thank but herself for her misfortunes; but that notwithstanding the
disgrace which she had brought upon the family, she might expect an
annual allowance of ten pounds from the writer, and a like sum from
her brother; upon this she must retire into some obscure part of the
country, and pray God to forgive her for the offence she had committed
in marrying beneath her birth and against her father's consent.
Mrs. Palmer had also written to the friends of Lieutenant Bacon,—her
own husband had none who could assist her. She expressed her
willingness and her anxiety to have the care of her sister's orphan,
but represented her forlorn state. They behaved more liberally than
her own kin had done, and promised five pounds a year as long as the
boy should require it. With this and her pension she took a cottage in
a retired village. Grief had acted upon her heart like the rod of
Moses upon the rock in the desert; it had opened it, and the
well-spring of piety had gushed forth. Affliction made her religious,
and religion brought with it consolation and comfort and joy. Leonard
became as dear to her as Margaret. The sense of duty educed a pleasure
from every privation to which she subjected herself for the sake of
economy; and in endeavouring to fulfil her duties in that state of
life to which it had pleased God to call her, she was happier than she
had ever been in her father's house, and not less so than in her
marriage state. Her happiness indeed was different in kind, but it was
higher in degree. For the sake of these dear children she was
contented to live, and even prayed for life; while if it had respected
herself only, Death had become to her rather an object of desire than
of dread. In this manner she lived seven years after the loss of her
husband, and was then carried off by an acute disease, to the
irreparable loss of the orphans, who were thus orphaned indeed.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
A LADY DESCRIBED WHOSE SINGLE LIFE WAS NO BLESSEDNESS EITHER TO
HERSELF OR OTHERS. A VERACIOUS EPITAPH AND AN APPROPRIATE MONUMENT.
Beauty! my Lord,—'tis the worst part of woman!
A weak poor thing, assaulted every hour
By creeping minutes of defacing time;
A superficies which each breath of care
Blasts off; and every humorous stream of grief
Which flows from forth these fountains of our eyes,
Washeth away, as rain doth winter's snow.
GOFF.
Miss Trewbody behaved with perfect propriety upon the news of her
sister's death. She closed her front windows for two days; received no
visitors for a week; was much indisposed, but resigned to the will of
Providence, in reply to messages of condolence; put her servants in
mourning, and sent for Margaret that she might do her duty to her
sister's child by breeding her up under her own eye. Poor Margaret was
transferred from the stone floor of her mother's cottage to the Turkey
carpet of her aunt's parlour. She was too young to comprehend at once
the whole evil of the exchange; but she learned to feel and understand
it during years of bitter dependence, unalleviated by any hope, except
that of one day seeing Leonard, the only creature on earth whom she
remembered with affection.
Seven years elapsed, and during all those years Leonard was left to
pass his holidays, summer and winter, at the grammar school where he
had been placed at Mrs. Palmer's death: for although the master
regularly transmitted with his half-yearly bill the most favourable
accounts of his disposition and general conduct, as well as of his
progress in learning, no wish to see the boy had ever arisen in the
hearts of his nearest relations; and no feeling of kindness, or sense
of decent humanity had ever induced either the foxhunter Trewman or
Melicent his sister to invite him for Midsummer or Christmas. At
length in the seventh year a letter announced that his
school-education had been completed, and that he was elected to a
scholarship at —— College, Oxford, which scholarship would entitle him
to a fellowship in due course of time; in the intervening years some
little assistance from his _liberal benefactors_ would be required;
and the liberality of those _kind friends_ would be well bestowed upon
a youth who bade so fair to do honour to himself, and to reflect _no
disgrace upon his honourable connections_. The head of the family
promised his part with an ungracious expression of satisfaction at
thinking that “thank God there would soon be an end of these demands
upon him.” Miss Trewbody signified her assent in the same amiable and
religious spirit. However much her sister had disgraced her family,
she replied, “please God it should never be said that she refused to
do her duty.”
The whole sum which these wealthy relations contributed was not very
heavy,—an annual ten pounds each: but they contrived to make their
nephew feel the weight of every separate portion. The Squire's half
came always with a brief note desiring that the receipt of the
enclosed sum might be acknowledged without delay,—not a word of
kindness or courtesy accompanied it: and Miss Trewbody never failed to
administer with her remittance a few edifying remarks upon the folly
of his mother in marrying beneath herself; and the improper conduct of
his father in connecting himself with a woman of family, against the
consent of her relations, the consequence of which was that he had
left a child dependant upon those relations for support. Leonard
received these pleasant preparations of charity only at distant
intervals, when he regularly expected them, with his half-yearly
allowance. But Margaret meantime was dieted upon the food of
bitterness without one circumstance to relieve the misery of her
situation.
At the time, of which I am now speaking, Miss Trewbody was a maiden
lady of forty-seven, in the highest state of preservation. The whole
business of her life had been to take care of a fine person, and in
this she had succeeded admirably. Her library consisted of two books;
Nelson's Festivals and Fasts was one, the other was “the Queen's
Cabinet unlocked;” and there was not a cosmetic in the latter which
she had not faithfully prepared. Thus by means, as she believed, of
distilled waters of various kinds, May-dew and butter-milk, her skin
retained its beautiful texture still, and much of its smoothness; and
she knew at times how to give it the appearance of that brilliancy
which it had lost. But that was a profound secret. Miss Trewbody,
remembering the example of Jezebel, always felt conscious that she was
committing a sin when she took the rouge-box in her hand, and
generally ejaculated in a low voice, the Lord forgive me! when she
laid it down: but looking in the glass at the same time, she indulged
a hope that the nature of the temptation might be considered as an
excuse for the transgression. Her other great business was to observe
with the utmost precision all the punctilios of her situation in life;
and the time which was not devoted to one or other of these worthy
occupations, was employed in scolding her servants, and tormenting her
niece. This employment, for it was so habitual that it deserved that
name, agreed excellently with her constitution. She was troubled with
no acrid humours, no fits of bile, no diseases of the spleen, no
vapours or hysterics. The morbid matter was all collected in her
temper, and found a regular vent at her tongue. This kept the lungs in
vigorous health. Nay it even seemed to supply the place of wholesome
exercise, and to stimulate the system like a perpetual blister, with
this peculiar advantage, that instead of an inconvenience it was a
pleasure to herself, and all the annoyance was to her dependants.
Miss Trewbody lies buried in the Cathedral at Salisbury, where a
monument was erected to her memory worthy of remembrance itself for
its appropriate inscription and accompaniments. The epitaph recorded
her as a woman eminently pious, virtuous and charitable, who lived
universally respected, and died sincerely lamented by all who had the
happiness of knowing her. This inscription was upon a marble shield
supported by two Cupids, who bent their heads over the edge, with
marble tears larger than grey pease, and something of the same colour,
upon their cheeks. These were the only tears which her death
occasioned, and the only Cupids with whom she had ever any concern.
CHAPTER LXXV.
A SCENE WHICH WILL PUT SOME OF THOSE READERS WHO HAVE BEEN MOST
IMPATIENT WITH THE AUTHOR, IN THE BEST HUMOUR WITH HIM.
There is no argument of more antiquity and elegancy than is the matter
of Love; for it seems to be as old as the world, and to bear date from
the first time that man and woman was: therefore in this, as in the
finest metal, the freshest wits have in all ages shewn their best
workmanship.
ROBERT WILMOT.
When Leonard had resided three years at Oxford, one of his
college-friends invited him to pass the long vacation at his father's
house, which happened to be within an easy ride of Salisbury. One
morning therefore he rode to that city, rung at Miss Trewbody's door,
and having sent in his name, was admitted into the parlour, where
there was no one to receive him, while Miss Trewbody adjusted her
head-dress at the toilette, before she made her appearance. Her
feelings while she was thus employed were not of the pleasantest kind
toward this unexpected guest; and she was prepared to accost him with
a reproof for his extravagance in undertaking so long a journey, and
with some mortifying questions concerning the business which brought
him there. But this amiable intention was put to flight, when Leonard
as soon as she entered the room informed her that having accepted an
invitation into that neighbourhood from his friend and
fellow-collegian, the son of Sir Lambert Bowles, he had taken the
earliest opportunity of coming to pay his respects to her, and
acknowledging his obligations, as bound alike by duty and inclination.
The name of Sir Lambert Bowles acted upon Miss Trewbody like a charm;
and its mollifying effect was not a little aided by the tone of her
nephew's address, and the sight of a fine youth in the first bloom of
manhood, whose appearance and manners were such that she could not be
surprized at the introduction he had obtained into one of the first
families in the county. The scowl therefore which she brought into the
room upon her brow past instantly away, and was succeeded by so
gracious an aspect, that Leonard if he had not divined the cause might
have mistaken this gleam of sunshine for fair weather.
A cause which Miss Trewbody could not possibly suspect had rendered
her nephew's address thus conciliatory. Had he expected to see no
other person in that house, the visit would have been performed as an
irksome obligation, and his manner would have appeared as cold and
formal as the reception which he anticipated. But Leonard had not
forgotten the playmate and companion with whom the happy years of his
childhood had been passed. Young as he was at their separation his
character had taken its stamp during those peaceful years, and the
impression which it then received was indelible. Hitherto hope had
never been to him so delightful as memory. His thoughts wandered back
into the past more frequently than they took flight into the future;
and the favourite form which his imagination called up was that of the
sweet child, who in winter partook his bench in the chimney corner,
and in summer sate with him in the porch, and strung the fallen
blossoms of jessamine upon stalks of grass. The snow-drop and the
crocus reminded him of their little garden, the primrose of their
sunny orchard-bank, and the blue bells and the cowslip of the fields
wherein they were allowed to run wild and gather them in the merry
month of May. Such as she then was he saw her frequently in sleep,
with her blue eyes, and rosy cheeks, and flaxen curls: and in his day
dreams he sometimes pictured her to himself such as he supposed she
now might be, and dressed up the image with all the magic of ideal
beauty. His heart, therefore, was at his lips when he enquired for his
cousin. It was not without something like fear, and an apprehension of
disappointment that he awaited her appearance; and he was secretly
condemning himself for the romantic folly which he had encouraged,
when the door opened and a creature came in,—less radiant indeed, but
more winning than his fancy had created, for the loveliness of earth
and reality was about her.
“Margaret,” said Miss Trewbody, “do you remember your cousin Leonard?”
Before she could answer, Leonard had taken her hand. “'Tis a long
while Margaret since we parted!—ten years!—But I have not forgotten
the parting,—nor the blessed days of our childhood.”
She stood trembling like an aspen leaf, and looked wistfully in his
face for a moment, then hung down her head, without power to utter a
word in reply. But he felt her tears fall fast upon his hand, and felt
also that she returned its pressure.
Leonard had some difficulty to command himself, so as to bear a part
in conversation with his aunt, and keep his eyes and his thoughts from
wandering. He accepted however her invitation to stay and dine with
her with undissembled satisfaction, and the pleasure was not a little
heightened when she left the room to give some necessary orders in
consequence. Margaret still sate trembling and in silence. He took her
hand, prest it to his lips, and said in a low earnest voice, “dear
dear Margaret!” She raised her eyes, and fixing them upon him with one
of those looks the perfect remembrance of which can never be effaced
from the heart to which they have been addressed, replied in a lower
but not less earnest tone, “dear Leonard!” and from that moment their
lot was sealed for time and for eternity.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
A STORY CONCERNING CUPID WHICH NOT ONE READER IN TEN THOUSAND HAS EVER
HEARD BEFORE; A DEFENCE OF LOVE WHICH WILL BE VERY SATISFACTORY TO THE
LADIES.
They do lie,
Lie grossly who say Love is blind,—by him
And Heaven they lie! he has a sight can pierce
Thro' ivory, as clear as it were horn,
And reach his object.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
The Stoics who called our good affections eupathies, did not manage
those affections as well as they understood them. They kept them under
too severe a discipline, and erroneously believed that the best way to
strengthen the heart was by hardening it. The Monks carried this error
to its utmost extent, falling indeed into the impious absurdity that
our eupathies are sinful in themselves. The Monks have been called the
Stoics of Christianity; but the philosophy of the Cloister can no more
bear comparison with that of the Porch, than Stoicism itself with
Christianity pure and undefiled. Van Helmont compares even the
Franciscans with the Stoics, “_paucis mutatis_,” he says, “_videbam
Capucinum esse Stoicum Christianum_.” He might have found a closer
parallel for them in the Cynics both for their filth and their
extravagance. And here I will relate a Rabbinical tradition.
On a time the chiefs of the Synagogue, being mighty in prayer,
obtained of the Lord that the Evil Spirit who had seduced the Jews to
commit idolatry, and had brought other nations against them to
overthrow their city and destroy the Temple, should be delivered into
their hands for punishment; when by advice of Zachariah the prophet
they put him in a leaden vessel, and secured him there with a weight
of lead upon his face. By this sort of _peine forte et dure_, they
laid him so effectually that he has never appeared since. Pursuing
then their supplications while the ear of Heaven was open, they
entreated that another Evil Spirit by whom the people had continually
been led astray, might in like manner be put into their power. This
prayer also was granted; and the Demon with whom Poets, Lovers and
Ladies are familiar, by his heathen name of Cupid, was delivered up to
them.
_————folle per lui
Tutto il mondo si fa. Perisca Amore,
E saggio ognun sarà._[1]
The prophet Zachariah warned them not to be too hasty in putting him
to death, for fear of the consequences;
——You shall see
A fine confusion in the country; mark it!
But the prophet's counsel was as vain as the wise courtier's in
Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy, who remonstrated against the decree
for demolishing Cupid's altars. They disregarded his advice; because
they were determined upon destroying the enemy now that they had him
in their power; and they bound their prisoner fast in chains, while
they deliberated by what death he should die. These deliberations
lasted three days; on the third day it happened that a new-laid egg
was wanted for a sick person, and behold! no such thing was to be
found throughout the kingdom of Israel, for since this Evil Spirit was
in durance not an egg had been laid; and it appeared upon enquiry,
that the whole course of kind was suspended. The chiefs of the
Synagogue perceived then that not without reason Zachariah had warned
them; they saw that if they put their prisoner to death, the world
must come to an end; and therefore they contented themselves with
putting out his eyes, that he might not see to do so much mischief,
and let him go.
[Footnote 1: METASTASIO.]
Thus it was that Cupid became blind,—a fact unknown to the Greek and
Roman Poets and to all the rhymesters who have succeeded them.
The Rabbis are coarse fablers. Take away love, and not physical nature
only, but the heart of the moral world would be palsied;
This is the salt unto Humanity
And keeps it sweet.[2]
_Senza di lui
Che diverrian le sfere,
Il mar, la terra? Alla sua chiara face
Si coloran le stelle; ordine e lume
Ei lor ministra; egli mantiene in pace
Gli' elemente discordi; unisce insieme
Gli opposti eccessi; e con eterno giro,
Che sembra caso, ed è saper profondo,
Forma, scompone, e riproduce il mondo._[3]
[Footnote 2: BEAUMONT & FLETCHER.]
[Footnote 3: METASTASIO.]
It is with this passion as with the Amreeta in Southey's Hindoo tale,
the most original of his poems; its effects are beneficial or
malignant according to the subject on which it acts. In this respect
Love may also be likened to the Sun, under whose influence one plant
elaborates nutriment for man, and another poison; and which while it
draws up pestilence from the marsh and jungle, and sets the simoom in
motion over the desert, diffuses light, life, and happiness over the
healthy and cultivated regions of the earth.
It acts terribly upon Poets. Poor creatures, nothing in the whole
details of the Ten Persecutions, or the history of the Spanish
Inquisition, is more shocking than what they have suffered from Love,
according to the statements which they have given of their own
sufferings. They have endured scorching, frying, roasting, burning,
sometimes by a slow fire, sometimes by a quick one; and melting,—and
this too from a fire, which while it thus affects the heart and liver,
raises not a blister upon the skin; resembling in this respect that
penal fire which certain theological writers describe as being more
intense because it is invisible,—existing not in form, but in essence,
and acting therefore upon spirit as material and visible fire acts
upon the body. Sometimes they have undergone from the same cause all
the horrors of freezing and petrifaction. Very frequently the brain is
affected; and one peculiar symptom of the insanity arising from this
cause, is that the patients are sensible of it, and appear to boast of
their misfortune.
Hear how it operated upon Lord Brooke, who is called the most
thoughtful of poets, by the most bookful of Laureates. The said Lord
Brooke in his love, and in his thoughtfulness, confesseth thus;
I sigh; I sorrow; _I do play the fool!_
Hear how the grave—the learned Pasquier describes its terrible effects
upon himself!
_Ja je sens en mes os une flamme nouvelle
Qui me mine, qui m'ard, qui brusle ma möuelle._
Hear its worse moral consequences, which Euphues avowed in his wicked
days! “He that cannot dissemble in love is not worthy to live. I am of
this mind, that both might and malice, deceit and treachery, all
perjury and impiety, may lawfully be committed in love, which is
lawless.”
Hear too how Ben Jonson makes the Lady Frampul express her feelings!
My fires and fears are met: I burn and freeze;
My liver's one great coal, my heart shrunk up
With all the fibres; and the mass of blood
Within me, is a standing lake of fire,
Curl'd with the cold wind of my gelid sighs,
That drive a drift of sleet through all my body,
And shoot a February through my veins.
And hear how Artemidorus, not the oneirologist, but the great
philosopher at the Court of the Emperor Sferamond, describes the
appearances which he had observed in dissecting some of those
unfortunate persons, who had died of love. “_Quant à mon regard_,”
says he, “_j'en ay veu faire anatomie de quelques uns qui estoient
morts de cette maladie, qui avoient leurs entrailles toutes retirées,
leur pauvre cœur tout bruslé, leur foye toute enfumé, leurs poulmons
tout rostis, les ventricules de leurs cerveaux tous endommagez; et je
croy que leur pauvre ame etoit cuite et arse à petite feu, pour la
vehemence et excessif chaleur et ardeur inextinguible qu'ils
enduroient lors que la fievre d'amour les avoit surprins._”[4]
[Footnote 4: AMADIS DE GAULE. Liv. 23.]
But the most awful description of its dangerous operation upon persons
of his own class is given by the Prince of the French Poets, not
undeservedly so called in his own times. Describing the effect of love
upon himself when he is in the presence of his mistress, Ronsard says,
_Tant s'en faut que je sois alors maistre de moy,
Que je ni'rois les Dieux, et trahirois mon Roy,
Je vendrois mon pay, je meurtrirois mon pere;
Telle rage me tient après que j'ay tasté
A longs traits amoureux de la poison amère
Qui sort de ces beaux yeux dont je suis enchanté._
Mercy on us! neither Petrarch, nor poor Abel Shufflebottom himself was
so far gone as this!
In a diseased heart it loses its nature, and combining with the morbid
affection which it finds produces a new disease.
When it gets into an empty heart, it works there like quicksilver in
an apple dumpling, while the astonished cook ignorant of the roguery
which has been played her, thinks that there is not Death, but the
Devil in the pot.
In a full heart, which is tantamount to saying a virtuous one, (for in
every other, conscience keeps a void place for itself, and the hollow
is always felt;) it is sedative, sanative, and preservative: a drop of
the true elixir, no mithridate so effectual against the infection of
vice.
How then did this passion act upon Leonard and Margaret? In a manner
which you will not find described in any of Mr. Thomas Moore's poems;
and which Lord Byron is as incapable of understanding, or even
believing in another, as he is of feeling it in himself.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
MORE CONCERNING LOVE AND THE DREAM OF LIFE.
Happy the bonds that hold ye;
Sure they be sweeter far than liberty.
There is no blessedness but in such bondage;
Happy that happy chain; such links are heavenly.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
I will not describe the subsequent interviews between Leonard and his
cousin, short and broken but precious as they were; nor that parting
one in which hands were plighted, with the sure and certain knowledge
that hearts had been interchanged. Remembrance will enable some of my
readers to pourtray the scene, and then perhaps a sigh may be heaved
for the days that are gone: Hope will picture it to others,—and with
them the sigh will be for the days that are to come.
There was not that indefinite deferment of hope in this case at which
the heart sickens. Leonard had been bred up in poverty from his
childhood: a parsimonious allowance, grudgingly bestowed, had
contributed to keep him frugal at College, by calling forth a
pardonable if not a commendable sense of pride in aid of a worthier
principle. He knew that he could rely upon himself for frugality,
industry and a cheerful as well as a contented mind. He had seen the
miserable state of bondage in which Margaret existed with her Aunt,
and his resolution was made to deliver her from that bondage as soon
as he could obtain the smallest benefice on which it was possible for
them to subsist. They agreed to live rigorously within their means
however poor, and put their trust in Providence. They could not be
deceived in each other, for they had grown up together; and they knew
that they were not deceived in themselves. Their love had the
freshness of youth, but prudence and forethought were not wanting; the
resolution which they had taken brought with it peace of mind, and no
misgiving was felt in either heart when they prayed for a blessing
upon their purpose. In reality it had already brought a blessing with
it; and this they felt; for love when it deserves that name produces
in us what may be called a regeneration of its own,—a second
birth,—dimly but yet in some degree resembling that which is effected
by Divine Love when its redeeming work is accomplished in the soul.
Leonard returned to Oxford happier than all this world's wealth or
this world's honours could have made him. He had now a definite and
attainable hope,—an object in life which gave to life itself a value.
For Margaret, the world no longer seemed to her like the same earth
which she had till then inhabited. Hitherto she had felt herself a
forlorn and solitary creature, without a friend; and the sweet sounds
and pleasant objects of nature had imparted as little cheerfulness to
her as to the debtor who sees green fields in sunshine from his
prison, and hears the lark singing at liberty. Her heart was open now
to all the exhilarating and all the softening influences, of birds,
fields, flowers, vernal suns and melodious streams. She was subject to
the same daily and hourly exercise of meekness, patience, and
humility; but the trial was no longer painful; with love in her heart,
and hope and sunshine in her prospect, she found even a pleasure in
contrasting her present condition with that which was in store for
her.
In these our days every young lady holds the pen of a ready writer,
and words flow from it as fast as it can indent its zigzag lines,
according to the reformed system of writing,—which said system
improves handwritings by making them all alike and all illegible. At
that time women wrote better and spelt worse: but letter writing was
not one of their accomplishments. It had not yet become one of the
general pleasures and luxuries of life,—perhaps the greatest
gratification which the progress of civilization has given us. There
was then no mail coach to waft a sigh across the country at the rate
of eight miles an hour. Letters came slowly and with long intervals
between; but when they came, the happiness which they imparted to
Leonard and Margaret lasted during the interval,—however long. To
Leonard it was as an exhilarant and a cordial which rejoiced and
strengthened him. He trod the earth with a lighter and more elated
movement on the day when he received a letter from Margaret, as if he
felt himself invested with an importance which he had never possessed
till the happiness of another human being was inseparably associated
with his own;
So proud a thing it was for him to wear
Love's golden chain,
With which it is best freedom to be bound.[1]
[Footnote 1: DRUMMOND.]
Happy indeed if there be happiness on earth, as that same sweet poet
says, is he,
Who love enjoys, and placed hath his mind
Where fairest virtues fairest beauties grace,
Then in himself such store of worth doth find
That he deserves to find so good a place.[2]
[Footnote 2: DRUMMOND.]
This was Leonard's case; and when he kissed the paper which her hand
had pressed it was with a consciousness of the strength and sincerity
of his affection, which at once rejoiced and fortified his heart. To
Margaret his letters were like summer dew upon the herb that thirsts
for such refreshment. Whenever they arrived, a head-ache became the
cause or pretext for retiring earlier than usual to her chamber, that
she might weep and dream over the precious lines.
True gentle love is like the summer dew,
Which falls around when all is still and hush;
And falls unseen until its bright drops strew
With odours, herb and flower and bank and bush.
O love—when womanhood is in the flush,
And man's a young and an unspotted thing,
His first-breathed word, and her half-conscious blush,
Are fair as light in heaven, or flowers in spring.[3]
[Footnote 3: ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.]
END OF VOL. II.
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