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Title: The doctor, &c., vol. 6 (of 7)

Author: Robert Southey

Editor: John Wood Warter

Release date: December 29, 2023 [eBook #72540]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1834

Credits: Ron Swanson


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOCTOR, &C., VOL. 6 (OF 7) ***


THE DOCTOR, &c.




There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in 
the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what 
to expect from the one as the other.

BUTLER'S REMAINS.




THE DOCTOR, &c.




[Illustration: a tetrahedron]




VOL. VI.





LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

1847.




LONDON:

PRINTED BY W. NICOL, PALL-MALL.




PREFACE.

INVENIAS ETIAM DISJECTI MEMBRA POETÆ.


In the distribution of the lamented Southey's literary property, the 
History of the Brazils, his much treasured MS. History of Portugal, 
the Doctor, &c. and the MS. materials for its completion, fell to the 
share of Edith May Warter, his eldest child, and, as he used to call 
her, his right hand,—to whom he addressed the Dedication of the Tale 
of Paraguay, and to whom he commenced a little Poem of which the lines 
following are almost the last, if not the very last, he ever wrote in 
verse.

  O daughter dear, who bear'st no longer now
  Thy Father's name, and for the chalky flats
  Of Sussex hast exchanged thy native land
  Of lakes and mountains,—neither change of place
  Condition, and all circumstantial things,
  Nor new relations, and access of cares
  Unfelt before, have alienated thee
  Nor wean'd thy heart from this beloved spot,
  Thy birth place, and so long thy happy home!

The present Volume is drawn up from the MS. materials alluded to, as 
nearly as possible in the order the Author had intended, and the 
seventh and concluding volume is in the press and will shortly be 
published.

The whole of the MS. sheets, previous to being sent to the press, were 
cautiously examined by his no less amiable and excellent, than highly 
gifted Widow, who, at the time, was staying with us on a visit at 
West-Tarring. Had the lamented Southey continued the work, it was his 
intention, in this volume, to have advanced a step in the story,—and 
the Interchapters, no doubt, would have been enlarged, according to 
custom. His habit was, as he said, “to lay the timbers of them, and to 
jot down, from time to time, remarks serious or jocose, as they 
occurred to him.” Full readily would this holy and humble man of heart 
have acceded to the truth conveyed in these lines from Martin Tupper's 
Proverbial philosophy,—and none the less for their dactylic cadence.

  There is a grave-faced folly, and verily a laughter loving wisdom;
  And what, if surface judges, account it vain frivolity?
  There is indeed an evil in excess, and a field may lie fallow too
    long;
  Yet merriment is often as a froth, that mantleth on the strong mind:
  And note thou this for a verity,—the subtlest thinker when alone,
  From ease of thoughts unbent, will laugh the loudest with his
    fellows:
  And well is the loveliness of wisdom mirrored in a cheerful
    countenance,
  Justly the deepest pools are proved by dimpling eddies;
  For that, a true philosophy commandeth an innocent life,
  And the unguilty spirit is lighter than a linnet's heart;
  Yea, there is no cosmetic like a holy conscience;
  The eye is bright with trust, the cheek bloomed over with affection,
  The brow unwrinkled with a care, and the lip triumphant in its
    gladness.[1]

[Footnote 1: Of Ridicule, 1st Series. On my acquainting Mrs. Southey 
with my intention of quoting these lines, she wrote me word back: 
“That very passage I had noted, as singularly applicable to him _we_ 
knew so well,—whom the world, the children of this generation,—knew so 
little!”]

The only liberty taken with the original MS. is the omission of, now 
and then a name, or even a paragraph, which might have given pain to 
the living. Such passages were thrown off playfully, and were, as Mrs. 
Southey can testify, erased by the author continually. It was no 
custom of Southey to cast “fire-brands, arrows, and death,” and to 
say, “Am I not in sport?” _(Proverbs, xxvi. 18, 19.)_

It only remains to add that the Editor has carefully verified all 
references,—that he is responsible for the headings of the chapters 
(some few excepted,)—for the Mottoes to cc. clxxx. and clxxxi.,—and 
for the casual foot notes.

JOHN WOOD WARTER.

_Vicarage House,_
_West-Tarring, Nov. 25th._




PRELUDE OF MOTTOES.


  Two thyngys owyth every clerk
  To advertysyn, begynnyng a werk,
  If he procedyn wyl ordeneely,
  The fyrste is _what_, the secunde is _why_.
  In wych two wurdys, as it semyth me
  The Foure causys comprehendyd be
  Wych as our philosofyrs us do teche,
  In the begynnyng men owe to seche
  Of every book; and aftyr there entent,
  The fyrst is clepyd cause efficyent:
  The secunde they clepe cause materyal,
  Formal the thrydde; the fourte fynal.
  The efficyent cause is the auctour,
  Wych aftyr hys cunnyng doth hys labour
  To a complyse the begunne matere,
  Wych cause is secunde; and the more clere
  That it may be, the formal cause
  Settyth in dew ordre clause be clause.
  And these thre thyngys, longyn to what,
  Auctour, matere and forme ordinat,
  The fynal cause declaryth pleynly
  Of the werk begunne the cause why;
  That is to seyne what was the entent
  Of the auctour fynally, and what he ment.

OSBERN BOKENAM.


  Look for no splendid painted outside here,
  But for a work devotedly sincere;
  A thing low prized in these too high-flown days:
  Such solid sober works get little praise.
        Yet some there be
      Love true solidity.

  And unto such brave noble souls I write,
  In hopes to do them and the subject right.
  I write it not to please the itching vein
  Of idle-headed fashionists, or gain
        Their fond applause;
      I care for no such noise.

  I write it only for the sober sort,
  Who love right learning, and will labour for't;
  And who will value worth in art, though old,
  And not be weary of the good, though told
        Tis out of fashion
      By nine-tenths of the nation.

  I writ it also out of great good will
  Unto my countrymen; and leave my skill
  Behind me for the sakes of those that may
  Not yet be born; but in some after day
        May make good use
      Of it, without abuse.

  But chiefly I do write it, for to show
  A duty to the Doctor which I owe.

THOMAS MACE.


Physicians are many times forced to leave such methods of curing as 
themselves know to be the fittest, and being overruled by their 
patient's impatiency are fain to try the best they can in taking that 
way of cure, which the cured will yield unto: in like sort, 
considering how the case doth stand with this present age, full of 
tongue and weak of brain, behold we yield to the stream thereof: into 
the causes of goodness we will not make any curious or deep inquiry; 
to touch them now and then it shall be sufficient, when they are so 
near at hand that easily they may be conceived without any far removed 
discourse. That way we are contented to prove, which being the worse 
in itself, is notwithstanding now, by reason of common imbecility, the 
fitter and likelier to be brooked.

HOOKER.


  _Qui lit beaucoup et jamais ne medite,
     Semble à celuy qui mange avidement,
     Et de tous mets surcharge tellement
   Son estomach que rien ne luy profit._

QUATRAINE DE PIBRAC.

thus englished by Sylvester,

  Who readeth much and never meditates,
    Is like a greedy eater of much food,
  Who so surcloys his stomach with his cates
    That commonly they do him little good.


_Je sçay qu'en ce discours l'on me pourra reprendre, que j'ay mis 
beaucoup de particularitez qui sont fort superfluës. Je le crois: 
mais, je sçay, que si elles desplaisent à aucuns, elles plairont aux 
autres: me semblant, que ce n'est pas assez, quand on louë des 
personnes, dire qu'elles sont belles, sages, vertueuses, valeureuses, 
vaillantes, magnanimes, libérales, splendides et très-parfaites. Ce 
sont loüanges et descriptions genérales, et lieux-communs empruntez de 
tout le monde. Il en faut specifier bien le tout, et descrire 
particuliérement les perfections, afin que mieux on les touche au 
doigt: et telle est mon opinion._

BRANTOME.


  _Non sai se l'arte, o il caso abbia fornita
     Cosi bell' opra, o siano entrambi a parte;
   Perocchè l'arte è tal che il caso imita,
     E'l caso è tal che rassomiglia all' arte:
   E questo a quella, e quella a questo unita,
     Quanto può, quanto sa, mesce e comparte.
   Un la materia al bel lavor dispose,
   L'altra meglio adornolla, e poi s'ascose._

METASTASIO.


_Tous ceux qui ont quelquesfois pesé le grand travail et le labeur de 
l'imagination, l'ont jugé pour le plus grand qui se puisse trouver, et 
ont eu raison; d'autant que celuy lequel veut et desire en contenter 
plusieurs, doit aussi chercher des moyens differens, afin que ce qui 
est ennuyeux à l'un, l'autre le trouve doux et agreable; car de le 
donner à tous, il est impossible; veu, qu' entre trois personnes 
seulement que l'on aura conviées, il se trouvera une grande diference 
de gouts, ainsi que l'a dit Horace, luy, dis-je qui l'avoit si bien 
experimenté: par ainsi il n'est pas possible qu'en une si longue 
histoire que celle dont je vay traictant, que je ne donne de la peine 
par la diversité des chapitres. Toutetfois si le jugement s'en faict 
par des personnes privees et libres de toute passion, ils diront que 
c'est le vray moyen d'entretenir les esprits curieux._

L'HISTOIRE DU CHEVALIER DU SOLEIL.


Be rather wise than witty, for much wit hath commonly much froth; and 
'tis hard to jest and not sometimes jeer too; which many times sinks 
deeper than was intended or expected; and what was designed for mirth, 
ends in sadness.

CALEB TRENCHFIELD.
(probably a fictitious name.) RESTITUTA.


In some passages you will observe me very satirical. Writing on such 
subjects I could not be otherwise. I can write nothing without aiming, 
at least, at usefulness. It were beneath my years to do it, and still 
more dishonourable to my religion. I know that a reformation of such 
abuses as I have censured is not to be expected from the efforts of an 
author; but to contemplate the world, its follies, its vices, its 
indifferences to duty, and its strenuous attachment to what is evil, 
and not to reprehend, were to approve it. From this charge, at least, 
I shall be clear; for I have neither tacitly, nor expressly flattered 
either its characters or its customs.

COWPER.


_Nemo eo sapientius desipuisse, nemo stultius sapuisse videtur._

Said of Cardan by I know not who.


_Il y en a qui pensent que les lecteurs reçoivent peu d'instruction, 
quand on leur représente des choses qui n'ont pas esté achevées,  
qu'eux appellent œuvres imparfaites; mais je ne suis pas de leur 
advis; car quand quelque fait est descrit à la verité, et avec ses 
circonstances, encor qu'il ne soit parvenu qu' à mychemin, si peut-on 
tousjours en tirer du fruict._

LA NOUE.


  Authors, you know of greatest fame,
  Thro' modesty suppress their name;
  And would you wish me to reveal
  What these superior wits conceal?
  Forego the search, my curious friend,
  And husband time to better end.
  All my ambition is, I own,
  To profit and to please unknown,
  Like streams supplied from springs below
  Which scatter blessings as they flow.

DR. COTTON.


Thus have I, as well as I could, gathered a posey of observations as 
they grew,—and if some rue and wormwood be found amongst the sweeter 
herbs, their wholesomeness will make amends for their bitterness.

ADAM LITTLETON.


  This worthy work in which of good examples are so many,
  This orchard of Alcinous, in which there wants not any
  Herb, tree, or fruit that may mans use for health or pleasure serve;
  This plenteous horn of Acheloy, which justly doth deserve
  To bear the name of Treasury of Knowledge, I present
  To your good worships once again,—desiring you therefore
  To let your noble courtesy and favour countervail
  My faults, where art or eloquence on my behalf doth fail,
  For sure the mark whereat I shoot is neither wreaths of bay,
  Nor name of author, no, nor meed; but chiefly that it may
  Be liked well of you and all the wise and learned sort;
  And next, that every wight that shall have pleasure for to sport
  Him in this garden, may as well bear wholesome fruit away
  As only on the pleasant flowers his retchless senses stay.

GOLDING.


Doubtless many thoughts have presented, and are still presenting 
themselves to my mind, which once I had no idea of. But these, in I 
believe every instance, are as much the growth of former rooted 
principles, as multiplied branches grow from one and the same main 
stem. Of such an inward vegetation I am always conscious; and I 
equally seem to myself to perceive the novelty of the fresh shoot, and 
its connexion with what had been produced before.

ALEXANDER KNOX.


The extensive argument and miscellaneous nature of the work led him to 
declare his sentiments on a multitude of questions, on which he 
thought differently from other writers, and of course, to censure or 
confute their opinions. Whole bodies of men, as well as individuals of 
the highest reputation, were attacked by him, and his manner was to 
speak his sense of all with freedom and force. So that most writers, 
and even readers, had some ground of complaint against him. Not only 
the free-thinkers and unbelievers, against whom the tenour of his book 
was directed, but the heterodox of every denomination were treated 
without much ceremony, and of the orthodox themselves, some tenet or 
other, which till then they had held sacred, was discussed and 
reprobated by him. Straggling heresies, or embodied systems, made no 
difference with him; as they came in his way, no quarter was given to 
either, “his end and manner of writing,” as Dr. Middleton truly 
observed, “being to pursue truth wherever he found it.”

HURD'S LIFE OF WARBURTON.


Thou art like my rappee, here, a most ridiculous superfluity; but a 
pinch of thee now and then is a more delicious treat.

CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE.


  Yea—but what am I?
  A scholar, or a schoolmaster, or else some youth?
  A lawyer, a student, or else a country clown?
  A brumman, a basket-maker, or a baker of pies?
  A flesh, or a fishmonger, or a sower of lies?
  A louse, or a louser, a leek or a lark,
  A dreamer, a drommell, a fire or a spark?
  A caitiff, a cut-throat, a creeper in corners,
  A hairbrain, a hangman, or a grafter of horners?
  A merchant, a maypole, a man or a mackarel,
  A crab or a crevise, a crane or a cockerell?

APIUS AND VIRGINIA.


  It may appear to some ridiculous
  Thus to talk knave and madman, and sometimes
  Come in with a dried sentence, stuft with sage.

WEBSTER.


_Etsi verò, quæ in isto opere desiderentur, rectiùs forsan quàm quivis 
alius, perspiciam; et si meo planè voto standum fuisset, id, in tantâ, 
quæ hodie est librorum copiâ, vel planè suppressissem, vel in multos 
annos adhuc pressissem; tamen aliquid amicis, aliquid tempori dandum; 
et cum iis qui aliquid fructus ex eo sperant, illud communicandum 
putavi. Hunc itaque meum qualemcunque laborem, Lector candide, boni 
consule; quod te facilè facturum confido, si eum animum ad legendum 
attuleris, quem ego ad scribendum, veritatis nimirum aliisque 
inserviendi cupidum._

SENNERTUS.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER CLXXII.—p. 1.

DESCARTES' NOTION CONCERNING THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE. A SICILIAN 
PROPOSAL FOR BREEDING UP CHILDREN TO BE IMMORTAL. ASGILL'S ARGUMENT 
AGAINST THE NECESSITY OF DYING.

  O harmless Death! whom still the valiant brave,
    The wise expect, the sorrowful invite;
  And all the good embrace, who know the Grave
    A short dark passage to eternal light.

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.


CHAPTER CLXXIII.—p. 30.

MORE CONCERNING ASGILL. HIS DEFENCE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, HIS 
EXPULSION, FARTHER SPECULATIONS AND DEATH.

  Let not that ugly Skeleton appear!
  Sure Destiny mistakes; this Death's not mine!

DRYDEN.


CHAPTER CLXXIV.—p. 48.

THE DOCTOR INDULGES IN THE WAY OF FANTASTIC AND TYPICAL SPECULATION ON 
HIS OWN NAME, AND ON THE POWERS OF THE LETTER D., WHETHER AS REGARDS 
DEGREES AND DISTINCTIONS, GODS AND DEMIGODS, PRINCES AND KINGS, 
PHILOSOPHERS, GENERALS OR TRAVELLERS.

My mouth's no dictionary; it only serves as the needful interpreter of 
my heart.

QUARLES.


CHAPTER CLXXV.—p. 56.

THE DOCTOR FOLLOWS UP HIS MEDITATIONS ON THE LETTER D. AND EXPECTS 
THAT THE READER WILL BE CONVINCED THAT IT IS A DYNAMIC LETTER, AND 
THAT THE HEBREWS DID NOT WITHOUT REASON CALL IT DALETH—THE DOOR—AS 
THOUGH IT WERE THE DOOR OF SPEECH.—THE MYSTIC TRIANGLE.

More authority dear boy, name more; and sweet my child let them be men 
of good repute and carriage.—

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.


CHAPTER CLXXVI.—p. 66.

THE DOCTOR DISCOVERS THE ANTIQUITY OF THE NAME OF DOVE FROM PERUSING 
JACOB BRYANT'S ANALYSIS OF ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY.—CHRISTOPHER AND 
FERDINAND COLUMBUS.—SOMETHING ABOUT PIGEON-PIE, AND THE REASON WHY THE 
DOCTOR WAS INCLINED TO THINK FAVOURABLY OF THE SAMARITANS.

An I take the humour of a thing once, I am like your tailor's needle; 
I go through.

BEN JONSON.


CHAPTER CLXXVII.—p. 73.

SOMETHING ON THE SCIENCE AND MYSTERY OF NUMBERS WHICH IS NOT ACCORDING 
TO COCKER.—REVERIES OF JEAN D'ESPAGNE, MINISTER OF THE FRENCH-REFORMED 
CHURCH IN WESTMINSTER, AND OF MR. JOHN BELLAMY.—A PITHY REMARK OF 
FULLER'S AND AN EXTRACT FROM HIS PISGAH SIGHT OF PALESTINE, TO 
RECREATE THE READER.

  None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd
  As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd
  Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school,
  And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.


CHAPTER CLXXVIII.—p. 85.

THE MYSTERY OF NUMBERS PURSUED, AND CERTAIN CALCULATIONS GIVEN WHICH 
MAY REMIND THE READER OF OTHER CALCULATIONS EQUALLY 
CORRECT—ANAGRAMMATIZING OF NAMES, AND THE DOCTOR'S SUCCESS THEREIN.

“There is no efficacy in numbers, said the wiser Philosophers; and 
very truly,”—saith Bishop Hacket in repeating this sentence; but he 
continues,—“some numbers are apt to enforce a reverent esteem towards 
them, by considering miraculous occurrences which fell out in _holy 
Scripture_ on such and such a number.—_Non potest fortuitò fieri, quod 
tam sæpe fit_, says Maldonatus whom I never find superstitious in this 
matter. It falls out too often to be called contingent; and the 
oftener it falls out, the more to be attended.”


CHAPTER CLXXIX.—p. 93.

THE SUBJECT OF ANAGRAMS CONTINUED; A TRUE OBSERVATION WHICH MANY FOR 
WANT OF OBSERVATION WILL NOT DISCOVER TO BE SUCH, VIZ., THAT THERE IS 
A LATENT SUPERSTITION IN THE MOST RATIONAL OF MEN.—LUCKY AND 
UNLUCKY—FITTING AND UNFITTING—ANAGRAMS, AND HOW THE DOCTOR'S TASTE IN 
THIS LINE WAS DERIVED FROM OUR OLD ACQUAINTANCE JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

  _Ha gran forza una vecchia opinione;
     E bisogna grand' arte, e gran fatica,
     A cavarla del capo alle persone._

BRONZINO PITTORE.


CHAPTER CLXXX.—p. 101.

THE DOCTOR'S IDEAS OF LUCK, CHANCE, ACCIDENT, FORTUNE AND 
MISFORTUNE.—THE DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE'S DISTINCTION BETWEEN CHANCE AND 
FORTUNE WHEREIN NO-MEANING IS MISTAKEN FOR MEANING.—AGREEMENT IN 
OPINION BETWEEN THE PHILOSOPHER OF DONCASTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER OF 
NORWICH.—DISTINCTION BETWEEN UNFORTUNATELY UGLY, AND WICKEDLY 
UGLY.—DANGER OF PERSONAL CHARMS.

_Ἔστι γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἐπίφθεγμα τὸ αὐτόματον, ἀνθρώπων ὡς ἔτυχε καὶ 
ἀλογίστως φρονούντων, καὶ τὸν μὲν λόγον αὐτῶν μὴ καταλαμβανόντων, διὰ 
δὲ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς καταλήψεως, αλόγως οἰομένων διατετάχθαι ταῦτα, ὧν 
τὸν λόγον ἐιπεῖν ὀυκ ἔχουσιν._

CONSTANT. ORAT. AD SANCT. CÆT. C. VII.

“Deformity is either natural, voluntary, or adventitious, being either 
caused by _God's unseen Providence_, (_by men nick-named, chance_,) or 
by men's cruelty.”

FULLER'S HOLY STATE, B. iii. C. 15.


CHAPTER CLXXXI.—p. 108.

NO DEGREE OF UGLINESS REALLY UNFORTUNATE.—FIDUS CORNELIUS COMPARED TO 
A PLUCKED OSTRICH.—WILKES' CLAIM TO UGLINESS CONSIDERED AND NEGATIVED 
BY DR. JOHNSON, NOTWITHSTANDING HOGARTH'S PORTRAIT.—CAST OF THE EYE À 
LA MONTMORENCY.—ST. EVREMOND AND TURENNE.—WILLIAM BLAKE THE PAINTER, 
AND THE WELSH TRIADS.—CURIOUS EXTRACT FROM THAT VERY CURIOUS AND RARE 
BOOK, THE DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF HIS OWN PICTURES,—AND A PAINFUL ONE 
FROM HIS POETICAL SKETCHES.

“_If thou beest not so handsome as thou wouldest have been thank God 
thou art not more unhandsome than thou art._ 'Tis His mercy thou art 
not the mark for passenger's fingers to point at, an Heteroclite in 
nature, with some member defective or redundant. Be glad that thy clay 
cottage hath all the necessary forms thereto belonging, though the 
outside be not so fairly plaistered as some others.”

FULLER'S HOLY STATE, B. iii. C. 15.


CHAPTER CLXXXII.—p. 128.

AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE FORM OF THE HUMAN LEG SUGGESTED BY A PHYSICIAN. 
THE DOCTOR'S CURE OF A BROKEN SHIN AND INVENTION OF A SHIN-SHIELD.

_Res fisci est, ubicunque natat._ Whatsoever swims upon any water, 
belongs to this exchequer.

JEREMY TAYLOR. _Preface to the Duct. Dub._


CHAPTER CLXXXIII.—p. 133.

VIEWS OF OLD AGE. MONTAGNE, DANIEL CORNEILLE, LANGUET, PASQUIER, DR. 
JOHNSON, LORD CHESTERFIELD, ST. EVREMOND.

                What is age
  But the holy place of life, the chapel of ease
  For all men's wearied miseries?

MASSINGER.


CHAPTER CLXXXIV.—p. 148.

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING OLD AGE. BISHOP REYNOLDS. OPINION OF 
THE DOCTOR CONCERNING BEASTS AND MEN. M. DE CUSTINE. THE WORLD IS TOO 
MUCH WITH US. WORDSWORTH. SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

In these reflections, which are of a serious, and somewhat of a 
melancholy cast, it is best to indulge; because it is always of use to 
be serious, and not unprofitable sometimes to be melancholy.

FREEMAN'S SERMONS.


CHAPTER CLXXXV.—p. 157.

EVOLVEMENTS. ANALOGIES. ANTICIPATIONS.

          I have heard, how true
  I know not, most physicians as they grow
  Greater in skill, grow less in their religion;
  Attributing so much to natural causes,
  That they have little faith in that they cannot
  Deliver reason for: this Doctor steers
  Another course.

MASSINGER.


CHAPTER CLXXXVI.—p. 163.

LEONE HEBREO'S DIALOGI DE AMORE.—THE ELIXIR OF LIFE NO OBSTACLE TO 
DEATH.—PARACELSUS.—VAN HELMONT AND JAN MASS.—DR. DOVE'S OPINION OF A 
BIOGRAPHER'S DUTIES.

There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors!

OLD FORTUNATUS.


CHAPTER CLXXXVII.—p. 174.

VAN HELMONT'S WORKS, AND CERTAIN SPECIALITIES IN HIS LIFE.

_Voilà mon conte.—Je ne sçay s'il est vray; mais, je l'ay ainsi ouy 
conter.—Possible que cela est faux, possible que non.—Je m'en rapporte 
à ce qui en est. Il ne sera pas damné qui le croira, ou décroira._

BRANTÔME.


INTERCHAPTER XX.—p. 181.

ST. PANTALEON OF NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA—HIS HISTORY, AND SOME FURTHER 
PARTICULARS NOT TO BE FOUND ELSEWHERE.

   _Non dicea le cose senza il quia;
  Che il dritto distingueva dal mancino,
  E dicea pane al pane, e vino al vino._

BERTOLDO.


ARCH-CHAPTER.—p. 198.


CHAPTER CLXXXVIII.—p. 207.

FOLLY IN PRINT, REFERRED TO, BUT (N.B.) NOT EXEMPLIFIED. THE FAIR MAID 
OF DONCASTER. DOUBTS CONCERNING THE AUTHENTICITY OF HER STORY. 
THEVENARD, AND LOVE ON A NEW FOOTING. STARS AND GARTERS, A MONITORY 
ANECDOTE FOR OUR SEX, AND A WHOLESOME NOVELTY IN DRESS RECOMMENDED TO 
BOTH.

  They be at hand, Sir, with stick and fiddle,
  They can play a new dance, Sir, called hey, diddle, diddle.

KING CAMBYSES.


CHAPTER CLXXXIX.—p. 217.

THE DOCTOR'S OPINION OF LATE HOURS. DANCING. FANATICAL OBJECTION OF 
THE ALBIGENSES; INJURIOUS EFFECT OF THAT OPINION WHEN TRANSMITTED TO 
THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS. SIR JOHN DAVIES AND BURTON QUOTED TO SHOW THAT 
IT CAN BE NO DISPARAGEMENT TO SAY THAT ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE, WHEN 
ALL THE SKY'S A BALL-ROOM.

  I could be pleased with any one
  Who entertained my sight with such gay shows,
  As men and women moving here and there,
  That coursing one another in their steps
  Have made their feet a tune.

DRYDEN.


CHAPTER CXC.—p. 229.

DANCING PROSCRIBED BY THE METHODISTS. ADAM CLARKE. BURCHELL'S REMARKS 
ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PRACTICE. HOW IT IS REGARDED IN THE 
COLUMBIAN PHILOSOPHY.

_Non vi par adunque che habbiamo ragionato a bastanza di questo? A 
bastanza parmi, rispose il Signor Gasparo; pur desidero io d'intendere 
qualche particolarità anchor._

IL CORTEGIANO.


CHAPTER CXCI.—p. 242.

A SERIOUS WORD IN SAD APOLOGY FOR ONE OF THE MANY FOOLISH WAYS IN 
WHICH TIME IS MIS-SPENT.

  Time as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
  Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound;
  But the World's Time, is Time in masquerade!
  Their's, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged,
  With motley plumes; and where the peacock shews
  His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red
  With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
  Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
  And spades, the emblem of untimely graves.

COWPER.


CHAPTER CXCII.—p. 249.

MORE OF THE DOCTOR'S PHILOSOPHY, WHICH WILL AND WILL NOT BE LIKED BY 
THE LADIES, AND SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S WHICH WILL AND WILL NOT BY THE 
GENTLEMEN. THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO COUNT CASTIGLIONE, AND TO SIR 
JOHN CHEKE.

              _Ou tend l'auteur à cette heure?
   Que fait'il? Revient-il? Va-t-il? Ou s'il demeure?_

                  L'AUTEUR.

  _Non, je ne reviens pas, car je n'ai pas été;
   Je ne vais pas aussi, car je suis arrété;
   Et ne demeure point, car, tout de ce pas même
   Je pretens m'en aller._

MOLIERE.


CHAPTER CXCIII.—p. 265.

MASTER THOMAS MACE, AND THE TWO HISTORIANS OF HIS SCIENCE, SIR JOHN 
HAWKINS AND DR. BURNEY. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE OLD LUTANIST AND OF HIS 
“MUSIC'S MONUMENT.”

  This Man of Music hath more in his head
  Than mere crotchets.

SIR W. DAVENANT.


CHAPTER CXCIV.—p. 289.

A MUSIC LESSON FROM MASTER THOMAS MACE TO BE PLAYED BY LADY FAIR:—A 
STORY, THAN WHICH THERE IS NONE PRETTIER IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC.

  What shall I say? Or shall I say no more?
  I must go on! I'm brim-full, running o'er.
  But yet I'll hold, because I judge ye wise; 
  And few words unto such may well suffice.
  But much—much more than this I could declare;
  Yet for some certain reasons I'll forbear.
  But less than this I could not say; because,
  If saying less, I should neglect my cause,
  For 'tis the Doctor's cause I plead so strong for,
  And 'tis his cause compleated that I long for,
  And 'tis true doctrine certainly I preach,
  And 'tis that doctrine every priest should teach.

THOMAS MACE, TO ALL DIVINE READERS.


CHAPTER CXCV.—p. 300.

ANOTHER LESSON WITH THE STORY AND MANNER OF ITS PRODUCTION.

  _Οὐδεὶς ἐρεῖ ποθ᾽, ὡς ὑπόβλητον λόγον,
   ———ἔλεξας, ἀλλὰ τῆς σαυτῦ φρενός._

SOPHOCLES.


CHAPTER CXCVI.—p. 305.

FURTHER ACCOUNT OF MASTER THOMAS MACE,—HIS LIGHT HEART, HIS SORROWS, 
AND HIS POVERTY,—POORLY, POOR MAN, HE LIVED, POORLY, POOR MAN, HE 
DIED—PHINEAS FLETCHER.

  The sweet and the sour,
  The nettle and the flower,
  The thorn and the rose,
  This garland compose.

SMALL GARLAND OF PIOUS AND GODLY SONGS.


CHAPTER CXCVII.—p. 322.

QUESTION PROPOSED, WHETHER A MAN BE MAGNIFIED OR MINIFIED BY 
CONSIDERING HIMSELF UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES, AND 
ANSWERED WITH LEARNING AND DISCRETION.

I find by experience that Writing is like Building, wherein the 
undertaker, to supply some defect, or serve some convenience which at 
first he foresaw not, is usually forced to exceed his first model and 
proposal, and many times to double the charge and expence of it.

DR. JOHN SCOTT.


CHAPTER CXCVIII.—p. 335.

PETER HOPKINS' VIEWS OF ASTROLOGY. HIS SKILL IN CHIROMANCY, PALMISTRY, 
OR MANUAL DIVINATION WISELY TEMPERED.—SPANISH PROVERB AND SONNET BY 
BARTOLOME LEONARDO DE ARGENSOLA.—TIPPOO SULTAN.—MAHOMETAN 
SUPERSTITION.—W. Y. PLAYTES' PROSPECTUS FOR THE HORN BOOK FOR THE 
REMEMBRANCE OF THE SIGNS OF SALVATION.

  _Seguite dunque con la mente lieta,
   Seguite, Monsignor, che com' io dico,
   Presto presto sarete in su la meta._

LUDOVICO DOLCE.


CHAPTER CXCIX.—p. 347.

CONCERNING THE GREAT HONOURS TO WHICH CERTAIN HORSES HAVE ATTAINED, 
AND THE ROYAL MERITS OF NOBS.

  _Siento para contarlas que me llama
   El á mi, yo á mi pluma, ella á la fama._

BALBUENA.


CHAPTER CC.—p. 355.

A CHAPTER OF KINGS.

   FIMBUL-FAMBI _heitr
   Sá er fatt kann segia,
   That er ósnotvrs athal._

  _Fimbul-fambi (fatuus) vocatur
   Qui pauca novit narrare:
   Ea est hominis insciti proprietas._

EDDA, _Háva Mál._


INTERCHAPTER XXI.—p. 372.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

           _Le Plebe è bestia
  Di cento teste, e non rinchiude in loro
  Pur oncia di saper._

CHIABRERA.


INTERCHAPTER XXII.—p. 378.

VARIETY OF STILES.

_Qualis vir, talis oratio._

ERASMI ADAGIA.


INTERCHAPTER XXIII.—p. 383.

A LITTLE ADVICE BESTOWED UPON THE SCORNFUL READER IN A SHORT 
INTERCHAPTER.

No man is so foolish, but may give another good counsel sometimes; and 
no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no other 
counsel but his own.

BEN JONSON.




THE DOCTOR, &c.




CHAPTER CLXXII.

DESCARTES' NOTION CONCERNING THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE. A SICILIAN 
PROPOSAL FOR BREEDING UP CHILDREN TO BE IMMORTAL. ASGILL'S ARGUMENT 
AGAINST THE NECESSITY OF DYING.

  O harmless Death! whom still the valiant brave,
    The wise expect, the sorrowful invite;
  And all the good embrace, who know the Grave
    A short dark passage to eternal light.

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.


Sir Kenelm Digby went to Holland for the purpose of conversing with 
Descartes, who was then living in retirement at Egmont. Speculative 
knowledge, Digby said to him, was no doubt a refined and agreeable 
pursuit, but it was too uncertain and too useless to be made a man's 
occupation, life being so short that one has scarcely time to acquire 
well the knowledge of necessary things. It would be far more worthy of 
a person like Descartes, he observed, who so well understood the 
construction of the human frame, if he would apply himself to discover 
means of prolonging its duration, rather than attach himself to the 
mere speculation of philosophy. Descartes made answer that this was a 
subject on which he had already meditated; that as for rendering man 
immortal, it was what he would not venture to promise, but that he was 
very sure he could prolong his life to the standard of the Patriarchs.

Saint-Evremond to whom Digby repeated this, says that this opinion of 
Descartes was well known both to his friends in Holland and in France. 
The Abbé Picot, his disciple and his martyr, was so fully persuaded of 
it that it was long before he would believe his master was dead, and 
when at length unwillingly convinced of what it was no longer possible 
to deny or doubt, he exclaimed, _que c'en étoit fait et que la fin du 
Genre humain alloit venir!_

A certain Sicilian physician who commented upon Galen was more 
cautious if not more modest than Descartes. He affirmed that it was 
certainly possible to render men immortal, but then they must be bred 
up from the earliest infancy with that view; and he undertook so to 
train and render them,—if they were fit subjects.—Poor children! if it 
had indeed been possible thus to divest them of their reversionary 
interest in Heaven.

A much better way of abolishing death was that which Asgill imagined, 
when he persuaded himself from Scripture that it is in our power to go 
to Heaven without any such unpleasant middle passage. Asgill's is the 
worst case of intolerance that has occurred in this country since 
persecution has ceased to affect life or member.

This remarkable man was born about the middle of the seventeenth 
century and bred to the Law in Lincoln's Inn under Mr. Eyre a very 
eminent lawyer of those days. In 1698 he published a treatise with 
this title—“Several assertions proved, in order to create another 
species of money than Gold and Silver,” and also an “Essay on a 
Registry for Titles of Lands.” Both subjects seem to denote that on 
these points he was considerably advanced beyond his age. But the 
whole strength of his mind was devoted to his profession, in which he 
had so completely trammelled and drilled his intellectual powers that 
he at length acquired a habit of looking at all subjects in a legal 
point of view. He could find flaws in an hereditary title to the 
crown. But it was not to seek flaws that he studied the Bible; he 
studied it to see whether he could not claim under the Old and New 
Testament something more than was considered to be his share. The 
result of this examination was that in the year 1700 he published “An 
Argument proving that according to the Covenant of Eternal Life 
revealed in the Scriptures Man may be translated from hence into that 
Eternal Life without passing through death, although the Human Nature 
of Christ himself could not be thus translated till he had passed 
through death.”

That, the old motto, (says he) worn upon tomb-stones, “Death is the 
Gate of Life,” is a lie, by which men decoy one another into death, 
taking it to be a thorough-fare into Eternal Life, whereas it is just 
so far out of the way. For die when we will, and be buried where we 
will, and lie in the grave as long as we will, we must all return from 
thence and stand again upon the Earth before we can ascend into the 
Heavens. “_Hinc itur ad astra._” He admitted that “this custom of the 
world to die hath gained such a prevalency over our minds by 
prepossessing us of the necessity of death, that it stands ready to 
swallow his argument whole without digesting it.” But the dominion of 
death, he said, is supported by our fear of it, by which it hath 
bullied the world to this day. Yet “the custom of the World to die is 
no argument one way or other;” however, because he knew that custom 
itself is admitted as an evidence of title, upon presumption that such 
custom had once a reasonable commencement and that this reason doth 
continue, it was incumbent upon him to answer this Custom by shewing 
the time and reason of its commencement and that the reason was 
determined.

“First then,” says he, “I do admit the custom or possession of Death 
over the world to be as followeth: that Death did reign from Adam to 
Moses by an uninterrupted possession over all men women and children, 
created or born, except one breach made upon it in that time by Enoch; 
and hath reigned from Moses unto this day by the like uninterrupted 
possession, except one other breach made upon it in this time by 
Elijah. And this is as strong a possession as can be alledged against 
me.

“The religion of the World now is that Man is born to die. But from 
the beginning it was not so, for Man was made to live. God made not 
Death till Man brought it upon himself by his delinquency. Adam stood 
as fair for Life as Death, and fairer too, because he was in the 
actual possession of Life,—as Tenant thereof at the Will of God, and 
had an opportunity to have made that title perpetual by the Tree of 
Life, which stood before him with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and 
Evil. And here 'tis observable how the same act of man is made the 
condition both of his life and death: ‘put forth thy hand and pull and 
eat and die,’ or ‘put forth thy hand and pull and eat and live for 
ever.’ 'Tis not to be conceived that there was any physical virtues in 
either of these Trees whereby to cause life or death; but God having 
sanctified them by those two different names, he was obliged to make 
good his own characters of them, by commanding the whole Creation to 
act in such a manner as that Man should feel the effects of this word, 
according to which of the Trees he first put forth his hand. And it is 
yet more strange, that man having life and death set before him at the 
same time and place, and both to be had upon the same condition, that 
he should single out his own death and leave the Tree of Life 
untouched. And what is further strange, even after his election of 
death he had an interval of time before his expulsion out of Paradise, 
to have retrieved his fate by putting forth his hand to the Tree of 
Life; and yet he omitted this too!

“But by all this it is manifest that as the form or person of man in 
his first creation was capable of eternal life without dying, so the 
fall of man which happened to him after his creation hath not disabled 
his person from that capacity of eternal life. And therefore durst Man 
even then have broken through the Cherubim and flaming sword, or could 
he now any way come at the Tree of Life, he must yet live for ever, 
notwithstanding his sin committed in Paradise and his expulsion out of 
it. But this Tree of Life now seems lost to Man; and so he remains 
under the curse of that other Tree, ‘in the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt die.’ Which sentence of the Law is the cause of the 
death of Man, and was the commencement of the Custom of Death in the 
World, and by the force of this Law Death has kept the possession 
(before admitted) to this day.

“By his act of delinquency and the sentence upon it, Adam stood 
attainted and became a dead man in law, though he was not executed 
till about nine hundred years afterwards.” Lawyer as Asgill was, and 
legally as he conducts his whole extraordinary argument, he yet offers 
a moral extenuation of Adam's offence. Eve after her eating and Adam 
before his eating, were, he says, in two different states, she in the 
state of Death, and he in the State of Life; and thereby his was much 
the harder case. For she by her very creation was so much a part of 
himself that he could not be happy while she was miserable. The loss 
of her happiness so much affected him by sympathy that all his other 
enjoyments could do him no good; and therefore since he thought it 
impossible for her to return into the same state with him, he chose, 
rather than be parted from her, to hazard himself in the same state 
with her. Asgill then resumes his legal view of the case: the offence 
he says was at last joint and several; the sentence fell upon Mankind 
as descendants from these our common ancestors, and so upon Christ 
himself. And this is the reason why in the genealogy of our Saviour as 
set down by two Evangelists his legal descent by Joseph is only 
counted upon, “because all legal descents are accounted from the 
father.” As he was born of a Virgin to preserve his nature from the 
defilement of humanity, so was he of a Virgin espoused to derive upon 
himself the curse of the Law by a legal father: for which purpose it 
was necessary that the birth of Christ should, in the terms of the 
Evangelist, be on this wise and no otherwise. And hence the Genealogy 
of Christ is a fundamental part of Eternal Life.

The reader will soon perceive that technically as Asgill treated his 
strange argument, he was sincerely and even religiously convinced of 
its importance and its truth. “Having shewn,” he proceeds, “how this 
Law fell upon Christ, it is next incumbent on me to shew that it is 
taken away by his death, and consequently that the long possession of 
Death over the World can be no longer a title against Life. But when I 
say this Law is taken away, I don't mean that the words of it are 
taken away; for they remain with us to this day and being matter of 
Record must remain for ever; but that it is satisfied by other matter 
of Record, by which the force of it is gone. Law satisfied is no Law, 
as a debt satisfied is no debt. Now the specific demand of the Law was 
Death; and of a man; and a man made under the Law. Christ qualified 
himself to be so: and as such suffered under it, thus undergoing the 
literal sentence. This he might have done and not have given the Law 
satisfaction, for millions of men before him had undergone it and yet 
the Law was nevertheless dissatisfied with them and others, but He 
declared _It is finished_ before he gave up the ghost. By the dignity 
of his person he gave that satisfaction which it was impossible for 
mankind to give.”

For the Law, he argues, was not such a civil contract that the breach 
of it could be satisfied; it was a Law of Honour, the breach whereof 
required personal satisfaction for the greatest affront and the 
highest act of ingratitude to God, inasmuch as the slighter the thing 
demanded is, the greater is the affront in refusing it. “Man by his 
very creation entered into the labours of the Creator and became Lord 
of the Universe which was adapted to his enjoyments. God left him in 
possession of it upon his parole of honour, only that he would 
acknowledge it to be held of Him, and as the token of this tenure that 
he would only forbear from eating of one tree, withal telling him that 
if he did eat of it, his life should go for it. If man had had more 
than his life to give, God would have had it of him. This was rather a 
resentment of the affront, than any satisfaction for it; and therefore 
to signify the height of this resentment God raises man from the dead 
to demand further satisfaction from him. Death is a commitment to the 
prison of the Grave till the Judgement of the Great Day; and then the 
grand Habeas Corpus will issue to the Earth and to the Sea, to give up 
their dead: to remove the Bodies, with the cause of their commitment.

“Yet was this a resentment without malice; for as God maintained his 
resentment under all his love, so He maintained his love under all his 
resentment. For his love being a love of kindness flowing from his own 
nature, could not be diminished by any act of man; and yet his honour 
being concerned to maintain the truth of his word, he could not 
falsify that to gratify his own affection. And thus he bore the 
passion of his own love, till he had found out a salvo for his honour 
by that Son of Man who gave him satisfaction at once by the dignity of 
his person. Personal satisfactions by the Laws of Honour are esteemed 
sufficient or not, according to the equality or inequality between the 
persons who give or take the affront. Therefore God to vindicate his 
honour was obliged to find out a person for this purpose equal to 
Himself: the invention of which is called the manifold wisdom of God, 
the invention itself being the highest expression of the deepest love, 
and the execution of it, in the death of Christ, the deepest 
resentment of the highest affront.

“Now inasmuch as the person of our Saviour was superior to the human 
nature, so much the satisfaction by his death surmounted the offence. 
He died under the Law but he did not arise under it, having taken it 
away by his death. The life regained by him in his resurrection was by 
Conquest, by which, according to all the Laws of Conquest, the Law of 
Death is taken away. For by the Laws of Conquest the Laws of the 
conquered are _ipso facto_ taken away, and all records and writings 
that remain of them are of no more force than waste paper. Hence the 
title of Christ to Eternal Life is become absolute,—by absolute”—says 
this theologo-jurist,—“I mean discharged from all tenure or condition, 
and consequently from all forfeiture. And as his title to life is thus 
become absolute by Conquest, so the direction of it is become eternal 
by being annexed to the Person of the Godhead: thus Christ ever since 
his resurrection did, and doth, stand seized of an absolute and 
indefeazable Estate of Eternal Life, without any tenure or condition 
or other matter or thing to change or determine it for ever.” “I had 
reason” says Asgill “thus to assert the title of Christ at large; 
because this is the title by and under which I am going to affirm my 
argument and to claim Eternal Life for myself and all the world.”

“And first I put it upon the Profession of Divinity to deny one word 
of the fact as I have repeated it. Next I challenge the Science of the 
Law to shew such another Title as this is. And then I defy the 
Logicians to deny my Argument: of which this is the abstract: That the 
Law delivered to Adam before the Fall is the original cause of Death 
in the World: That this Law is taken away by the Death of Christ: That 
therefore the legal power of death is gone. And I am so far from 
thinking this Covenant of Eternal Life to be an allusion to the forms 
of Title amongst men, that I rather adore it as the precedent for them 
all; believing with that great Apostle that the things on Earth are 
but the patterns of things in the Heavens where the Originals are 
kept.” This he says because he has before made it appear that in the 
Covenant of Eternal Life all things requisite to constitute a legal 
instrument are found, to wit, the date, the parties, the contents, and 
consideration, the sealing, and execution, the witnesses, and the 
Ceremony required of Man, whereby to execute it on his part and take 
the advantage of it.

By the sacrifice which our Lord offered of himself, this technical but 
sincere and serious enthusiast argues, more than an atonement was 
made. “And that this superabundancy might not run to waste, God 
declared that Man should have Eternal Life absolute as Christ himself 
had it; and hence Eternal Life is called the Gift of God through our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, over and above our redemption. Why 
then,” he asks, “doth Death remain in the World? Why because Man knows 
not the Way of Life—‘the way of Life they have not known.’ Because our 
faith is not yet come to us—‘when the Son of Man comes shall he find 
faith upon the earth?’ Because Man is a beast of burden that knows not 
his own strength in the virtue of the Death and the power of the 
Resurrection of Christ. Unbelief goes not by reason or dint of 
argument, but is a sort of melancholy madness, by which if we once 
fancy ourselves bound, it hath the same effect upon us as if we really 
were so. Death is like Satan, who appears to none but those who are 
afraid of him: Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. Because 
Death had once dominion over us, we think it hath and must have it 
still. And this I find within myself, that though I can't deny one 
word I have said in fact or argument, yet I can't maintain my belief 
of it without making it more familiar to my understanding, by turning 
it up and down in my thoughts and ruminating upon some proceedings 
already made upon it in the World.

“The Motto of the Religion of the World is _Mors Janua Vitæ_; if we 
mean by this the Death of Christ, we are in the right; but if we mean 
our own Death then we are in the wrong. Far be it from me to say that 
Man may not attain to Eternal Life, though he should die; for the Text 
runs double. ‘_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that liveth and 
believeth on me, shall never die; and though he were dead he shall 
live._’ This very Text shows that there is a nearer way of entering 
into Eternal Life than by the way of Death and Resurrection. Whatever 
circumstances a man is under at the time of his death, God is bound to 
make good this Text to him, according to which part of it he builds 
his faith upon; if he be dead there's a necessity for a resurrection; 
but if he be alive there's no occasion for Death or Resurrection 
either. This text doth not maintain two religions, but two articles of 
faith in the same religion, and the article of faith for a present 
life without dying is the higher of the two.

“No man can comprehend the heights and depths of the Gospel at his 
first entrance into it; and in point of order, ‘the last enemy to be 
destroyed is Death.’ The first essay of Faith is against Hell, that 
though we die we may not be damned; and the full assurance of this is 
more than most men attain to before Death overtakes them, which makes 
Death a terror to men. But they who attain it can sing a requiem ‘Lord 
now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace!’ and if God takes them 
at their word, they lie down in the faith of the Resurrection of the 
Just. But whenever he pleases to continue them, after that attainment, 
much longer above ground, that time seems to them an interval of 
perfect leisure, till at last espying Death itself, they fall upon it 
as an enemy that must be conquered, one time or other, through faith 
in Christ. This is the reason why it seems intended that a respite of 
time should be allotted to believers after the first Resurrection and 
before the dissolution of the World, for perfecting that faith which 
they began before their death but could not attain to in the first 
reach of life: for Death being but a discontinuance of Life, wherever 
men leave off at their death, they must begin at their resurrection. 
Nor shall they ascend after their resurrection, till they have 
attained to this faith of translation, and by that very faith they 
shall be then convinced that they need not have died.

“When Elijah courted death under the juniper tree in the wilderness, 
and ‘said—now Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my 
fathers,’ that request shews that he was not educated in this faith of 
translation, but attained it afterwards by study. Paul tells ‘we shall 
not all die but we shall all be changed;’ yet though he delivered this 
to be his faith in general, he did not attain to such a particular 
knowledge of the way and manner of it as to prevent his own death: he 
tells us he had not yet attained the Resurrection of the dead, but was 
pressing after it. He had but a late conversion, and was detained in 
the study of another part of divinity, the confirming the New 
Testament by the Old and making them answer one another,—a point 
previous to the faith of translation, and which must be learned before 
it—in order to it. But this his pressing (though he did not attain,) 
hath much encouraged me,” says Asgill, “to make this enquiry, being 
well assured that he would not have thus pursued it, had he not 
apprehended more in it than the vulgar opinion.

“We don't think ourselves fit to deal with one another in human 
affairs till our age of one and twenty. But to deal with our offended 
Maker, to counterplot the malice of fallen Angels, and to rescue 
ourselves from eternal ruin, we are generally as well qualified before 
we can speak plain, as all our life-time after. Children can say over 
their religion at four or five years old, and their parents that 
taught them can do no more at four or five and fifty. The common Creed 
of the Christian religion may be learned in an hour: and one days 
philosophy will teach a man to die. But to know the virtue of the 
Death and Power of the Resurrection of Christ, is a science calculated 
for the study of Men and Angels for ever.

“But if man may be thus changed without death, and that it is of no 
use to him in order to Eternal Life; what then is Death? Or, whereunto 
serveth it? What is it? Why 'tis a misfortune fallen upon man from the 
beginning, and from which he has not yet dared to attempt his 
recovery: and it serves as a Spectre to fright us into a little better 
life (perhaps) than we should lead without it. Though God hath formed 
this Covenant of Eternal Life, Men have made an agreement with Death 
and Hell, by way of composition to submit to Death, in hope of 
escaping Hell by that obedience; and under this allegiance we think 
ourselves bound never to rebel against it! The study of Philosophy is 
to teach men to die, from the observations of Nature; the profession 
of Divinity is to enforce the doctrine from Revelation: and the 
science of the Law is to settle our civil affairs pursuant to these 
resolutions. The old men are making their last Wills and Testaments; 
and the young are expecting the execution of them by the death of the 
testators; and thus

  _Mortis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis._

I was under this Law of Death once; and while I lay under it, I felt 
the terror of it, till I had delivered myself from it by those 
thoughts which must convince them that have them. And in this thing 
only, I wish, for their sakes, that all men were as I am. The reason 
why I believe that this doctrine is true, is, because God hath said 
it: yet I could not thus assert it by argument, if I did not conceive 
it with more self-conviction than I have from any maxims or positions 
in human science. The Covenant of Eternal Life is a Law of itself and 
a science of itself, which can never be known by the study of any 
other science. It is a science out of Man's way, being a pure 
invention of God. Man knows no more how to save himself than he did to 
create himself; but to raise his ambition for learning this, God 
graduates him upon his degree of knowledge in it, and gives him badges 
of honour as belonging to that degree, upon the attainment whereof a 
man gains the title of a Child of the Resurrection: to which title 
belongs this badge of honour, to die no more but make our exit by 
translation, as Christ, who was the first of this Order, did before 
us. And this world being the academy to educate Man for Heaven, none 
shall ever enter there till they have taken this degree here.

“Let the Dead bury the Dead! and the Dead lie with the Dead! And the 
rest of the Living go lie with them! I'll follow him that was dead, 
and is alive, and living for ever. And though I am now single, yet I 
believe that this belief will be general before the general change, of 
which Paul speaks, shall come; and that then, and not before, shall be 
the Resurrection of the Just, which is called the first Resurrection; 
and after that the Dead so arisen, with the Living, then alive, shall 
have learned this faith, which shall qualify them to be caught up 
together in the air, then shall be the General Resurrection, after 
which Time shall be no more.

“The beginning of this faith, like all other parts of the Kingdom of 
Heaven will be like a grain of mustard seed, spreading itself by 
degrees till it overshadow the whole earth. And since ‘the things 
concerning Him must have an end,’ in order to this they must have a 
beginning. But whoever leads the van will make the world start, and 
must expect for himself to walk up and down, like Cain, with a mark on 
his forehead, and run the gauntlet for an Ishmaelite, having every 
man's hand against him because his hand is against every man; than 
which nothing is more averse to my temper. This makes me think of 
publishing with as much regret as he that ran way from his errand when 
sent to Niniveh: but being just going to cross the water—(he was going 
to Ireland,—) I dared not leave this behind me undone, lest a Tempest 
send me back again to do it. And to shelter myself a little, (though I 
knew my speech would betray me) I left the Title page anonymous. Nor 
do I think that any thing would now extort my name from me but the 
dread of the sentence, ‘he that is ashamed of me and of my words, of 
him will I be ashamed before my Father and his Angels:’ for fear of 
which I dare not but subscribe my argument, though with a trembling 
hand; having felt two powers within me all the while I have been about 
it, one bids me write, and the other bobs my elbow. But since I have 
wrote this, as Pilate did his inscription, without consulting any one, 
I'll be absolute as he was; ‘what I have written, I have written.’

“Having pursued that command, ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God,’ I yet 
expect the performance of that promise, ‘to receive in this life an 
hundred fold, and in the world to come life everlasting.’ I have a 
great deal of business yet in this world, without doing of which 
Heaven itself would be uneasy to me: but when that is done I know no 
business I have with the dead, and therefore do depend that I shall 
not go hence by ‘returning to the dust,’ which is the sentence of that 
law from which I claim a discharge: but that I shall make my exit by 
way of translation, which I claim as a dignity belonging to that 
Degree in the Science of Eternal Life of which I profess myself a 
graduate. And if after this I die like other men, I declare myself to 
die of no religion. Let no one be concerned for me as a desperade: I 
am not going to renounce the other part of our religion, but to add 
another article of faith to it, without which I cannot understand the 
rest. And if it be possible to believe too much in God, I desire to be 
guilty of that sin.

“Behold ye despisers and wonder! Wonder to see Paradise lost, with the 
Tree of Life in the midst of it! Wonder and curse at Adam for an 
original fool, who in the length of one day never so much as thought 
to put forth his hand, for him and us, and pull and eat and live for 
ever! Wonder at and damn ourselves for fools of the last impression, 
that in the space of seventeen hundred years never so much as thought 
to put forth our hands, every one for himself, and seal and execute 
the Covenant of Eternal Life.

“To be even with the World at once, he that wonders at my faith, I 
wonder at his unbelief. The Blood of Christ hath an incident quality 
which cleaneth from sin; and he that understands this never makes any 
use of his own personal virtues as an argument for his own salvation, 
lest God should overbalance against him with his sins; nor doth God 
ever object a man's sins to him in the day of his faith; therefore 
till I am more sinful than He was holy, my sins are no objection 
against my faith. And because in Him is all my hope, I care not 
(almost) what I am myself.

“It is observed in the mathematics that the practice doth not always 
answer the theory; and that therefore there is no dependence upon the 
mere notions of it as they lie in the brain, without putting them 
together in the form of a tool or instrument, to see how all things 
fit. This made me distrust my own thoughts till I had put them 
together, to see how they would look in the form of an argument. But 
in doing this, I thank God I have found every joint and article to 
come into its own place and fall in with and suit one another to a 
hair's breadth, beyond my expectation: or else I could not have had 
the confidence to produce this as an engine in Divinity to convey man 
from Earth to Heaven. I am not making myself wings to fly to Heaven 
with, but only making myself ready for that conveyance which shall be 
sent me. And if I should lose myself in this untrodden path of Life, I 
can still find out the beaten Road of Death blindfold. If therefore, 
after this, ‘I go the way of my fathers’ I freely waive that haughty 
epitaph, _magnis tamen excidit ausis_, and instead knock under table 
that Satan hath beguiled me to play the fool with myself, in which 
however he hath shewed his masterpiece; for I defy the whole clan of 
Hell to produce another lye so like to truth as this is. But if I act 
my motto, and go the way of an Eagle in the air, then have I played a 
trump upon Death and shewn myself a match for the Devil.

“And while I am thus fighting with Death and Hell, it looks a little 
like foul play for Flesh and Blood to interpose themselves against me. 
But if any one hath spite enough to give me a polt, thinking to 
falsify my faith by taking away my life, I only desire them first to 
qualify themselves for my executioners, by taking this short test in 
their own consciences: whoever thinks that any thing herein contained 
is not fair dealing with God and Man, let him—or her—burn this book, 
and cast a stone at him that wrote it.”




CHAPTER CLXXIII.

MORE CONCERNING ASGILL. HIS DEFENCE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, HIS 
EXPULSION, FARTHER SPECULATIONS AND DEATH.

  Let not that ugly Skeleton appear!
  Sure Destiny mistakes; this Death's not mine!

DRYDEN.


The substance of Asgill's argument has been given in his own words, 
but by thus abstracting and condensing it his peculiar manner is lost. 
This though it consisted more perhaps in appearance than in reality, 
is characteristic of the author, and may be well exemplified in the 
concluding passage of one of his political pamphlets:

  “But I shall raise more choler by this way of writing,
   For writing and reading are in themselves commendable things,
   But 'tis the way of writing at which offence is taken,
   And this is the misfortune of an Author,
   That unless some are angry with him, none are pleased.
   Which puts him under this dilemma,
   That he must either ruin himself or his Printer.

“But to prevent either, as far as I can, I would rather turn Trimmer 
and compound too. And to end all quarrels with my readers (if they 
please to accept the proposal,

  And to shew withal that I am no dogmatical Author,)

I now say to them all, in print, what I once did to one of them, by 
word of mouth. Whoever meets with any thing in what I publish, which 
they don't like,

             _Let 'em strike it out._
  But to take off part of the Odium from me,
  They say others write like me,
  In short paragraphs:
  (An easy part of a mimick,)
  But with all my heart!
  I don't care who writes like me,
  So I do'nt write like them.”

Many a book has originated in the misfortunes of its Author. Want, 
imprisonment, and disablement by bodily infirmity from active 
occupation, have produced almost as many works in prose or rhyme, as 
leisure, voluntary exertion, and strong desire. Asgill's harmless 
heresy began in an involuntary confinement to which he was reduced in 
consequence of an unsuccessful speculation; he had engaged in this 
adventure (by which better word our forefathers designated what the 
Americans call a _spec_,) with the hope of increasing his fortune, 
instead of which he incurred so great a loss that he found it 
necessary to keep his chamber in the Temple for some years. There he 
fell to examining that “Book of Law and Gospel,” both which we call 
the Bible; and examining it as he would have perused an old deed with 
the hope of discovering in it some clause upon which to ground a claim 
at law, this thought, he says, first came into his head; but it was a 
great while coming out. He was afraid of his own thoughts, lest they 
were his own only, and as such a delusion. And when he had tried them 
with pen, ink and paper, and they seemed to him plainer and plainer 
every time he went over them, and he had formed them into an Argument, 
“to see how they would bear upon the proof,” even then he had no 
intention of making them public.

“But writing an ill hand,” says he, “I resolved to see how it would 
look in print. On this I gave the Printer my Copy, with money for his 
own labour, to print off some few for myself, and keep the press 
secret. But I remember before he got half way through, he told me his 
men fancied I was a little crazed, in which I also fancied he spoke 
one word for them and two for himself. However I bid him go on; and at 
last it had so raised his fancy that he desired my leave to print off 
one edition at the risque of his own charge, saying he thought some of 
the Anabaptists would believe it first. I being just then going for 
Ireland, admitted him, with this injunction, he should not publish 
them 'till I was got clear out of Middlesex; which I believe he might 
observe; though by what I heard afterwards, they were all about town 
by that time I got to St. Albans: and the book was in Ireland almost 
as soon as I was, (for a man's works will follow him,) with a noise 
after me that I was gone away mad.”

Asgill was told in Ireland that the cry which followed him would 
prevent his practice; it had a contrary effect, for “people went into 
Court to see him as a Monster and heard him talk like a man.” In the 
course of two years he gained enough by his profession to purchase 
Lord Kenmure's forfeited estate, and to procure a seat in the Irish 
House of Commons. The purchase made him enemies; as he was on the way 
to Dublin he met the news that his book had been burnt by Order of the 
House. He proceeded however, took the oaths and his seat, and the Book 
having been condemned and executed without hearing the author in its 
defence, nothing more was necessary than to prove him the Author and 
expel him forthwith, and this was done in the course of four days. 
After this he returned to England and obtained a seat for Bramber, 
apparently for the mere sake of securing himself against his 
creditors. This borough he represented for two years; but in the first 
Parliament after the Union some of the Scotch Members are said to have 
looked upon it as a disgrace to the House of Commons that a man who 
enjoyed his liberty only under privilege should sit there, and instead 
of attempting to remedy a scandal by straight forward means, they took 
the easier course of moving for a Committee to examine his book. Their 
report was that it was profane and blasphemous, highly reflecting upon 
the Christian Religion. He was allowed however to make his defence, 
which he thus began.

“Mr. Speaker, this day calls me to something I am both unapt and 
averse to—Preaching. For though, as you see, I have vented some of my 
thoughts in religion, yet I appeal to my conversation, whether I use 
to make that the subject of my discourse. However that I may not let 
this accusation go against me by a _Nihil dicit_, I stand up to make 
my defence. I have heard it from without doors that I intended to 
withdraw myself from this day's test and be gone; which would have 
given them that said it an opportunity to boast that they had once 
spoken truth. But _quo me fata trahunt_, I'll give no man occasion to 
write _fugam fecit_ upon my grave-stone.”

He then gave the history of his book and of his expulsion in Ireland, 
and thanked the House for admitting him to a defence before they 
proceeded to judgement. “I find,” said he, “the Report of the 
Committee is not levelled at the argument itself which I have 
advanced, nor yet against the treatise I have published to prove it, 
but against some expressions in that proof, and which I intend to give 
particular answers to. But there is something else laid to my charge 
as my design in publishing that argument, of higher concern to me than 
any expressions in the treatise, or any censure that can fall on me 
for it; as if I had wrote it with a malicious intention to expose the 
scriptures as false, because they seemed to contain what I asserted; 
and that therefore if that assertion did not hold true, the Scripture 
must be false. Now whether this was my intention or no, there is but 
one Witness in Heaven or Earth can prove, and that is He that made me, 
and in whose presence I now stand, and Who is able to strike me dead 
in my place; and to Him I now appeal for the truth of what I protest 
against: that I never did write or publish that argument with any 
intention to expose the Scriptures; but on the contrary, (though I was 
aware that I might be liable to that censure, which I knew not how to 
avoid) I did both write and publish it, under a firm belief of the 
truth of the Scriptures: and with a belief, (under that) that what I 
have asserted in that argument is within that truth. And if it be not, 
then I am mistaken in my argument and the Scripture remains true. Let 
God be true and every man a lyar. And having made this protestation, I 
am not much concerned whether I am believed in it or not; I had rather 
tell a truth than be believed in a lie at any time.”

He then justified the particular passage which had been selected for 
condemnation, resting his defence upon this ground, that he had used 
familiar expressions with the intent of being sooner read and more 
readily understood. There was indeed but a single word which savoured 
of irreverence, and certainly no irreverence was intended in its use: 
no one who fairly perused his argument but must have perceived that 
the levity of his manner in no degree detracted from the seriousness 
of his belief. “Yet,” said he, “if by any of those expressions I have 
really given offence to any well-meaning Christian, I am sorry for it, 
though I had no ill intention in it: but if any man be captious to 
take exceptions for exception sake, I am not concerned. I esteem my 
own case plain and short. I was expelled one House for having too much 
land; and I am going to be expelled another for having too little 
money. But if I may yet ask one question more; pray what is this 
blasphemous crime I here stand charged with? A belief of what we all 
profess, or at least what no one can deny. If the death of the body be 
included in the Fall, why is not the life of the body included in the 
Resurrection? And what if I have a firmer belief of this than some 
others have? Am I therefore a blasphemer? Or would they that believe 
less take it well of me to call them so. Our Saviour in his day took 
notice of some of little faith and some of great faith, without 
stigmatizing either of them with blasphemy for it. But I do not know 
how 'tis, we are fallen into such a sort of uniformity that we would 
fain have Religion into a Tyrant's bed, torturing one another into our 
own size of it only. But it grows late, and I ask but one saying more 
to take leave of my friends with. I do believe that had I turned this 
Defence into a Recantation, I had prevented my Expulsion: but I have 
reserved my last words as my ultimate reason against that Recantation. 
He that durst write that book, dares not deny it!”

“And what then?” said this eccentric writer, when five years 
afterwards he published his Defence. “Why then they called for 
candles; and I went away by the light of 'em: and after the previous 
question and other usual ceremonies, (as I suppose) I was expelled the 
House. And from thence I retired to a Chamber I once had in the 
Temple; and from thence I afterwards surrendered myself in discharge 
of my bail, and have since continued under confinement. And under that 
confinement God hath been pleased to take away, ‘the Desire of mine 
Eyes with a stroke,’ which hath however drowned all my other troubles 
at once; for the less are merged in the greater;

  _Qui venit hic fluctus, fluctus supereminet omnes._

And since I have mentioned her, I'll relate this of her. She having 
been educated a Protestant of the Church of England, by a Lady her 
Grandmother, her immediate parents and other relations being Roman 
Catholics, an honest Gentleman of the Romish persuasion, who knew her 
family, presented her, while she was my fellow-prisoner, with a large 
folio volume, being the history of the Saints canonized in that 
Church, for her reading; with intention, as I found, to incline her 
that way. With which, delighting in reading, she entertained herself 
'till she shad gone through it; and some time after that she told me 
that she had before some thoughts towards that religion, but that the 
reading that history had confirmed her against it.

“And yet she would never read the book I was expelled for 'till after 
my last expulsion; but then reading it through, told me she was 
reconciled to the reasons of it, though she could not say she believed 
it. However she said something of her own thoughts with it, that hath 
given me the satisfaction that she is ‘dead in Christ,’ and thereby 
sure of her part in the first Resurrection: the Dead in Christ shall 
arise first. And this _pars decessa mei_ leaving me half dead while 
she remains in the grave, hath since drawn me, in diving after her, 
into a nearer view and more familiar though more unusual thoughts of 
that first Resurrection than ever I had before. From whence I now find 
that nothing less than this _fluctus decumanus_ would have cast me 
upon, or qualified me for, this theme, if yet I am so qualified. And 
from hence I am advancing that common Article in our Creed, the 
Resurrection of the Dead, into a professed study; from the result of 
which study I have already advanced an assertion, which (should I vent 
alone) perhaps would find no better quarter in the world than what I 
have advanced already. And yet, though I say it that perhaps should 
not, it hath one quality we are all fond of,—it is News; and another 
we all should be fond of, it is good News: or at least, good to them 
that are so, ‘for to the froward all things are froward.’

“Having made this Discovery, or rather collected it from the Word of 
Life; I am advancing it into a Treatise whereby to prove it in special 
form, not by arguments of wit or sophistry, but from the evidence and 
demonstration of the truth as it is in Jesus: which should I 
accomplish I would not be prevented from publishing that edition to 
gain more than I lost by my former; nor for more than Balak ever 
intended to give, or than Balaam could expect to receive, for cursing 
the people of Israel, if God had not spoilt that bargain. I find it as 
old as the New Testament, ‘if by any means I may attain the 
Resurrection of the Dead.’ And though Paul did not then so attain, 
(not as if I had already attained,) yet he died in his calling, and 
will stand so much nearer that mark at his Resurrection. But if Paul, 
with that effusion of the Spirit upon him in common with the other 
Apostles, and that superabundant revelation given him above them all, 
by that rapture unto things unutterable, did not so attain in that his 
day; whence should I a mere Lay, (and that none of the best neither) 
without any function upon me, expect to perfect what he left so 
undone?—In pursuit of this study I have found, (what I had not before 
observed) that there are some means since left us towards this 
attainment, which Paul had not in his day; for there now remain extant 
unto the world, bound up with that now one entire record of the Bible, 
two famous Records of the Resurrection that never came to Paul's 
hands; and for want whereof, perhaps, he might not then so attain. But 
having now this intelligence of them, and fearing that in the day of 
Account I may have a special surcharge made upon me for these 
additional Talents and further Revelations; and bearing in mind the 
dreadful fate of that cautious insuring servant who took so much care 
to redeliver what he had received _in statu quo_ as he had it that it 
might not be said to be the worse for his keeping, I have rather 
adventured to defile those Sacred Records with my own study and 
thoughts upon them, than to think of returning them wrapt up in a 
napkin clean and untouched.

“Whether ever I shall accomplish to my own satisfaction what I am now 
so engaged in, I do not yet know; but 'till I do, I'll please myself 
to be laughed at by this cautious insuring world, as tainted with a 
frenzy of dealing in Reversions of Contingencies. However in the mean 
time I would not be thought to be spending this interval of my days by 
myself in beating the air, under a dry expectancy only of a thing so 
seemingly remote as the Resurrection of the Dead: like 
Courtiers-Extraordinary fretting out their soles with attendances in 
ante-rooms for things or places no more intended to be given them than 
perhaps they are fit to have them. For though I should fall short of 
the attainment I am attempting, the attempt itself hath translated my 
Prison into a Paradise; treating me with food and enamouring me with 
pleasures that man knows not of: from whence, I hope, I may without 
vanity say,

  _Deus nobis hæc otia fecit._”

What the farther reversion might be to which Asgill fancied he had 
discovered a title in the Gospels, is not known. Perhaps he failed in 
satisfying himself when he attempted to arrange his notions in logical 
and legal form, and possibly that failure may have weakened his 
persuasion of the former heresy: for though he lived twenty years 
after the publication of his Defence and the announcement of this 
second discovery in the Scriptures, the promised argument never 
appeared. His subsequent writings consist of a few pamphlets in favour 
of the Hanoverian succession. They were too inconsiderable to 
contribute much towards eking out his means of support, for which he 
was probably chiefly indebted to his professional knowledge. The 
remainder of his life was past within the Rules of the King's Bench 
Prison, where he died in 1738 at a very advanced age, retaining his 
vivacity and his remarkable powers of conversation to the last. If it 
be true that he nearly attained the age of an hundred (as one 
statement represents) and with these happy faculties unimpaired, he 
may have been tempted to imagine that he was giving the best and only 
convincing proof of his own argument. Death undeceived him, and Time 
has done him justice at last. For though it stands recorded that he 
was expelled the House of Commons as being the Author of a Book in 
which are contained many profane and blasphemous expressions, highly 
reflecting upon the Christian Religion! nothing can be more certain 
than that this censure was undeserved, and that his expulsion upon 
that ground was as indefensible as it would have been becoming, if, in 
pursuance of the real motives by which the House was actuated, an Act 
had been past disqualifying from that time forward any person in a 
state of insolvency from taking or retaining a seat there.

In the year 1760 I find him mentioned as “the celebrated gentleman 
commonly called ‘translated Asgill.’” His name is now seen only in 
catalogues, and his history known only to the curious:—“_Mais, c'est 
assez parlé de luy, et encore trop, ce diront aucuns, qui pourront 
m'en blasmer, et dire que j'estois bien de loisir quand j'escrivis 
cecy; mais ils seront bien plus de loisir de la lire, pour me 
reprendre._”[1]

[Footnote 1: BRANTOME.]




CHAPTER CLXXIV.

THE DOCTOR INDULGES IN THE WAY OF FANTASTIC AND TYPICAL SPECULATION ON 
HIS OWN NAME, AND ON THE POWERS OF THE LETTER D., WHETHER AS REGARDS 
DEGREES AND DISTINCTIONS, GODS AND DEMIGODS, PRINCES AND KINGS, 
PHILOSOPHERS, GENERALS OR TRAVELLERS.

My mouth's no dictionary; it only serves as the needful interpreter of 
my heart.

QUARLES.


There were few things in the way of fantastic and typical speculation 
which delighted the Doctor so much as the contemplation of his own 
name:

  DANIEL DOVE.

D. D. it was upon his linen and his seal. D. D. he used to say, 
designated the highest degree in the highest of the sciences, and he 
was D. D. not by the forms of a University, but by Nature or Destiny.

Besides, he maintained, that the letter D was the richest, the most 
powerful, the most fortunate letter in the alphabet, and contained in 
its form and origin more mysteries than any other.

It was a potential letter under which all powerful things were 
arranged; Dictators, Despots, Dynasties, Diplomas, Doctors, 
Dominations; Deeds and Donations and Decrees; Dioptrics and Dynamics; 
Dialectics and Demonstrations.

Diaphragm, Diathesis, Diet, Digestion, Disorder, Disease, Diagnosis; 
Diabrosis, Diaphragmatis, Diaphthora, Desudation, Defluxions, 
Dejection, Delirium, Delivery, Dyspepsy, Dysmenorrhœa, Dysorœxia, 
Dyspnœa, Dysuria, Dentition, Dropsy, Diabetes, Diarrhœa, Dysentery; 
then passing almost in unconscious but beautiful order from diseases 
to remedies and their consequences, he proceeded with Dispensation, 
Diluents, Discutients, Deobstruents, Demulcents, Detergents, 
Desiccatives, Depurantia, Diaphoretics, Dietetics, Diachylon, 
Diacodium, Diagrydium, Deligations, Decoctions, Doses, Draughts, 
Drops, Dressings, Drastics, Dissolution, Dissection. What indeed he 
would say, should we do in our profession without the Ds?

Or what would the Divines do without it—Danger, Despair, Death, Devil, 
Doomsday, Damnation; look to the brighter side, there is the Doxology, 
and you ascend to _Διὸς_, and Deus and Deity.

What would become of the farmer without Dung, or of the Musician 
without the Diapason? Think also of Duets in music and Doublets at 
Backgammon. And the soldier's toast in the old Play, “the two Ds Drink 
and your Duty.”[1]

[Footnote 1: Shirley, Honoria and Mammon.]

Look at the moral evils which are ranged under its banners, 
Dissentions, Discord, Duels, Dissimulation, Deceit, Dissipation, 
Demands, Debts, Damages, Divorce, Distress, Drunkenness, 
Dram-drinking, Distraction, Destruction.

When the Poet would describe things mournful and calamitous, whither 
doth he go for epithets of alliterative significance? where but to the 
letter D? there he hath Dim, Dusky, Drear, Dark, Damp, Dank, Dismal, 
Doleful, Dolorous, Disastrous, Dreadful, Desperate, Deplorable.

Would we sum up the virtues and praise of a perfect Woman, how should 
we do it but by saying that she was devout in religion, decorous in 
conduct, domestic in habits, dextrous in business, dutiful as a wife, 
diligent as a mother, discreet as a mistress, in manner debonnaire, in 
mind delicate, in person delicious, in disposition docile, in all 
things delightful. Then he would smile at Mrs. Dove and say, I love my 
love with a D. and her name is Deborah.

For degrees and distinctions, omitting those which have before been 
incidentally enumerated, are there not Dauphin and Dey, Dux, Duke, 
Doge. Dominus, with its derivatives Don, the Dom of the French and 
Portugueze, and the Dan of our own early language; Dame, Damsel, and 
Damoisel in the untranslated masculine. Deacons and Deans, those of 
the Christian Church, and of Madagascar whose title the French write 
Dian, and we should write Deen not to confound them with the 
dignitaries of our Establishment. Druids and Dervises, Dryads, 
Demigods and Divinities.

Regard the Mappa Mundi. You have Denmark and Dalecarlia, Dalmatia and 
the fertile Delta, Damascus, Delos, Delphi and Dodona, the Isles of 
Domingo and Dominica, Dublin and Durham and Dorchester and Dumfries, 
the shires of Devon, Dorset and Derby and the adjoining Bishoprick. 
Dantzic and Drontheim, the Dutchy of Deux Ponts; Delhi the seat of the 
Great Mogul, and that great city yet unspoiled, which

            Geryon's sons
  Call El Dorado,—

the Lakes Dembea and Derwentwater, the rivers Dwina, Danube and 
Delawar, Duero or Douro call it which you will, the Doubs and all the 
Dons, and our own wizard Dee,—which may be said to belong wholly to 
this letter, the vowels being rather for appearance than use.

Think also, he would say of the worthies, heroes and sages in D. 
David, and his namesake of Wales. Diogenes, Dædalus, Diomede, and 
Queen Dido, Decebalus the Dacian King, Deucalion, Datames the Carian 
whom Nepos hath immortalized, and Marshal Daun who so often kept the 
King of Prussia in check, and sometimes defeated him. Nay if I speak 
of men eminent for the rank which they held, or for their exploits in 
war, might I not name the Kings of Persia who bore the name of Darius, 
Demaratus of Sparta, whom the author of Leonidas hath well pourtrayed 
as retaining in exile a reverential feeling toward the country which 
had wronged him: and Deodatus, a name assumed by, or given to Lewis 
the 14th, the greatest actor of greatness that ever existed. Dion who 
lives for ever in the page of Plutarch; the Demetrii, the Roman Decii, 
Diocletian, and Devereux Earl of Essex, he by whom Cadiz was taken, 
and whose execution occasioned the death of the repentant Elizabeth by 
whom it was decreed. If of those who have triumphed upon the ocean 
shall we not find Dragat the far-famed corsair, and our own more 
famous and more dreadful Drake. Dandolo the Doge who at the age of  
[2] triumphed over the perfidious Greeks, and was first chosen by the 
victorious Latins to be the Emperor of Constantinople: Doria of whom 
the Genoese still boast. Davis who has left his name so near the 
Arctic Pole. Dampier of all travellers the most observant and most 
faithful.[3] Diaz who first attained that Stormy Cape, to which from 
his time the happier name of Good Hope hath been given; and Van Diemen 
the Dutchman. If we look to the learned, are there not Duns Scotus and 
Descartes. Madame Dacier and her husband. Damo the not-degenerate 
daughter of Pythagoras, and though a woman renowned for secrecy and 
silence; Dante and Davila, Dugdale and Dupin; Demosthenes, Doctor Dee, 
(he also like the wizard stream all our own) and Bishop Duppa to whom 
the _Εικὼν Βασιλικὴ_ whether truly or not, hath been ascribed: Sir 
Kenelm Digby by whom it hath been proved that Dogs make syllogisms; 
and Daniel Defoe. Here the Doctor always pronounced the christian name 
with peculiar emphasis, and here I think it necessary to stop, that 
the Reader may take breath.

[Footnote 2: The blank is in the original MS. Quære, _ninety-five_?]

[Footnote 3: “One of the most faithful, as well as exact and excellent 
of all voyage writers.” _Vindiciæ Eccl. Angl._ p. 115. Unhappily 
Southey's wish to continue this work was not responded to. The 
continuation would have proved invaluable now; for who, so well as he, 
knew the wiles of the Romish Church, and the subtilties of the 
Jesuit?]




CHAPTER CLXXV.

THE DOCTOR FOLLOWS UP HIS MEDITATIONS ON THE LETTER D. AND EXPECTS 
THAT THE READER WILL BE CONVINCED THAT IT IS A DYNAMIC LETTER, AND 
THAT THE HEBREWS DID NOT WITHOUT REASON CALL IT DALETH—THE DOOR—AS 
THOUGH IT WERE THE DOOR OF SPEECH.—THE MYSTIC TRIANGLE.

More authority dear boy, name more; and sweet my child let them be men 
of good repute and carriage.—

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.


The Doctor as I have said in the last Chapter pronounced with peculiar 
emphasis the christian name of Daniel Defoe. Then taking up the 
auspicious word.—Is there not Daniel the prophet, in honour of whom my 
baptismal name was given, Daniel if not the greatest of the prophets, 
yet for the matter of his prophecies the most important. Daniel the 
French historian, and Daniel the English poet; who reminds me of other 
poets in D not less eminent. Donne, Dodsley, Drayton, Drummond, 
Douglas the Bishop of Dunkeld, Dunbar, Denham, Davenant, Dyer, Durfey, 
Dryden, and Stephen Duck; Democritus the wise Abderite, whom I 
especially honour for finding matter of jest even in the profoundest 
thought, extracting mirth from philosophy, and joining in delightful 
matrimony wit with wisdom. Is there not Dollond the Optician. 
Dalembert and Diderot among those Encyclopedists with whose renown

  all Europe rings from side to side,

Derham the Astro-Physico—and Christo—Theologian, Dillenius the 
botanist, Dion who for his eloquence was called the golden-mouthed; 
Diagoras who boldly despising the false Gods of Greece, blindly and 
audaciously denied the God of Nature. Diocles who invented the 
cissoid, Deodati, Diodorus, and Dion Cassius. Thus rich was the letter 
D even before the birth of Sir Humphrey Davy, and the catastrophe of 
Doctor Dodd: before Daniel Mendoza triumphed over Humphreys in the 
ring, and before Dionysius Lardner, Professor at the St —— 'niversity 
of London, projected the Cabinet Cyclopædia, Daniel O'Connell fought 
Mr. Peel, triumphed over the Duke of Wellington, bullied the British 
Government, and changed the British Constitution.

If we look to the fine arts, he pursued, the names of Douw, and Durer, 
Dolce and Dominichino instantly occur. In my own profession, among the 
ancients, Dioscorides; among the moderns Dippel, whose marvellous oil 
is not more exquisitely curious in preparation than powerful in its 
use; Dover of the powder; Dalby of the Carminative; Daffy of the 
Elixir; Deventer by whom the important art of bringing men into the 
world has been so greatly improved; Douglas who has rendered lithotomy 
so beautiful an operation, that he asserteth in his motto it may be 
done speedily, safely, and pleasantly; Dessault now rising into fame 
among the Continental surgeons, and Dimsdale who is extending the 
blessings of inoculation. Of persons eminent for virtue or sanctity, 
who ever in friendship exceeded Damon the friend of Pythias? Is there 
not St. John Damascenus, Dr. Doddridge, Deborah the Nurse of Rebekah, 
who was buried beneath Beth-el under an Oak, which was called 
Allon-bachuth, the Oak of Weeping, and Deborah the wife of Lapidoth, 
who dwelt under her palm-trees between Ramah and Beth-el in Mount 
Ephraim, where the children of Israel came up to her for judgment, for 
she was a mother in Israel; Demas for whom St. Paul greets the 
Colossians, and whom he calleth his fellow labourer; and Dorcas which 
being interpreted is in Hebrew Tabitha and in English Doe, who was 
full of good works and alms-deeds, whom therefore Peter raised from 
the dead, and whom the Greeks might indeed truly have placed among the 
_Δευτερόποτμοι_; Daniel already named, but never to be remembered too 
often, and Dan the father of his tribe. Grave writers there are, the 
Doctor would say, who hesitate not to affirm that Dan was the first 
King of Denmark more properly called Danmark from his name, and that 
he instituted there the military order of Dannebrog. With the 
pretensions of these Danish Antiquaries he pursued, I meddle not. 
There is surer authority for the merits of this my first namesake. 
“Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall 
be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's 
heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.” Daniel quoth the 
Doctor, is commonly abbreviated into Dan, from whence doubtless it 
taketh its root; and the Daniel therefore who is not wise as a 
serpent, falsifieth the promise of the patriarch Jacob.

That this should have been the Dan who founded the kingdom of Denmark 
he deemed an idle fancy. King Dans in that country however there have 
been, and among them was King Dan called Mykelati or the Magnificent, 
with whom the Bruna Olld, or age of Combustion, ended in the North, 
and the Hougs Olld or age of barrows began, for he it was who 
introduced the custom of interment. But he considered it as indeed an 
honour to the name, that Death should have been called _Δάνος_ by the 
Macedonians, not as a dialectic or provincial form of _Θάνατος_ but 
from the Hebrew Dan, which signifies, says Jeremy Taylor, a Judge, as 
intimating that Judges are appointed to give sentence upon criminals 
in life and death.

Even if we look at the black side of the shield we still find that the 
D preserves its power: there is Dathan, who with Korah and Abiram went 
down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them; Dalila by 
whom Sampson was betrayed; Dionysius the acoustical tyrant; Domitian 
who like a true vice-gerent of Beelzebub tormented flies as well as 
men; Decius the fiercest of the persecutors; the inhuman Dunstan, and 
the devilish Dominic, after whom it seems all but an anticlimax to 
name the _ipsissimus_ Diabolus, the Devil himself. And here let us 
remark through how many languages the name of the author of evil 
retains its characteristic initial, _Διάβολος_, Diabolus, Diavolo, 
Diablo, Diabo, Diable, in Dutch Duival, in Welsh Diawl, and though the 
Germans write him Teufel, it is because in their coarser articulation 
the D passes into the cognate sound of T, without offending their 
obtuser organs of hearing. Even in the appellations given him by 
familiar or vulgar irreverence, the same pregnant initial prevails, he 
is the Deuce, and Old Davy and Davy Jones. And it may be noted that in 
the various systems of false religion to which he hath given birth, 
the Delta is still a dominant inchoative. Witness Dagon of the 
Philistines, witness the Daggial of the Mahommedans, and the forgotten 
root from whence the _Διὸς_ of the Greeks is derived. Why should I 
mention the Roman Diespiter, the Syrian Dirceto, Delius with his 
sister Delia, known also as Dictynna and the great Diana of the 
Ephesians. The Sicyonian Dia, Dione of whom Venus was born, Deiphobe 
the Cumæan Sybil who conducted Æneas in his descent to the infernal 
regions. Doris the mother of the Nereids, and Dorus father of the race 
of Pygmies. Why should I name the Dioscuri, Dice and Dionysus, the 
Earth, Mother Demeter, the Demiourgos, gloomy Dis, Demogorgon dread 
and Daphne whom the Gods converted into a Laurel to decorate the brows 
of Heroes and Poets.

Truly he would say it may be called a dynamic letter; and not without 
mystery did the Hebrews call it Daleth, the door, as though it were 
the door of speech. Then its form! how full of mysteries! The wise 
Egyptians represented it by three stars disposed in a triangle: it was 
their hieroglyphic of the Deity. In Greek it is the Delta.

  Δ

In this form were the stupendous Pyramids built, when the sage 
Egyptians are thought to have emblematised the soul of man, which the 
divine Plato supposed to be of this shape. This is the mysterious 
triangle, which the Pythagoreans called Pallas, because they said it 
sprang from the brain of Jupiter, and Tritogeneia, because if three 
right lines were drawn from its angles to meet in the centre, a triple 
birth of triangles was produced, each equal to the other.

[Figure: a tetrahedron]

I pass reverently the diviner mysteries which have been illustrated 
from hence, and may perhaps be typified herein. Nor will I do more 
than touch upon the mechanical powers which we derive from a knowledge 
of the properties of the figures, and upon the science of 
Trigonometry. In its Roman and more familiar form, the Letter hath 
also sublime resemblances or prototypes. The Rainbow resting upon the 
earth describes its form. Yea, the Sky and the Earth represent a grand 
and immeasurable D; for when you stand upon a boundless plain, the 
space behind you and before in infinite longitude is the straight 
line, and the circle of the firmament which bends from infinite 
altitude to meet it, forms the bow.

For himself, he said, it was a never failing source of satisfaction 
when he reflected how richly his own destiny was endowed with Ds. The 
D was the star of his ascendant. There was in the accident of his 
life,—and he desired it to be understood as using the word accident in 
its scholastic acceptations,—a concatenation, a concentration. Yea he 
might venture to call it a constellation of Ds. Dove he was born; 
Daniel he was baptized; Daniel was the name of his father; Dinah of 
his mother, Deborah of his wife; Doctor was his title, Doncaster his 
dwelling place; in the year of his marriage, which next to that of his 
birth was the most important of his life, D was the Dominical letter; 
and in the amorous and pastoral strains wherein he had made his 
passion known in the magazines, he had called himself Damon and his 
mistress Delia.




CHAPTER CLXXVI.

THE DOCTOR DISCOVERS THE ANTIQUITY OF THE NAME OF DOVE FROM PERUSING 
JACOB BRYANT'S ANALYSIS OF ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY.—CHRISTOPHER AND 
FERDINAND COLUMBUS.—SOMETHING ABOUT PIGEON-PIE, AND THE REASON WHY THE 
DOCTOR WAS INCLINED TO THINK FAVOURABLY OF THE SAMARITANS.

An I take the humour of a thing once, I am like your tailor's needle; 
I go through.

BEN JONSON.


Dove also was a name which abounded with mystical significations, and 
which derived peculiar significance from its mysterious conjunction 
with Daniel. Had it not been said “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless 
as Doves?” To him the text was personally applicable in both parts. 
Dove he was by birth. Daniel by baptism or the second birth, and 
Daniel was Dan, and Dan shall be a serpent by the way.

But who can express his delight when in perusing Jacob Bryant's 
Analysis of ancient Mythology, he found that so many of the most 
illustrious personages of antiquity proved to be Doves, when their 
names were truly interpreted or properly understood! That erudite 
interpreter of hidden things taught him that the name of the Dove was 
Iön and Iönah, whence in immediate descent the Oän and Oannes of 
Berosus and Abydenus, and in longer but lineal deduction Æneas, 
Hannes, Hanno, Ionah, _Ιοάννης_, Johannes, Janus, Eanus among the 
elder Romans, Giovanni among the later Italians, Juan, Joam, Jean, 
John, Jan, Iwain, Ivan, Ewan, Owen, Evan, Hans, Ann, Hannah, Nannette, 
Jane, Jeannette, Jeanne, Joanna and Joan; all who had ever borne these 
names, or any name derived from the same radical, as doubtless many 
there were in those languages of which he had no knowledge, nor any 
means of acquiring it, being virtually Doves. Did not Bryant expressly 
say that the prophet Jonah was probably so named as a messenger of the 
Deity, the mystic Dove having been from the days of Jonah regarded as 
a sacred symbol among all nations where any remembrance of the 
destruction and renovation of mankind was preserved! It followed 
therefore that the prophet Jonah, Hannibal, St. John, Owen Glendower, 
Joan of Arc, Queen Anne, Miss Hannah More, and Sir Watkin Williams 
Wynn, were all of them his namesakes, to pretermit or pass over Pope 
Joan, Little John, and Jack the Giantkiller. And this followed, not 
like the derivation of King Pepin from _Ὅσπερ_, by a jump in the 
process, such as that from _διάπερ_ to napkin; nor like the equally 
well known identification of a Pigeon with an Eel Pye, in the logic of 
which the Doctor would have detected a fallacy, but in lawful 
etymology, and according to the strict interpretation of words. If he 
looked for the names through the thinner disguise of language there 
was Semiramis who having been fed by Doves, was named after them. What 
was Zurita the greatest historian of Arragon, but a young stock Dove? 
What were the three Palominos so properly enumerated in the 
Bibliotheca of Nicolas Antonio. Pedro the Benedictine in whose sermons 
a more than ordinary breathing of the spirit might not unreasonably be 
expected from his name; Francisco who translated into Castillian the 
Psychomachia of the Christian poet Aurelius Prudentius, and Diego the 
Prior of Xodar, whose _Liber de mutatione aeris, in quo assidua, et 
mirabilis mutationis temporum historia, cum suis causis, enarratur_, 
he so greatly regretted that he had never been able to procure: what 
were these Palominos? what but Doves?—Father Colombiere who framed the 
service for the Heart of Jesus which was now so fashionable in 
Catholic countries, was clearly of the Dove genus. St. Columba was a 
decided Dove; three there were certainly, the Senonian, the Cordovan 
and the Cornish: and there is reason to believe that there was a 
fourth also, a female Dove, who held a high rank in St. Ursula's great 
army of virgins. Columbo the Anatomist, deservedly eminent as one of 
those who by their researches led the way for Harvey, he also was a 
Dove. Lastly,—and the Doctor in fine taste always reserved the 
greatest glory of the Dove name, for the conclusion of his 
discourse—lastly, there was Christopher Columbus, whom he used to call 
his famous namesake. And he never failed to commend Ferdinand Columbus 
for the wisdom and piety with which he had commented upon the mystery 
of the name, to remark that his father had conveyed the grace of the 
Holy Ghost to the New World, shewing to the people who knew him not 
who was God's beloved son, as the Holy Ghost had done in the figure of 
a Dove at the baptism of St. John, and bearing like Noah's Dove the 
Olive Branch, and the Oil of Baptism over the waters of the ocean.

And what would our onomatologist have said if he had learned to read 
these words in that curious book of the &c. family, the Oriental 
fragments of Major Edward Moor: “In respect to St. Columba, or Colomb, 
and other superstitious names and things in close relationship, I 
shall have in another place something to say. I shall try to connect 
_Col-omb_, with Kal-O'm,—those infinitely mysterious words of Hindu 
mythology: and with these, divers _Mythé_, converging into or 
diverging from O'M—A U M,—the Irish _Ogham_,—I A M,—_Amen, 
ΙΛω_,—Il-Kolmkill, &c. &c. &c.” Surely had the onomatologist lived to 
read this passage, he would forthwith have opened and corresponded 
with the benevolent and erudite etcæterarist of Bealings.

These things were said in his deeper moods. In the days of courtship 
he had said in song that Venus's car was drawn by Doves, regretting at 
the time that an allusion which came with such peculiar felicity from 
him, should appear to common readers to mean nothing more than what 
rhymers from time immemorial had said before him. After marriage he 
often called Mrs. Dove his Turtle, and in his playful humours when the 
gracefulness of youth had gradually been superseded by a certain 
rotundity of form, he sometimes named her _φάττα_ his ring-dove. Then 
he would regret that she had not proved a stock-dove,—and if she 
frowned at him, or looked grave, she was his pouting pigeon.

One inconvenience however Mrs. Dove felt from his reverence for the 
name. He never suffered a pigeon-pie at his table. And when he read 
that the Samaritans were reproached with retaining a trace of Assyrian 
superstition because they held it unlawful to eat this bird, he was 
from that time inclined to think favourably of the schismatics of 
Mount Gerizim.




CHAPTER CLXXVII.

SOMETHING ON THE SCIENCE AND MYSTERY OF NUMBERS WHICH IS NOT ACCORDING 
TO COCKER.—REVERIES OF JEAN D'ESPAGNE, MINISTER OF THE FRENCH-REFORMED 
CHURCH IN WESTMINSTER, AND OF MR. JOHN BELLAMY.—A PITHY REMARK OF 
FULLER'S AND AN EXTRACT FROM HIS PISGAH SIGHT OF PALESTINE, TO 
RECREATE THE READER.

  None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd
  As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd
  Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school,
  And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.


It may easily be supposed that the Doctor was versed in the science of 
numbers; not merely that common science which is taught at schools and 
may be learnt from Cocker's Arithmetic, but the more recondite 
mysteries which have in all ages delighted minds like his; and of 
which the richest specimens may be seen in the writings of the Hugonot 
Minister Jean de l'Espagne, and in those of our contemporary Mr. John 
Bellamy, author of the Ophion, of various papers in the Classical 
Journal, and defender of the Old and New Testament.

_Cet auteur est assez digne d'etre lu_, says Bayle of Jean de 
l'Espagne, and he says it in some unaccountable humour, too gravely 
for a jest. The writer who is thus recommended was Minister of the 
Reformed French Church in Westminster, which met at that time in 
Somerset Chapel, and his friend Dr. De Garencieres, who wrote 
commendatory verses upon him in French, Latin and Greek, calls him

  _Belle lumiere des Pasteurs,
   Ornement du Siecle ou nous sommes,
   Qui trouve des admirateurs
   Par tout ou il y a des hommes._

He was one of those men to whom the Bible comes as a book of problems 
and riddles, a mine in which they are always at work, thinking that 
whatever they can throw up must needs be gold. Among the various 
observations which he gave the world without any other order, as he 
says, than that in which they presented themselves to his memory, 
there may be found good, bad and indifferent. He thought the English 
Church had improperly appointed a Clerk to say Amen for the people. 
Amen being intended, among other reasons, as a mark whereby to 
distinguish those who believed with the officiating Priest from 
Idolaters and Heretics. He thought it was not expedient that Jews 
should be allowed to reside in England, for a Jew would perceive in 
the number of our tolerated sects, a confusion worse than that of 
Babel; and as the multitude here are always susceptible of every folly 
which is offered, and the more monstrous the faith, to them the better 
mystery, it was to be feared, he said, that for the sake of converting 
two or three Jews we were exposing a million Christians to the danger 
of Judaizing; or at least that we should see new religions start up, 
compounded of Judaism with Christianity. He was of opinion, in 
opposition to what was then generally thought in England that one 
might innocently say God bless you, to a person who sneezed, though he 
candidly admitted that there was no example either in the Old or New 
Testament, and that in all the Scriptures only one person is mentioned 
as having sneezed, to wit the Shunamite's son. He thought it more 
probable from certain texts that the Soul at death departs by way of 
the nostrils, than by way of the mouth according to the vulgar 
notion:—had he previously ascertained which way it came in, he would 
have had no difficulty in deciding which way it went out. And he 
propounded and resolved a question concerning Jephtha which no person 
but himself ever thought of asking: _Pourquoy Dieu voulant delivrer 
les Israelites, leur donna pour liberateur, voire pour Chef et 
Gouverneur perpetuel, un fils d'une paillarde?_ “O Jephtha, Judge of 
Israel,” that a Frenchman should call thee in filthy French _fils 
d'une putain!_

But the peculiar talent of the _Belle Lumiere des Pasteurs_ was for 
cabalistic researches concerning numbers, or what he calls _L'Harmonie 
du Temps_. Numbers, he held, (and every generation, every family, 
every individual was marked with one,) were not the causes of what 
came to pass, but they were marks or impresses which God set upon his 
works, distinguishing them by the difference of these their cyphers. 
And he laid it down as a rule that in doubtful points of computation, 
the one wherein some mystery could be discovered was always to be 
preferred. QUOY?—(think how triumphantly his mouth opened and his nose 
was erected and his nostrils were dilated, when he pronounced that 
interrogation)—QUOY? _la varieté de nos opinions qui provient 
d'imperfection, aneantira-t-elle les merveilles de Dieu?_ In the 
course of his Scriptural computations he discovered that when the Sun 
stood still at the command of Joshua, it was precisely 2555 years 
after the Creation, that is seven years of years, a solar week, after 
which it had been preordained that the Sun should thus have its 
sabbath of rest: _Ceci n'est il pas admirable?_ It was on the tenth 
year of the tenth year of the years that the Sun went back ten 
degrees, which was done to show the chronology: _ou est le stupide qui 
ne soit ravi en admiration d'une si celeste harmonie?_ With equal 
sagacity and equal triumph he discovered how the generations from Adam 
to Christ went by twenty-twos; and the generations of Christ by 
sevens, being 77 in all, and that from the time the promise of the 
Seed was given till its fulfilment there elapsed a week of years, 
seven times seventy years, seventy weeks of years, and seven times 
seventy weeks of years by which beautiful geometry, if he might be 
permitted to use so inadequate a term, the fullness of time was made 
up.

What wonderful significations also hath Mr. Bellamy in his kindred 
pursuits discovered and darkly pointed out! Doth he not tell us of 
seven steps, seven days, seven priests, seven rams, seven bullocks, 
seven trumpets, seven shepherds, seven stars, seven spirits, seven 
eyes, seven lamps, seven pipes, seven heads, four wings, four beasts, 
four kings, four kingdoms, four carpenters; the number three he has 
left unimproved,—but for two,—

              which number Nature framed
  In the most useful faculties of man,
  To strengthen mutually and relieve each other,
  Two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs and feet,
  That where one failed the other might supply,

for this number Mr. Bellamy has two cherubims, two calves, two 
turtles, two birds alive, two         [1], two baskets of figs, two 
olive trees, two women grinding, two men in the fields, two woes, two 
witnesses, two candlesticks; and when he descends to the unit, he 
tells us of one tree, one heart, one stick, one fold, one pearl,—to 
which we must add one Mr. John Bellamy the Pearl of Commentators.

[Footnote 1: The blank is in the MS.]

But what is this to the exquisite manner in which he elucidates the 
polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, showing us that the inferior Gods 
of their mythology were in their origin only men who had exercised 
certain departments in the state, a discovery which he illustrates in 
a manner the most familiar, and at the same time the most striking for 
its originality. Thus, he says, if the Greeks and Romans had been 
Englishmen, or if we Englishmen of the present day were Greeks and 
Romans, we should call our Secretary at War, Lord Bathurst for 
instance, Mars; the Lord Chancellor (Lord Eldon to wit) Mercury,—as 
being at the head of the department for eloquence.—(But as Mercury is 
also the God of thieves may not Mr. Bellamy, grave as he is, be 
suspected of insinuating here that the Gentlemen of the Long Robe are 
the most dextrous of pickpockets?)—The first Lord of the Admiralty, 
Neptune. The President of the College of Physicians, Apollo. The 
President of the Board of Agriculture, Janus. Because with one face he 
looked forward to the new year, while at the same time he looked back 
with the other on the good or bad management of the agriculture of the 
last, wherefore he was symbolically represented with a second face at 
the back of his head. Again Mr. Bellamy seems to be malicious, in thus 
typifying or seeming to typify Sir John Sinclair between two 
administrations with a face for both. The ranger of the forests he 
proceeds, would be denominated Diana. The Archbishop of Canterbury, 
Minerva;—Minerva in a Bishop's wig! The first Lord of the Treasury, 
Juno; and the Society of Suppression of Vice,—Reader, lay thy watch 
upon the table, and guess for three whole minutes what the Society for 
the Suppression of Vice would be called upon this ingenious scheme, if 
the Greeks and Romans were Englishmen of the present generation, or if 
we of the present generation were heathen Greeks and Romans. I leave a 
_carte blanche_ before this, lest thine eye outrunning thy judgement, 
should deprive thee of that proper satisfaction which thou wilt feel 
if thou shouldst guess aright. But exceed not the time which I have 
affixed for thee, for if thou dost not guess aright in three minutes, 
thou wouldest not in as many years.

       *       *       *       *       *

VENUS. Yes Reader. By Cyprus and Paphos and the Groves of Idalia. By 
the little God Cupid,—by all the Loves and Doves,—and by the lobbies 
of the London theatres—he calls the Society for the Suppression of 
Vice, VENUS!

Fancy, says Fuller, runs riot when spurred with superstition. This is 
his marginal remark upon a characteristic paragraph concerning the 
Chambers about Solomon's Temple, with which I will here recreate the 
reader. “As for the mystical meaning of these chambers, Bede no doubt, 
thought he hit the very mark—when finding therein the three conditions 
of life, all belonging to God's Church: in the ground chamber, such as 
live in marriage; in the middle chamber such as contract; but in the 
_excelsis_ or third story, such as have attained to the sublimity of 
perpetual virginity. Rupertus in the lowest chamber lodgeth those of 
practical lives with Noah; in the middle—those of mixed lives with 
Job; and in the highest—such as spend their days with Daniel in holy 
speculations. But is not this rather _lusus_, than _allusio_, sporting 
with, than expounding of scriptures? Thus when the gates of the Oracle 
are made _five square_, Ribera therein reads our conquest over the 
five senses, and when those of the door of the Temple are said to be 
_four square_, therein saith he is denoted the _quaternion_ of 
Evangelists. After this rate, Hiram (though no doubt dexterous in his 
art) could not so soon fit a pillar with a fashion as a Friar can fit 
that fashion with a mystery. If made three square, then the Trinity of 
Persons: four square, the cardinal virtues: five square, the 
_Pentateuch of Moses_: six square, the _Petitions_ or the _Lord's 
Prayer_: seven square, their _Sacraments_: eight square, the 
_Beatitudes_: nine square, the Orders of Angels: ten square, the 
Commandments: eleven square, the moral virtues: twelve square, the 
articles of the creed are therein contained. In a word—for matter of 
numbers—fancy is never at a loss—like a beggar, never out of her way, 
but hath some haunts where to repose itself. But such as in expounding 
scriptures reap more than God did sow there, never eat what they reap 
themselves, because such grainless husks, when seriously thrashed out, 
vanish all into chaff.”[2]

[Footnote 2: Pisgah Sight of Palestine, Book iii. c. vii.]




CLXXVIII.

THE MYSTERY OF NUMBERS PURSUED, AND CERTAIN CALCULATIONS GIVEN WHICH 
MAY REMIND THE READER OF OTHER CALCULATIONS EQUALLY 
CORRECT—ANAGRAMMATIZING OF NAMES, AND THE DOCTOR'S SUCCESS THEREIN.

“There is no efficacy in numbers, said the wiser Philosophers; and 
very truly,”—saith Bishop Hacket in repeating this sentence; but he 
continues,—“some numbers are apt to enforce a reverent esteem towards 
them, by considering miraculous occurrences which fell out in _holy 
Scripture_ on such and such a number.—_Non potest fortuitò fieri, quod 
tam sæpe fit_, says Maldonatus whom I never find superstitious in this 
matter. It falls out too often to be called contingent; and the 
oftener it falls out, the more to be attended.”[1]

[Footnote 1: On referring to Bishop Hacket's Sermons I find this Motto 
it not copied out _Verbatim_. See p. 245.]


This choice morsel hath led us from the science of numbers. Great 
account hath been made of that science in old times. There was an 
epigrammatist who discovering that the name of his enemy Damagoras 
amounted in numerical letters to the same sum as _Λοιμὸς_ the plague, 
inferred from thence that Damagorus and the Plague were one and the 
same thing; a stingless jest serving like many satires of the present 
age to show the malice and not the wit of the satirist. But there were 
those among the ancients who believed that stronger influences existed 
in the number of a name, and that because of their arithmetical 
inferiority in this point, Patroclus was slain by Hector, and Hector 
by Achilles. Diviners grounded upon this a science which they called 
Onomantia or Arithmomantia. When Maurice of Saxony to the great fear 
of those who were most attached to him, engaged in war against Charles 
V, some one encouraged his desponding friends by this augury, and said 
that if the initials of the two names were considered, it would be 
seen that the fortunes of Maurice preponderated over those of Charles 
in the proportion of a thousand to a hundred.

A science like this could not be without attractions for the Doctor; 
and it was with no little satisfaction that he discovered in the three 
Ds with which his spoons and his house linen were marked, by 
considering them as so many capital Deltas, the figures 444, combining 
the complex virtues of the four thrice told. But he discovered greater 
secrets in the names of himself and his wife when taken at full 
length. He tried them in Latin and could obtain no satisfactory 
result, nor had he any better success in Greek when he observed the 
proper orthography of _Δανιὴλ_ and _Δεββῶρα_.[2] But anagrammatists 
are above the rules of orthography, just as Kings, Divines and Lawyers 
are privileged, if it pleases them, to dispense with the rules of 
grammar. Taking these words therefore letter by letter according to 
the common pronunciation (for who said he pronounces them Danieel and 
Deboarah?) and writing the surname in Greek letters instead of 
translating it, the sum which it thus produced was equal to his most 
sanguine wishes, for thus it proved

   Daniel and Deborah  Dove.
  _Δανιὲλ_   _Δεβόῥα_ _Δοὺε_.

      _Δανιὲλ_
      _Δ_   4
      _α_   1
      _ν_  50
      _ι_  10
      _ε_   5
      _λ_  30
          -—-
  Daniel  100

      _Δεβόῥα_
      _Δ_   4
      _ε_   5
      _β_   2
      _ο_  70
      _ρ_ 100
      _α_   1
          -—-
  Deborah 182

      _Δοὺε_
      _Δ_   4
      _ο_  70
      _υ_ 400
      _ε_   5
          -—-
  Dove    479

The whole being added together gave the following product

  Daniel  100
  Deborah 182
  Dove    479
          —--
          761

[Footnote 2: _Δεβόῥῥα_ Gen. xxxv. 8., _Δεββῶρα_ Judges iv. 4. The 
double _ῥ_ will not affect the mystery!]

Here was the number 761 found in fair addition, without any arbitrary 
change of letters, or licentious innovation in orthography. And herein 
was mystery. The number 761 is a prime number; from hence the Doctor 
inferred that as the number was indivisible, there could be no 
division between himself and Mrs. Dove; an inference which the harmony 
of their lives fully warranted. And this alone would have amply 
rewarded his researches. But a richer discovery flashed upon him. The 
year 1761 was the year of his marriage, and to make up the deficient 
thousand there was M for marriage and matrimony. These things he would 
say must never be too explicit; their mysterious character would be 
lost if they lay upon the surface; like precious metals and precious 
stones you must dig to find them.

He had bestowed equal attention and even more diligence in 
anagrammatizing the names. His own indeed furnished him at first with 
a startling and by no means agreeable result; for upon transposing the 
component letters of Daniel Dove, there appeared the words _Leaden 
void!_ Nor was he more fortunate in a Latin attempt, which gave him 
_Dan vile Deo_. _Vel dona Dei_ as far as it bore a semblance of 
meaning was better; but when after repeated dislocations and juxta 
positions there came forth the words _Dead in love_, Joshua Sylvester 
was not more delighted at finding that Jacobus Stuart made _justa 
scrutabo_, and James Stuart _A just Master_, than the Doctor,—for it 
was in the May days of his courtship. In the course of these 
anagrammatical experiments he had a glimpse of success which made him 
feel for a moment like a man whose lottery ticket is next in number to 
the £20,000 prize. Dove failed only in one letter of being Ovid. In 
old times they did not stand upon trifles in these things, and John 
Bunyan was perfectly satisfied with extracting from his name the words 
_Nu hony in a B_,—a sentence of which the orthography and the import 
are worthy of each other. But although the Doctor was contented with a 
very small sufficit of meaning, he could not depart so violently from 
the letters here. The disappointment was severe though momentary: it 
was, as we before observed, in the days of his courtship; and could he 
thus have made out his claim to be called Ovid, he had as clear a 
right to add Naso as the Poet of Sulmo himself, or any of the Nasonic 
race, for he had been at the promontory, “and why indeed Naso,” as 
Holofernes has said?—Why not merely for that reason ‘looking toward 
Damascus’ which may be found in the second volume of this work in the 
sixty-third chapter and at the two hundred and thirtieth page, but 
also “for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of 
invention?”[3]

[Footnote 3: Love's Labour Lost, Act iv. Sc. ii.]

Thus much for his own name. After marriage he added his wife's with 
the conjunction copulative, and then came out _Dear Delia had bound 
one_: nothing could be more felicitous, Delia as has already been 
noticed, having been the poetical name by which he addressed the 
object of his affections. Another result was _I hadden a dear 
bond-love_, but having some doubts as to the syntax of the verb, and 
some secret dislike to its obsolete appearance, he altered it into 
_Ned, I had a dear bond-love_, as though he was addressing his friend 
Dr. Miller the organist, whose name was Edward.




CLXXIX.

THE SUBJECT OF ANAGRAMS CONTINUED; A TRUE OBSERVATION WHICH MANY FOR 
WANT OF OBSERVATION WILL NOT DISCOVER TO BE SUCH, VIZ., THAT THERE IS 
A LATENT SUPERSTITION IN THE MOST RATIONAL OF MEN. LUCKY AND 
UNLUCKY—FITTING AND UNFITTING—ANAGRAMS, AND HOW THE DOCTOR'S TASTE IN 
THIS LINE WAS DERIVED FROM OUR OLD ACQUAINTANCE JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

  Ha gran forza una vecchia opinione;
    E bisogna grand' arte, e gran fatica,
    A cavarla del capo alle persone.

BRONZINO PITTORE.


Anagrams are not likely ever again to hold so high a place among the 
prevalent pursuits of literature as they did in the seventeenth 
century, when Louis XIII. appointed the Provençal Thomas Billen to be 
his Royal Anagrammatist, and granted him a salary of 1200 _livres_. 
But no person will ever hit upon an apt one without feeling that 
degree of pleasure and surprize with which any odd coincidence is 
remarked. Has any one who knows Johnny the Bear heard his name thus 
anagrammatized without a smile? we may be sure he smiled and growled 
at the same time when he first heard it himself.

Might not Father Salvator Mile, and Father Louis Almerat, who were 
both musicians, have supposed themselves as clearly predestined to be 
musical, as ever seventh son of a Septimus thought himself born for 
the medical professions, if they had remarked what Penrose discovered 
for them, that their respective names, with the F. for Friar prefixed, 
each contained the letters of the six musical notes _ut_, _re_, _mi_, 
_fa_, _sol_, _la_, and not a letter more or less?

There is, and always hath been, and ever will be, a latent 
superstition in the most rational of men. It belongs to the weakness 
and dependence of human nature. Believing as the scriptures teach us 
to believe, that signs and tokens have been vouchsafed in many cases, 
is it to be wondered at that we seek for them sometimes in our moods 
of fancy, or that they suggest themselves to us in our fears and our 
distress? Men may cast off religion and extinguish their conscience 
without ridding themselves of this innate and inherent tendency.

Proper names have all in their origin been significant in all 
languages. It was easy for men who brooded over their own 
imaginations, to conceive that they might contain in their elements a 
more recondite, and perhaps, fatidical signification; and the same 
turn or twist of mind which led the Cabbalists to their extravagant 
speculations have taken this direction, when confined within the 
limits of languages which have no supernatural pretensions. But no 
serious importance was attached to such things, except by persons 
whose intellects were in some degree deranged. They were sought for 
chiefly as an acceptable form of compliment, sometimes in 
self-complacency of the most offensive kind, and sometimes for the 
sting which they might carry with them. Lycophron is said to have been 
the inventor of this trifling.

The Rules for the true discovery of perfect anagrams, as laid down by 
Mrs. Mary Fage,[1] allowed as convenient a license in orthography as 
the Doctor availed himself of in Greek.

  E may most—what conclude an English word,
  And so a letter at a need afford.
  H is an aspiration and no letter;
  It may be had or left which we think better.
  I may be I or Y as need require;
  Q ever after doth a U desire;
  Two Vs may be a double U; and then
  A double U may be two Vs again.
  X may divided be, and S and C
  May by that letter comprehended be.
  Z a double S may comprehend:
  And lastly an apostrophe may ease
  Sometimes a letter when it doth not please.

[Footnote 1: In her Fames Roule, or the names of King Charles, his 
Queen and his most hopeful posterity; together with the names of the 
Dukes, Marquisses, &c., anagrammatized, and expressed by acrostick 
lines on their lives. London, 1637, R. S.]

Two of the luckiest hits which anagrammatists have made were on the 
Attorney General William Noy, _I moyl in law_; and Sir Edmundbury 
Godfrey _I find murdered by rogues_. Before Felton's execution it was 
observed that his anagram was _No, flie not_.

A less fortunate one made the Lady Davies mad, or rather fixed the 
character of her madness. She was the widow of Sir John Davies, the 
statesman and poet, and having anagrammatized Eleanor Davies into 
Reveal O Daniel, she was crazy enough to fancy that the spirit of the 
Prophet Daniel was incorporated in her. The Doctor mentioned the case 
with tenderness and a kind of sympathy. “Though the anagram says Dr. 
Heylyn, had too much by an L and too little by an S, yet she found 
Daniel and Reveal in it, and that served her turn.” Setting up for a 
Prophetess upon this conceit, and venturing upon political predictions 
in sore times, she was brought before the Court of High Commission, 
where serious pains were preposterously bestowed in endeavouring to 
reason her out of an opinion founded on insanity. All, as might have 
been expected, and ought to have been foreseen, would not do, “till 
Lamb, then Dean of the Arches, shot her through and through with an 
arrow borrowed from her own quiver.” For while the Divines were 
reasoning the point with her out of scripture, he took a pen into his 
hand, and presently finding that the letters of her name might be 
assorted to her purpose, said to her, Madam, I see that you build much 
on anagrams, and I have found out one which I hope will fit you: Dame 
Eleanor Davies,—_Never so mad a Ladie!_ He then put it into her hands 
in writing, “which happy fancy brought that grave Court into such a 
laughter, and the poor woman thereupon into such a confusion, that 
afterwards she either grew wiser, or was less regarded.”—This is a 
case in which it may be admitted that ridicule was a fair test of 
truth.

When Henri IV. sent for Marshal Biron to court, with an assurance of 
full pardon if he would reveal without reserve the whole of his 
negociations and practices, that rash and guilty man resolved to go 
and brave all dangers, because certain Astrologers had assured him 
that his ascendant commanded that of the King, and in confirmation of 
this some flattering friend discovered in his name _Henri de Bourbon_ 
this anagram _De Biron Bonheur_. _Comme ainsi fust_, says one of his 
contemporaries, _qu'il en fist gloire, quelque Gentilhomme bien advisé 
là present—dit tout bas à l'oreille d'un sien amy, s'il le pense ainsi 
il n'est pas sage, et trouvera qu'il y a du_ Robin _dedans_ Biron. 
_Robin_ was a name used at that time by the French as synonymous with 
simpleton. But of unfitting anagrams none were ever more curiously 
unfit than those which were discovered in Marguerite de Valois, the 
profligate Queen of Navarre; _Salve, Virgo Mater Dei; ou, de vertu 
royal image!_ The Doctor derived his taste for anagrams from the poet 
with whose rhymes and fancies he had been so well embued in his 
boyhood, old Joshua Sylvester, who as the translator of Du Bartas, 
signed himself to the King in anagrammatical French _Voy Sire 
Saluste_, and was himself addressed in anagrammatical Latin as _Vere 
Os Salustii_.

“Except Eteostiques,” say Drummond of Hawthornden, “I think the 
Anagram the most idle study in the world of learning. Their maker must 
be _homo miserrimæ patientiæ_, and when he is done, what is it but 
_magno conatu nugas magnas agere!_ you may of one and the same name 
make both good and evil. So did my Uncle find in Anna Regina, 
_Ingannare_, as well as of Anna Britannorum Regina, _Anna Regnantium 
Arbor_: as he who in Charles de Valois, found _Chassè la dure loy_, 
and after the massacre found _Chasseur desloyal_. Often they are most 
false, as Henri de Bourbon, _Bonheur de Biron_. Of all the 
anagrammatists and with least pain, he was the best who, out of his 
own name, being Jacques de la Chamber, found _La Chamber de Jacques_, 
and rested there: and next to him, here at home, a Gentleman whose 
mistress's name being Anna Grame, he found it an _Anagrame_ already.”




CHAPTER CLXXX.

THE DOCTOR'S IDEAS OF LUCK, CHANCE, ACCIDENT, FORTUNE AND 
MISFORTUNE.—THE DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE'S DISTINCTION BETWEEN CHANCE AND 
FORTUNE WHEREIN NO-MEANING IS MISTAKEN FOR MEANING.—AGREEMENT IN 
OPINION BETWEEN THE PHILOSOPHER OF DONCASTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER OF 
NORWICH.—DISTINCTION BETWEEN UNFORTUNATELY UGLY, AND WICKEDLY 
UGLY.—DANGER OF PERSONAL CHARMS.

_Ἔστι γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἐπίφθεγμα τὸ αὐτόματον, ἀνθρώπων ὡς ἔτυχε καὶ 
ἀλογίστως φρονούντων, καὶ τὸν μὲν λόγον αὐτῶν μὴ καταλαμβανόντων, διὰ 
δὲ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς καταλήψεως, αλόγως οἰομένων διατετάχθαι ταῦτα, ὧν 
τὸν λόγον ἐιπεῖν ὀυκ ἔχουσιν._

CONSTANT. ORAT. AD SANCT. CÆT. C. VII.

“Deformity is either natural, voluntary, or adventitious, being either 
caused by _God's unseen Providence_, (_by men nick-named, chance_,) or 
by men's cruelty.”

FULLER'S HOLY STATE, B. iii. c. 15.


It may readily be inferred from what has already been said of our 
Philosopher's way of thinking, that he was not likely to use the words 
luck, chance, accident, fortune or misfortune, with as little 
reflection as is ordinarily shown in applying them. The distinction 
which that fantastic—and yet most likeable person—Margaret Duchess of 
Newcastle, makes between Chance and Fortune was far from satisfying 
him. “Fortune,” says her Grace, (she might have been called her Beauty 
too) “is only various corporeal motions of several creatures—designed 
to one creature, or more creatures; either to _that_ creature, or 
_those_ creatures advantage, or disadvantage; if advantage, man names 
it Good Fortune; if disadvantage, man names it Ill Fortune. As for 
Chance, it is the visible effects of some hidden cause; and Fortune, a 
sufficient cause to produce such effects; for the conjunction of 
sufficient causes, doth produce such or such effects, which effects 
could not be produced—if any of those causes were wanting: so that 
Chances are but the effects of Fortune.”

The Duchess had just thought enough about this to fancy that she had a 
meaning, and if she had thought a little more she might have 
discovered that she had none.

The Doctor looked more accurately both to his meaning and his words; 
but keeping as he did, in my poor judgement, the golden mean between 
superstition and impiety, there was nothing in this that savoured of 
preciseness or weakness, nor of that scrupulosity which is a compound 
of both. He did not suppose that trifles and floccinaucities of which 
neither the causes nor consequences are of the slightest import, were 
predestined; as for example—whether he had beef or mutton for dinner, 
wore a blue coat or a brown—or took off his wig with his right hand or 
with his left. He knew that all things are under the direction of 
almighty and omniscient Goodness; but as he never was unmindful of 
that Providence in its dispensations of mercy and of justice, so he 
never disparaged it.

Herein the Philosopher of Doncaster agreed with the Philosopher of 
Norwich who saith, “let not fortune—which hath no name in Scripture, 
have any in thy divinity. Let providence, not chance, have the honour 
of thy acknowledgements, and be thy Œdipus on contingences. Mark well 
the paths and winding ways thereof; but be not too wise in the 
construction, or sudden in the application. The hand of Providence 
writes often by abbreviatures, hieroglyphics or short characters, 
which like the laconism on the wall, are not to be made out but by a 
hint or key from that spirit which indicted them.”[1]

[Footnote 1: The Readers of Jeremy Taylor will not fail to remember 
the passage following from his Great Exemplar.

“God's Judgments are like _the writing upon the wall_, which was a 
missive of anger from God upon Belshazzar. It came upon an errand of 
revenge, and yet was writ in so dark characters that none could read 
it but a prophet.”—DISC. xviii. _Of the Causes and Manner of the 
Divine Judgments_.]

Some ill, he thought, was produced in human affairs by applying the 
term unfortunate to circumstances which were brought about by 
imprudence. A man was unfortunate, if being thrown from his horse on a 
journey, he broke arm or leg, but not if he broke his neck in 
steeple-hunting, or when in full cry after a fox; if he were 
impoverished by the misconduct of others, not if he were ruined by his 
own folly and extravagance; if he suffered in any way by the villainy 
of another, not if he were transported, or hanged for his own.

Neither would he allow that either man or woman could with propriety 
be called, as we not unfrequently hear in common speech, 
_unfortunately_ ugly. _Wickedly_ ugly, he said, they might be, and too 
often were; and in such cases the greater their pretensions to beauty, 
the uglier they were. But goodness has a beauty of its own, which is 
not dependent upon form and features, and which makes itself felt and 
acknowledged however otherwise ill-favoured the face may be in which 
it is set. He might have said with Seneca, _errare mihi visus est qui 
dixit_

  _Gratior est pulchro veniens e corpore virtus;_

_nullo enim honestamento eget; ipsa et magnum sui decus est, et corpus 
suum consecret._ None, he would say with great earnestness, appeared 
so ugly to his instinctive perception as some of those persons whom 
the world accounted handsome, but upon whom pride, or haughtiness or 
conceit had set its stamp, or who bore in their countenances what no 
countenance can conceal, the habitual expression of any reigning vice, 
whether it were sensuality and selfishness, or envy, hatred, malice 
and uncharitableness. Nor could he regard with any satisfaction a fine 
face which had no ill expression, if it wanted a good one: he had no 
pleasure in beholding mere formal and superficial beauty, that which 
lies no deeper than the skin, and depends wholly upon “a set of 
features and complexion.” He had more delight, he said in looking at 
one of the statues in Mr. Weddel's collection, than at a beautiful 
woman if he read in her face that she was as little susceptible of any 
virtuous emotion as the marble. While therefore he would not allow 
that any person could be unfortunately ugly, he thought that many were 
unfortunately handsome, and that no wise parent would wish his 
daughter to be eminently beautiful, lest what in her childhood was 
naturally and allowably the pride of his eye—should when she grew up 
become the grief of his heart. It requires no wide range of 
observation to discover that the woman who is married for her beauty 
has little better chance of happiness than she who is married for her 
fortune. “I have known very few women in my life,” said Mrs. Montagu, 
“whom extraordinary charms and accomplishments did not make unhappy.”




CHAPTER CLXXXI.

NO DEGREE OF UGLINESS REALLY UNFORTUNATE.—FIDUS CORNELIUS COMPARED TO 
A PLUCKED OSTRICH.—WILKES' CLAIM TO UGLINESS CONSIDERED AND NEGATIVED 
BY DR. JOHNSON, NOTWITHSTANDING HOGARTH'S PORTRAIT.—CAST OF THE EYE À 
LA MONTMORENCY.—ST. EVREMOND AND TURENNE.—WILLIAM BLAKE THE PAINTER, 
AND THE WELSH TRIADS.—CURIOUS EXTRACT FROM THAT VERY CURIOUS AND RARE 
BOOK, THE DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF HIS OWN PICTURES,—AND A PAINFUL ONE 
FROM HIS POETICAL SKETCHES.

“_If thou beest not so handsome as thou wouldest have been thank God 
thou art not more unhandsome than thou art._ 'Tis His mercy thou art 
not the mark for passenger's fingers to point at, an Heteroclite in 
nature, with some member defective or redundant. Be glad that thy clay 
cottage hath all the necessary forms thereto belonging, though the 
outside be not so fairly plaistered as some others.”

FULLER'S HOLY STATE, B. iii. c. 15.


I asked him once if there was not a degree of ugliness which might be 
deemed unfortunate, because a consciousness of it affected the 
ill-favoured individual so as to excite in him discontent and envy, 
and other evil feelings. He admitted that in an evil disposition it 
might have this tendency; but he said a disposition which was 
injuriously affected by such a cause, would have had other 
propensities quite as injurious in themselves and in their direction, 
evolved and brought into full action by an opposite cause. To 
exemplify this he instanced the two brothers Edward IV. and Richard 
III.

Fidus Cornelius burst into tears in the Roman Senate, because Corbulo 
called him a plucked ostrich: _adversus alia maledicta mores et vitam 
convulnerantia, frontis illi firmitas constitit; adversus hoc tam 
absurdum lacrimæ prociderunt; tanta animorum imbecillitas est ubi 
ratio discessit._ But instances of such weakness, the Doctor said, are 
as rare as they are ridiculous. Most people see themselves in the most 
favourable light. “Ugly!” a very ugly, but a very conceited fellow 
exclaimed one day when he contemplated himself in a looking-glass; 
“ugly! and yet there's something genteel in the face!” There are more 
coxcombs in the world than there are vain women; in the one sex there 
is a weakness for which time soon brings a certain cure, in the other 
it deserves a harsher appellation.

As to ugliness, not only in this respect do we make large allowances 
for ourselves, but our friends make large allowances for us also. Some 
one praised Palisson to Madame de Sevigné for the elegance of his 
manners, the magnanimity, the rectitude and other virtues which he 
ought to have possessed; _hé bien_ she replied, _pour moi je ne 
connois que sa laideur; qu'on me le dedouble donc._ Wilkes, who 
pretended as little to beauty, as he did to public virtue, when he was 
off the stage used to say, that in winning the good graces of a lady 
there was not more than three days difference between himself and the 
handsomest man in England. One of his female partizans praised him for 
his agreeable person, and being reminded of his squinting, she replied 
indignantly, that it was not more than a gentleman ought to squint. So 
rightly has Madame de Villedieu observed that

  _En mille occasions l'amour a sçeu prouver
   Que tout devient pour luy, matiere à sympathie,
   Quand il fait tant que d'en vouloir trouver._

She no doubt spoke sincerely, according to the light wherein, in the 
obliquity of her intellectual eyesight she beheld him. Just as that 
prince of republican and unbelieving bigots, Thomas Holles said of the 
same person, “I am sorry for the irregularities of Wilkes; they are 
however only as spots in the sun!” “It is the weakness of the many,” 
says a once noted Journalist “that when they have taken a fancy to a 
man, or to the name of a man they take a fancy even to his failings.” 
But there must have been no ordinary charm in the manners of John 
Wilkes, who in one interview overcame Johnson's well-founded and 
vehement dislike. The good nature of his countenance, and its vivacity 
and cleverness made its physical ugliness be overlooked; and probably 
his cast of the eye, which was a squint of the first water, seemed 
only a peculiarity which gave effect to the sallies of his wit.

Hogarth's portrait of him he treated with characteristic good humour, 
and allowed it “to be an excellent compound caricature, or a 
caricature of what Nature had already caricatured. I know but one 
short apology said he, to be made for this gentleman, or to speak more 
properly, for the _person_ of Mr. Wilkes; it is, that he did not make 
himself; and that he never was solicitous about the _case_ (as 
Shakespeare calls it) only so far as to keep it clean and in health. I 
never heard that he ever hung over the glassy stream, like another 
Narcissus admiring the image in it; nor that he ever stole an amorous 
look at his counterfeit in a side mirror. His form, such as it is, 
ought to give him no pain, while it is capable of giving so much 
pleasure to others. I believe he finds himself tolerably happy in the 
clay cottage to which he is tenant for life, because he has learned to 
keep it in pretty good order. While the share of health and animal 
spirits which heaven has given out, should hold out, I can scarcely 
imagine he will be one moment peevish about the outside of so 
precarious, so temporary a habitation; or will ever be brought to our 
_Ingenium Galbæ malè habitat:—Monsieur est mal logé._” This was part 
of a note for his intended edition of Churchill.

Squinting, according to a French writer, is not unpleasing, when it is 
not in excess. He is probably right in this observation. A slight 
obliquity of vision sometimes gives an archness of expression, and 
always adds to the countenance a peculiarity, which when the 
countenance has once become agreeable to the beholder, renders it more 
so. But when the eye-balls recede from each other to the outer verge 
of their orbits, or approach so closely that nothing but the 
intervention of the nose seems to prevent their meeting, a sense of 
distortion is produced, and consequently of pain. _Il y a des gens_, 
says Vigneul Marville, _qui ne sauroient regarder des louches sans en 
sentir quelque douleur aux yeux. Je suis des ceux-la._ This is because 
the deformity is catching, which it is well known to be in children; 
the tendency to imitation is easily excited in a highly sensitive 
frame—as in them; and the pain felt in the eyes gives warning that 
this action which is safe only while it is unconscious and unobserved, 
is in danger of being deranged.

A cast of the eye _à la Montmorency_ was much admired at the Court of 
Louis XIII. where the representative of that illustrious family had 
rendered it fashionable by his example. Descartes is said to have 
liked all persons who squinted for his nurse's sake, and the anecdote 
tells equally in favour of her and of him.

St. Evremond says in writing the Eulogy of Turenne. _Je ne m'amuserai 
point à depeindre tous les traits de son visage. Les caractéres des 
Grands Hommes n'ont rien de commun avec les portraits des belles 
femmes. Mais je puis dire en gros qu'il avoit quelque chose d'auguste 
et d'agréable; quelque chose en sa physionomie qui faisoit concevoir 
je ne sai quoi de grand en son ame, et en son esprit. On pouvoit juger 
à le voir, que par un disposition particuliere la Nature l'avoit 
préparé à faire tout ce qu'il a fait._ If Turenne had not been an 
ill-looking man, the skilful eulogist would not thus have excused 
himself from giving any description of his countenance; a countenance 
from which indeed, if portraits belie it not, it might be inferred 
that nature had prepared him to change his party during the civil 
wars, as lightly as he would have changed his seat at a card-table,—to 
renounce the Protestant faith, and to ravage the Palatinate. _Ne 
souvenez-vous pas de la physionomie funeste de ce grand homme,_ says 
Bussy Rabutin to Madame de Sevigné. An Italian bravo said _che non 
teneva specchio in camera, perche quando si crucciava diveniva tanto 
terribile nell' aspetto, che veggendosi haria fatto troppo gran paura 
a se stesso._[1]

[Footnote 1: IL CORTEGIANO, 27.]

Queen Elizabeth could not endure the sight of deformity; when she went 
into public her guards it is said removed all misshapen and hideous 
persons out of her way.

Extreme ugliness has once proved as advantageous to its possessor as 
extreme beauty, if there be truth in those Triads wherein the Three 
Men are recorded who escaped from the battle of Camlan. They were 
Morvran ab Teged, in consequence of being so ugly, that every body 
thinking him to be a Demon out of Hell fled from him; Sandde 
Bryd-Angel, or Angel-aspect, in consequence of being so fine of form, 
so beautiful and fair, that no one raised a hand against him—for he 
was thought to be an Angel from Heaven: and Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr, or 
Great-grasp (King Arthur's porter) from his size and strength, so that 
none stood in his way, and every body ran before him; excepting these 
three, none escaped, from Camlan,—that fatal field where King Arthur 
fell with all his chivalry.

That painter of great but insane genius, William Blake, of whom Allan 
Cunningham has written so interesting a memoir, took this Triad for 
the subject of a picture, which he called the Ancient Britons. It was 
one of his worst pictures,—which is saying much; and he has 
illustrated it with one of the most curious commentaries in his very 
curious and very rare descriptive Catalogue of his own Pictures.

It begins with a translation from the Welsh, supplied to him no doubt 
by that good simple-hearted, Welsh-headed man, William Owen, whose 
memory is the great store-house of all Cymric tradition and lore of 
every kind.

“In the last battle of King Arthur only Three Britons escaped; these 
were the Strongest Man, the Beautifullest Man, and the Ugliest Man. 
These Three marched through the field unsubdued as Gods; and the Sun 
of Britain set, but shall arise again with tenfold splendour, when 
Arthur shall awake from sleep, and resume his dominion over earth and 
ocean.

“The three general classes of men,” says the painter, “who are 
represented by the most Beautiful, the most Strong, and the most Ugly, 
could not be represented by any historical facts but those of our own 
countrymen, the Ancient Britons, without violating costumes. The 
Britons (say historians) were naked civilised men, learned, studious, 
abstruse in thought and contemplation; naked, simple, plain in their 
acts and manners; wiser than after ages. They were overwhelmed by 
brutal arms, all but a small remnant. Strength, Beauty and Ugliness 
escaped the wreck, and remain for ever unsubdued, age after age.

“The British Antiquities are now in the Artist's hands; all his 
visionary contemplations relating to his own country and its ancient 
glory, when it was, as it again shall be, the source of learning and 
inspiration. He has in his hands poems of the highest antiquity. Adam 
was a Druid, and Noah. Also Abraham was called to succeed the 
Druidical age, which began to turn allegoric and mental signification 
into corporeal command; whereby human sacrifice would have depopulated 
the earth. All these things are written in Eden. The artist is an 
inhabitant of that happy country; and if every thing goes on as it has 
begun, the work of vegetation and generation may expect to be opened 
again to Heaven, through Eden, as it was in the beginning.

“The Strong Man represents the human sublime. The Beautiful Man 
represents the human pathetic, which was in the ban of Eden divided 
into male and female. The Ugly Man represents the human reason. They 
were originally one man, who was fourfold: he was self divided and his 
real humanity drawn on the stems of generation; and the form of the 
fourth was like the Son of God. How he became divided is a subject of 
great sublimity and pathos. The Artist has written it, under 
inspiration, and will if God please, publish it. It is voluminous, and 
contains the ancient history of Britain, and the world of Satan and of 
Adam.

“In the mean time he has painted this picture, which supposes that in 
the reign of that British Prince, who lived in the fifth century, 
there were remains of those naked heroes in the Welsh mountains. They 
are now. Gray saw them in the person of his Bard on Snowdon; there 
they dwell in naked simplicity; happy is he who can see and converse 
with them, above the shadows of generation and death. In this picture, 
believing with Milton the ancient British history, Mr. Blake has done 
as all the ancients did, and as all the moderns who are worthy of 
fame, given the historical fact in its poetical vigour; so as it 
always happens; and not in that dull way that some historians pretend, 
who being weakly organised themselves, cannot see either miracle or 
prodigy. All is to them a dull round of probabilities and 
possibilities; but the history of all times and places is nothing else 
but improbabilities and impossibilities,—what we should say was 
impossible, if we did not see it always before our eyes.

“The antiquities of every nation under Heaven are no less sacred than 
those of the Jews, they are the same thing, as Jacob Bryant and all 
antiquaries have proved. How other antiquities came to be neglected 
and disbelieved, while those of the Jews are collected and arranged is 
an enquiry, worthy of both the Antiquarian and the Divine. All had 
originally one language, and one religion, this was the religion of 
Jesus, the everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preached the Gospel of Jesus, 
the reasoning historian, turner and twister of courses and 
consequences, such as Hume, Gibbon, and Voltaire, cannot with all 
their artifice, turn or twist one fact, or disarrange self evident 
action and reality. Reasons and opinions concerning acts are not 
history. Acts themselves alone are history, and they are neither the 
exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon, and Voltaire, Echard, Rapin, 
Plutarch, nor Herodotus. Tell me the acts O historian, and leave me to 
reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your 
rubbish. All that is not action is not worth reading. Tell me the 
What; I do not want you to tell me the Why, and the How; I can find 
that out myself, as well as you can, and I will not be fooled by you 
into opinions, that you please to impose, to disbelieve what you think 
improbable, or impossible. His opinion, who does not see spiritual 
agency, is not worth any man's reading; he who rejects a fact because 
it is improbable, must reject all History, and retain doubts only.

“It has been said to the Artist, take the Apollo for the model of your 
beautiful man, and the Hercules for your strong man, and the Dancing 
Fawn for your ugly man. Now he comes to his trial. He knows that what 
he does is not inferior to the grandest antiques. Superior they cannot 
be, for human power cannot go beyond either what he does, or what they 
have done, it is the gift of God, it is inspiration and vision. He had 
resolved to emulate those precious remains of antiquity. He has done 
so, and the result you behold. His ideas of strength and beauty have 
not been greatly different. Poetry as it exists now on earth, in the 
various remains of ancient authors, Music as it exists in old tunes or 
melodies, Painting and Sculpture as it exists in the remains of 
antiquity and in the works of more modern genius, is Inspiration, and 
cannot be surpassed; it is perfect and eternal: Milton, Shakspeare, 
Michael Angelo, Rafael, the finest specimens of ancient Sculpture and 
Painting, and Architecture, Gothic, Grecian, Hindoo and Egyptian are 
the extent of the human mind. The human mind cannot go beyond the gift 
of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that Art can go beyond the finest 
specimens of Art that are now in the world, is not knowing what Art 
is; it is being blind to the gifts of the Spirit.

“It will be necessary for the Painter to say something concerning his 
ideas of Beauty, Strength and Ugliness.

“The beauty that is annexed and appended to folly, is a lamentable 
accident and error of the mortal and perishing life; it does but 
seldom happen; but with this unnatural mixture the sublime Artist can 
have nothing to do; it is fit for the burlesque. The beauty proper for 
sublime Art, is lineaments, or forms and features that are capable of 
being the receptacle of intellect; accordingly the Painter has given 
in his beautiful man, his own idea of intellectual Beauty. The face 
and limbs (?) that deviates or alters least, from infancy to old age, 
is the face and limbs (?) of greatest Beauty and Perfection.

“The Ugly likewise, when accompanied and annexed to imbecillity and 
disease, is a subject for burlesque and not for historical grandeur; 
the artist has imagined the Ugly man; one approaching to the beast in 
features and form, his forehead small, without frontals; his nose high 
on the ridge, and narrow; his chest and the stamina of his make, 
comparatively little, and his joints and his extremities large; his 
eyes with scarce any whites, narrow and cunning, and everything 
tending toward what is truly ugly; the incapability of intellect.

“The Artist has considered his strong man as a receptacle of Wisdom, a 
sublime energizer; his features and limbs do not spindle out into 
length, without strength, nor are they too large and unwieldy for his 
brain and bosom. Strength consists in accumulation of power to the 
principal seat, and from thence a regular gradation and subordination; 
strength in compactness, not extent nor bulk.

“The strong man acts from conscious superiority, and marches on in 
fearless dependence on the divine decrees, raging with the 
inspirations of a prophetic mind. The Beautiful man acts from duty, 
and anxious solicitude for the fates of those for whom he combats. The 
Ugly man acts from love of carnage, and delight in the savage 
barbarities of war, rushing with sportive precipitation into the very 
teeth of the affrighted enemy.

“The Roman Soldiers rolled together in a heap before them: ‘like the 
rolling thing before the whirlwind:’ each shew a different character, 
and a different expression of fear, or revenge, or envy, or blank 
horror, or amazement, or devout wonder and unresisting awe.

“The dead and the dying, Britons naked, mingled with armed Romans, 
strew the field beneath. Amongst these, the last of the Bards who were 
capable of attending warlike deeds, is seen falling, outstretched 
among the dead and the dying; singing to his harp in the pains of 
death.

“Distant among the mountains are Druid Temples, similar to Stone 
Henge. The sun sets behind the mountains, bloody with the day of 
battle.

“The flush of health in flesh, exposed to the open air, nourished by 
the spirits of forests and floods, in that ancient happy period, which 
history has recorded, cannot be like the sickly daubs of Titian or 
Rubens. Where will the copier of nature, as it now is, find a 
civilized man, who has been accustomed to go naked. Imagination only 
can furnish us with colouring appropriate, such as is found in the 
frescoes of Rafael, and Michael Angelo: the disposition of forms 
always directs colouring in works of true art. As to a modern man, 
stripped from his load of clothing, he is like a dead corpse. Hence 
Rubens, Titian, Correggio, and all of that class, are like leather and 
chalk; their men are like leather, and their women like chalk, for the 
disposition of their forms will not admit of grand colouring; in Mr. 
B's Britons, the blood is seen to circulate in their limbs; he defies 
competition in colouring.”

My regard for thee, dear Reader, would not permit me to leave 
untranscribed this very curious and original piece of composition. 
Probably thou hast never seen, and art never likely to see either the 
“Descriptive Catalogue” or the “Poetical Sketches” of this insane and 
erratic genius, I will therefore end the chapter with the _Mad Song_ 
from the latter,—premising only _Dificultosa provincia es la que 
emprendo, y à muchos parecerà escusada; mas para la entereza desta 
historia, ha parecido no omitir aguesta parte._[2]

  The wild winds weep,
    And the night is a-cold;
  Come hither, Sleep,
    And my griefs unfold:
  But lo! the morning peeps
    Over the eastern steep;
  And the rustling birds of dawn
    The earth do scorn.

  Lo! to the vault
    Of paved heaven,
  With sorrow fraught
    My notes are driven:
  They strike the ear of night
    Make weep the eyes of day;
  They make mad the roaring winds
    And with tempests play.

  Like a fiend in a cloud
    With howling woe,
  After night I do croud
    And with night will go;
  I turn my back to the east,
    From whence comforts have increas'd;
  For light doth seize my brain
    With frantic pain.

[Footnote 2: LUIS MUÑOZ. VIDA DEL P. L. DE GRANADA.]




CHAPTER CLXXXII.

AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE FORM OF THE HUMAN LEG SUGGESTED BY A PHYSICIAN. 
THE DOCTOR'S CURE OF A BROKEN SHIN AND INVENTION OF A SHIN-SHIELD.

_Res fisci est, ubicunque natat._ Whatsoever swims upon any water, 
belongs to this exchequer.

JEREMY TAYLOR. _Preface to the Duct. Dub._


Some Dr. Moreton is said to have advanced this extraordinary opinion 
in a treatise upon the beauty of the human structure, that had the 
calf of the leg been providentially set before, instead of being 
preposterously placed behind, it would have been evidently better, for 
as much as the shin-bone could not then have been so easily broken.

I have no better authority for this than a magazine extract. But there 
have been men of science silly enough to entertain opinions quite as 
absurd, and presumptuous enough to think themselves wiser than their 
Maker.

Supposing the said Dr. Moreton has not been unfairly dealt with in 
this statement, it would have been a most appropriate reward for his 
sagacity if some one of the thousand and one wonder-working Saints of 
the Pope's Calendar had reversed his own calves for him, placed them 
in front, conformably to his own notion of the fitness of things, and 
then left him to regulate their motions as well as he could. The 
_Gastrocnemius_ and the _Solæus_ would have found themselves in a new 
and curious relation to the _Rectus femoris_ and the two _Vasti_, and 
the anatomical reformer would have learnt feelingly to understand the 
term of antagonizing muscles in a manner peculiar to himself.

The use to which this notable philosopher would have made the calf of 
the leg serve, reminds me of a circumstance that occurred in our 
friend's practice. An old man hard upon threescore and ten, broke his 
shin one day by stumbling over a chair; and although a hale person who 
seemed likely to attain a great age by virtue of a vigorous 
constitution, which had never been impaired through ill habits or 
excesses of any kind, the hurt that had been thought little of at 
first became so serious in its consequences, that a mortification was 
feared. Daniel Dove was not one of those practitioners who would let a 
patient die under their superintendence _secundum artem_, rather than 
incur the risque of being censured for trying in desperate cases any 
method not in  the regular course of practise: and recollecting what 
he had heard when a boy, that a man whose leg and life were in danger 
from just such an accident, had been saved by applying yeast to the 
wound, he tried the application. The dangerous symptoms were presently 
removed by it; a kindly process was induced, the wound healed, and the 
man became whole again.

Dove was then a young man; and so many years have elapsed since old 
Joseph Todhunter was gathered to his fathers, that it would now 
require an antiquarian's patience to make out the letters of his name 
upon his mouldering headstone. All remembrance of him (except among 
his descendants, if any there now be) will doubtless have past away, 
unless he should be recollected in Doncaster by the means which Dr. 
Dove devised for securing him against another such accident.

The Doctor knew that the same remedy was not to be relied on a second 
time, when there would be less ability left in the system to second 
its effect. He knew that in old age the tendency of Nature is to 
dissolution, and that accidents which are trifling in youth, or middle 
age, become fatal at a time when Death is ready to enter at any breach 
and Life to steal out through the first flaw in its poor crazy 
tenement. So, having warned Todhunter of this, and told him that he 
was likely to enjoy many years of life, if he kept a whole skin on his 
shins, he persuaded him to wear spatterdashes, quilted in front and 
protected there with whalebone, charging him to look upon them as the 
most necessary part of his clothing, and to let them be the last 
things which he doffed at night, and the first which he donn'd in the 
morning.

The old man followed this advice; lived to the great age of 
eighty-five, enjoyed his faculties to the last; and then died so 
easily, that it might truly be said he fell asleep.

My friend loved to talk of this case; for Joseph Todhunter had borne 
so excellent a character through life, and was so cheerful and so 
happy, as well as so venerable an old man, that it was a satisfaction 
for the Doctor to think he had been the means of prolonging his days.




CHAPTER CLXXXIII.

VIEWS OF OLD AGE, MONTAGNE, DANIEL CORNEILLE, LANGUET, PASQUIER, DR. 
JOHNSON, LORD CHESTERFIELD, ST. EVREMOND.

                What is age
  But the holy place of life, the chapel of ease
  For all men's wearied miseries?

MASSINGER.


Montagne takes an uncomfortable view of old age. _Il me semble_, he 
says, _qu'en la vieillesse, nos ames sont subjectes à des maladies et 
imperfections plus importunes qu'en la jeunesse. Je le disois estant 
jeune, lors on me donnoit de mon menton par le nez; je le dis encore à 
cette heure, que mon poil gris me donne le credit. Nous appellons 
sagesse la difficulté de nos humeurs, le desgoust des choses 
presentes: mais à la verité, nous ne quittons pas tant les vices, 
comme nous les changeons; et, à mon opinion, en pis. Outre une sotte 
et caduque fierté, un babil ennuyeux, ces humeures espineuses et 
inassociables, et la superstition, et un soin ridicule des richesses, 
lors que l'usage en est perdu, j'y trouve plus d'envie, d'injustice, 
et de malignité. Elle nous attache plus de rides en l'esprit qu'au 
visage: et ne se void point d'ames ou fort rares, qui en vieillissant 
ne sentent l'aigre, et le moisi._

Take this extract, my worthy friends who are not skilled in French, or 
know no more of it than a Governess may have taught you,—in the 
English of John Florio, Reader of the Italian tongue unto the 
Sovereign Majesty of Anna, Queen of England, Scotland, &c. and one of 
the gentlemen of her Royal privy chamber, the same Florio whom some 
commentators upon very insufficient grounds, have supposed to have 
been designed by Shakespere in the Holofernes of Love's Labour's Lost.

“Methinks our souls in age are subject unto more importunate diseases 
and imperfections than they are in youth. I said so being young, when 
my beardless chin was upbraided me, and I say it again, now that my 
gray beard gives me authority. We entitle wisdom, the frowardness of 
our humours, and the distaste of present things; but in truth we 
abandon not vices so much as we change them; and in mine opinion for 
the worse. Besides a silly and ruinous pride, cumbersome tattle, 
wayward and unsociable humours, superstition, and a ridiculous carking 
for wealth, when the use of it is well nigh lost. I find the more 
envy, injustice and malignity in it. It sets more wrinkles in our 
minds than in our foreheads, nor are there any spirits, or very rare 
ones, which in growing old taste not sourly and mustily.”

In the same spirit, recollecting perhaps this very passage of the 
delightful old Gascon, one of our own poets says,

        Old age doth give by too long space,
  Our souls as many wrinkles as our face;

and the same thing, no doubt in imitation of Montagne has been said by 
Corneille in a poem of thanks addressed to Louis XIV., when that King 
had ordered some of his plays to be represented during the winter of 
1685, though he had ceased to be a popular writer,

  _Je vieillis, ou du moins, ils se le persuadent;
   Pour bien écrire encor j'ai trop long tems écrit,
   Et les rides du front passent jusqu' à l'esprit._

The opinion proceeded not in the poet Daniel from perverted 
philosophy, or sourness of natural disposition, for all his affections 
were kindly, and he was a tender-hearted, wise, good man. But he wrote 
this in the evening of his days, when he had

                out lived the date
  Of former grace, acceptance and delight,

when,

        those bright stars from whence
  He had his light, were set for evermore;

and when he complained that years had done to him

                              this wrong,
  To make him write too much, and live too long;

so that this comfortless opinion may be ascribed in him rather to a 
dejected state of mind, than to a clear untroubled judgement. But 
Hubert Languet must have written more from observation and reflection 
than from feeling, when he said in one of his letters to Sir Philip 
Sidney, “you are mistaken if you believe that men are made better by 
age; for it is very rarely so. They become indeed more cautious, and 
learn to conceal their faults and their evil inclinations; so that if 
you have known any old man in whom you think some probity were still 
remaining, be assured that he must have been excellently virtuous in 
his youth.” _Erras si credis homines fieri ætate meliores; id nam est 
rarissimum. Fiunt quidem cautiores, et vitia animi, ac pravos suos 
affectus occultare discunt: quod si quem senem novisti in quo aliquid 
probitatis superesse judices, crede eum in adolescentiâ fuisse 
optimum._

Languet spoke of its effects upon others. Old Estienne Pasquier in 
that uncomfortable portion of his _Jeux Poëtiques_ which he entitles 
_Vieillesse Rechignée_ writes as a self-observer, and his picture is 
not more favourable.

  _Je ne nourry dans moy qu'une humeur noire,
   Chagrin, fascheux, melancholic, hagard,
   Grongneux, despit, presomptueux, langard,
   Je fay l'amour au bon vin et au boire._

But the bottle seems not to have put him in good humour either with 
others or himself.

  _Tout la monde me put; je vy de telle sort,
     Que je ne fay meshuy que tousser et cracher,
     Que de fascher autruy, et d'autruy me fascher;
   Je ne supporte nul, et nul ne me supporte.
   Un mal de corps je sens, un mal d'esprit je porte;
     Foible de corps je veux, mais je ne puis marcher;
     Foible de esprit je n'oze à mon argent toucher,
   Voilà les beaux effects que la vieillesse apporte!
     O combien est heureux celuy qui, de ses ans
     Jeune, ne passe point la fleur de son printans,
   Ou celuy qui venu s'en retourne aussi vite!
     Non: je m'abuze; ainçois ces maux ce sont appas
     Qui me feront un jour trouver doux mon trespas,
   Quand il plaira a Dieu que ce monde je quitte._

   The miserable life I lead is such,
     That now the world loathes me and I loathe it;
     What do I do all day but cough and spit,
   Annoying others, and annoyed as much!
   My limbs no longer serve me, and the wealth
     Which I have heap'd, I want the will to spend.
   So mind and body both are out of health,
     Behold the blessings that on age attend!
   Happy whose fate is not to overlive
   The joys which youth, and only youth can give,
     But in his prime is taken, happy he!
   Alas, that thought is of an erring heart,
   These evils make me willing to depart
     When it shall please the Lord to summon me.

The Rustic, in Hammerlein's curious dialogues _de Nobilitate et 
Rusticitate_, describes his old age in colours as dark as Pasquier's; 
_plenus dierum_, he says, _ymmo senex valde, id est, octogenarius, et 
senio confractus, et heri et nudiustercius, ymmo plerisque 
revolutionibus annorum temporibus, corporis statera recurvatus, 
singulto, tussito, sterto, ossito, sternuto, balbutio, catharizo, 
mussico, paraleso, gargariso, cretico, tremo, sudo, titillo, digitis 
sæpe geliso, et insuper (quod deterius est) cor meum affligitur, et 
caput excutitur, languet spiritus, fetet anhelitus, caligant oculi et 
facillant_[1] _articuli, nares confluunt, crines defluunt, tremunt 
tactus et deperit actus, dentes putrescunt et aures surdescunt; de 
facili ad iram provocor, difficili revocor, cito credo, tarde 
discedo._

[Footnote 1: _Facillant_ is here evidently the same as _vacillant_. 
For the real meaning of _facillo_ the reader is referred to Du Cange 
in v. or to Martinii Lexicon.]

The effects of age are described in language not less characteristic 
by the Conte Baldessar Castiglione in his Cortegiano. He is explaining 
wherefore the old man is always “_laudator temporis acti_;” and thus 
he accounts for the universal propensity;—_gli anni fuggendo se ne 
portan seco molte commodità, e tra l' altre levano dal sangue gran 
parte de gli spiriti vitali; onde la complession si muta, e divengon 
debili gli organi, per i quali l' anima opera le sue virtù. Però de i 
cori nostri in quel tempo, come allo autunno le fogli de gli arbori, 
caggiono i soavi fiori di contento; e nel loco de i sereni et chiari 
pensieri, entra la nubilosa e turbida tristitia di mille calamità 
compagnata, di modo che non solamente il corpo, ma l' animo anchora è 
infermo; ne de i passati piaceri reserva altro che una tenace memoria, 
e la imagine di quel caro tempo della tenera eta, nella quale quando 
ci troviamo, ci pare che sempre il cielo, e la terra, e ogni cosa 
faccia festa, e rida intorno à gli occhi nostri e nel pensiero, come 
in un delitioso et vago giardino, fiorisca la dolce primavera d' 
allegrezza: onde forse saria utile, quando gia nella fredda stagione 
comincia il sole della nostra vita, spogliandoci de quei piaceri, 
andarsene verso l' occaso, perdere insieme con essi anchor la lor 
memoria, e trovar_ (_come disse Temistocle_) _un' arte, che a scordar 
insegnasse; perche tanto sono fallaci i sensi del corpo nostro, che 
spesso ingannano anchora il giudicio della mente. Però parmi che i 
vecchi siano alla condition di quelli, che partendosi dal porto, 
tengon gli occhi in terra, e par loro che la nave stia ferma, e la 
riva si parta; e pur è il contrario; che il porto, e medesimamente il 
tempo, e i piaceri restano nel suo stato, e noi con la nave della 
mortalità fuggendo n' andiamo, l' un dopo l' altro, per quel 
procelloso mare che ogni cosa assorbe et devora; ne mai piu pigliar 
terra ci è concesso; anzi sempre da contrarii venti combattuti, al 
fine in qualche scoglio la nave rompemo._

Take this passage, gentle reader, as Master Thomas Hoby has translated 
it to my hand.

“Years wearing away carry also with them many commodities, and among 
others take away from the blood a great part of the lively spirits; 
that altereth the complection, and the instruments wax feeble whereby 
the soul worketh his effects. Therefore the sweet flowers of delight 
vade[2] away in that season out of our hearts, as the leaves fall from 
the trees after harvest; and instead of open and clear thoughts, there 
entereth cloudy and troublous heaviness, accompanied with a thousand 
heart griefs: so that not only the blood, but the mind is also feeble, 
neither of the former pleasures retaineth it any thing else but a fast 
memory, and the print of the beloved time of tender age, which when we 
have upon us, the heaven, the earth and each thing to our seeming 
rejoiceth and laugheth always about our eyes, and in thought (as in a 
savoury and pleasant garden) flourisheth the sweet spring time of 
mirth: So that peradventure, it were not unprofitable when now, in the 
cold season, the sun of our life, taking away from us our delights 
beginneth to draw toward the West, to lose therewithall the 
mindfulness of them, and to find out as Themistocles saith, an art to 
teach us to forget; for the senses of our body are so deceivable, that 
they beguile many times also the judgement of the mind. Therefore, 
methinks, old men be like unto them that sailing in a vessel out of an 
haven, behold the ground with their eyes, and the vessel to their 
seeming standeth still, and the shore goeth; and yet is it clean 
contrary, for the haven, and likewise the time and pleasures, continue 
still in their estate, and we with the vessel of mortality flying 
away, go one after another through the tempestuous sea that swalloweth 
up and devoureth all things, neither is it granted us at any time to 
come on shore again; but, always beaten with contrary winds, at the 
end we break our vessel at some rock.”

[Footnote 2: ‘Vade’ is no doubt the true word here. The double sense 
of it,—that is, to _fade_, or to _go away_,—may be seen in Todd's 
Johnson and in Nares' Glossary. Neither of them quote the following 
lines from the Earl of Surrey's Poems. They occur in his Ecclesiastes.

  We, that live on the earth, draw toward our decay,
  Our children fill our place awhile, and then they vade away.

And again,

  New fancies daily spring, which vade, returning mo.]

“Why Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “a man grows better humoured as he grows 
older. He improves by experience. When young he thinks himself of 
great consequence, and every thing of importance. As he advances in 
life, he learns to think himself of no consequence, and little things 
of little importance, and so he becomes more patient and better 
pleased.” This was the observation of a wise and good man, who felt in 
himself as he grew old, the effect of Christian principles upon a kind 
heart and a vigorous understanding. One of a very different stamp came 
to the same conclusion before him; _Crescit ætate pulchritudo 
animorum_, says, Antonio Perez, _quantum minuitur eorundem corporum 
venustas._

One more of these dark pictures. “The heart” says Lord Chesterfield, 
“never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A 
young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a 
greater knave as he grows older. But should a bad young heart, 
accompanied with a good head, (which by the way, very seldom is the 
case) really reform, in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of 
its folly, as well as of its guilt; such a conversion would only be 
thought prudential and political, but never sincere.”

It is remarkable that Johnson, though, as has just been seen, he felt 
in himself and saw in other good men, that the natural effect of time 
was to sear away asperities of character

  Till the smooth temper of their age should be
  Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree,

yet he expressed an opinion closely agreeing with this of Lord 
Chesterfield. “A man, he said, commonly grew wicked as he grew older, 
at least he but changed the vices of youth, head-strong passion and 
wild temerity, for treacherous caution and desire to circumvent.” 
These he can only have meant of wicked men. But what follows seems to 
imply a mournful conviction that the tendency of society is to foster 
our evil propensities and counteract our better ones: “I am always, he 
said, on the young people's side when there is a dispute between them 
and the old ones; for you have at least a charm for virtue, till age 
has withered its very root.” Alas, this is true of the irreligious and 
worldly-minded, and it is generally true because they composed the 
majority of our corrupt contemporaries.

But Johnson knew that good men became better as they grew older, 
because his philosophy was that of the Gospel. Something of a 
philosopher Lord Chesterfield was, and had he lived in the days of 
Trajan or Hadrian, might have done honour to the school of Epicurus. 
But if he had not in the pride of his poor philosophy shut both his 
understanding and his heart against the truths of revealed religion, 
in how different a light would the evening of his life have closed.

_Une raison essentielle_, says the Epicurean Saint Evremond, _qui nous 
oblige à nous retirer quand nous sommes vieux, c'est qu'il faut 
prevenir le ridicule où l'age nous fait tomber presque toujours._ And 
in another place he says, _certes le plus honnéte-homme dont personne 
n'a besoin, a de la peine a s'exempter du ridicule en vieillissant._ 
This was the opinion of a courtier, a sensualist, and a Frenchman.

I cannot more appositely conclude this chapter than by a quotation 
ascribed, whether truly or not, to St. Bernard. _Maledictum caput 
canum et cor vanum, caput tremulum et cor emulum, canities in vertice 
et pernicies in mente: facies rugosa et lingua nugosa, cutis sicca et 
fides ficta; visus caligans et caritas claudicans; labium pendens et 
dens detrahens; virtus debilis et vita flebilis; dies uberes et 
fructus steriles, amici multi, et actus stulti._




CHAPTER CLXXXIV.

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING OLD AGE. BISHOP REYNOLDS. OPINION OF 
THE DOCTOR CONCERNING BEASTS AND MEN. M. DE CUSTINE. THE WORLD IS TOO 
MUCH WITH US. WORDSWORTH. SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

In these reflections, which are of a serious, and somewhat of a 
melancholy cast, it is best to indulge; because it is always of use to 
be serious, and not unprofitable sometimes to be melancholy.

FREEMAN'S SERMONS.


“As usurers,” says Bishop Reynolds, “before the whole debt is paid, do 
fetch away some good parts of it for the loan, so before the debt of 
death be paid by the whole body, old age doth by little and little, 
take away sometimes one sense sometimes another, this year one limb, 
the next another; and causeth a man as it were to die daily. No one 
can dispel the clouds and sorrows of old age, but Christ who is the 
sun of righteousness and the bright morning star.”

Yet our Lord and Saviour hath not left those who are in darkness and 
the shadow of death, without the light of a heavenly hope at their 
departure, if their ways have not wilfully been evil,—if they have 
done their duty according to that law of nature which is written in 
the heart of man. It is the pride of presumptuous wisdom (itself the 
worst of follies) that has robbed the natural man of his consolation 
in old age, and of his hope in death, and exacts the forfeit of that 
hope from the infidel as the consequence and punishment of his sin. 
Thus it was in heathen times, as it now is in countries that are 
called christian. When Cicero speaks of those things which depend upon 
opinion, he says, _hujusmodi sunt probabilia; impiis apud inferos 
pœnas esse præparatas; eos, qui philosophiæ dent operam, non arbitrari 
Deos esse._ Hence it appears he regarded it as equally probable that 
there was an account to be rendered after death; and that those who 
professed philosophy would disbelieve this as a vulgar delusion, live 
therefore without religion, and die without hope, like the beasts that 
perish!

“_If_ they perish,” the Doctor, used always reverently to say when he 
talked upon this subject. Oh Reader, it would have done you good as it 
has done me, if you had heard him speak upon it, in his own beautiful 
old age! “_If_ they perish,” he would say. “That the beasts die 
without hope we may conclude; death being to them like falling asleep, 
an act of which the mind is not cognizant! But that they live without 
religion, he would not say,—that they might not have some sense of it 
according to their kind; nor that all things animate, and seemingly 
inanimate did not actually praise the Lord, as they are called upon to 
do by the Psalmist, and in the _Benedicite_!”

It is a pious fancy of the good old lexicographist Adam Littleton that 
our Lord took up his first lodging in a stable amongst the cattle, as 
if he had come to be the Saviour of them as well as of men; being by 
one perfect oblation of himself, to put an end to all other 
sacrifices, as well as to take away sins. This, he adds the Psalmist 
fears not to affirm speaking of God's mercy. “Thou savest,” says he, 
“both man and beast.”

The text may lead us further than Adam Littleton's interpretation.

“_Qu'on ne me parle plus de_ NATURE MORTE, says M. de Custine, in his 
youth and enthusiasm, writing from Mont-Auvert; _on sent ici que la 
Divinité est partout, et que les pierres sont pénétrées comme 
nous-mêmes d'une puissance créatrice! Quand on me dit que les rochers 
sont insensibles, je crois entendre un enfant soutenir que l'aiguille 
d'une montre ne marche pas, parce qu'il ne la voit pas se mouvoir._”

Do not, said our Philosopher, when he threw out a thought like this, 
do not ask me how this can be! I guess at every thing, and can account 
for nothing. It is more comprehensible to me that stocks and stones 
should have a sense of devotion, than that men should be without it. I 
could much more easily persuade myself that the birds in the air, and 
the beasts in the field have souls to be saved, than I can believe 
that very many of my fellow bipeds have any more soul than, as some of 
our divines have said, serves to keep their bodies from putrefaction. 
“God forgive me, worm that I am! for the sinful thought of which I am 
too often conscious,—that of the greater part of the human race, the 
souls are not worth saving!”—I have not forgotten the look which 
accompanied these words, and the tone in which he uttered them, 
dropping his voice toward the close.

We must of necessity, said he, become better or worse as we advance in 
years. Unless we endeavour to spiritualize ourselves, and supplicate 
in this endeavour for that Grace which is never withheld when it is 
sincerely and earnestly sought, age bodilizes us more and more, and 
the older we grow the more we are embruted and debased: so manifestly 
is the awful text verified which warns us that “unto every one which 
hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that he hath 
shall be taken away from him.” In some the soul seems gradually to be 
absorbed and extinguished in its crust of clay; in others as if it 
purified and sublimed the vehicle to which it was united. _Viget 
animus, et gaudet non multum sibi esse cum corpore; magnam oneris 
partem sui posuit._[1] Nothing therefore is more beautiful than a wise 
and religious old age; nothing so pitiable as the latter stages of 
mortal existence—when the World and the Flesh, and that false 
philosophy which is of the Devil, have secured the victory for the 
Grave!

[Footnote 1: SENECA.]

“He that hath led a holy life,” says one of our old Bishops, “is like 
a man which hath travelled over a beautiful valley, and being on the 
top of a hill, turneth about with delight, to take a view of it 
again.” The retrospect is delightful, and perhaps it is even more 
grateful if his journey has been by a rough and difficult way. But 
whatever may have been his fortune on the road, the Pilgrim who has 
reached the Delectable Mountains looks back with thankfulness and 
forward with delight.

And wherefore is it not always thus? Wherefore, but because as 
Wordsworth has said,

  The World is too much with us, late and soon
  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

“Though our own eyes,” says Sir Walter Raleigh, “do every where behold 
the sudden and resistless assaults of Death, and Nature assureth us by 
never failing experience, and Reason by infallible demonstration, that 
our times upon the earth have neither certainty nor durability, that 
our bodies are but the anvils of pain and diseases, and our minds the 
hives of unnumbered cares, sorrows and passions; and that when we are 
most glorified, we are but those painted posts against which Envy and 
Fortune direct their darts; yet such is the true unhappiness of our 
condition, and the dark ignorance which covereth the eyes of our 
understanding, that we only prize, pamper, and exalt this vassal and 
slave of death, and forget altogether, or only remember at our 
cast-away leisure, the imprisoned immortal Soul, which can neither die 
with the reprobate, nor perish with the mortal parts of virtuous men; 
seeing God's justice in the one, and his goodness in the other, is 
exercised for evermore, as the everliving subjects of his reward and 
punishment. But when is it that we examine this great account? Never, 
while we have one vanity left us to spend! We plead for titles till 
our breath fail us; dig for riches whilst our strength enableth us; 
exercise malice while we can revenge; and then when time hath beaten 
from us both youth, pleasure and health, and that Nature itself hateth 
the house of Old Age, we remember with Job that ‘we must go the way 
from whence we shall not return, and that our bed is made ready for us 
in the dark.’ And then I say, looking over-late into the bottom of our 
conscience, which Pleasure and Ambition had locked up from us all our 
lives, we behold therein the fearful images of our actions past, and 
withal this terrible inscription that ‘God will bring every work into 
judgement that man hath done under the Sun.’

“But what examples have ever moved us? what persuasions reformed us? 
or what threatenings made us afraid? We behold other mens tragedies 
played before us; we hear what is promised and threatened; but the 
world's bright glory hath put out the eyes of our minds; and these 
betraying lights, with which we only see, do neither look up towards 
termless joys, nor down towards endless sorrows, till we neither know, 
nor can look for anything else at the world's hands.—But let us not 
flatter our immortal Souls herein! For to neglect God all our lives, 
and know that we neglect Him; to offend God voluntarily, and know that 
we offend Him, casting our hopes on the peace which we trust to make 
at parting, is no other than a rebellious presumption, and that which 
is the worst of all, even a contemptuous laughing to scorn, and 
deriding of God, his laws and precepts. _Frustrà sperant qui sic de 
misericordiâ Dei sibi blandiuntur;_ they hope in vain, saith Bernard, 
which in this sort flatter themselves with God's mercy.”




CHAPTER CLXXXV.

EVOLVEMENTS. ANALOGIES. ANTICIPATIONS.

          I have heard, how true
  I know not, most physicians as they grow
  Greater in skill, grow less in their religion;
  Attributing so much to natural causes,
  That they have little faith in that they cannot
  Deliver reason for: this Doctor steers
  Another course.

MASSINGER.


I forget what poet it is, who, speaking of old age, says that

  The Soul's dark mansion, battered and decayed,
  Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;

a strange conceit, imputing to the decay of our nature that which 
results from its maturation.

As the ancients found in the butterfly a beautiful emblem of the 
immortality of the Soul, my true philosopher and friend looked, in 
like manner, upon the chrysalis as a type of old age. The gradual 
impairment of the senses and of the bodily powers, and the diminution 
of the whole frame as it shrinks and contracts itself in age, afforded 
analogy enough for a mind like his to work on, which quickly 
apprehended remote similitudes, and delighted in remarking them. The 
sense of flying in our sleep, might probably, he thought, be the 
anticipation or forefeeling of an unevolved power, like an aurelia's 
dream of butterfly motion.

The tadpole has no intermediate state of torpor. This merriest of all 
creatures, if mirth may be measured by motion, puts out legs before it 
discards its tail and commences frog. It was not in our outward frame 
that the Doctor could discern any resemblance to this process; but he 
found it in that expansion of the intellectual faculties, those 
aspirations of the spiritual part, wherein the Soul seems to feel its 
wings and to imp them for future flight.

One has always something for which to look forward, some change for 
the better. The boy in petticoats longs to be drest in the masculine 
gender. Little boys wish to be big ones. In youth we are eager to 
attain manhood, and in manhood matrimony becomes the next natural step 
of our desires. “Days then should speak, and multitude of years should 
teach wisdom;” and teach it they will, if man will but learn, for 
nature brings the heart into a state for receiving it.

_Jucundissima est ætas devexa jam, non tamen præceps; et illam quoque 
in extremâ regulâ stantem, judico habere suas voluptates; aut hoc 
ipsum succedit in locum voluptatum, nullis egere. Quam dulce est, 
cupiditates fatigasse ac reliquisse!_[1] This was not Dr. Dove's 
philosophy: he thought the stage of senescence a happy one, not 
because we outgrow the desires and enjoyments of youth and manhood, 
but because wiser desires, more permanent enjoyments, and holier hopes 
succeed to them,—because time in its course brings us nearer to 
eternity, and as earth recedes, Heaven opens upon our prospect.

[Footnote 1: SENECA.]

“It is the will of God and nature,” says Franklin, “that these mortal 
bodies be laid aside when the soul is to enter into real life. This is 
rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man is not 
completely born until he be dead. Why, then, should we grieve that a 
new child is born among the immortals, a new member added to their 
happy society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while 
they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in 
doing good to our fellow-creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of 
God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain 
instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an encumbrance, and 
answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally 
kind and benevolent, that a way is provided by which we may get rid of 
them. Death is that way.”

“God,” says Fuller, “sends his servants to bed, when they have done 
their work.”

This is a subject upon which even Sir Richard Blackmore could write 
with a poet's feeling.

  Thou dost, O Death, a peaceful harbour lie
  Upon the margin of Eternity;
  Where the rough waves of Time's impetuous tide
  Their motion lose, and quietly subside:
  Weary, they roll their drousy heads asleep
  At the dark entrance of Duration's deep.
  Hither our vessels in their turn retreat;
  Here still they find a safe untroubled seat,
  When worn with adverse passions, furious strife,
  And the hard passage of tempestuous life.

  Thou dost to man unfeigned compassion show,
  Soothe all his grief, and solace all his woe.
  Thy spiceries with noble drugs abound,
  That every sickness cure and every wound.
  That which anoints the corpse will only prove 
  The sovereign balm our anguish to remove.
  The cooling draught administered by thee,
  O Death! from all our sufferings sets us free.
  Impetuous life is by thy force subdued,
  Life, the most lasting fever of the blood.
  The weary in thy arms lie down to rest,
  No more with breath's laborious task opprest.
  Hear, how the men that long life-ridden lie,
  In constant pain, for thy assistance cry,
  Hear how they beg and pray for leave to die.
  For vagabonds that o'er the country roam,
  Forlorn, unpitied and without a home,
  Thy friendly care provides a lodging-room.
  The comfortless, the naked, and the poor,
  Much pinch'd with cold, with grievous hunger more,
  Thy subterranean hospitals receive,
  Assuage their anguish and their wants relieve.
  Cripples with aches and with age opprest,
  Crawl on their crutches to the Grave for rest.
  Exhausted travellers that have undergone
  The scorching heats of life's intemperate zone,
  Haste for refreshment to their beds beneath
  And stretch themselves in the cool shades of death.
  Poor labourers who their daily task repeat,
  Tired with their still returning toil and sweat,
  Lie down at last; and at the wish'd for close
  Of life's long day, enjoy a sweet repose.

  Thy realms, indulgent Death, have still possest
  Profound tranquillity and unmolested rest.
  No raging tempests, which the living dread,
  Beat on the silent regions of the dead:
  Proud Princes ne'er excite with war's alarms
  Thy subterranean colonies to arms.
  They undisturbed their peaceful mansions keep,
  And earthquakes only rock them in their sleep.

Much has been omitted, which may be found in the original, and one 
couplet removed from its place; but the whole is Blackmore's.




CHAPTER CLXXXVI.

LEONE HEBREO'S DIALOGI DE AMORE.—THE ELIXIR OF LIFE NO OBSTACLE TO 
DEATH.—PARACELSUS.—VAN HELMONT AND JAN MASS.—DR. DOVE'S OPINION OF A 
BIOGRAPHER'S DUTIES.

There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors!

OLD FORTUNATUS.


In Leone Hebreo's Dialogi de Amore, one of the interlocutors says, 
“_Vediamo che gli huomini naturalmente desiano di mai non morire; 
lagual cosa è impossibile, manifesta, e senza speranza._” To which the 
other replies, “_Coloro chel desiano, non credeno interamente che sia 
impossibile, et hanno inteso per le historie legali, che Enoc, et 
Elia, et ancor Santo Giovanni Evangelista sono immortali in corpo, et 
anima: se ben veggono essere stato per miracolo: onde ciascuno pensa 
che à loro Dio potria fare simil miracolo. E però con questa 
possibilita si gionta qualche remota speranza, laquale incita un lento 
desiderio, massimamente per essere la morte horribile, e la 
corruttione propria odiosa à chi si vuole, et il desiderio non è d' 
acquistare cosa nuova, ma di non perdere la vita, che si truova; 
laquale havendosi di presente, è facil cosa ingannarsi l'huomo à 
desiare che non si perda; se ben naturalmente è impossibile: chel 
desiderio di ciò è talmente lento, che può essere di cosa impossibile 
et imaginabile, essendo di tanta importantia al desiderante. Et ancora 
ti dirò chel fondamento di questo desiderio non è vano in se, se bene 
è alquanto ingannoso, però chel desiderio dell' huomo d'essere 
immortale è veramente possibile; perche l'esentia dell' huomu, (come 
rettamente Platon vuole) non è altro che la sua anima intellettiva, 
laquale per la virtu, sapientia, cognitione, et amore divino si fa 
gloriosa et immortale._”

Paracelsus used to boast that he would not die till he thought proper 
so to do, thus wishing it to be understood that he had discovered the 
Elixir of life. He died suddenly, and at a time when he seemed to be 
in full health; and hence arose a report, that he had made a compact 
with the Devil, who enabled him to perform all his cures, but came for 
him as soon as the term of their agreement was up.

Wherefore indeed should he have died by any natural means who so well 
understood the mysteries of life and of death. What, says he, is life? 
_Nihil meherclè vita est aliud, nisi Mumia quædam Balsamita conservans 
mortale corpus à mortalibus vermibus, et eschara cum impressâ liquoris 
salium commisturâ._ What is Death? _Nihil certe aliud quam Balsami 
dominium, Mumiæ interitus, salium ultima materia._ Do you understand 
this, Reader? If you do, I do not.

But he is intelligible when he tells us that Life may be likened to 
Fire, and that all we want is to discover the fuel for keeping it 
up,—the true Lignum Vitæ. It is not against nature, he contends, that 
we should live till the renovation of all things; it is only against 
our knowledge, and beyond it. But there are medicaments for prolonging 
life; and none but the foolish or the ignorant would ask why then is 
it that Princes and Kings who can afford to purchase them, die 
nevertheless like other people. The reason says the great Bombast von 
Hohenheim is that their physicians know less about medicine than the 
very boors, and moreover that Princes and Kings lead dissolute lives. 
And if it be asked why no one except Hermes Trismegistus has used such 
medicaments; he replies that others have used them, but have not let 
it be known.

Van Helmont was once of opinion that no metallic preparation could 
contain in itself the blessing of the Tree of Life, though that the 
Philosopher's stone had been discovered was a fact that consisted with 
his own sure knowledge. This opinion however was in part changed, in 
consequence of some experiments made with an aurific powder, given him 
by a stranger after a single evening's acquaintance; _(vir peregrinus, 
unius vesperi amicus:)_ these experiments convinced him that the stone 
partook of what he calls Zoophyte life, as distinguished both from 
vegetative and sensitive. But the true secret he thought, must be 
derived from the vegetable world, and he sought for it in the Cedar, 
induced, as it seems, by the frequent mention of that tree in the Old 
Testament. He says much concerning the cedar,—among other things, that 
when all other plants were destroyed by the Deluge, and their kinds 
preserved only in their seed, the Cedars of Lebanon remained uninjured 
under the waters. However when he comes to the main point, he makes a 
full stop, saying, _Cætera autem quæ de Cedro sunt, mecum sepelientur: 
nam mundus non capax est._ It is not unlikely that if his mysticism 
had been expressed in the language of intelligible speculation, it 
might have been found to accord with some of Berkeley's theories in 
the _Siris_. But for his reticence upon this subject, as if the world 
were not worthy of his discoveries, he ought to have been deprived of 
his two remaining talents. Five he tells us he had received for his 
portion, but because instead of improving them, he had shown himself 
unworthy of so large a trust, he by whom they were given had taken 
from him three. “_Ago illi gratias, quod cum contulisset in me quinque 
talenta, fecissemque me indignum, et hactenus repudium coram eo factus 
essem, placuit divinæ bonitati, auferre à me tria, et relinquere adhuc 
bina, ut me sic ad meliorem frugem exspectaret. Maluit, inquam, me 
depauperare et tolerare, ut non essem utilis plurimis, modò me 
salvaret ab hujus mundi periculis. Sit ipsi æterna sanctificatio._”

He has however informed posterity of the means by which he prolonged 
the life of a man to extreme old age. This person whose name was Jan 
Mass, was in the service of Martin Rythovius, the first Bishop of 
Ypres, when that prelate, by desire of the illustrious sufferers, 
assisted at the execution of Counts Egmond and Horn. Mass was then in 
the twenty-fifth year of his age. When he was fifty-eight, being poor, 
and having a large family of young children, he came to Van Helmont, 
and entreated him to prolong his life if he could, for the sake of 
these children, who would be left destitute in case of his death, and 
must have to beg their bread from door to door. Van Helmont, then a 
young man, was moved by such an application, and considering what 
might be the likeliest means of sustaining life in its decay, he 
called to mind the fact that wine is preserved from corruption by the 
fumes of burnt brimstone; it then occurred to him that the acid liquor 
of sulphur, _acidum sulfuris stagma_, (it is better so to translate 
his words than to call it the sulphuric acid,) must of necessity 
contain the fumes and odour of sulphur, being, according to his 
chemistry, nothing but those fumes of sulphur, combined with, or 
imbibed in, its mercurial salt. The next step in his reasoning was to 
regard the blood as the wine of life; if this could be kept sound, 
though longevity might not be the necessary consequence, life would at 
least be preserved from the many maladies which arose from its 
corruption, and the sanity, and immunity from such diseases, and from 
the sufferings consequent thereon, must certainly tend to its 
prolongation. He gave Mass therefore a stone bottle of the distilled 
liquor of sulphur, and taught him also how to prepare this oil from 
burnt sulphur. And he ordered him at every meal to take two drops of 
it in his first draught of beer; and not lightly to exceed that; two 
drops, he thought, contained enough of the fumes for a sufficient 
dose. This was in the year 1600; and now, says Helmont, in 1641, the 
old man still walks about the streets of Brussels. And what is still 
better, _(quodque augustius est,)_ in all these forty years, he has 
never been confined by any illness, except that by a fall upon the ice 
he once broke his leg near the knee; and he has constantly been free 
from fever, remaining a slender and lean man, and always poor.

Jan Mass had nearly reached his hundredth year when this was written, 
and it is no wonder that Van Helmont, who upon a fantastic analogy had 
really prescribed an efficient tonic, should have accounted by the 
virtue of his prescription for the health and vigour, which a strong 
constitution had retained to that extraordinary age. There is no 
reason for doubting the truth of his statement; but if Van Helmont 
relied upon his theory, he must have made further experiments; it is 
probable therefore that he either distrusted his own hypothesis, or 
found upon subsequent trials that the result disappointed him.

Van Helmont's works were collected and edited by his son Francis 
Mercurius, who styles himself _Philosophus per Unum in quo Omnia 
Eremita peregrinans_, and who dedicated the collection as a holocaust 
to the ineffable Hebrew Name. The Vita Authoris which he prefixed to 
it relates to his own life, not to his father's, and little can be 
learnt from it, except that he is the more mystical and least 
intelligible of the two. The most curious circumstances concerning the 
father are what he has himself communicated in the treatise entitled 
his Confession, into which the writer of his life in Aikin's Biography 
seems not to have looked, nor indeed into any of his works, the 
articles in that as in our other Biographies, being generally compiled 
from compilations, so as to present the most superficial information, 
with the least possible trouble to the writer and the least possible 
profit to the reader,—skimming for him not the cream of knowledge, but 
the scum.

Dr. Dove used to say that whoever wrote the life of an author without 
carefully perusing his works acted as iniquitously as a Judge who 
should pronounce sentence in a cause without hearing the evidence; nay 
he maintained, the case was even worse, because there was an even 
chance that the Judge might deliver a right sentence, but it was 
impossible that a life so composed should be otherwise than grievously 
imperfect, if not grossly erroneous. For all the ordinary business of 
the medical profession he thought it sufficient that a practitioner 
should thoroughly understand the practice of his art, and proceed 
empirically: God help the patients, he would say, if it were not so! 
and indeed without God's help they would fare badly at the best. But 
he was of opinion that no one could take a lively and at the same time 
a worthy interest in any art or science without as it were identifying 
himself with it, and seeking to make himself well acquainted with its 
history: a Physician therefore, according to his way of thinking ought 
to be as curious concerning the writings of his more eminent 
predecessors, and as well read in the most illustrious of them, as a 
general in the wars of Hannibal, Cæsar, the Black Prince, the Prince 
of Parma, Gustavus Adolphus, and Marlborough. How carefully he had 
perused Van Helmont was shown by the little landmarks whereby after an 
interval of—alas how many years,—I have followed him through the 
volume,—_haud passibus æquis_.




CHAPTER CLXXXVII.

VAN HELMONT'S WORKS, AND CERTAIN SPECIALITIES IN HIS LIFE.

_Voilà, mon conte.—Je ne sçay s'il est vray; mais, je l'ay ainsi ouy 
conter.—Possible que cela est faux, possible que non.—Je m'en rapporte 
à ce qui en est. Il ne sera pas damné qui le croira, ou décroira._

BRANTÔME.


“The works of Van Helmont,” Dr. Aikin says, “are now only consulted as 
curiosities; but with much error and jargon, they contain many shrewd 
remarks, and curious speculations.”

How little would any reader suppose from this account of them, or 
indeed from any thing which Dr. Aikin has said concerning this once 
celebrated person, that Van Helmont might as fitly be classed among 
enthusiasts as among physicians, and with philosophers as with either; 
and that like most enthusiasts it is sometimes not easy to determine 
whether he was deceived himself or intended to deceive others.

He was born at Brussels in the year 1577, and of noble family. In his 
Treatise entitled _Tumulus Pestis_ (to which strange title a 
stranger[1] explanation is annexed) he gives a sketch of his own 
history, saying, “_imitemini, si quid forte boni in eâ occurrerit._” 
He was a devourer of books, and digested into common places for his 
own use, whatever he thought most remarkable in them, so that few 
exceeded him in diligence, but most, he says, in judgement. At the age 
of seventeen, he was appointed by the Professors Thomas Fyenus, Gerard 
de Velleers, and Stornius, to read surgical lectures in the Medical 
College at Louvain. _Eheu_, he exclaims, _præsumsi docere, quæ ipse 
nesciebam!_ and his presumption was increased because the Professors 
of their own accord appointed him to this Lectureship, attended to 
hear him, and were the Censors of what he delivered. The writers from 
whom he compiled his discourses were Holerius, Tagaultius, Guido, 
Vigo, Ægineta, and “the whole tribe of Arabian authors.” But then he 
began, and in good time, to marvel at his own temerity and 
inconsiderateness in thinking that by mere reading, he could be 
qualified to teach what could be learnt only by seeing, and by 
operating, and by long practice, and by careful observation: and this 
distrust in himself was increased when he discovered that the 
Professors could give him no further light than books had done. 
However at the age of twenty-two he was created Doctor of Medicine in 
the same University.

[Footnote 1:

  Lector, titulus quem legis, terror lugubris, foribus affixus,
              intus mortem, mortis genus, et hominum
           nunciat flagrum. Sta, et inquire, quid hoc?
                      Mirare. Quid sibi vult
                     Tumuli Epigraphe Pestis?
      Sub anatome abii, non obii; quamdiu malesuada invidia
                 Momi, et hominum ignara cupido,
                           me fovebunt.
                            Ergo heic
         Non funus, non cadaver, non mors, non sceleton
                   non luctus, non contagium.
                       ÆTERNO DA GLORIAM
    Quod Pestis jam desiit, sub Anatomes proprio supplicio.]


Very soon he began to repent that he, who was by birth noble, should 
have been the first of his family to choose the medical profession, 
and this against the will of his mother, and without the knowledge of 
his other relations. “I lamented, he says, with tears the sin of my 
disobedience, and regretted the time and labour which had been thus 
vainly expended: and often with a sorrowful heart I intreated the Lord 
that he would be pleased to lead me to a vocation not of my own 
choice, but in which I might best perform his will; and I made a vow 
that to whatever way of life he might call me, I would follow it, and 
do my utmost endeavour therein to serve him. Then, as if I had tasted 
of the forbidden fruit, I discovered my own nakedness. I saw that 
there was neither truth nor knowledge in my putative learning; and 
thought it cruel to derive money from the sufferings of others; and 
unfitting that an art founded upon charity, and conferred upon the 
condition of exercising compassion, should be converted into a means 
of lucre.”

These reflections were promoted if not induced by his having caught a 
disorder which as it is not mentionable in polite circles, may be 
described by intimating that the symptom from which it derives its 
name is alleviated by what Johnson defines tearing or rubbing with the 
nails. It was communicated to him by a young lady's glove, into which 
in a evil minute of sportive gallantry he had insinuated his hand. The 
physicians treated him, _secundum artem_, in entire ignorance of the 
disease; they bled him to cool the liver, and they purged him to carry 
off the torrid choler and the salt phlegm, they repeated this 
clearance again and again, till from a hale strong and active man they 
had reduced him to extreme leanness and debility without in the 
slightest degree abating the cutaneous disease. He then persuaded 
himself that the humours which the Galenists were so triumphantly 
expelling from his poor carcase had not preexisted there in that state 
but were produced by the action of their drugs. Some one cured him 
easily by brimstone, and this is said to have made him feelingly 
perceive the inefficiency of the scholastic practice which he had 
hitherto pursued.

In this state of mind he made over his inheritance to a widowed 
sister, who stood in need of it, gave up his profession, and left his 
own country with an intention of never returning to it. The world was 
all before him, and he began his travels with as little fore-knowledge 
whither he was going, and as little fore-thought of what he should do, 
as Adam himself when the gate of Paradise was closed upon him; but he 
went with the hope that God would direct his course by His good 
pleasure to some good end. It so happened that he who had renounced 
the profession of medicine as founded on delusion and imposture was 
thrown into the way of practising it, by falling in company with a man 
who had no learning, but who understood the practical part of 
chemistry, or pyrotechny, as he calls it. The new world which Columbus 
discovered did not open a wider or more alluring field to ambition and 
rapacity than this science presented to Van Helmont's enthusiastic and 
enquiring mind. “Then” says he, “when by means of fire I beheld the 
_penetrale_, the inward or secret part of certain bodies, I 
comprehended the separations of many, which were not then taught in 
books, and some of which are still unknown.” He pursued his 
experiments with increasing ardour, and in the course of two years 
acquired such reputation by the cures which he performed, that because 
of his reputation he was sent for by the Elector of Cologne. Then 
indeed he became more ashamed of his late and learned ignorance, and 
renouncing all books because they sung only the same cuckoo note, 
perceived that he profited more by fire, and by conceptions acquired 
in praying. “And then,” says he, “I clearly knew that I had missed the 
entrance of true philosophy, on all sides obstacles and obscurities 
and difficulties appeared, which neither labour, nor time, nor vigils, 
nor expenditure of money could overcome and disperse, but only the 
mere goodness of God. Neither women, nor social meetings deprived me 
then of even a single hour, but continual labour and watching were the 
thieves of my time; for I willingly cured the poor and those of mean 
estate, being more moved by human compassion, and a moral love of 
giving, than by pure universal charity reflected in the Fountain of 
Life.”




INTERCHAPTER XX.

ST. PANTALEON OF NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA—HIS HISTORY, AND SOME FURTHER 
PARTICULARS NOT TO BE FOUND ELSEWHERE.

   _Non dicea le cose senza il quia;
  Che il dritto distingueva dal mancino,
  E dicea pane al pane, e vino al vino._

BERTOLDO.


This Interchapter is dedicated to St. Pantaleon, of Nicomedia in 
Bithynia, student in medicine and practitioner in miracles, whose 
martyrdom is commemorated by the Church of Rome, on the 27th of July.

  _Sancte Pantaleon, ora pro nobis!_

This I say to be on the safe side; though between ourselves reader, 
Nicephorus, and Usuardus, and Vincentius and St. Antoninus 
(notwithstanding his sanctity) have written so many lies concerning 
him, that it is very doubtful whether there ever was such a person, 
and still more doubtful whether there be such a Saint. However the 
body which is venerated under his name, is just as venerable as if it 
had really belonged to him, and works miracles as well.

It is a tradition in Corsica that when St. Pantaleon was beheaded, the 
executioner's sword was converted into a wax taper, and the weapons of 
all his attendants into snuffers, and that the head rose from the 
block and sung. In honour of this miracle the Corsicans as late as the 
year 1775 used to have their swords consecrated, or charmed,—by laying 
them on the altar while a mass was performed to St. Pantaleon.

But what have I, who am writing in January instead of July, and who am 
no papist, and who have the happiness of living in a protestant 
country, and was baptized moreover by a right old English name,—what 
have I to do with St. Pantaleon? Simply this, my new pantaloons are 
just come home, and that they derive their name from the aforesaid 
Saint is as certain,—as that it was high time I should have a new 
pair.

St. Pantaleon though the tutelary Saint of Oporto (which city boasteth 
of his relics) was in more especial fashion at Venice: and so many of 
the grave Venetians were in consequence named after him, that the 
other Italians called them generally Pantaloni in derision,—as an 
Irishman is called Pat, and as Sawney is with us synonymous with 
Scotchman, or Taffy for a son of Cadwallader and votary of St. David 
and his leek. Now the Venetians wore long small clothes; these as 
being the national dress were called Pantaloni also; and when the 
trunk-hose of Elizabeth's days went out of fashion, we received them 
from France, with the name of pantaloons.

Pantaloons then as of Venetian and Magnifico parentage, and under the 
patronage of an eminent Saint, are doubtless an honourable garb. They 
are also of honourable extraction, being clearly of the Braccæ family. 
For it is this part of our dress by which we are more particularly 
distinguished from the Oriental and inferior nations and also from the 
abominable Romans whom our ancestors, Heaven be praised! subdued. 
Under the miserable reign of Honorius and Arcadius, these Lords of the 
World thought proper to expel the Braccarii, or breeches-makers, from 
their capitals, and to prohibit the use of this garment, thinking it a 
thing unworthy that the Romans should wear the habit of 
Barbarians:—and truly it was not fit that so effeminate a race should 
wear the breeches.

The Pantaloons are of this good Gothic family. The fashion having been 
disused for more than a century was re-introduced some five and twenty 
years ago, and still prevails so much—that I who like to go with the 
stream, and am therefore content to have fashions thrust upon me, have 
just received a new pair from London.

The coming of a box from the Great City is an event which is always 
looked to by the juveniles of this family with some degree of 
impatience. In the present case there was especial cause for such 
joyful expectation, for the package was to contain no less a treasure 
than the story of the Lioness and the Exeter Mail, with appropriate 
engravings representing the whole of that remarkable history, and 
those engravings emblazoned in appropriate colours. This adventure had 
excited an extraordinary degree of interest among us when it was 
related in the newspapers: and no sooner had a book upon the subject 
been advertised, than the young ones one and all were in an uproar, 
and tumultuously petitioned that I would send for it,—to which, 
thinking the prayer of the petitioners reasonable, I graciously 
assented. And moreover there was expected among other things _ejusdem 
generis_, one of those very few perquisites which the all-annihilating 
hand of Modern Reform has not retrenched in our public offices,—an 
Almanac or Pocket-Book for the year, curiously bound and gilt, three 
only being made up in this magnificent manner for three magnificent 
personages, from one of whom this was a present to my lawful 
Governess. Poor Mr. Bankes! the very hairs of his wig will stand 
erect,

  Like quills upon the fretful porcupine,

when he reads of this flagrant misapplication of public money; and Mr. 
Whitbread would have founded a motion upon it, had he survived the 
battle of Waterloo.

There are few things in which so many vexatious delays are continually 
occurring, and so many rascally frauds are systematically practised, 
as in the carriage of parcels. It is indeed much to be wished that 
Government could take into its hands the conveyance of goods as well 
as letters, for in this country whatever is done by Government is done 
punctually and honourably;—what corruption there is lies among the 
people themselves, among whom honesty is certainly less general than 
it was half a century ago. Three or four days elapsed on each of which 
the box ought to have arrived. Will it come to day Papa? was the 
morning question: why does not it come? was the complaint at noon; and 
when will it come? was the query at night. But in childhood the delay 
of hope is only the prolongation of enjoyment; and through life 
indeed, hope if it be of the right kind, is the best food of 
happiness. “The House of Hope,” says Hafiz, “is built upon a weak 
foundation.” If it be so, I say, the fault is in the builder: Build it 
upon a Rock, and it will stand.

_Expectata dies_,—long looked for, at length it came. The box was 
brought into the parlour, the ripping-chissel was produced, the nails 
were easily forced, the cover was lifted, and the paper which lay 
beneath it was removed. There's the pantaloons! was the first 
exclamation. The clothes being taken out, there appeared below a paper 
parcel, secured with string. As I never encourage any undue 
impatience, the string was deliberately and carefully untied. Behold, 
the splendid Pocket-Book, and the history of the Lioness and the 
Exeter Mail,—had been forgotten!

O St. Peter! St. Peter!

“Pray, Sir,” says the Reader, “as I perceive you are a person who have 
a reason for every thing you say, may I ask wherefore you call upon 
St. Peter on this occasion.”

You may Sir.

A reason there is and a valid one. But what that reason is, I shall 
leave the commentators to discover; observing only, for the sake of 
lessening their difficulty, that the Peter upon whom I have called is 
not St. Peter of Verona, he having been an Inquisitor, one of the 
Devil's Saints, and therefore in no condition at this time to help any 
body who invokes him.

“Well Papa, you must write about them, and they must come in the next 
parcel,” said the children. Job never behaved better, who was a 
scriptural Epictetus; nor Epictetus who was a heathen Job.

I kissed the little philosophers; and gave them the Bellman's verses, 
which happened to come in the box, with horrific cuts of the Marriage 
at Cana, the Ascension and other portions of gospel history, and the 
Bellman himself,—so it was not altogether a blank. We agreed that the 
disappointment should be an adjourned pleasure, and then I turned to 
inspect the pantaloons.

I cannot approve the colour. It hath too much of the purple; not that 
imperial die by which ranks were discriminated at Constantinople, nor 
the more sober tint which Episcopacy affecteth. Nor is it the bloom of 
the plum;—still less can it be said to resemble the purple light of 
love. No! it is rather a hue brushed from the raven's wing, a black 
purple; not Night and Aurora meeting, which would make the darkness 
blush; but Erebus and Ultramarine.

Doubtless it hath been selected for me because of its alamodality,—a 
good and pregnant word, on the fitness of which some German whose name 
appears to be erroneously as well as uncouthly written Geamoenus, is 
said to have composed a dissertation. Be pleased Mr. Todd to insert it 
in the interleaved copy of your dictionary!

Thankful I am that they are not like Jean de Bart's full dress 
breeches; for when that famous sailor went to court he is said to have 
worn breeches of cloth of gold, most uncomfortably as well as 
splendidly lined with cloth of silver.

He would never have worn them had he read Lampridius, and seen the 
opinion of the Emperor Alexander Severus as by that historian 
recorded: “_in lineâ autem aurum mitti etiam dementiam judicabat, cum 
asperitati adderetur rigor._”

The word breeches has, I am well aware, been deemed ineffable, and 
therefore not to be written—because not to be read. But I am 
encouraged to use it by the high and mighty authority of the 
Anti-Jacobin Review. Mr. Stephens having in his Memoirs of Horne Tooke 
used the word small-clothes is thus reprehended for it by the 
indignant Censor.

“His _breeches_ he calls _small-clothes_;—the first time we have seen 
this bastard term, the offspring of gross ideas and disgusting 
affectation in print, in any thing like a book. It is scandalous to 
see men of education thus employing the most vulgar language, and 
corrupting their native tongue by the introduction of illegitimate 
words. But this is the age of affectation. Even our fishwomen and 
milkmaids affect to blush at the only word which can express this part 
of a man's dress, and lisp _small-clothes_ with as many airs as a 
would-be woman of fashion is accustomed to display. That this folly is 
indebted for its birth to grossness of imagination in those who evince 
it, will not admit of a doubt. From the same source arises the 
ridiculous and too frequent use of a French word for a part of female 
dress; as if the mere change of language could operate a change either 
in the thing expressed, or in the idea annexed to the expression! 
Surely, surely, English women, who are justly celebrated for good 
sense and decorous manners, should rise superior to such pityful, such 
paltry, such low-minded affectation.”

Here I must observe that one of these redoubtable critics is thought 
to have a partiality for breeches of the Dutch make. It is said also 
that he likes to cut them out for himself, and to have pockets of 
capacious size, wide and deep; and a large fob, and a large allowance 
of lining.

The Critic who so very much dislikes the word small-clothes, and 
argues so vehemently in behalf of breeches, uses no doubt that edition 
of the scriptures that is known by the name of the Breeches Bible.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Bible here alluded to was the Genevan one, by Rowland 
Hall, A.D. 1560. It was for many years the most popular one in 
England, and the notes were great favorites with the religious public, 
insomuch so that they were attached to a copy of King James' 
Translation as late as 1715. From the peculiar rendering of Genesis, 
iii. 7, the Editions of this translation have been commonly known by 
the name of “Breeches Bibles.”—See Cotton's Various Editions of the 
Bible, p. 14, and Ames and Herbert, Ed. Dibdin, vol. iv. p. 410.]

I ought to be grateful to the Anti-Jacobin Review. It assists in 
teaching me my duty to my neighbour, and enabling me to live in 
charity with all men. For I might perhaps think that nothing could be 
so wrong-headed as Leigh Hunt, so wrong-hearted as Cobbett, so foolish 
as one, so blackguard as the other, so impudently conceited as 
both,—if it were not for the Anti-Jacobin. I might believe that 
nothing could be so bad as the coarse, bloody and brutal spirit of the 
vulgar Jacobin,—if it were not for the Anti-Jacobin.

Blessings on the man for his love of pure English! It is to be 
expected that he will make great progress in it, through his 
familiarity with fishwomen and milk-maids; for it implies no common 
degree of familiarity with those interesting classes to talk to them 
about breeches, and discover that they prefer to call them 
small-clothes.

But wherefore did he not instruct us by which monosyllable he would 
express the female garment, “which is indeed the sister to a 
shirt,”—as an old poet says, and which he hath left unnamed,—for there 
are two by which it is denominated. Such a discussion would be worthy 
both of his good sense, and his decorous stile.

For my part, instead of expelling the word _chemise_ from use I would 
have it fairly naturalized.

Many plans have been proposed for reducing our orthography to some 
regular system, and improving our language in various ways. Mr. 
Elphinstone, Mr. Pinkerton, and Mr. Spence, the founder of the 
Spensean Philanthropists, have distinguished themselves in these 
useful and patriotic projects, and Mr. Pytches is at present in like 
manner laudably employed,—though that gentleman contents himself with 
reforming what these bolder spirits would revolutionize. I also would 
fain contribute to so desirable an end.

We agree that in spelling words it is proper to discard all reference 
to their etymology. The political reformer would confine the attention 
of the Government exclusively to what are called truly British 
objects; and the philological reformers in like manner are desirous of 
establishing a truly British language.

Upon this principle, I would anglicize the orthography of _chemise_; 
and by improving upon the hint which the word would then offer in its 
English appearance, we might introduce into our language a distinction 
of genders—in which it has hitherto been defective. For example,

  Hemise and Shemise.

Here without the use of an article, or any change of termination we 
have the needful distinction made more perspicuously than by _ó_ and 
_ń_, _hic_ and _hæc_, _le_ and _la_, or other articles serving for no 
other purpose.

Again. In letter-writing, every person knows that male and female 
letters have a distinct sexual character, they should therefore be 
generally distinguished thus,

  Hepistle and Shepistle.

And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two 
sexes I would propose

  Penmanship and Penwomanship.

Erroneous opinions in religion being promulgated in this country by 
women as well as men, the teachers of such false doctrines may be 
divided into

  Heresiarchs and Sheresiarchs,

so that we should speak of

  the Heresy of the Quakers
  the Sheresy of Joanna Southcote's people.

The troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which every person has 
experienced, is upon the same principle to be called according to the 
sex of the patient

  Hecups or Shecups,

which upon the principle of making our language truly British is 
better than the more classical form of

  Hiccups and Hæccups.

In its objective use the word becomes

  Hiscups or Hercups,

and in like manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the 
complaint never being masculine.

So also instead of making such words as agreeable, comfortable, &c. 
adjectives of one termination, I would propose,

  Masculine agreabeau, Feminine agreabelle
         comfortabeau           comfortabelle
           miserabeau           miserabelle,
                                  &c. &c.

These things are suggested as hints to Mr. Pytches, to be by him 
perpended in his improvement of our Dictionary. I beg leave also to 
point out for his critical notice the remarkable difference in the 
meaning of the word misfortune, as applied to man, woman, or child: a 
peculiarity for which perhaps no parallel is to be found in any other 
language.

But to return from these philological speculations to the Anti-Jacobin 
by whom we have been led to them, how is it that this critic, great 
master as he is of the vulgar tongue, should affirm that breeches is 
the only word by which this part of a man's dress can be expressed. 
Had he forgotten that there was such a word as galligaskins?—to say 
nothing of inexpressibles and dont-mention 'ems. Why also did he 
forget pantaloons?—and thus the Chapter like a rondeau comes round to 
St. Pantaleon with whom it began,

  _Sancte Pantaleon, ora pro nobis!_




“Here is another Chapter without a heading,”—the Compositor would have 
said when he came to this part of the Manuscript, if he had not seen 
at a glance, that in my great consideration I had said it for him.

Yes, Mr. Compositor! Because of the matter whereon it has to treat, we 
must, if you please, entitle this an

  ARCH-CHAPTER.

A Frenchman once, who was not ashamed of appearing ignorant on such a 
subject, asked another who with some reputation for classical 
attainments had not the same rare virtue, what was the difference 
between Dryads and Hamadryads; and the man of erudition gravely 
replied that it was much the same as that between Bishops and 
Archbishops.

I have dignified this Arch-Chapter in its designation, because it 
relates to the King.

Dr. Gooch, you are hereby requested to order this book for his 
Majesty's library,

  _C'est une rare pièce, et digne sur ma foi,
   Qu'on en fasse présent au cabinet d'un roi._[1]

[Footnote 1: MOLIERE.]

Dr. Gooch I have a great respect for you. At the time when there was 
an intention of bringing a bill into Parliament for emancipating the 
Plague from the Quarantine Laws, and allowing to the people of Great 
Britain their long withheld right of having this disease as freely as 
the small pox, measles and any other infectious malady, you wrote a 
paper and published it in the Quarterly Review, against that insane 
intention; proving its insanity so fully by matter of fact, and so 
conclusively by force of reasoning, that your arguments carried 
conviction with them, and put an end, for the time, to that part of 
the emancipating and free trade system.

Dr. Gooch, you have also written a volume of medical treatises of 
which I cannot speak more highly than by saying, sure I am that if the 
excellent subject of these my reminiscences were living, he would, for 
his admiration of those treatises have solicited the pleasure and 
honour of your acquaintance.

Dr. Gooch, comply with this humble request of a sincere, though 
unknown admirer, for the sake of your departed brother-in-physic, who, 
like yourself, brought to the study of the healing art, a fertile 
mind, a searching intellect and a benevolent heart. More, Dr. G. I 
might say, and more I would say, but—

  Should I say more, you well might censure me
  (What yet I never was) a flatterer.[2]

[Footnote 2: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.]

When the King (God bless his Majesty!) shall peruse this book and be 
well-pleased therewith, if it should enter into his royal mind to call 
for his Librarian, and ask of him what honour and dignity hath been 
done to the author of it, for having delighted the heart of the King, 
and of so many of his liege subjects, and you shall have replied unto 
his Majesty, “there is nothing done for him;” then Dr. Gooch when the 
King shall take it into consideration how to testify his satisfaction 
with the book, and to manifest his bounty toward the author, you are 
requested to bear in mind my thoughts upon this weighty matter, of 
which I shall now proceed to put you in possession.

Should he generously think of conferring upon me the honour of 
knighthood, or a baronetcy, or a peerage, (Lord Doncaster the title,) 
or a step in the peerage, according to my station in life, of which 
you Dr. Gooch can give him no information; or should he meditate the 
institution of an Order of Merit for men of letters, with an intention 
of nominating me among the original members, worthy as such intentions 
would be of his royal goodness, I should nevertheless, for reasons 
which it is not necessary to explain, deem it prudent to decline any 
of these honours.

Far be it from me, Dr. Gooch, to wish that the royal apparel should be 
brought which the King useth to wear, and the horse that the King 
rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head; and that 
this apparel and horse should be delivered to the hand of one of the 
King's most noble princes, that he might array me withal; and bring me 
on horseback through the streets of London, and proclaim before me, 
thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour! 
Such an exhibition would neither accord with this age, nor with the 
manners of this nation, nor with my humility.

As little should I desire that his Majesty should give orders for me 
to be clothed in purple, to drink in gold and to sleep upon gold, and 
to ride in a chariot with bridles of gold, and to have an head-tire of 
fine linen, and a chain about my neck, and to eat next the King, 
because of my wisdom, and to be called the King's cousin. For purple 
garments, Dr. Gooch are not among the _propria quæ maribus_ in England 
at this time; it is better to drink in glass than in gold, and to 
sleep upon a feather bed than upon a golden one; the only head-tire 
which I wear is my night-cap, I care not therefore for the fineness of 
its materials; and I dislike for myself chains of any kind.

That his Majesty should think of sending for me to sit next him 
because of my wisdom, is what he in his wisdom will not do, and what, 
if he were to do, would not be agreeable to me, in mine. But should 
the King desire to have me called his Cousin, accompanying that of 
course with such an appanage as would be seemly for its support, and 
should he notify that most gracious intention to you his Librarian, 
and give order that it should be by you inserted in the Gazette,—to 
the end that the secret which assuredly no sagacity can divine, and no 
indiscretion will betray, should incontinently thereupon be 
communicated through you to the royal ear; and that in future editions 
of this work, the name of the thus honoured author should appear with 
the illustrious designation, in golden letters of, “by special command 
of his Majesty,

  COUSIN TO THE KING.”

A gracious mandate of this nature, Dr. Gooch, would require a severe 
sacrifice from my loyal and dutiful obedience. Not that the respectful 
deference which is due to the royal and noble house of Gloucester 
should withhold me from accepting the proffered honour: to that house 
it could be nothing derogatory; the value of their consanguinity would 
rather be the more manifest, when the designation alone, unaccompanied 
with rank, was thus rendered by special command purely and singularly 
honourable. Still less should I be influenced by any apprehension of 
being confounded in cousinship with Olive, calling herself Princess of 
Cumberland. Nevertheless let me say, Dr. Gooch, while I am free to say 
it,—while I am treating of it paulo-post-futuratively, as of a 
possible case, not as a question brought before me for my prompt and 
irrevocable answer,—let me humbly say that I prefer the incognito even 
to this title. It is not necessary, and would not be proper to enter 
into my reasons for that preference; suffice it that it is my humour 
(speaking be it observed respectfully, and using that word in its 
critical and finer sense), that it is the idiosyncrasy of my 
disposition, the familiar way in which it pleases me innocently to 
exercise my privilege of free will. It is not a secret which every 
body knows, which nobody could help knowing and which was the more 
notoriously known because of its presumed secresy. Incognito I am and 
wish to be, and incognoscible it is in my power to remain:

          He deserves small trust,
  Who is not privy councillor to himself,

but my secret, (being my own) is, like my life (if that were needed) 
at the King's service, and at his alone;

  _Τοῖς κυρίοις γὰρ πάντα χρὴ δηλοῦν λόγον._[3]

[Footnote 3: SOPHOCLES.]

Be pleased therefore Dr. Gooch, if his Majesty most graciously and 
most considerately should ask, what may be done for the man (—meaning 
me,—) whom the King delighteth to honour;—be pleased, good Dr. Gooch, 
to represent that the allowance which is usually granted to a retired 
Envoy, would content his wishes, make his fortunes easy, and gladden 
his heart;—(Dr. Gooch you will forgive the liberty thus taken with 
you!)—that “where the word of a King is, there is power,”—that an 
ostensible reason for granting it may easily be found, a sealed 
communication from the unknown being made through your hands;—that 
many Envoys have not deserved it better, and many secret services 
which have been as largely rewarded have not afforded to the King so 
much satisfaction;—finally that this instance of royal bounty will not 
have the effect of directing public suspicion toward the object of 
that bounty, nor be likely to be barked at by Joseph Hume, Colonel 
Davies, and Daniel Whittle Harvey!




CHAPTER CLXXXVIII.

FOLLY IN PRINT, REFERRED TO, BUT (N.B.) NOT EXEMPLIFIED. THE FAIR MAID 
OF DONCASTER. DOUBTS CONCERNING THE AUTHENTICITY OF HER STORY. 
THEVENARD AND LOVE ON A NEW FOOTING. STARS AND GARTERS, A MONITORY 
ANECDOTE FOR OUR SEX, AND A WHOLESOME NOVELTY IN DRESS RECOMMENDED TO 
BOTH.

  They be at hand, Sir, with stick and fiddle,
  They can play a new dance, Sir, called hey, diddle, diddle.

KING CAMBYSES.


You have in the earlier chapters of this Opus, gentle Reader, heard 
much of the musical history of Doncaster; not indeed as it would have 
been related by that thoroughly good, fine-ear'd, kind-hearted, 
open-handed, happiest of musicians and men, Dr. Burney the first; and 
yet I hope thou mayest have found something in this relation which has 
been to thy pleasure in reading, and which, if it should be little to 
thy profit in remembrance, will be nothing to thy hurt. From music to 
dancing is an easy transition, but do not be afraid that I shall take 
thee to a Ball,—for I would rather go to the Treading Mill myself.

What I have to say of Doncaster dancing relates to times long before 
those to which my reminiscences belong.

In a collection of Poems entitled “Folly in Print”—(which title might 
be sufficiently appropriate for many such collections)—or a Book of 
Rhymes, printed in 1667, there is a Ballad called the Northern Lass, 
or the Fair Maid of Doncaster. Neither book or ballad has ever fallen 
in my way, nor has that comedy of Richard Broome's, which from its 
name Oldys supposed to have been founded upon the same story. I learn 
however in a recent and voluminous account of the English Stage from 
the Revolution (by a gentleman profoundly learned in the most 
worthless of all literature, and for whom that literature seems to 
have been quite good enough,) that Broome's play has no connection 
with the ballad, or with Doncaster. But the note in which Oldys 
mentions it has made me acquainted with this Fair Maid's propensity 
for dancing, and with the consequences that it brought upon her. Her 
name was Betty Maddox; a modern ballad writer would call her 
Elizabeth, if he adopted the style of the Elizabethan age; or Eliza if 
his taste inclined to the refinements of modern euphony. When an 
hundred horsemen wooed her, says Oldys, she conditioned that she would 
marry the one of them who could dance her down;

  You shall decide your quarrel by a dance,[1]

but she wearied them all; and they left her a maid for her pains.

  _Legiadria suos fervabat tanta per artus,
   Ut quæcunque potest fieri saltatio per nos
   Humanos, agili motu fiebat ab illâ._[2]

[Footnote 1: DRYDEN.]

[Footnote 2: MACARONICA.]

At that dancing match they must have footed it till, as is said in an 
old Comedy, a good country lass's capermonger might have been able to 
copy the figure of the dance from the impressions on the pavement.

For my own part I do not believe it to be a true story; they who 
please may. Was there one of the horsemen but would have said on such 
occasion, with the dancing Peruvians in one of Davenant's operatic 
dramas,

          Still round and round and round,
          Let us compass the ground.
          What man is he who feels
          Any weight at his heels,
  Since our hearts are so light, that, all weigh'd together,
  Agree to a grain, and they weigh not a feather.

I disbelieve it altogether, and not for its want of verisimilitude 
alone, but because when I was young there was no tradition of any such 
thing in the town where the venue of the action is laid; and therefore 
I conjecture that it is altogether a fictitious story, and may 
peradventure have been composed as a lesson for some young spinster 
whose indefatigable feet made her the terror of all partners.

The Welsh have a saying that if a woman were as quick with her feet as 
her tongue, she would catch lightning enough to kindle the fire in the 
morning; it is a fanciful saying, as many of the Welsh sayings are. 
But if Miss Maddox had been as quick with her tongue as her feet, 
instead of dancing an hundred horsemen down, she might have talked 
their hundred horses to death.

Why it was a greater feat than that of Kempe the actor, who in the age 
of odd performance danced from London to Norwich. He was nine days in 
dancing the journey and published an account of it under the title of 
his “Nine Day's Wonder.”[3] It could have been no “light fantastic 
toe” that went through such work; but one fit for the roughest game at 
football. At sight of the aweful foot to which it belonged, Cupid 
would have fled with as much reason as the Dragon of Wantley had for 
turning tail when Moor of Moor Hall with his spiked shoe-armour 
pursued him. He would have fled before marriage, for fear of being 
kicked out of the house after it. They must have been feet that 
instead of gliding and swimming, and treading the grass so trim, went 
as the old Comedy says lumperdee, clumperdee.[4]

[Footnote 3: Webster's Westward Ho. Act. v. Sc. i.—Anno 1600.]

[Footnote 4: RALPH ROISTER DOISTER.]

The Northern Lass was in this respect no Cinderella. Nor would any 
one, short of an Irish Giant have fallen in love with her slipper, as 
Thevenard the singer did with that which he saw by accident at a 
shoe-maker's, and enquiring for what enchanting person it was made, 
and judging of this earthly Venus as the proportions of Hercules have 
been estimated _ex pede_, sought her out, for love of her foot, 
commenced his addresses to her, and obtained her hand in marriage.

The story of Thevenard is true, at least it has been related and 
received as such; this of the Fair Maid of Doncaster is not even _ben 
trovato_. Who indeed shall persuade me, or who indeed will be 
persuaded, that if she had wished to drop the title of spinster and 
take her matrimonial degree, she would not have found some good excuse 
for putting an end to the dance when she had found a partner to her 
liking? A little of that wit which seldom fails a woman when it is 
needed, would have taught her how to do this with a grace, and make it 
appear that she was still an invincible dancer, though the Stars had 
decreed that in this instance she should lose the honour of the dance. 
Some accident might have been feigned like those by which the ancient 
epic poets, and their imitators contrive in their Games to disappoint 
those who are on the point of gaining the prize which is contended 
for.

If the Stars had favoured her, they might have predestined her to meet 
with such an accident as befel a young lady in the age of minuets. She 
was led out in a large assembly by her partner, the object of all 
eyes; and when the music began and the dance should have began also, 
and he was in motion, she found herself unable to move from the spot, 
she remained motionless for a few seconds, her colour changed from 
rose to ruby, presently she seemed about to faint, fell into the arms 
of those who ran to support her, and was carried out of the room. The 
fit may have been real, for though nothing ailed her, yet what had 
happened was enough to make any young woman faint in such a place. It 
was something far more embarrassing than the mishap against which 
Soame Jenyns cautions the ladies when he says,

  No waving lappets should the dancing fair,
  Nor ruffles edged with dangling fringes wear;
  Oft will the cobweb ornaments catch hold
  On the approaching button, rough with gold;
  Nor force nor art can then the bonds divide
  When once the entangled Gordian knot is tied.
  So the unhappy pair, by Hymen's power
  Together joined in some ill-fated hour,
  The more they strive their freedom to regain,
  The faster binds the indissoluble chain.

It was worse than this in the position in which she had placed herself 
according to rule, for beginning the minuet, she was fastened not by a 
spell, not by the influence of her malignant Stars, but by the hooks 
and eyes of her garters. The Countess of Salisbury's misfortune was as 
much less embarrassing as it was more celebrated.

No such misfortunes could have happened to that Countess who has been 
rendered illustrious thereby, nor to the once fair danceress, who 
would have dreaded nothing more than that her ridiculous distress 
should become publicly known, if they had worn _genouillères_, that is 
to say, knee-pieces. A necessary part of a suit of armour was 
distinguished by this name in the days of chivalry; and the article of 
dress which corresponds to it may be called kneelets, if for a new 
article we strike a new word in that mint of analogy, from which 
whatever is lawfully coined comes forth as the King's English. Dress 
and cookery are both great means of civilization, indeed they are 
among the greatest; both in their abuse are made subservient to luxury 
and extravagance, and so become productive of great evils, moral and 
physical; and with regard to both the physician may sometimes 
interfere with effect, when the moralist would fail. In diet the 
physician has more frequently to oppose the inclinations of his 
patient, than to gratify them; and it is not often that his advice in 
matters of dress meets with willing ears, although in these things the 
maxim will generally hold good, that whatever is wholesome is 
comfortable, and that whatever causes discomfort or uneasiness is more 
or less injurious to health. But he may recommend kneelets without 
having any objection raised on the score of fashion, or of vanity; and 
old and young may be thankful for the recommendation. Mr. 
Ready-to-halt would have found that they supported his weak joints and 
rendered him less liable to rheumatic attacks; and his daughter 
Much-afraid, if she had worn them when she “footed it handsomely,” 
might have danced without any fear of such accidents as happened to 
the Countess of old, or the heroine of the minuet in later times.

Begin therefore forthwith, dear Lady-readers, to knit _genouillères_ 
for yourselves, and for those whom you love. You will like them better 
I know by their French name, though English comes best from English 
lips; but so you knit and wear them, call them what you will.




CHAPTER CLXXXIX.

THE DOCTOR'S OPINION OF LATE HOURS. DANCING. FANATICAL OBJECTION OF 
THE ALBIGENSES; INJURIOUS EFFECT OF THAT OPINION WHEN TRANSMITTED TO 
THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS. SIR JOHN DAVIES AND BURTON QUOTED TO SHOW THAT 
IT CAN BE NO DISPARAGEMENT TO SAY THAT ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE, WHEN 
ALL THE SKY'S A BALL-ROOM.

  I could be pleased with any one
  Who entertained my sight with such gay shows,
  As men and women moving here and there,
  That coursing one another in their steps
  Have made their feet a tune.

DRYDEN.


The Doctor was no dancer. He had no inclination for this pastime even 
in what the song calls “our dancing days,” partly because his activity 
lay more in his head than in his heels, and partly perhaps from an 
apprehension of awkwardness, the consequence of his rustic breeding. 
In middle and later life he had strong professional objections, not to 
the act of dancing, but to the crowded and heated rooms wherein it was 
carried on, and to the late hours to which it was continued. In such 
rooms and at such assemblies, the Devil, as an old dramatist says, 
“takes delight to hang at a woman's girdle, like a rusty watch, that 
she cannot discern how the time passes.”[1] Bishop Hall in our 
friend's opinion spake wisely when drawing an ideal picture of the 
Christian, he said of him, “in a due season he betakes himself to his 
rest. He presumes not to alter the ordinance of day and night; nor 
dares confound, where distinctions are made by his Maker.”

[Footnote 1: WEBSTER.]

Concerning late hours indeed he was much of the same opinion as the 
man in the old play who thought that “if any thing was to be damned, 
it would be Twelve o'clock at night.”

  These should be hours for necessities,
  Not for delights; times to repair our nature
  With comforting repose, and not for us
  To waste these times.[2]

He used to say that whenever he heard of a ball carried on far into 
the night, or more properly speaking, far into the morning, it 
reminded him with too much reason of the Dance of Death.

  Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed:
  The breath of night's destructive to the hue
  Of ev'ry flow'r that blows. Go to the field,
  And ask the humble daisy why it sleeps
  Soon as the sun departs? Why close the eyes
  Of blossoms infinite, long ere the moon
  Her oriental veil puts off? Think why,
  Nor let the sweetest blossom Nature boasts
  Be thus exposed to night's unkindly damp.
  Well may it droop, and all its freshness lose,
  Compell'd to taste the rank and pois'nous steam
  Of midnight theatre, and morning ball.
  Give to repose the solemn hour she claims
  And from the forehead of the morning steal
  The sweet occasion. O there is a charm
  Which morning has, that gives the brow of age
  A smack of earth, and makes the lip of youth
  Shed perfume exquisite. Expect it not,
  Ye who till noon upon a down-bed lie,
  Indulging feverous sleep.[3]

[Footnote 2: SHAKESPEARE.]

[Footnote 3: HURDIS' VILLAGE CURATE.]

The reader need not be told that his objections were not puritanical, 
but physical. The moralist who cautioned his friend to refrain from 
dancing, because it was owing to a dance that John the Baptist lost 
his head, talked, he said, like a fool. Nor would he have formed a 
much more favourable opinion of the Missionary in South Africa, who 
told the Hottentots that dancing is a work of darkness, and that a 
fiddle is Satan's own instrument. At such an assertion he would have 
exclaimed a fiddlestick![4]—Why and how that word has become an 
interjection of contempt, I must leave those to explain who can. The 
Albigenses and the Vaudois are said to have believed that a dance is 
the Devil's procession, in which they who dance break the promise and 
vow which their sponsors made for them at their baptism that they 
should renounce the Devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of 
this wicked world,—(not to proceed further,)—this being one of his 
works, and undeniably one of the aforesaid vanities and pomps. They 
break moreover all the ten commandments, according to these fanatics; 
for fanatics they must be deemed who said this; and the manner in 
which they attempted to prove the assertion by exemplifying it through 
the decalogue, shows that the fermentation of their minds was in the 
acetous stage.

[Footnote 4: The explanation following is given in Grose's Classical 
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. FIDDLESTICK'S END. Nothing: the ends 
of the ancient fiddlesticks ending in a point: hence metaphorically 
used to express a thing terminating in nothing.]

Unfortunately for France, this opinion descended to the Huguenots; and 
the progress of the Reformation in that country was not so much 
promoted by Marot's psalms, as it was obstructed by this prejudice, a 
prejudice directly opposed to the temperament and habits of a 
mercurial people. “Dancing,” says Peter Heylyn, “is a sport to which 
they are so generally affected, that were it not so much enveighed 
against by their straight-laced Ministers, it is thought that many 
more of the French Catholicks had been of the Reformed Religion. For 
so extremely are they bent upon this disport, that neither Age nor 
Sickness, no nor poverty itself, can make them keep their heels still, 
when they hear the Music. Such as can hardly walk abroad without their 
Crutches, or go as if they were troubled all day with a Sciatica, and 
perchance have their rags hang so loose about them, that one would 
think a swift Galliard might shake them into their nakedness, will to 
the Dancing Green howsoever, and be there as eager at the sport, as if 
they had left their several infirmities and wants behind them. What 
makes their Ministers (and indeed all that follow the Genevian 
Discipline) enveigh so bitterly against Dancing, and punish it with 
such severity when they find it used? I am not able to determine, nor 
doth it any way belong unto this discourse. But being it is a 
Recreation which this people are so given unto, and such a one as 
cannot be followed but in a great deal of company, and before many 
witnesses and spectators of their carriage in it; I must needs think 
the Ministers of the French Church more nice than wise, if they choose 
rather to deter men from their Congregations, by so strict a Stoicism, 
than indulge any thing unto the jollity and natural gaiety of this 
people, in matters not offensive, but by accident only.”[5]

  Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue,
  But moody and dull melancholy,
  Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair;
  And at their heels, a huge infectious troop
  Of pale distemperatures and foes to life.[6]

[Footnote 5: The Rector of a Parish once complained to Fenelon of the 
practice of the villagers in dancing on Sunday evenings. “My good 
friend,” replied the prelate, “you and I should not dance, but 
allowance must be made to the poor people, who have only one day in 
the week to forget their misfortunes.”]

[Footnote 6: SHAKESPEARE.]

It is a good natured Roman Catholic who says, “that the obliging vices 
of some people are better than the sour and austere virtues of 
others.” The fallacy is more in his language than in his morality; for 
virtue is never sour, and in proportion as it is austere we may be 
sure that it is adulterated. Before a certain monk of St. Gal, Iso by 
name, was born, his mother dreamt that she was delivered of a 
hedge-hog; her dream was fulfilled in the character which he lived to 
obtain of being bristled with virtues like one. Methinks no one would 
like to come in contact with a person of this description. Yet among 
the qualities which pass with a part of the world for virtues, there 
are some of a soft and greasy kind, from which I should shrink with 
the same instinctive dislike. I remember to have met somewhere with 
this eulogium past upon one dissenting minister by another, that he 
was a lump of piety! I prefer the hedge-hog.

A dance, according to that teacher of the Albigenses whose diatribe 
has been preserved, is the service of the Devil, and the fiddler, whom 
Ben Jonson calls Tom Ticklefoot, is the Devil's minister. If he had 
known what Plato had said he would have referred to it in confirmation 
of this opinion, for Plato says that the Gods compassionating the 
laborious life to which mankind were doomed, sent Apollo, Bacchus and 
the Muses to teach them to sing, to drink, and to dance. And the old 
Puritan would to his own entire satisfaction have identified Apollo 
with Apollyon.

  “But shall we make the welkin dance indeed?”[7]

[Footnote 7: SHAKSPEARE.]

Sir John Davies, who holds an honourable and permanent station among 
English statesmen and poets deduces Dancing, in a youthful poem of 
extraordinary merit, from the Creation, saying that it

                    then began to be
    When the first seeds whereof the world did spring,
  The fire, air, earth, and water did agree,
    By Love's persuasion, Nature's mighty king,
    To leave their first disordered combating;
  And in a dance such measure to observe,
  As all the world their motion should preserve.

He says that it with the world

                     in point of time begun;
  Yea Time itself, (whose birth Jove never knew,
    And which indeed is elder than the Sun)
    Had not one moment of his age outrun,
  When out leapt Dancing from the heap of things
  And lightly rode upon his nimble wings.

  For that brave Sun, the father of the day,
    Doth love this Earth, the mother of the Night,
  And like a reveller in rich array,
    Doth dance his galliard in his leman's sight.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Who doth not see the measures of the Moon,
    Which thirteen times she danceth every year?
  And ends her pavin thirteen times as soon
    As doth her brother, of whose golden hair
    She borroweth part, and proudly doth it wear;
  Then doth she coyly turn her face aside,
  That half her cheek is scarce sometimes descried.

  And lo the Sea that fleets about the land
    And like a girdle clips her solid waist,
  Music and measure both doth understand.
    For his great crystal eye is always cast
    Up to the Moon, and on her fixed fast;
  And as she danceth in her pallid sphere,
  So danceth he about the centre here.

This is lofty poetry, and one cannot but regret that the poet should 
have put it in the mouth of so unworthy a person as one of Penelope's 
suitors, though the best of them has been chosen. The moral 
application which he makes to matrimony conveys a wholesome lesson:

  If they whom sacred love hath link'd in one,
    Do, as they dance, in all their course of life;
  Never shall burning grief, nor bitter moan,
    Nor factious difference, nor unkind strife,
    Arise betwixt the husband and the wife;
  For whether forth, or back, or round he go,
  As the man doth, so must the woman do.

  What if, by often interchange of place
    Sometimes the woman gets the upper hand?
  That is but done for more delightful grace;
    For on that part she doth not ever stand;
    But as the measure's law doth her command,
  She wheels about, and ere the dance doth end,
  Into her former place she doth transcend.[8]

[Footnote 8: It is remarkable that Sir John Davies should have written 
this Poem, which he entitled the Orchestra, and that very remarkable 
and beautiful one on the Immortality of the Soul.]

This poem of Sir John Davies's could not have been unknown to Burton, 
for Burton read every thing; but it must have escaped his memory, 
otherwise he who delighted in quotations and quoted so well, would 
have introduced some of his stanzas, when he himself was treating of 
the same subject and illustrated it with some of the same similitudes. 
“The Sun and Moon, some say,” (says he) “dance about the earth; the 
three upper planets about the Sun as their centre, now stationary, now 
direct, now retrograde, now _in apogæo_, then in _perigæo_, now swift, 
then slow; occidental, oriental, they turn round, jump and trace 
[symbol for venus] and [symbol for mercury] about the Sun, with those 
thirty-three _Maculæ_ or Burbonian planets, _circa Solem saltantes 
cytharedum_, saith Fromundus. Four Medicean stars dance about Jupiter, 
two Austrian about Saturn, &c. and all belike to the music of the 
spheres.”

Sir Thomas Browne had probably this passage in his mind, when he said 
“acquaint thyself with the _choragium_ of the stars.”

“The whole matter of the Universe and all the parts thereof,” says 
Henry More, “are ever upon motion, and in such a dance as whose traces 
backwards and forwards take a vast compass; and what seems to have 
made the longest stand, must again move, according to the modulations 
and accents of that Music, that is indeed out of the hearing of the 
acutest ears, but yet perceptible by the purest minds, and the 
sharpest wits. The truth whereof none would dare to oppose, if the 
breath of the gainsayer could but tell its own story, and declare 
through how many Stars and Vortices it has been strained, before the 
particles thereof met, to be abused to the framing of so rash a 
contradiction.”




CHAPTER CXC.

DANCING PROSCRIBED BY THE METHODISTS. ADAM CLARKE. BURCHELL'S REMARKS 
ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PRACTICE. HOW IT IS REGARDED IN THE 
COLUMBIAN PHILOSOPHY.

_Non vi par adunque che habbiamo ragionato a bastanza di questo? A 
bastanza parmi, rispose il Signor Gasparo; pur desidero io d'intendere 
qualche particolarità anchor._

IL CORTEGIANO.


The Methodist Preachers in the first Conference (that is Convocation 
or Yearly Meeting) after Mr. Wesley's death, past a law for the public 
over which their authority extends, or in their own language made a 
rule, that “schoolmasters and schoolmistresses who received 
dancing-masters into their schools, and parents also who employed 
dancing-masters for their children, should be no longer members of the 
Methodist Society.” Many arguments were urged against this rule, and 
therefore it was defended in the Magazine which is the authorized 
organ of the Conference, by the most learned and the most judicious of 
their members, Adam Clarke. There was however a sad want of judgement 
in some of the arguments which he employed. He quoted the injunction 
of St. Paul, “whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of 
the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him,” and he 
applied the text thus. Can any person, can any Christian _dance_ in 
the name of the Lord Jesus? Or, through him, give thanks to God the 
Father for such an employment?

Another text also appeared to him decisive against dancing and its 
inseparable concomitants; “woe unto them who chaunt unto the sound of 
the viol, and invent unto themselves instruments of music, as did 
David.” The original word which we translate _chaunt_, signifies 
according to him, _to quaver, to divide, to articulate,_ and may, he 
says, as well be applied to the management of the feet, as to the 
modulations of the voice. This interpretation is supported by the 
Septuagint, and by the Arabic version; but suppose it be disputed, he 
says, “yet this much will not be denied, that the text is pointedly 
enough against that without which dancing cannot well be carried on, I 
mean, instrumental music.” He might have read in Burton that “nothing 
was so familiar in France as for citizens wives, and maids to dance a 
round in the streets, and often too for want of better instruments to 
make good music of their own voices and dance after it.” Ben Jonson 
says truly “that measure is the soul of a dance, and Tune the 
tickle-foot thereof,” but in case of need, the mouth can supply its 
own music.

It is true the Scripture says “there is a time to dance;” but this he 
explains as simply meaning “that human life is a variegated scene.” 
Simple readers must they be who can simply understand it thus, to the 
exclusion of the literal sense. Adam Clarke has not remembered here 
that the Psalms enjoin us to praise the Lord with tabret and harp and 
lute, the strings and the pipe, and the trumpet and the loud cymbals, 
and to praise his name in the dance, and that David danced before the 
Ark. And though he might argue that Jewish observances are no longer 
binding, and that some things which were _permitted_ under the Jewish 
dispensation are no longer lawful, he certainly would not have 
maintained that any thing which was _enjoined_ among its religious 
solemnities, can now in itself be sinful.

I grant, he says, “that a number of motions and steps, circumscribed 
by a certain given space, and changed in certain quantities of time, 
may be destitute of physical and moral evil. But it is not against 
these things abstractedly that I speak. It is against their 
concomitant and consequent circumstances; the undue, the improper 
mixture of the sexes; the occasions and opportunities afforded of 
bringing forth those fruits of death which destroy their own souls, 
and bring the hoary heads of their too indulgent parents with sorrow 
to the grave.”

So good a man as Adam Clarke is not to be suspected of acting like an 
Advocate here, and adducing arguments which he knew to be fallacious, 
in support of a cause not tenable by fair reasoning. And how so wise a 
man could have reasoned so weakly, is explained by a passage in his 
most interesting and most valuable autobiography. “_Malâ ave_, when 
about twelve or thirteen years of age, I learned to _dance_. I long 
resisted all solicitations to this employment, but at last I suffered 
myself to be overcome; and learnt, and profited beyond most of my 
fellows. I grew passionately fond of it, would scarcely walk but in 
_measured time_, and was continually _tripping_, moving and 
_shuffling_, in all times and places. I began now to value myself, 
which, as far as I can recollect, I had never thought of before; I 
grew impatient of control, was fond of company, wished to mingle more 
than I had ever done with young people; I got also a passion for 
_better clothing_, than that which fell to my lot in life, was 
discontented when I found a neighbour's son _dressed better_ than 
myself. I lost the spirit of _subordination_, and did not _love work_, 
imbibed a spirit of _idleness_, and in short, drunk in all the 
brain-sickening effluvia of _pleasure_; dancing and company took the 
place of _reading_ and _study_; and the authority of my parents was 
feared indeed, but not respected; and few serious impressions could 
prevail in a mind imbued now with frivolity, and the love of pleasure; 
yet I entered into no disreputable assembly, and in no one case, ever 
kept any improper company; I formed no illegal connection, nor 
associated with any whose characters were either tarnished or 
suspicious. Nevertheless _dancing_ was to me a _perverting influence_, 
an _unmixed moral evil_; for although by the mercy of God, it led me 
not to depravity of manners, it greatly weakened the _moral 
principle_, drowned the voice of a well instructed conscience, and was 
the first cause of impelling me _to seek my happiness in this life_. 
Every thing yielded to the disposition it had produced, and every 
thing was absorbed by it. I have it justly in abhorrence for the moral 
injury it did me; and I can testify, (as far as my own observations 
have extended, and they have had a pretty wide range,) I have known it 
to produce the same evil in others that it produced in me. I consider 
it therefore as a branch of that _worldly education_, which leads from 
heaven to earth, from things spiritual to things sensual, and from God 
to Satan. Let them plead for it who will; I know it to be _evil_, and 
that _only_. They who bring up their children in this way, or send 
them to these schools where _dancing_ is taught, are consecrating them 
to the service of Moloch, and cultivating the passions, so as to cause 
them to bring forth the weeds of a fallen nature, with an additional 
rankness, deep rooted inveteracy, and inexhaustible fertility. _Nemo 
sobrius saltat_, ‘no man in his senses will dance,’ said Cicero, a 
heathen; shame on those Christians who advocate a cause by which many 
_sons_ have become profligate, and many _daughters_ have been ruined.” 
Such was the experience of Adam Clarke in _dancing_, and such was his 
opinion of the practice.[1]

[Footnote 1: It is old Fuller's observation, that “people over 
strait-laced in one part will hardly fail to grow awry in another.” 
Over against the observations of Adam Clarke may be set the following, 
from the life of that excellent man—Sir William Jones. “Nor was he so 
indifferent to slighter accomplishments as not to avail himself of the 
instructions of a celebrated dancing master at Aix-la-Chapelle. He had 
before taken lessons from Gallini in that trifling art.”—Carey's Lives 
of English Poets. Sir William Jones, p. 359.]

An opinion not less unfavourable is expressed in homely old verse by 
the translator of the Ship of Fools, Alexander Barclay.

  Than it in the earth no game is more damnable;
    It seemeth no peace, but battle openly,
  They that it use of minds seem unstable,
    As mad folk running with clamour, shout and cry
    What place is void of this furious folly?
  None; so that I doubt within a while
  These fools the holy Church shall defile.

  Of people what sort or order may we find,
    Rich or poor, high or low of name
  But by their foolishness and wanton mind,
    Of each sort some are given unto the same.
    The priests and clerks to dance have no shame.
  The friar or monk, in his frock and cowl,
  Must dance in his dortour, leaping to play the fool.

  To it comes children, maids, and wives,
    And flattering young men to see to have their prey;
  The hand-in-hand great falsehood oft contrives.
    The old quean also this madness will assay;
    And the old dotard, though he scantly may
  For age and lameness stir either foot or hand,
  Yet playeth he the fool, with others in the band.

  Then leap they about as folk past their mind,
    With madness amazed running in compace;
  He most is commended that can most lewdness find,
    Or can most quickly run about the place,
    There are all manners used that lack grace,
  Moving their bodies in signs full of shame,
  Which doth their hearts to sin right sore inflame.

  Do away your dances, ye people much unwise!
    Desist your foolish pleasure of travayle!
  It is methinks an unwise use and guise
    To take such labour and pain without avayle.
    And who that suspecteth his maid or wives tayle,
  Let him not suffer them in the dance to be;
    For in that game though size or cinque them fayle
  The dice oft runneth upon the chance of three.

The principle upon which such reasoning rests is one against which the 
Doctor expressed a strong opinion, whenever he heard it introduced. 
Nothing, he thought, could be more unreasonable than that the use of 
what is no ways hurtful or unlawful in itself, should be prohibited 
because it was liable to abuse. If that principle be once admitted, 
where is it to stop? There was a Persian tyrant, who having committed 
some horrible atrocity in one of his fits of drunkenness, ordered all 
the wine in his dominions to be spilt as soon as he became sober, and 
was conscious of what he had done; and in this he acted rightly, under 
a sense of duty as well as remorse, for it was enjoining obedience to 
a law of his religion, and enforcing it in a manner the most 
effectual. But a Christian government which because drunkenness is a 
common sin shall prohibit all spirituous liquors, would by so doing 
subject the far greater and better part of the community to an unjust 
and hurtful privation, thus punishing the sober, the inoffensive and 
the industrious, for the sake of the idle, the worthless and the 
profligate.

Jones of Nayland regarded these things with no puritanical feeling. 
“In joy, and thanksgiving,” says that good and true minister of the 
Church of England, “the tongue is not content with speaking, it must 
evoke and utter a song, while the feet are also disposed to dance to 
the measures of music, as was the custom in sacred celebrities of old 
among the people of God, before the World and its vanities had 
engrossed to themselves all the expressions of mirth and festivity. 
They have now left nothing of that kind to religion; which must sit by 
in gloomy solemnity, and see the World with the Flesh and the Devil 
assume to themselves the sole power of distributing social happiness.”

“Dancing,” says Mr. Burchell, “appears to have been in all ages of the 
world, and perhaps in all nations, a custom so natural, so pleasing, 
and even useful, that we may readily conclude it will continue to 
exist as long as mankind shall continue to people the earth. We see it 
practised as much by the savage as by the civilized, as much by the 
lowest, as by the highest classes of society; and as it is a 
recreation purely corporeal, and perfectly independent of mental 
qualification, or refinement, all are equally fitted for enjoying it: 
it is this probably which has occasioned it to become universal. All 
attempts therefore at rendering any exertion of the mind necessary to 
its performance, are an unnatural distortion of its proper and 
original features. Grace and ease of motion are the extent of its 
perfection; because these are the natural perfections of the human 
body. Every circumstance and object by which man is surrounded may be 
viewed in a philosophical light; and thus viewed, dancing appears to 
be a recreative mode of exercising the body and keeping it in health, 
the means of shaking off spleen, and of expanding one of the best 
characters of the heart,—the social feeling. When it does not affect 
this, the fault is not in the dance, but in the dancer; a perverse 
mind makes all things like itself. Dancing and music, which appears to 
be of equal antiquity, and equally general among mankind, are 
connected together only by a community of purpose: what one is for the 
body, the other is for the mind.”

The Doctor had come to a conclusion not unlike this traveller's 
concerning dancing,—he believed it to be a manifestation of that 
instinct by which the young are excited to wholesome exercise, and by 
which in riper years harmless employment is afforded for superfluous 
strength and restless activity. The delight which girls as well as 
boys take in riotous sports were proof enough, he said, that Nature 
had not given so universal an inclination without some wise purpose. 
An infant of six months will ply its arms and legs in the cradle, with 
all its might and main, for joy,—this being the mode of dancing at 
that stage of life. Nay, he said, he could produce grave authorities 
on which casuists would pronounce that a probable belief might be 
sustained, to prove that it is an innate propensity and of all 
propensities the one which has been developed in the earliest part of 
mortal existence; for it is recorded of certain Saints, that on 
certain holidays, dedicated either to the mystery, or to the heavenly 
patron under whose particular patronage they were placed, they danced 
before they were born, a sure token or presage of their future 
holiness and canonization, and a not less certain proof that the love 
of dancing is an innate principle.

  Lovest thou Music?
                Oh, 'tis sweet!
  What's dancing?
                E'en the mirth of feet.[2]

[Footnote 2: From a Masque quoted by D'ISRAELI.]




CHAPTER CXCI.

A SERIOUS WORD IN SAD APOLOGY FOR ONE OF THE MANY FOOLISH WAYS IN 
WHICH TIME IS MIS-SPENT.

  Time as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
  Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound;
  But the World's Time, is Time in masquerade!
  Their's, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged,
  With motley plumes; and where the peacock shews
  His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red
  With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
  Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
  And spades, the emblem of untimely graves.

COWPER.


Hunting, gaming and dancing are three propensities to which men are 
inclined equally in the savage and in the civilized,—in all stages of 
society from the rudest to the most refined, and in all its grades; 
the Doctor used to say they might be called semi-intellectual. The 
uses of hunting are obvious wherever there are wild animals which may 
be killed for food, or beasts of prey which for our own security it is 
expedient to destroy.

Indeed because hunting, hawking and fishing (all which according to 
Gwillim and Plato are comprised in the term Venation) tend to the 
providing of sustenance for man, Farnesius doth therefore account them 
all a species of agriculture. The great heraldic author approves of 
this comprehensive classification. But because the more heroic hunting 
in which danger is incurred from the strength and ferocity of the 
animals pursued, hath a resemblance of military practice, he delivers 
his opinion that “this noble kind of venation is privileged from the 
title of an Illiberal Art, being a princely and generous exercise; and 
those only, who use it for a trade of life, to make sure thereof, are 
to be marshalled in the rank of mechanics and illiberal artizans.” The 
Doctor admired the refinement of these authors, but he thought that 
neither lawful sporting, nor poaching could conveniently be 
denominated agricultural pursuits.

He found it not so easy to connect the love of gaming with any 
beneficial effect; some kind of mental emotion however, he argued, was 
required for rendering life bearable by creatures with whom sleep is 
not so compleatly an act of volition, that like dogs they can lie down 
and fall asleep when they like. For those persons therefore who are 
disposed either by education, capacity, or inclination to make any 
worthier exertion of their intellectual faculties, gaming, though 
infinitely dangerous as a passion, may be useful as a pastime. It has 
indeed a strong tendency to assume a dangerous type, and to induce as 
furious an excitement as drunkenness in its most ferocious form, but 
among the great card-playing public of all nations, long experience 
has produced an effect in mitigating it analogous to what the practice 
of inoculation has effected upon the small-pox. Vaccination would have 
afforded our philosopher a better illustration if it had been brought 
into notice during his life.

Pope has assigned to those women who neither toil or spin, “an old age 
of cards,” after “a youth of pleasure.” This perhaps is not now so 
generally the course of female life, in a certain class and under 
certain circumstances, as it was in his days and in the Doctor's. The 
Doctor, certainly was of opinion that if the senescent spinsters and 
dowagers within the circle of his little world, had not their cards as 
duly as their food, many of them would have taken to something worse 
in their stead. They would have sought for the excitement which they 
now found at the whist or quadrille table, from the bottle, or at the 
Methodist Meeting. In some way or other, spiritual or spirituous they 
must have had it;[1] and the more scandalous of these ways was not 
always that which would occasion the greatest domestic discomfort, or 
lead to the most injurious consequences. Others would have applied to 
him for relief from maladies which by whatever names they might be 
called, were neither more nor less than the effect of that _tædium 
vitæ_ which besets those who having no necessary employment have not 
devised any for themselves. And when he regarded the question in this 
light he almost doubted whether the invention of cards had not been 
more beneficial than injurious to mankind.

[Footnote 1: It happened during one of the lamented Southey's visits 
here at the Vicarage, West-Tarring, that a cargo of spirits was run 
close by. His remark was—“Better spirituous smuggling than spiritual 
pride.”]

It was not with an unkind or uncharitable feeling, still less with a 
contemptuous one that Anne Seward mentioning the death of a lady “long 
invalid and far advanced in life,” described her as “a civil social 
being, whose care was never to offend; who had the spirit of a 
gentlewoman in never doing a mean thing, whose mite was never withheld 
from the poor; and whose inferiority of understanding and knowledge 
found sanctuary at the card-table, that universal leveller of 
intellectual distinctions.” Let not such persons be despised in the 
pride of intellect! Let them not be condemned in the pride of self 
righteousness!

“Our law,” says the Puritan Matthew Mead, “supposes all to be of some 
calling, not only men but women, and the young ladies too; and 
therefore it calls them during their virgin state spinsters. But alas, 
the viciousness and degeneracy of this age hath forfeited the title. 
Many can _card_, but few can spin; and therefore you may write them 
_carders_, _dancers_, _painters_, _ranters_, _spenders_, rather than 
spinsters. Industry is worn out by pride and delicacy; the comb and 
the looking-glass possess the place and the hours of the spindle and 
the distaff; and their great business is to curl the locks, instead of 
twisting wool and flax. So that both male and females are prepared for 
all ill impressions by the mischief of an idle education.”

“There is something strange in it,” says Sterne, “that life should 
appear so short _in the gross_, and yet so long _in the detail_. 
Misery may make it so, you'll say;—but we will exclude it,—and still 
you'll find, though we all complain of the shortness of life what 
numbers there are who seem quite overstocked with the days and hours 
of it, and are constantly sending out into the highways and streets of 
the city, to compel guests to come in, and take it off their hands: to 
do this with ingenuity and forecast, is not one of the least arts and 
business of life itself; and they who cannot succeed in it, carry as 
many marks of distress about them, as bankruptcy itself could wear. Be 
as careless as we may, we shall not always have the power,—nor shall 
we always be in a temper to let the account run thus. When the blood 
is cooled, and the spirits which have hurried us on through half our 
days before we have numbered one of them, are beginning to 
retire;—then wisdom will press a moment to be heard,—afflictions, or a 
bed of sickness will find their hours of persuasion:—and should they 
fail, there is something yet behind:—old age will overtake us at the 
last, and with its trembling hand, hold up the glass to us.”




CHAPTER CXCII.

MORE OF THE DOCTOR'S PHILOSOPHY, WHICH WILL AND WILL NOT BE LIKED BY 
THE LADIES, AND SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S WHICH WILL AND WILL NOT BY THE 
GENTLEMEN. THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO COUNT CASTIGLIONE, AND TO SIR 
JOHN CHEKE.

              _Ou tend l'auteur à cette heure?
   Que fait-il? Revient-il? Va-t-il? Ou s'il demeure?_

                        L'AUTEUR.

  _Non, je ne reviens pas, car je n'ai pas été;
   Je ne vais pas aussi, car je suis arrété;
   Et ne demeure point, car, tout de ce pas même
   Je pretens m'en aller._

MOLIERE.


The passage with which the preceding Chapter is concluded, is 
extracted from Sterne's Sermons, one of those discourses in which he 
tried the experiment of adapting the style of Tristram Shandy to the 
pulpit;—an experiment which proved as unsuccessful as it deserved to 
be. Gray however thought these sermons were in the style which in his 
opinion was most proper for the pulpit, and that they showed “a very 
strong imagination and a sensible head. But you see him, he adds, 
often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his 
perriwig in the face of his audience.”

The extract which has been set before the reader is one of those 
passages which bear out Gray's judgement; it is of a good kind, and in 
its kind so good, that I would not weaken its effect, by inserting too 
near it the following Epigram from an old Magazine, addressed to a 
lady passionately fond of cards.

  Thou, whom at length incessant gaming dubs,
  Thrice honourable title! Queen of Clubs,
  Say what vast joys each winning card imparts,
  And that, too justly, called the King of Hearts.
  Say, when you mourn of cash and jewels spoil'd,
  May not the thief be Knave of Diamonds stil'd?
  One friend, howe'er, when deep remorse invades,
  Awaits thee Lady; 'tis the Ace of Spades!

It has been seen that the Doctor looked upon the love of gaming as a 
propensity given us to counteract that indolence which if not thus 
amused, would breed for itself both real and imaginary evils. And 
dancing he thought was just as useful in counteracting the factitious 
inactivity of women in their youth, as cards are for occupying the 
vacuity of their minds at a later period. Of the three 
semi-intellectual propensities, as he called them which men are born 
with, those for hunting and gaming are useful only in proportion, as 
the earth is uncultivated, and those by whom it is inhabited. In a 
well ordered society there would be no gamblers, and the Nimrods of 
such a society, must like the heroes in Tongataboo, be contented with 
no higher sport than rat-catching: but dancing will still retain its 
uses. It will always be the most graceful exercise for children at an 
age when all that they do is graceful; and it will always be that 
exercise which can best be regulated for them, without danger of their 
exerting themselves too much, or continuing in it too long. And for 
young women in a certain rank, or rather region of life,—the temperate 
zone of society,—those who are above the necessity of labour, and 
below the station in which they have the command of carriages and 
horses,—that is for the great majority of the middle class;—it is the 
only exercise which can animate them to such animal exertion as may 
suffice

  “To give the blood its natural spring and play.”[1]

[Footnote 1: SOUTHEY.]

Mr. Coleridge says (in his Table Talk) “that the fondness for dancing 
in English women is the reaction of their reserved manners: it is the 
only way in which they can throw themselves forth in natural liberty.” 
But the women are not more fond of it in this country, than they are 
in France and Spain. There can be no healthier pastime for them, (as 
certainly there is none so exhilarating, and exercise unless it be 
exhilarating is rarely healthful)—provided,—and upon this the Doctor 
always insisted,—provided it be neither carried on in hot rooms, nor 
prolonged to late hours. They order these things, he used to say, 
better in France; they order them better indeed anywhere than in 
England, and there was a time when they were ordered better among 
ourselves.

“The youth of this city,” says the honest old chronicler and historian 
of the metropolis his native place, “used on holidays, after evening 
prayers, to exercise their basters and bucklers, at their master's 
doors; and the maidens, one of them playing on a timbrel, to dance for 
garlands hanged athwart the streets, which open pastimes in my youth, 
being now suppressed, worser practises within doors are to be feared.”

Every one who is conversant with the Middle Ages, and with the 
literature of the reigns of Elizabeth, James and Charles I. must have 
perceived in how much kindlier relations the different classes of 
society existed toward each other in those days than they have since 
done. The very word independence had hardly found a place in the 
English language, or was known only as denoting a mischievous heresy. 
It is indeed, as one of our most thoughtful contemporaries has well 
said, an “unscriptural word,”—and “when applied to man, it directly 
contradicts the first and supreme laws of our nature; the very essence 
of which is universal dependence upon God, and universal 
interdependence on one another.”

The Great Rebellion dislocated the relations which had for some 
centuries thus happily subsisted; and the money getting system which 
has long been the moving principle of British society, has, aided by 
other injurious influences, effectually prevented the recovery which 
time, and the sense of mutual interest, and mutual duty, might 
otherwise have brought about. It was one characteristic of those old 
times, which in this respect deserve to be called good, that the 
different classes participated in the enjoyments of each other. There 
were the religious spectacles, which, instead of being reformed and 
rendered eminently useful as they might have been, were destroyed by 
the brutal spirit of puritanism. There were the Church festivals, till 
that same odious spirit endeavoured to separate, and has gone far 
toward separating, all festivity from religion. There were tournaments 
and city pageants at which all ranks were brought together: they are 
now brought together only upon the race-course. Christmas Mummers have 
long ceased to be heard of. The Morris dancers have all but 
disappeared even in the remotest parts of the kingdom. I know not 
whether a May-pole is now to be seen. What between manufactures and 
methodism England is no longer the merry England which it was once a 
happiness and an honour to call our country. Akenside's words “To the 
Country Gentlemen of England,” may be well remembered.

    And yet full oft your anxious tongues complain
    That lawless tumult prompts the rustic throng;
    That the rude Village-inmates now disdain
    Those homely ties which rul'd their fathers long.
    Alas, your fathers did by other arts
    Draw those kind ties around their simple hearts.
    And led in other paths their ductile will;
    By succour, faithful counsel, courteous cheer,
    Won them their ancient manners to revere,
  To prize their countries peace and heaven's due rites fulfil.

My friend saw enough of this change in its progress to excite in him 
many melancholy forebodings in the latter part of his life. He knew 
how much local attachment was strengthened by the recollection of 
youthful sports and old customs; and he well understood how little men 
can be expected to love their country, who have no particular 
affection for any part of it. Holidays he knew attached people to the 
Church, which enjoined their observance; but he very much doubted 
whether Sunday Schools would have the same effect.

In Beaumont and Fletcher's Play of the Prophetess, the countrymen 
discourse concerning the abdicated Emperor who has come to reside 
among them. One says to the other,

  Do you think this great man will continue here?

the answer is

  Continue here? what else? he has bought the great farm;
  A great man[2] with a great inheritance
  And all the ground about it, all the woods too
  And stock'd it like an Emperor. Now all our sports again
  And all our merry gambols, our May Ladies,
  Our evening dances on the green, our songs,
  Our holiday good cheer; our bagpipes now, boys,
  Shall make the wanton lasses skip again,
  Our sheep-shearings and all our knacks.

[Footnote 2: Southey has inserted a query here. “Qy Manor or Mansion.” 
It is usually printed as in the text.—See Act v. Sc. iii.]

It is said however in the _Cortegiano, che non saria conveniente che 
un gentilhuomo andasse ad honorare con la persona sua una festa di 
contado, dove i spettatori, et i compagni fussero gente ignobile._ 
What follows is curious to the history of manners. _Disse allhor' il 
S. Gasparo Pallavicino, nel paese nostro di Lombardia non s'hanno 
queste rispetti: anzi molti gentil'huomini giovani trovansi, che le 
feste ballano tuttol' di nel Sole co i villani, et con esti giocano a 
lanciar la barra, lottare, correre et saltare; et io non credo che sia 
male, perche ivi non si fa paragone della nobiltà, ma della forza, e 
destrezza, nelle quai cose spesso gli huomini di villa non vaglion 
meno che i nobili; et par che que quella domestichezza habbia in se 
una certa liberalità amabile._—An objection is made to this; _Quel 
ballar nel Sole, rispose M. Federico, a me non piace per modo alcuno; 
ne so che guadagno vi si trovi. Ma chi vuol pur lottar, correr et 
saltar co i villani, dee (al parer mio) farlo in modo di provarsi, et 
(come si suol dir) per gentilezza, non per contender con loro, et dee 
l'huomo esser quasi sicuro di vincere; altramente non vi si metta; 
perche sta troppo male, et troppo è brutta cosa, et fuor de la dignità 
vedere un gentilhuomo vinto da un villano, et massimamente alla lotta; 
però credo io che sia ben astenersi almano in presentia di molti, 
perche il guadagno nel vincere è pochissimo, et la perdita nell' esse 
vinto è grandissima._

That is, in the old version of Master Thomas Hoby; “it were not meet 
that a gentleman should be present in person, and a doer in such a 
matter in the country, where the lookers-on and the doers were of a 
base sort. Then said the Lord Gasper Pallavicino, in our country of 
Lombardy these matters are not passed upon; for you shall see there 
young gentlemen, upon the holydays, come dance all the day long in the 
sun with them of the country, and pass the time with them in casting 
the bar, in wrestling, running and leaping. And I believe it is not 
ill done; for no comparison is there made of nobleness of birth, but 
of force and slight; in which things many times the men of the country 
are not a whit inferior to gentlemen: and it seemeth this familiar 
conversation containeth in it a certain lovely freeness.” “The dancing 
in the sun,” answered Sir Frederick, “can I in no case away withal; 
and I cannot see what a man shall gain by it. But whoso will wrestle, 
run and leap with men of the country, ought, in my judgement, to do it 
after a sort; to prove himself, and (as they are wont to say) for 
courtesy, not to try mastery with them. And a man ought (in a manner) 
to be assured to get the upper hand, else let him not meddle withal; 
for it is too ill a sight, and too foul a matter, and without 
estimation, to see a gentleman overcome by a carter, and especially in 
wrestling. Therefore I believe it is well done to abstain from it, at 
the leastwise in the presence of many; if he be overcome, his gain is 
small, and his loss in being overcome very great.”

This translation is remarkable for having a Sonnet, or more correctly 
speaking, a quatorzain by Sackville prefixed to it, and at the end of 
the volume a letter of Sir John Cheke's to the translator, curious for 
its peculiar spelling, and for the opinion expressed in it that our 
language ought as much as possible to be kept pure and unmixed.

“I have taken sum pain,” he says, “at your request, cheflie in your 
preface; not in the reading of it, for that was pleasaunt unto me, 
boath for the roundnes of your saienges and welspeakinges of the saam, 
but in changing certein wordes which might verie wel be let aloan, but 
that I am verie curious in mi freendes matters, not to determijn, but 
to debaat what is best. Whearin I seek not the bestnes haplie bi 
truth, but bi mijn own phansie and sheo of goodnes.

“I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written cleane and 
pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges; wherein if 
we take not heed bi tijm, ever borowing and never payeng, she shall be 
fain to keep her house as bankrupt. For then doth our tung naturallie 
and praiseablie utter her meaning, when she boroweth no conterfectness 
of other tunges to attire her self withall, but useth plainlie her own 
with such shift as nature, craft, experiens, and folowing of other 
excellent doth lead her unto; and if she went at ani tijm (as being 
unperfight she must) yet let her borow with suche bashfulnes, that it 
mai appear, that if either the mould of our own tung could serve us to 
fascion a woord of our own, or if the old denisoned wordes could 
content and ease this neede, we wold not boldly venture of unknoven 
wordes. This I say, not for reproof of you, who have scarslie and 
necessarily used, whear occasion serveth, a strange word so, as it 
seemeth to grow out of the matter and not to be sought for; but for 
mijn our defens, who might be counted overstraight a deemer of 
thinges, if I gave not thys accompt to you, my freend and wijs, of mi 
marring this your handiwork.

“But I am called awai. I prai you pardon mi shortnes; the rest of my 
saienges should be but praise and exhortacion in this your doinges, 
which at moar leisor I shold do better.

  From my house in Wood street

  the 16 of July 1557.

                      Yours assured

                             JOAN CHEEK.”

Sir John Cheke died about two months after the date of this letter: 
and Hoby's translation was not published till 1561, because “there 
were certain places in it, which of late years being misliked of some 
that had the perusing of it, the Author thought it much better to keep 
it in darkness a while, then to put it in light, imperfect, and in 
piecemeal, to serve the time.” The book itself had been put in the 
list of prohibited works, and it was not till 1576 that the Conte 
Camillo Castiglione, the author's son, obtained permission to amend 
the obnoxious passages and publish an expurgated edition.

It would have vexed Sir John if he had seen with how little care the 
printer, and his loving friend Master Hoby observed his system of 
orthography, in this letter. For he never used the final e unless when 
it is sounded, which he denoted then by doubling it; he rejected the 
y, wrote u when it was long, with a long stroke over it, doubled the 
other vowels when they were long, and threw out all letters that were 
not pronounced. No better system of the kind has been proposed, and 
many worse. Little good would have been done by its adoption, and much 
evil, if the translators of the Bible had been required to proceed 
upon his principle of using no words but such as were true English of 
Saxon original. His dislike of the translation for corrupting as he 
thought the language into vocables of foreign growth, made him begin 
to translate the New Testament in his own way. The Manuscript in his 
own hand, as far as it had proceeded, is still preserved at Bene't 
College,[3] and it shows that he found it impracticable to observe his 
own rule. But though as a precisian he would have cramped and 
impoverished the language, he has been praised for introducing a short 
and expressive style, avoiding long and intricate periods, and for 
bringing “fair and graceful writing into vogue;” he wrote an excellent 
hand himself, and it is said that all the best scholars in those times 
followed his example, “so that fair writing and good learning seemed 
to commence together.”

[Footnote 3: This has been since printed with a good Glossary by the 
Rev. James Goodwin, Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi Coll. 
Cambridge, and is very curious. All that remains is the Gospel 
according to St. Matthew. As an instance of Cheke's Englishisms I may 
refer to the rendering of _προσήλυτον_ in c. xxiij. _v._ 15, by 
_freschman_. Some little of the MS. is lost.—See Preface, p. 10.]

O Soul of Sir John Cheke, thou wouldst have led me out of my way, if 
that had been possible,—if my ubiety did not so nearly resemble 
ubiquity, that in Anywhereness and Everywhereness I know where I am, 
and can never be lost till I get out of Whereness itself into Nowhere.




CHAPTER CXCIII.

MASTER THOMAS MACE, AND THE TWO HISTORIANS OF HIS SCIENCE, SIR JOHN 
HAWKINS AND DR. BURNEY. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE OLD LUTANIST AND OF HIS 
“MUSIC'S MONUMENT.”

  This Man of Music hath more in his head
  Than mere crotchets.

SIR W. DAVENANT.


Thou wast informed, gentle Reader, in the third Volume and at the two 
hundred and sixth page of this much-hereafter-to-be-esteemed Opus, 
that a _Tattle de Moy_ was a new-fashioned thing in the Year of our 
Lord 1676. This was on the authority of the good old Lutanist, whom, I 
then told you, I took leave of but for a while, bethinking me of 
Pope's well known lines,

  But all our praises why should Lords engross?
  Rise, honest Muse! and sing the MAN OF ROSS.

And now gentle reader, seeing that whether with a consciousness of 
second sight or not, Master Mace, praiseworthy as the Man of Ross, has 
so clearly typified my Preludes and Voluntaries, my grave Pavines and 
graver Galliards, my Corantoes and Serabands, my Chichonas, and above 
all my Tattle-de-Moys, am I not bound in gratitude to revive the 
memory of Master Mace; or rather to extend it and make him more fully 
and more generally known than he has been made by the two historians 
of his science Sir John Hawkins and Dr. Burney. It is to the honour of 
both these eminent men, who have rendered such good services to that 
science, and to the literature of their country, that they should have 
relished the peculiarities of this simple-hearted old lutanist. But it 
might have been expected from both; for Dr. Burney was as 
simple-hearted himself, and as earnestly devoted to the art: and Sir 
John who delighted in Ignoramus and in Izaak Walton, could not fail to 
have a liking for Thomas Mace.

“Under whom he was educated,” says Sir John, “or by what means he 
became possessed of so much skill in the science of music, as to be 
able to furnish out matter for a folio volume, he has no where 
informed us; nevertheless his book contains so many particulars 
respecting himself, and so many traits of an original and singular 
character, that a very good judgement may be formed both of his temper 
and ability. With regard to the first, he appears to have been an 
enthusiastic lover of his art; of a very devout and serious turn of 
mind; and cheerful and good humoured under the infirmities of age, and 
the pressure of misfortunes. As to the latter his knowledge of music 
seems to have been confined to the practice of his own instrument; and 
so much of the principles of the science as enabled him to compose for 
it; but for his style in writing he certainly never had his fellow.”

This is not strictly just as relating either to his proficiency in 
music, or his style as an author. Mace says of himself, “having said 
so much concerning the lute, as also taken so much pains in laying 
open all the hidden secrets thereof, it may be thought I am so great a 
lover of it, that I make light esteem of any other instrument besides; 
which truly I do not; but love the viol in a very high degree; yea 
close unto the lute; and have done much more, and made very many more 
good and able proficients upon it, than ever I have done upon the 
lute. And this I shall presume to say, that if I excel in either, it 
is most certainly upon the viol. And as to other instruments, I can as 
truly say, I value every one that is in use, according to its due 
place; as knowing and often saying, that all God's creatures are good; 
and all ingenuities done by man, are signs, tokens, and testimonies of 
the wisdom of God bestowed upon man.”

So also though it is true that Thomas Mace stands distinguished among 
the writers on Music, yet it could be easy to find many fellows for 
him as far as regards peculiarity of style. A humourist who should 
collect odd books might form as numerous a library, as the man of 
fastidious taste who should confine his collection to such works only 
as in their respective languages were esteemed classical. “The 
singularity of his style,” says Sir John, “remarkable for a profusion 
of epithets and words of his own invention, and tautology without end, 
is apt to disgust such as attend less to the matter than manner of his 
book; but in others it has a different effect; as it exhibits, without 
the least reserve all the particulars of the author's character, which 
was not less amiable than singular.”—“The vein of humour that runs 
through it presents a lively portraiture of a good-natured, gossipping 
old man, virtuous and kind-hearted.”—The anxious “precision with which 
he constantly delivers himself, is not more remarkable than his eager 
desire to communicate to others all the knowledge he was possessed of, 
even to the most hidden secrets.”—“The book breathes throughout a 
spirit of devotion; and, agreeable to his sentiments of music is a 
kind of proof that his temper was improved by the exercise of his 
profession.”—There is no pursuit by which, if it be harmless in 
itself, a man may not be improved in his moral as well as in his 
intellectual nature, provided it be followed for its own sake: but 
most assuredly there is none however intrinsically good, or beneficial 
to mankind, from which he can desire any moral improvement, if his 
motive be either worldly ambition, or the love of gain.—_Ἀδύνατον ἐκ 
φαύλης ἀφορμῆς ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος ἐυδραμεῖν._[1]

[Footnote 1: IAMBLICHUS.]

To give an account of “Music's Monument,” which Dr. Burney calls a 
matchless book, not to be forgotten among the curiosities of the 
seventeenth century! will be to give the character of Thomas Mace 
himself, for no author ever more compleatly embodied his own spirit in 
his writings.

It is introduced with an Epistle Dedicatory, which by an easy 
misrepresentation has been made to appear profane.

  To Thee, One-Only-Oneness, I direct
  My weak desires and works.
  Thou only art The Able True Protector;
  Oh be my shield, defender and director,
  Then sure we shall be safe.
  Thou know'st, O Searcher of all hearts how I,
  With right, downright, sincere sincerity,
  Have longed long to do some little good,
  (According to the best I understood)
  With thy rich talent, though by me made poor,
  For which I grieve, and will do so no more,
  By thy good Grace assisting, which I do
  Most humbly beg for. Oh, adjoin it to
  My longing ardent soul; and have respect
  To this my weak endeavour, and accept,
  In thy great mercy, both of it and me,
  Even as we dedicate ourselves to Thee.

An Epistle, in verse, follows “to all Divine Readers, especially those 
of the Dissenting Ministry, or Clergy, who want not only skill, but 
good will to this most excelling part of divine service, viz. singing 
of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, to the praise of the Almighty, 
in the public Assemblies of his Saints: and yet more particularly, to 
all great and high Persons, Supervisors, Masters, or Governors of the 
Church, (if any such there should be) wanting skill, or good will 
thereunto.”

He says to those “high men of honour,” that

                   Example is the thing;
   There's but one way, which is yourselves to sing.
   This sure will do it; for when the vulgar see
   Such worthy presidents their leaders be,
   Who exercise therein and lead the van,
   They will be brought to't, do they what they can.
   But otherwise for want of such example,
   Tis meanly valued, and on it they trample;
   And by that great defect, so long unsought,
   Our best Church Music's well-nigh brought to nought.
                      Besides,
   No robes adorn high persons like to it;
   No ornaments for pure Divines more fit.

   That Counsel given by the Apostle Paul
   Does certainly extend to Christians all.
   Colossians the third, the sixteenth verse;
   (Turn to the place:) that text will thus rehearse,
   Let the word of Christ dwell in you plenteously,
   (What follows? Music in its excellency.)
   Admonishing yourselves, in sweet accord,
   In singing psalms with grace unto the Lord,
  _Sed sine arte_, that cannot be done,
  _Et sine arte_, better let alone.

Having thus “fronted this Book with the divine part, and preached his 
little short sermon” upon the last of St. Paul, he says that his first 
and chief design in writing this book was only to discover the occult 
mysteries of the noble lute, and to shew the great worthiness of that 
too much neglected and abused instrument, and his good will to all the 
true lovers of it, in making it plain and easy, giving the true 
reasons why it has been formerly a very hard instrument to play well 
upon, and also why now it is become so easy and familiarly pleasant. 
“And I believe,” says he, “that whosoever will but trouble himself to 
read those reasons,—and join his own reason, with the reasonableness 
of those reasons, will not be able to find the least reason to 
contradict those reasons.”

He professed that by his directions “any person, young or old, should 
be able to perform so much and so well upon it, in so much or so 
little time, towards a full and satisfactory delight and pleasure, 
(yea, if it were but only to play common toys, jigs or tunes,) as upon 
any instrument whatever; yet with this most notable and admirable 
exception, (for the respectable commendation of the lute,) that they 
may, besides such ordinary and common contentments, study and practice 
it all the days of their lives, and yet find new improvements, yea 
doubtless if they should live unto the age of Methusalem, ten times 
over; for there is no limitation to its vast bounds and bravery.” It 
appears that the merit of this book in this respect is not overstated, 
one of his sons attained to great proficiency on this instrument by 
studying the book without any assistance from his father; and Sir John 
Hawkins affirms on his own knowledge that Mr. John Immyns, lutanist to 
the Chapel Royal, has the like experience of it. “This person who had 
practised on sundry instruments for many years, and was able to sing 
his part at sight, at the age of forty took to the lute, and by the 
help of Mace's book alone, became enabled to play thorough base, and 
also easy lessons on it; and by practice had rendered the tablature as 
familiar to him, as the notes of the scale.”

The notation called the tablature is minutely explained in the work. 
It has not the least relation to the musical character; the six 
strings of the lute are represented by as many lines, “and the several 
frets or stops by the letters a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, y (a preference 
to i as being more conspicuous) k; the letter _a_ ever signifying the 
open string in all positions.” Many persons have been good performers 
on the lute, and at the same time totally ignorant of the notes of the 
Gamut. His printer, he said, “had outdone all music work in this kind 
ever before printed in this nation; and was indeed the only fit person 
to do the like, he only having those new materials, the like to which 
was never had made before in England.” They might have been more 
distinct, and more consistent;—five being common English characters, 
the _c_ more resembling the third letter in the Greek alphabet than 
any thing else, the _b_ reversed serving for _g_, and the _d_ in like 
manner for _e_.

The characters for the time of notes he compares to money, as 
supposing that most people would be ready enough to count them the 
better for that. Considering therefore the semi-breve as a groat, the 
minim becomes two pence, the crotchet a penny, the quaver a 
half-penny, and the semi-quaver a farthing. Trouble not yourself for 
the demi-quaver, he says, till you have a quick hand, it being half a 
semi-quaver.

But besides these, there are marks in his notation for the fifteen 
graces which may be used upon the lute, though few or none used them 
all. They are the Shake, the Beat, the Back-fall, the Half-fall, the 
Whole-fall, the Elevation, the Single Relish, the Double Relish, the 
Slur, the Slide, the Spinger, the Sting, the Tutt, the Pause and the 
Soft and Loud Play, “which is as great and good a grace as any other 
whatever.”

“Some,” says Master Mace, “there are, and many I have met with, who 
have such a natural agility in their nerves, and aptitude to that 
performance, that before they could do any thing else to purpose, they 
would make a shake rarely well. And some again can scarcely ever gain 
a good shake, by reason of the unaptness of their nerves to that 
action, but yet otherwise come to play very well. I, for my own part, 
have had occasion to break both my arms; by reason of which, I cannot 
make the nerve-shake well, nor strong; yet by a certain motion of my 
arm, I have gained such a contentive shake, that sometimes my scholars 
will ask me, how they shall do to get the like? I have then no better 
answer for them, than to tell them, they must first break their arm, 
as I have done; and so possibly after that, by practice, they may get 
my manner of Shake.”

Rules are given for all these graces, but observe he says “that 
whatever your grace be, you must in your farewell express the true 
note perfectly, or else your pretended grace, will prove a disgrace.”

“The Spinger is a grace very neat and curious, for some sort of notes, 
and is done thus: After you have hit your note, you must just as you 
intend to part with it, dab one of your rest fingers lightly upon the 
same string, a fret or two frets below, (according to the air,) as if 
you did intend to stop the string, in that place, yet so gently, that 
you do not cause the string to sound, in that stop, so dab'd; but only 
so that it may suddenly take away that sound which you last struck, 
yet give some small tincture of a new note, but not distinctly to be 
heard as a note; which grace, if well done and properly is very taking 
and pleasant.”

The Sting is “another very neat and pretty grace,” it makes the sound 
seem to swell with pretty unexpected humour, and gives much 
contentment upon cases.

The Tut is easily done, and always with the right hand. “When you 
would perform this grace, it is but to strike your letter which you 
intend shall be so graced, with one of your fingers, and immediately 
clap on your next striking finger upon the string which you struck; in 
which doing, you suddenly take away the sound of the letter; and if 
you do it clearly, it will seem to speak the word, _Tut_, so plainly, 
as if it were a living creature, speakable!”

While however the pupil was intent upon exhibiting these graces, the 
zealous master exhorted him not to be unmindful of his own, but to 
regard his postures, for a good posture is comely, creditable and 
praiseworthy, and moreover advantageous as to good performance. “Set 
yourself down against a table, in as becoming a posture, as you would 
choose to do for your best reputation. Sit upright and straight; then 
take up your lute, and lay the body of it in your lap across. Let the 
lower part of it lie upon your right thigh, the head erected against 
your left shoulder and ear; lay your left hand down upon the table, 
and your right arm over the lute, so that you may set your little 
finger down upon the belly of the lute, just under the bridge, against 
the treble, or second string: and then keep your lute stiff, and 
strongly set with its lower edge against the table-edge; and so, 
leaning your breast something hard against its ribs, cause it to stand 
steady and strong, so that a bystander cannot easily draw it from your 
breast, table, and arm. This is the most becoming, steady and 
beneficial posture.”

“Your left hand thus upon the table, your lute firmly fixed, yourself 
and it in your true postures,—bring up your left hand from the table, 
bended, just like the balance of a hook, all excepting your thumb, 
which must stand straight and span'd out; your fingers also, all 
divided out from the other in an equal and handsome order; and in this 
posture, place your thumb under the neck of the lute, a little above 
the fret, just in the midst of the breadth of the neck; all your 
four-fingers in this posture, being held close over the strings on the 
other side, so that each finger may be in a readiness to stop down 
upon any fret. And now in this lively and exact posture, I would have 
your posture drawn, which is the most becoming posture I can direct 
unto for a lutanist.”

“Know that an old lute is better than a new one.” Old instruments 
indeed, are found by experience to be far the best, the reasons for 
which Master Mace could no further dive into than to say, he 
apprehended, “that by extreme age, the wood and those other adjuncts, 
glue, parchment, paper, linings of cloth, (as some used) but above all 
the varnish, are by time very much dried, limped, made gentle, 
rarified, or to say better, even airified; so that that stiffness, 
stubbornness, or _clunguiness_ which is natural to such bodies, are so 
debilitated and made pliable, that the pores of the wood, have a more 
free liberty to move, stir or secretly vibrate; by which means the air 
(which is the life of all things both animate and inanimate) has a 
more free and easy recourse to pass and repass, &c. Whether I have hit 
upon the right cause, I know not, but sure I am that age adds goodness 
to instruments.”

The Venice lutes were commonly good; and the most esteemed maker was 
Laux Malles, whose name was always written in text letters. Mace had 
seen two of his lutes, “pitiful, old, battered, cracked things;” yet 
for one of these, which Mr. Gootiere, the famous lutanist in his time 
showed him, the King paid an hundred pounds. The other belonged to Mr. 
Edward Jones, one of Gootiere's scholars; and he relates this “true 
story” of it; that a merchant bargained with the owner to take it with 
him in his travels, on trial; if he liked it, he was on his return to 
give an hundred pounds for it; otherwise he was to return it safe, and 
pay twenty pounds “for his experience and use of it.”—He had often 
seen lutes of three or four pounds a piece “more illustrious and 
taking to a common eye.”

The best shape was the Pearl mould, both for sound and comeliness, and 
convenience in holding. The best wood for the ribs was what he calls 
air-wood, this was absolutely the best; English maple next. There were 
very good ones however of plum, pear, yew, rosemary-air, and ash. 
Ebony and ivory, though most costly and taking to a common eye were 
the worst. For the belly the finest grained wood was required, free 
from knots or obstructions; cypress was very good, but the best was 
called Cullen's-cliff, being no other than the finest sort of fir, and 
the choicest part of that fir. To try whether the bars within, to 
strengthen and keep it straight and tight, were all fast, you were 
gently to knock the belly all along, round about, and then in the 
midst, with one of your knuckles; “if any thing be either loose in it, 
or about it, you may easily perceive it, by a little fuzzing or 
hizzing; but if all be sound, you shall hear nothing but a tight plump 
and twanking knock.”

Among the aspersions against the lute which Master Mace indignantly 
repelled, one was that it cost as much in keeping as a horse. “I do 
confess,” said he, “that those who will be prodigal and extraordinary 
curious, may spend as much as may maintain two or three horses, and 
men to ride upon them too if they please. But he never charged more 
than ten shillings for first stringing one, and five shillings a 
quarter for maintaining it with strings.”

The strings were of three sorts, minikins, Venice Catlins, and Lyons, 
for the basses; but the very best for the basses were called Pistoy 
Basses; these, which were smooth and well-twisted strings, but hard to 
come by, he supposes to be none others than thick Venice Catlins, and 
commonly dyed of a deep dark red. The red strings however were 
commonly rotten, so were the yellow, the green sometimes very good; 
the clear blue the best. But good strings might be spoilt in a quarter 
of an hour, if they were exposed to any wet, or moist air. Therefore 
they were to be bound close together, and wrapt closely up either in 
an oiled paper, a bladder, or a piece of sere cloth, “such as often 
comes over with them,” and then to be kept in some close box, or 
cupboard, but not amongst linen (for that gives moisture,) and in a 
room where is usually a fire. And when at any time you open them for 
your use, take heed they lie not too long open, nor in a dark window, 
nor moist place; for moisture is the worst enemy to your strings.

“How to choose and find a true string, which is the most curious piece 
of skill in stringing, is both a pretty curiosity to do, and also 
necessary. First, draw out a length, or more; then take the end, and 
measure the length it must be of, within an inch or two, (for it will 
stretch so much at least in the winding up,) and hold that length in 
both hands, extended to reasonable stiffness: then, with one of your 
fingers strike it; giving it so much liberty in slackness as you may 
see it vibrate, or open itself. If it be true, it will appear to the 
eye, just as if they were two strings; but if it shows more than two, 
it is false, and will sound unpleasantly upon your instrument, nor 
will it ever be well in tune, either stopt or open, but snarl.” Sir 
John Hawkins observes that this direction is given by Adrian Le Roy in 
his instructions for the lute, and is adopted both by Mersennus and 
Kircher. Indeed this experiment is the only known test of a true 
string, and for that reason is practised by such as are curious at 
this day.

In his directions for playing, Master Mace says, “take notice that you 
strike not your strings with your nails, as some do, who maintain it 
the best way of play; but I do not; and for this reason; because the 
nail cannot draw so sweet a sound from the lute as the nibble end of 
the flesh can do. I confess in a concert it might do well enough, 
where the mellowness, (which is the most excellent satisfaction from a 
lute) is lost in the crowd; but alone, I could never receive so good 
content from the nail as from the flesh.”

Mace considered it to be absolutely necessary that all persons who 
kept lutes should know how to repair them; for he had known a lute 
“sent fifty or sixty miles to be mended of a very small mischance, 
(scarce worth twelve pence for the mending) which besides the trouble 
and cost of carriage, had been broken all to pieces in the return, and 
so farewell lute and all the cost.” One of the necessary tools for 
this work is “a little working knife, such as are most commonly made 
of pieces of broken good blades, fastened into a pretty thick haft of 
wood or bone, leaving the blade out about two or three inches;” “grind 
it down upon the back,” he says, “to a sharp point, and set to a good 
edge; it will serve you for many good uses, either in cutting, 
carving, making pins, &c.”

His directions for this work are exceedingly minute; but when the lute 
was in order, it was of no slight importance to keep it so, and for 
this also he offers some choice observations. “You shall do well, ever 
when you lay it by in the day-time, to put it into a bed that is 
constantly used, between the rug and blanket, but never between the 
sheets, because they may be moist.” “This is the most absolute and 
best place to keep it in always.” “There are many great commodities in 
so doing; it will save your strings from breaking, it will keep your 
lute in good order, so that you shall have but small trouble in tuning 
it; it will sound more brisk and lively, and give you pleasure in the 
very handling of it; if you have any occasion extraordinary to set up 
your lute at a higher pitch, you may do it safely, which otherwise you 
cannot so well do, without danger to your instrument and strings: it 
will be a great safety to your instrument, in keeping it from decay, 
it will prevent much trouble in keeping the bars from flying loose and 
the belly from sinking: and these six conveniences considered all 
together, must needs create a seventh, which is, that lute-playing 
must certainly be very much facilitated, and made more delightful 
thereby. Only no person must be so inconsiderate as to tumble down 
upon the bed whilst the lute is there, for I have known, said he, 
several good lutes spoilt with such a trick.”

I will not say of the reader, who after the foregoing specimens of 
Music's Monument has no liking for Master Mace and his book that he

  Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoil,

but I cannot but suspect that he has no taste for caviare, dislikes 
laver, would as willingly drink new hock as old, and more willingly 
the base compound which passes for champagne, than either. Nay I could 
even suspect that he does not love those “three things which persons 
loving, love what they ought,—the whistling of the wind, the dashing 
of the waves, and the rolling of thunder:” and that he comes under the 
commination of this other triad, “let no one love such as dislike the 
scent of cloves, the taste of milk and the song of birds.” My Welsh 
friends shall have the pleasure of reading these true sayings, in 
their own ancient, venerable and rich language.

_Tri dyn o garu tri pheth à garant à ddylaint; gorddyan y gwgnt, boran 
y tònau, ac angerdd y daran._

_Tri pheth ma chared neb a 'u hanghara: rhogleu y meillion, blâs 
llaeth, a chân adar._




CHAPTER CXCIV.

A MUSIC LESSON FROM MASTER THOMAS MACE TO BE PLAYED BY LADY FAIR:—A 
STORY, THAN WHICH THERE IS NONE PRETTIER IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC.

  What shall I say? Or shall I say no more?
  I must go on! I'm brim-full, running o'er.
  But yet I'll hold, because I judge ye wise;
  And few words unto such may well suffice.
  But much—much more than this I could declare;
  Yet for some certain reasons I'll forbear.
  But less than this I could not say; because,
  If saying less, I should neglect my cause,
  For 'tis the Doctor's cause I plead so strong for,
  And 'tis his cause compleated that I long for,
  And 'tis true doctrine certainly I preach,
  And 'tis that doctrine every priest should teach.

THOMAS MACE, TO ALL DIVINE READERS.


O Lady fair, before we say,

  Now cease my lute; this is the last
  Labour that thou and I shall waste,
  And ended is that we begun;
  My lute be still, for I have done:[1]

before we say this, O Lady fair, play I pray you the following lesson 
by good Master Mace. It will put you in tune for the story “not 
impertinent” concerning it, which he thought fit to relate, although, 
he said, many might chuse to smile at it. You may thank Sir John 
Hawkins for having rendered it from tablature into the characters of 
musical notation.

[Illustration: music score.]

[Footnote 1: SIR THOMAS WYAT.]

“This Lesson,” says Master Mace, “I call my Mistress, and I shall not 
think it impertinent to detain you here a little longer than ordinary 
in speaking something of it, the occasion of it, and why I give it 
that name. And I doubt not, but the relation I shall give may conduce 
to your advantage in several respects, but chiefly in respect of 
Invention.

“You must first know, That it is a lesson, though old; yet I never 
knew it disrelished by any, nor is there any one lesson in this Book 
of that age, as it is; yet I do esteem it (in its kind) with the best 
Lesson in the Book, for several good reasons, which I shall here set 
down.

“It is, this very winter, just forty years since I made it—and yet it 
is new, because all like it,—and then when I was past being a suitor 
to my best beloved, dearest, and sweetest living Mistress, but not 
married, yet contriving the best, and readiest way towards it; And 
thus it was,

“That very night, in which I was thus agitated in my mind concerning 
her, my living Mistress,—she being in Yorkshire, and myself at 
Cambridge, close shut up in my chamber, still and quiet, about ten or 
eleven o'clock at night, musing and writing letters to her, her 
Mother, and some other Friends, in summing up and determining the 
whole matter concerning our Marriage. You may conceive I might have 
very intent thoughts all that time, and might meet with some 
difficulties, for as yet I had not gained her Mother's consent,—so 
that in my writings I was sometimes put to my studyings. At which 
times, my Lute lying upon my table, I sometimes took it up, and walked 
about my chamber, letting my fancy drive which way it would, (for I 
studied nothing, at that time, as to Music,)—yet my secret genius or 
fancy, prompted my fingers, do what I could, into this very humour. So 
that every time I walked, and took up my Lute, in the interim, betwixt 
writing and studying, this Air would needs offer itself unto me 
continually; insomuch that, at the last, (liking it well, and lest it 
should be lost,) I took paper and set it down, taking no further 
notice of it at that time. But afterwards it passed abroad for a very 
pleasant and delightful Air amongst all. Yet I gave it no name till a 
long time after, nor taking more notice of it, in any particular kind, 
than of any other my Composures of that nature.

“But after I was married, and had brought my wife home to Cambridge, 
it so fell out that one rainy morning I stay'd within, and in my 
chamber my wife and I were all alone, she intent upon her needlework, 
and I playing upon my Lute, at the table by her. She sat very still 
and quiet, listening to all I played without a word a long time, till 
at last, I hapned to play this lesson; which, so soon as I had once 
played, she earnestly desired me to play it again, ‘for,’ said she, 
‘That shall be called my Lesson.’

“From which words, so spoken, with emphasis and accent, it presently 
came into my remembrance, the time when, and the occasion of its being 
produced, and I returned her this answer, viz. That it may very 
properly be called your Lesson, for when I composed it you were wholly 
in my fancy, and the chief object and ruler of my thoughts; telling 
her how, and when it was made. And therefore, ever after, I thus 
called it MY MISTRESS, and most of my scholars since call it MRS. 
MACE, to this day.

“Thus I have detained you (I hope not too long,) with this short 
relation; nor should I have been so seemingly vain, as to have 
inserted it, but that I have an intended purpose by it, to give some 
advantage to the reader, and doubt not but to do it to those who will 
rightly consider what here I shall further set down concerning it.

“Now in reference to the occasion of it, &c. It is worth taking 
notice, That there are times and particular seasons, in which the 
ablest Master of his Art, shall not be able to command his Invention 
or produce things so to his content or liking, as he shall at other 
times; but he shall be (as it were,) stupid, dull, and shut up, as to 
any neat, spruce, or curious Invention.

“But again, at other times, he will have Inventions come flowing in 
upon him, with so much ease and freedom, that his greatest trouble 
will be to retain, remember, or set them down, in good order.

“Yet more particularly, as to the occasion of this Lesson, I would 
have you take notice, that as it was at such a time, when I was wholly 
and intimately possessed with the true and perfect idea of my living 
Mistress, who was at that time, lovely, fair, comely, sweet, debonair, 
uniformly-neat, and every way compleat; how could, possibly, my fancy 
run upon anything at that time, but upon the very simile, form, or 
likeness, of the same substantial thing.

“And that this Lesson doth represent, and shadow forth such a true 
relation, as here I have made, I desire you to take notice of it, in 
every particular; which I assure myself, may be of benefit to any, who 
shall observe it well.

“First, therefore, observe the two first Bars of it, which will give 
you the Fugue; which Fugue is maintained quite through the whole 
lesson.

“Secondly, observe the Form, and Shape of the whole lesson, which 
consists of two uniform, and equal strains; both strains having the 
same number of Bars.

“Thirdly, observe the humour of it; which you may perceive (by the 
marks and directions) is not common.

“These three terms, or things, ought to be considered in all 
compositions, and performances of this nature, viz. Ayres, or the 
like.

“The Fugue is lively, ayrey, neat, curious, and sweet, like my 
Mistress.

“The Form is uniform, comely, substantial, grave, and lovely, like my 
Mistress.

“The Humour is singularly spruce, amiable, pleasant, obliging, and 
innocent, like my Mistress.

“This relation to some may seem odd, strange, humorous, and 
impertinent; but to others (I presume) it may be intelligible and 
useful; in that I know, by good experience, that in Music, all these 
significations, (and vastly many more,) may, by an experienced and 
understanding Artist, be clearly, and most significantly expressed; 
yea, even as by language itself, if not much more effectually. And 
also, in that I know, that as a person is affected or disposed in his 
temper, or humour, by reason of what object of his mind soever, he 
shall at that time produce matter, (if he be put to it,) answerable to 
that temper, disposition, or humour, in which he is.

“Therefore I would give this as a caveat, or caution, to any, who do 
attempt to exercise their fancies in such matters of Invention, that 
they observe times, and seasons, and never force themselves to 
anything, when they perceive an indisposition; but wait for a fitter, 
and more hopeful season, for what comes most compleatly, comes most 
familiarly, naturally, and easily, without pumping for, as we use to 
say.

“Strive therefore to be in a good, cheerful, and pleasant humour 
always when you would compose or invent, and then, such will your 
productions be; or, to say better, chuse for your time of Study, and 
Invention, if you may, that time wherein you are so disposed, as I 
have declared. And doubtless, as it is in the study and productions of 
Music, so must it needs be in all other studies, where the use and 
exercise of fancy is requirable.

“I will therefore, take a little more pains than ordinary, to give 
such directions, as you shall no ways wrong, or injure my Mistress, 
but do her all the right you can, according to her true deserts.

“First, therefore, observe to play _soft_, and _loud_, as you see it 
marked quite through the Lesson.

“Secondly, use _that Grace_, which I call the _Sting_, where you see 
it set, and the _Spinger_ after it.

“And then, in the last four strains, observe the _Slides_, and 
_Slurs_, and you cannot fail to know my _Mistress's Humour_, provided 
you keep _true time_, which you must be extremely careful to do in all 
lessons: FOR TIME IS THE ONE HALF OF MUSIC.

“And now, I hope I shall not be very hard put to it, to obtain my 
pardon for all this trouble I have thus put you to, in the exercise of 
your patience; especially from those, who are so ingenious and 
good-natured, as to prize, and value, such singular and choice 
endowments, as I have here made mention of in so absolute and compleat 
a subject.”

MY MISTRESS OR MRS. MACE.

[Illustration: musical score.]

THOMAS MACE.

There is no prettier story in the history of Music than this; and what 
a loving, loveable, happy creature must he have been who could thus in 
his old age have related it!




CHAPTER CXCV.

ANOTHER LESSON WITH THE STORY AND MANNER OF ITS PRODUCTION.

  _Οὐδεὶς ἐρεῖ ποθ᾽, ὡς ὑπόβλητον λόγον,
   ———ἔλεξας, ἀλλὰ τῆς σαυτῦ φρενός._

SOPHOCLES.


Master Mace has another lesson which he calls Hab-Nab; it “has neither 
fugue, nor very good form,” he says, “yet a humour, although none of 
the best;” and his “story of the manner and occasion of Hab-Nab's 
production,” affords a remarkable counterpart to that of his favourite 
lesson.

“View every bar in it,” he says, “and you will find not any one Bar 
like another, nor any affinity in the least kind betwixt strain and 
strain, yet the Air pleaseth some sort of people well enough; but for 
my own part, I never was pleased with it; yet because some liked it, I 
retained it. Nor can I tell how it came to pass that I thus made it, 
only I very well remember, the time, manner, and occasion of its 
production, (which was on a sudden,) without the least premeditation, 
or study, and merely accidentally; and, as we use to say, _ex 
tempore_, in the _tuning of a lute_.

“And the occasion, I conceive, might possibly contribute something 
towards it, which was this.

“I had, at that very instant, when I made it, an agitation in hand, 
viz. The stringing up, and tuning of a Lute, for a person of an 
ununiform, and inharmonical disposition, (as to Music,) yet in herself 
well proportioned, comely, and handsome enough, and ingenious for 
other things, but to Music very unapt, and learned it only to please 
her friends, who had a great desire she should be brought to it, if 
possible, but never could, to the least good purpose; so that at the 
last we both grew weary; _for there is no striving against such a 
stream_.

“I say, this occasion possibly might be the cause of this so 
inartificial a piece, in regard that that person, at that time, was 
the chief object of my mind and thoughts. I call it inartificial, 
because the chief observation (as to good performance,) is wholly 
wanting. Yet it is true Music, and has such a form and humour, as may 
pass, and give content to many. Yet I shall never advise any to make 
things thus by hab-nab,[1] without any design, as was this. And 
therefore I give it that name.”

[Footnote 1: _Hab-Nab_ is a good old English word, derived from the 
Anglo-Saxon. Skinner is correct enough. “Temerè, sine consilio _ab_ 
AS. _Habban_ Habere, _Nabban_, non Habere, addito scilicet _na_, non, 
cum apostropho.” Will-nill, i.e. Will ye, or will ye not, is a 
parallel form. Every one will recollect the lines of Hudibras, (Part 
ii. Canto iii.)

  With that he circles draws, and squares,
  With cyphers, astral characters:
  Then looks 'em o'er to understand 'em
  Although set down, _hab nab_, at random.

Dr. Grey illustrates the expression from Don Quixote, “Let every man,” 
says Sancho Pancha, “take care what he talks or how he writes of other 
men, and not set down _at random_, _hab-nab_, _higgledy-piggledy_, 
what comes into his noddle.” Part ii. c. iii.

On referring to the original it will be seen that the Translator has 
used three words for one. “Cada uno mire como habla o' como escriba de 
las presonas, y no ponga _à troche moche_ lo primero que le viene al 
magin.”]

“There are abundance of such things to be met with, and from the hands 
of some, who fain would pass for good composers; yet most of them may 
be traced, and upon examination, their things found only to be snaps 
and catches; which they,—having been long conversant in Music, and can 
command an Instrument, through great and long practice, some of them 
very well,—have taken here and there (hab-nab,) from several airs and 
things of other men's works, and put them handsomely together, which 
then pass for their own compositions.

“Yet I say, it is no affront, offence, or injury, to any Master, for 
another to take his Fugue, or Point to work upon, nor dishonour for 
any Artist so to do, provided he shew by his Workmanship, a different 
Discourse, Form, or Humour. But it is rather a credit and a repute for 
him so to do; for by his works he shall be known. It being observable, 
That great Master Composers may all along be as well known by their 
Compositions, or their own compositions known to be of them, as the 
great and learned writers may be known by their styles and works.”




CHAPTER CXCVI.

FURTHER ACCOUNT OF MASTER THOMAS MACE,—HIS LIGHT HEART, HIS SORROWS, 
AND HIS POVERTY,—POORLY, POOR MAN, HE LIVED, POORLY, POOR MAN, HE 
DIED—PHINEAS FLETCHER.

  The sweet and the sour,
  The nettle and the flower,
  The thorn and the rose,
  This garland compose.

SMALL GARLAND OF PIOUS AND GODLY SONGS.


Little more is known of Thomas Mace than can be gathered from his 
book. By a good portrait of him in his sixty-third year, it appears 
that he was born in 1613, and by his arms that he was of gentle blood. 
And as he had more subscribers to his book in York than in any other 
place, (Cambridge excepted) and the name of Henry Mace, Clerk, occurs 
among them, it may be presumed that he was a native of that city, or 
of that county. This is the more likely, because when he was 
established at Cambridge in his youth, his true love was in Yorkshire; 
and at that time his travels are likely to have been confined between 
the place of his birth and of his residence.

The price of his book was twelve shillings in sheets; and as he 
obtained about three hundred subscribers, he considered this fair 
encouragement to publish. But when the work was compleated and the 
accounts cast up, he discovered that “in regard of his unexpected 
great charge, besides his unconceivable care and pains to have it 
compleatly done, it could not be well afforded at that price, to 
render him any tolerable or reasonable requital.” He gave notice 
therefore, that after it should have been published three months, the 
price must be raised; “adding thus much, (as being bold to say) that 
there were several pages, yea several lessons in this book, (according 
to the ordinary value, esteem, or way of procuring such things) which 
were every one of them of more value than the price of the whole book 
by far.”

It might be truly said of him, that

  Poorly, poor man, he lived, poorly, poor man he died.[1]

for he never attained to any higher preferment than that of being “one 
of the Clerks of Trinity College.” But it may be doubted whether any 
of those who partook more largely of the endowment of that noble 
establishment, enjoyed so large a portion of real happiness. We find 
him in the sixty-third year of his age, and the fortieth of his 
marriage, not rich, not what the world calls fortunate, but a 
contented, cheerful old man; even though “Time had done to him this 
wrong” that it had half deprived him of his highest gratification, for 
he had become so deaf that he could not hear his own lute. When Homer 
says of his own blind bard that the Muse gave him good and evil, 
depriving him of his eyes, but giving him the gift of song, we 
understand the compensation;

  _Τὸν πέρι Μοῦσ᾽ ἐφίλησε, δίδου δ᾽ ἀγαθόν τε κακόν τε,
   Ὀφθαλμῶν μὲν ἄμερσε, δίδου δ᾽ ἡδεῖαν ἀοιδήν·_

but what can compensate a musician for the loss of hearing! There is 
no inward ear to be the bliss of solitude. He could not like 
Pythagoras _ἀῤῥήτῳ τινὶ καὶ δυσεπινοήτῳ θειότητι χρώμενος_, by an 
effort of ineffable and hardly conceivable divinity retire into the 
depths of his own being, and there listen to that heavenly harmony of 
the spheres which to him alone of all the human race was made audible; 
_ἑαυτῷ γὰρ μόνῳ τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς ἀπάντων συνετὰ καὶ ἐπήκοα τὰ κοσμικὰ 
φθέγματα ἐνόμιζεν ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς τῆς φυσικῆς πηγῆς καὶ ῥίζῆς._[2] Master 
Mace had no such supernatural faculty, and no such opinion of himself. 
But the happy old man devises a means of overcoming to a certain 
degree his defect by inventing what he called a Dyphone, or Double 
Lute of fifty strings, a representation of which is given in his book, 
as “the one only instrument in being of that kind, then lately 
invented by himself, and made with his own hands in the year 1672.”

[Footnote 1: PHINEAS FLETCHER.]

[Footnote 2: IAMBLICHI Liber de Pythagoricâ, Vitâ c. xv.]

“The occasion of its production was my necessity; viz. my great defect 
in hearing; adjoined with my unsatiable love and desire after the 
Lute. It being an instrument so soft, and past my reach of hearing, I 
did imagine it was possible to contrive a louder Lute, than ever any 
yet had been; whereupon, after divers casts and contrivances, I 
pitched upon this order, the which has (in a great degree) answered my 
expectation, it being absolutely the lustiest or loudest Lute that I 
ever yet heard. For although I cannot hear the least twang of any 
other Lute, when I play upon it, yet I can hear this in a very good 
measure, yet not so loud as to distinguish every thing I play, without 
the help of my teeth, which when I lay close to the edge of it, 
(there, where the lace is fixed,) I hear all I play distinctly. So 
that it is to me (I thank God!) one of the principal refreshments and 
contentments I enjoy in this world. What it may prove to others in its 
use and service, (if any shall think fit to make the like,) I know 
not, but I conceive it may be very useful, because of the several 
conveniences and advantages it has of all other Lutes.”

This instrument was on the one side a theorbo, on the other lute, 
having on the former part twenty-six strings, twenty-four on the 
latter. It had a fuller, plumper and lustier sound, he said, than any 
other lute, because the concave was almost as long again, being hollow 
from neck to mouth. “This is one augmentation of sound; there is yet 
another; which is from the strange and wonderful secret, which lies in 
the nature of sympathy, in unities, or the uniting of harmonical 
sounds, the one always augmenting the other. For let two several 
instruments lie asunder at any reasonable distance, when you play upon 
one, the other shall sound, provided they be both exactly tuned in 
unisons to each other; otherwise not. This is known to all curious 
inspectors into such mysteries. If this therefore be true, it must 
needs be granted, that when the strings of these two twins, 
accordingly put on, are tuned in unities and set up to a stiff lusty 
pitch, they cannot but more augment and advantage one the other.”

Some allowances he begged for it, because it was a new-made instrument 
and could not yet speak so well as it would do, when it came to age 
and ripeness, though it already gave forth “a very free, brisk, 
trouling, plump and sweet sound,” and because it was made by a hand 
that never before attempted the making of any instrument. He concludes 
his description of it, with what he calls a Recreative Fancy: saying, 
“because it is my beloved darling, I seemed, like an old doting body, 
to be fond of it; so that when I finished it, I bedecked it with these 
five rhymes following, fairly written upon each belly.

“First, round the Theorboe knot, thus,

  I am of old, and of Great Britain's fame,
    Theorboe was my name.

Then next, about the French Lute knot, thus,

  I'm not so old; yet grave, and much acute;
    My name was the French lute.

Then from thence along the sides, from one knot to the other, thus,

  But since we are thus joined both in one,
    Henceforth our name shall be the Lute Dyphone.

Then again cross-wise under the Theorboe-knot, thus,

  Lo here a perfect emblem seen in me,
  Of England and of France, their unity;
  Likewise that year they did each other aid,
  I was contrived, and thus compleatly made.

viz. When they united both against the Dutch and beat them soundly, 
A.D. 1672.

“Then lastly, under the French Lute knot, thus,

  Long have we been divided, now made one,
  We sang in sevenths; now in full unison.
  In this firm union, long may we agree,
  No unison is like Lute's harmony.

  Thus in its body, tis trim, spruce and fine
  But in its sp'rit, tis like a thing divine.”

Poor Mace formed the plan of a Music-room, and hoped to have erected 
it himself; “but it pleased God,” says he, “to disappoint and 
discourage me several ways, for such a work; as chiefly by the loss of 
my hearing, and by that means the emptiness of my purse, (my meaning 
may easily be guessed at,) I only wanted money enough but no good will 
thereunto.” However he engraved his plan, and annexed a description of 
it, “in hopes that at one time or other, there might arise some 
honourable and truly nobly-spirited person, or persons, who may 
consider the great good use and benefit of such a necessary 
convenience, and also find in his heart to become a benefactor to such 
an eminent good work,—for the promotion of the art and encouragement 
of the true lovers of it; there being great need of such a thing, in 
reference to the compleating and illustrating of the University 
Schools.”

What he designed was a room six yards square, having on each side 
three galleries for spectators, each something more than three yards 
deep. These were to be one story from the ground, “both for advantage 
of sound, and also to avoid the moisture of the earth, which is very 
bad, both for instrument and strings;” and the building was to be “in 
a clear and very delightful dry place, both free from water, the 
overhanging of trees, and common noises.” The room was for the 
performers, and it was to be “one step higher on the floor than the 
galleries the better to convey the sound to the auditors:”—“being thus 
clear and free from company, all inconvenience of talking, crowding, 
sweating and blustering, &c. are taken away; the sound has its free 
and uninterrupted passage; the performers are no ways hindered; and 
the instruments will stand more steadily in tune, (for no lutes, 
viols, pedals, harpsicons, &c. will stand in tune at such a time; no, 
nor voices themselves;) For I have known,” says he, “an excellent 
voice, well prepared for a solemn performance, who has been put up in 
a crowd, that when he has been to perform his part, could hardly 
speak, and by no other cause but the very distemper received by that 
crowd and overheat.”

The twelve galleries, though but little, would hold two hundred 
persons very well; and thus the uneasy and unhandsome accommodation, 
which has often happened to persons of quality, being crowded up, 
squeezed and sweated among persons of an inferior rank, might be 
avoided, “which thing alone, having such distinct reception for 
persons of different qualities, must needs be accounted a great 
conveniency.” But there was a scientific convenience included in the 
arrangement; for the lower walls were to be “wainscoted, hollow from 
the wall, and without any kind of carved, bossed, or rugged work, so 
that the sound might run glib and smooth all about, without the least 
interruption. And through that wainscot there must be several 
conveyances all out of the room—by grooves, or pipes to certain 
auditor's seats, where the hearer, as he sate, might at a small 
passage, or little hole, receive the pent-up sound, which let it be 
never so weak in the music-room, he, (though at the furthest end of 
the gallery) should hear as distinctly as any who were close by it.” 
The inlets into these pipes should be pretty large, a foot square at 
least, yet the larger the better, without all doubt, and so the 
conveyance to run proportionably narrower, till it came to the ear of 
the auditor, where it need not be above the wideness of one's finger 
end. “It cannot,” says he, “be easily imagined, what a wonderful 
advantage such a contrivance must needs be, for the exact and distinct 
hearing of music; without doubt far beyond all that ever has yet been 
used. For there is no instrument of touch, be it never so sweet, and 
touched with the most curious hand that can be, but in the very touch, 
if you be near unto it, you may perceive the touch to be heard; 
especially of viols and violins: but if you be at a distance, that 
harshness is lost, and conveyed unto the air, and you receive nothing 
but the pure sweetness of the instrument; so as I may properly say, 
you lose the body, but enjoy the soul or spirit thereof.”

Such a necessary, ample and most convenient erection would become, he 
thought, any nobleman, or gentleman's house; and there might be built 
together with it as convenient rooms for all services of a family, as 
by any other contrivance whatever, and as magnificently stately. Were 
it but once experienced, he doubted not, but that the advantages would 
apparently show themselves, and be esteemed far beyond what he had 
written, or that others could conceive.

The last notice which we have of good Master Mace is an advertisement, 
dated London, 1690, fourteen years after the publication of his book. 
Dr. Burney found it in the British Museum, in a collection of 
title-pages, devices and advertisements. It is addressed “to all 
Lovers of the best sort of Music.”

  Men say the times are strange;—tis true;
    'Cause many strange things hap to be.
  Let it not then seem strange to you
    That here one strange thing more you see.

That is, in Devereux Court, next the Grecian Coffee House, at the 
Temple back gate, there is a deaf person teacheth music to perfection; 
who by reason of his great age, viz. seventy-seven, is come to town, 
with his whole stock of rich musical furniture; viz. instruments and 
books, to put off, to whomsoever delights in such choice things; for 
he has nothing light or vain, but all substantial and solid MUSIC. 
Some particulars do here follow.

“First, There is a late invented Organ, which, for private use, 
exceeds all other fashioned organs whatever; and for which, 
substantial artificial reasons will be given; and, for its beauty, it 
may become a nobleman's dining-room.

“Second, There belongs to it a pair of fair, large-sized consort 
viols, chiefly fitted and suited for that, or consort use; and 'tis 
great pity they should be parted.

“Third, There is a pedal harpsicon, (the absolute best sort of consort 
harpsicon that has been invented; there being in it more than twenty 
varieties, most of them to come in with the foot of the player; 
without the least hindrance of play,) exceedingly pleasant.

“Fourth, Is a single harpsicon.

“Fifth. A new invented instrument, called a Dyphone, viz. a double 
lute; it is both theorboe and French lute compleat; and as easy to 
play upon as any other lute.

“Sixth, Several other theorboes, lutes and viols, very good.

“Seventh, Great store of choice collections of the works of the most 
famous composers that have lived in these last hundred years, as 
Latin, English, Italian and some French.

“Eighth, There is the publishers own Music's Monument; some few copies 
thereof he has still by him to put off, it being a subscribed book, 
and not exposed to common sale. All these will be sold at very easy 
rates, for the reasons aforesaid; and because, indeed, he cannot stay 
in town longer than four months, exactly.”

He further adds, “if any be desirous to partake of his experimental 
skill in this high noble art, during his stay in town, he is ready to 
assist them; and haply, they may obtain that from him, which they may 
not meet withal elsewhere. He teacheth these five things; viz. the 
theorboe, the French lute, and the viol, in all their excellent ways 
and uses; as also composition, together with the knack of procuring 
invention to young composers, (the general and greatest difficulty 
they meet withal;) this last thing not being attempted by any author, 
(as he knows of,) yet may be done, though some have been so wise, or 
otherwise to contradict it:

  _Sed experientia docuit._

“Any of these five things may be learned so understandingly, in this 
little time he stays, by such general rules as he gives, together with 
Music's Monument, (written principally to such purposes,) as that any, 
aptly inclined, may, for the future, teach themselves, without any 
other help.”

This is the last notice of poor Mace: poor he may be called, when at 
the age of seventy-seven he is found in London upon the forlorn hope 
of selling his instruments and his books, and getting pupils during 
this stay. It may be inferred that he had lost the son of whose 
musical proficiency he formerly spoke with so much pleasure; for 
otherwise this professional collection and stock in trade would hardly 
have been exposed to sale, but it appears that the good old man 
retained his mental faculties, and his happy and contented spirit.

Dr. Burney recommends the perusal of what he calls his matchless book 
“to all who have taste for excessive simplicity and quaintness, and 
can extract pleasure from the sincere and undissembled happiness of an 
author, who with exalted notions of his subject and abilities, 
discloses to his readers every inward working of self-approbation in 
as undisguised a manner, as if he were communing with himself in all 
the plenitude of mental comfort and privacy.”




CHAPTER CXCVII.

QUESTION PROPOSED, WHETHER A MAN BE MAGNIFIED OR MINIFIED BY 
CONSIDERING HIMSELF UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES, AND 
ANSWERED WITH LEARNING AND DISCRETION.

I find by experience that Writing is like Building, wherein the 
undertaker, to supply some defect, or serve some convenience which at 
first he foresaw not, is usually forced to exceed his first model and 
proposal, and many times to double the charge and expence of it.

DR. JOHN SCOTT.


Is man magnified or minified by considering himself as under the 
influence of the heavenly bodies,—not simply as being

  Moved round in earth's dismal course
    With rocks and stones and trees;[1]

but as affected by them in his constitution bodily and mental, and 
dependent on them for weal or woe, for good or evil fortune; as 
subjected, that is, according to astrological belief to

  The Stars, who, by I know not what strange right,
  Preside o'er mortals in their own despite,
  Who without reason, govern those who most,
  (How truly, judge from thence!) of reason boast;
  And by some mighty magic, yet unknown,
  Our actions guide, yet cannot guide their own.[2]

Apart from what one of our Platonic divines calls “the power of astral 
necessity, and uncontrollable impressions arising from the 
subordination and mental sympathy and dependence of all mundane 
causes,” which is the Platonist's and Stoic's “proper notion of 
fate;”[3] apart, I say, from this, and from the Calvinist's doctrine 
of predestination, is it a humiliating, or an elevating consideration, 
that the same celestial movements which cause the flux and reflux of 
the ocean, should be felt in the pulse of a patient suffering with a 
fever: and that the eternal laws which regulate the stars in their 
courses, should decide the lot of an individual?

[Footnote 1: WORDSWORTH.]

[Footnote 2: CHURCHILL.]

[Footnote 3: JOHN SMITH.]

Here again a distinction must be made,—between the physical theory and 
the pseudo-science. The former is but a question of more or less; for 
that men are affected by atmospherical influence is proved by every 
endemic disease; and invalids feel in themselves a change of weather 
as decidedly as they perceive its effect upon the weather-glass, the 
hygrometer, or the strings of a musical instrument. The sense of our 
weakness in this respect,—of our dependence upon causes over which we 
have no controul, and which in their operation and nature are 
inexplicable by us, must have a humbling and therefore a beneficial 
tendency in every mind disposed to goodness. It is in the order of 
Providence that we should learn from sickness and adversity lessons 
which health and prosperity never teach.

Some of the old theoretical physicians went far beyond this. Sachs von 
Lewenheimb compared the microcosm of man with the macrocosm in which 
he exists. The heart in the one, he said, is what the ocean is in the 
other, the blood has its ebbing and flowing like the tide, and as the 
ocean receives its impulse from the moon and the winds, the brain and 
the vital spirits act in like manner upon the heart. Baillet has 
noticed for censure the title of his book in his chapter _Des prejugés 
des Titres des Livres_; it is _Oceanus Macro-Micro-cosmicus_. Peder 
Severinsen carrying into his medical studies a fanciful habit of mind 
which he might better have indulged in his younger days when he was a 
Professor of Poetry, found in the little world of the human body, 
antitypes of every thing in the great world, its mountains and its 
vallies, its rivers and its lakes, its minerals and its vegetables, 
its elements and its spheres. According to him the stars are living 
creatures, subject to the same diseases as ourselves. Ours indeed are 
derived from them by sympathy, or astral influence, and can be 
remedied only by those medicines, the application of which is denoted 
by their apparent qualities, or by the authentic signature of nature.

This fancy concerning the origin of diseases is less intelligible than 
the mythology of those Rosicrucians who held that they were caused by 
evil demons rulers of the respective planets, or by the Spirits of the 
Firmament and the Air. A mythology this may more properly be called 
than a theory; and it would belong rather to the history of Manicheism 
than of medicine, were it not that in all ages fanaticism and 
imposture have, in greater or less degree, connected themselves with 
the art of healing.

But however dignified, or super-celestial the theoretical causes of 
disease, its effect is always the same in bringing home, even to the 
proudest heart, a sense of mortal weakness: whereas the belief which 
places man in relation with the Stars, and links his petty concerns 
and fortunes of a day with the movements of the heavenly bodies, and 
the great chain of events, tends to exalt him in his own conceit. The 
thriftless man in middle or low life who says, in common phrase, that 
he was born under a threepenny planet, and therefore shall never be 
worth a groat, finds some satisfaction in imputing his unprosperity to 
the Stars, and casting upon them the blame which he ought to take upon 
himself. In vain did an old Almanack-maker say to such men of the 
Creator, in a better strain than was often attained by the professors 
of his craft.

  He made the Stars to be an aid unto us,
  Not (as is fondly dream'd) to help undo us;
  Much less without our fault to ruinate
  By doom of irrecoverable Fate.
  And if our best endeavours use we will,
  These glorious Creatures will be helpful still
  In all our honest ways: for they do stand
  To help, not hinder us, in God's command,
  Who doth not only rule them by his powers
  But makes their glory servant unto ours.
  Be wise in Him, and if just cause there be
  The Sun and Moon shall stand and wait on thee.

On the other hand the lucky adventurer proceeds with superstitious 
confidence in his Fortune; and the ambitious in many instances have 
devoted themselves, or been deceived to their own destruction. It is 
found accordingly that the professors of astrology generally in their 
private practice addressed themselves to the cupidity or the vanity of 
those by whom they were employed. Honest professors there were who 
framed their schemes faithfully upon their own rules; but the greater 
number were those who consulted their own advantage only, and these 
men being well acquainted with human nature in its ordinary character, 
always took this course.—Their character has changed as little as 
human nature itself in the course of two thousand years since Ennius 
expressed his contempt for them, in a passage preserved by Cicero.

  _Non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem,
   Non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos,
   Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somnium.
   Non enim sunt ii aut scientiâ aut arte, divini,
   Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque harioli,
   Aut inertes, aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat:
   Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam.
   Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab iis drachmam ipsi petunt.
   De his divitiis sibi deducant drachmam, reddant cætera._

Pompey, Crassus, and Cæsar were each assured by the Chaldeans that he 
should die in his own house, in prosperity, and in a good old age. 
Cicero tells us this upon his own knowledge: _Quam multa ego Pompeio, 
quam multa Crasso, quam multa huic ipsi Cæsari à Chaldeis dicta 
memini, neminem eorum nisi senectute, nisi domi, nisi cum claritate 
esse moriturum! ut mihi permirum videatur, quemquam extare, qui etiam 
nunc credat iis, quorum prædicta quotidie videat re et eventis 
refelli._

And before the age of Ennius, Euripides had in the person of Tiresias 
shewn how surely any such profession, if the professor believed in his 
own art, must lead to martyrdom, or falsehood. When the blind old 
Prophet turns away from Creon, he says, in words worthy of Milton's 
favourite poet,

  _Τὰ μὲν παρ᾽ ἡμῶν πάντ᾽ ἔχεις· ἡγοῦ, τέκνον,
   Πρὸς οἶκον· ὅστις δ᾽ ἐμπύρῳ χρῆται τέχνῃ,
   Μάταιος᾽ ἢν μὲν ἐχθρὰ σημήνας τύχῃ,
   Πικρὸς καθέστηχ᾽, οἷς ἂν οἰωνοσκοπῇ,
   Ψευδῆ δ᾽ ὑπ᾽ οἴκτου τοῖσι χρωμένοις λέγων,
   Ἀδικεῖ τὰ τῶν θεῶν. Φοῖβον ἀνθρώποις μόνον
   Χρῆν θεσπιωδεῖν, ὃς δέδοικεν οὐδένα._

The sagacity of the poet will be seen by those who are versed in the 
history of the Old Testament; and for those who are not versed in it, 
the sooner they cease to be ignorant in what so nearly concerns them, 
the better it may be for themselves.

Jeremy Taylor says that he reproves those who practised judicial 
astrology, and pretended to deliver genethliacal predictions, “not 
because their reason is against religion, for certainly, said he, it 
cannot be; but because they have not reason enough in what they say; 
they go upon weak principles which they cannot prove; they reduce them 
to practice by impossible mediums; they argue about things with which 
they have little conversation. Although the art may be very lawful if 
the stars were upon the earth, or the men were in heaven, if they had 
skill in what they profess, and reason in all their pretences, and 
after all that their principles were certain, and that the stars did 
really signify future events, and that those events were not overruled 
by every thing in heaven and in earth, by God, and by our own will and 
wisdom,—yet because here is so little reason and less certainty, and 
nothing but confidence and illusion, therefore it is that religion 
permits them not; and it is not the reason in this art that is against 
religion, but the folly or the knavery of it; and the dangerous and 
horrid consequents which they feel that run a-whoring after such idols 
of imagination.”

In our days most of those persons who can afford to employ the greater 
part of their thoughts upon themselves, fall at a certain age under 
the influence either of a physical or a spiritual director, for 
Protestantism has its _Directeurs_ as well as Popery, less to its 
advantage and as little to its credit. The spiritual professors have 
the most extensive practice, because they like their patients are of 
all grades, and are employed quite as much among the sound as the 
sick. The astrologer no longer contests the ascendancy with either. 
That calling is now followed by none but such low impostors, that they 
are only heard of when one of them is brought before a magistrate for 
defrauding some poor credulous creature in the humblest walks of life. 
So low has that cunning fallen, which in the seventeenth century 
introduced its professors into the cabinets of kings, and more 
powerful ministers. An astrologer was present at the birth of Louis 
XIV, that he might mark with all possible precision the exact moment 
of his nativity. After the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, 
Catherine de Medici, deep in blood as she was, hesitated about putting 
to death the king of Navarre and the prince of Condé, and the person 
of whom she took counsel was an astrologer,—had she gone to her 
Confessor their death would have been certain. Cosmo Ruggieri was an 
unprincipled adventurer, but on this occasion he made a pious use of 
his craft, and when the Queen enquired of him what the nativities of 
these Princes prognosticated, he assured her that he had calculated 
them with the utmost exactness, and that according to the principles 
of his art, the State had nothing to apprehend from either of them. He 
let them know this as soon as he could, and told them that he had 
given this answer purely from regard for them, not from any result of 
his schemes, the matter being in its nature undiscoverable by 
astrology.

The Imperial astrologers in China excused themselves once for a 
notable failure in their art, with more notable address. The error 
indeed was harmless, except in its probable consequences to 
themselves; they had predicted an eclipse, and no eclipse took place. 
But instead of being abashed at this proof of their incapacity the 
ready rogues complimented the Emperor, and congratulated him upon so 
wonderful and auspicious an event. The eclipse they said portended 
evil, and therefore in regard to him the Gods had put it by.

An Asiatic Emperor who calls himself Brother to the Sun and Moon, 
might well believe that his relations would go a little out of their 
way to oblige him, if the Queen of Navarre could with apparent 
sincerity declare her belief that special revelations are made to the 
Great, as one of the privileges of their high estate, and that her 
mother, that Catherine de Medici, whose name is for ever infamous, was 
thus miraculously forewarned of every remarkable event that befell her 
husband and her children, nor was she herself, without her share in 
this privilege, though her character was not more spotless in one 
point than her mother's in another. _De ces divins advertissemens_, 
she says, _je ne me veux estimer digne, toutesfois pour ne me taire 
comme ingrate des graces que j'ay receües de Dieu, que je dois et veux 
confesser toute ma vie, pour luy en rendre grace, et que chacun le 
loue aux merveilles des effets de sa puissance, bonté, et misericorde, 
qu'il luy a plû faire en moy, j'advoueray n'avoir jamais esté proche 
de quelques signalez accidens, ou sinistres, ou heureux, que j'en aye 
eu quelque advertissement ou en songe, ou autrement; et puis bien dire 
ce vers,_

  _De mon bien ou mon mal, mon esprit m'est oracle._




CHAPTER CXCVIII.

PETER HOPKINS' VIEWS OF ASTROLOGY. HIS SKILL IN CHIROMANCY, PALMISTRY, 
OR MANUAL DIVINATION WISELY TEMPERED.—SPANISH PROVERB AND SONNET BY 
BARTOLOME LEONARDO DE ARGENSOLA.—TIPPOO SULTAN.—MAHOMETAN 
SUPERSTITION.—W. Y. PLAYTES' PROSPECTUS FOR THE HORN BOOK FOR THE 
REMEMBRANCE OF THE SIGNS OF SALVATION.

  _Seguite dunque con la mente lieta,
   Seguite, Monsignor, che com' io dico,
   Presto presto sarete in su la meta._

LUDOVICO DOLCE.


Peter Hopkins had believed in astrology when he studied it in early 
life with his friend Grey; his faith in it had been overthrown by 
observation and reflection, and the unperceived influence of the 
opinions of the learned and scientific public; but there was more 
latent doubt in his incredulity than had ever lurked at the root of 
his belief.

He was not less skilled in the kindred, though more trivial art of 
Chiromancy, Palmistry, or Manual Divination, for the divine origin of 
which a verse in the Book of Job was adduced as scriptural proof; “He 
sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work.” The 
text appears more chiromantical in the Vulgate. _Qui in manu omnium 
hominum signa posuit._ Who has placed signs in the hand of all men. 
The uses of the science were represented to be such, as to justify 
this opinion of its origination: “For hereby,” says Fabian Withers, 
“thou shalt perceive and see the secret works of Nature, how aptly and 
necessarily she hath compounded and knit each member with other, 
giving unto the hand, as unto a table, certain signs and tokens 
whereby to discern and know the inward motions and affections of the 
mind and heart, with the inward state of the whole body; as also our 
inclination and aptness to all our external actions and doings. For 
what more profitable thing may be supposed or thought, than when a man 
in himself may foresee and know his proper and fatal accidents, and 
thereby to embrace and follow that which is good, and to avoid and 
eschew the evils which are imminent unto him, for the better 
understanding and knowledge thereof?”

But cautioning his readers against the error of those who perverted 
their belief in palmistry and astrology, and used it as a refuge or 
sanctuary for all their evil deeds, “we ought,” said he, “to know and 
understand that the Stars do not provoke or force us to anything, but 
only make us apt and prone; and being so disposed, allure as it were, 
and draw us forward to our natural inclination. In the which if we 
follow the rule of Reason, taking it to be our only guide and 
governor, they lose all the force, power and effect which they by any 
means may have in and upon us: contrariwise, if we give ourselves over 
to follow our own sensuality and natural dispositions, they work even 
the same effect on us—that they do in brute beasts.”

Farther he admonishes all “which should read or take any fruit of his 
small treatise, to use such moderation in perusing of the same that 
they do not by and by take in hand to give judgement either of their 
own, or other men's estates or nativities, without diligent 
circumspection and taking heed; weighing and considering how many ways 
a man may be deceived; as by the providence and discretion of the 
person on whom he gives judgement, also, the dispensation of God, and 
our fallible and uncertain speculation.” “Wherefore,” he continues, 
“let all men in seeking hereby to foresee their own fortune, take heed 
that by the promise of good, they be not elate, or high-minded, giving 
themselves over to otiosity or idleness, and trusting altogether to 
the Natural Influences; neither yet by any signs or tokens of 
adversity, to be dejected or cast down, but to take and weigh all 
things with such equality and moderation, directing their state of 
life and living to all perfectness and goodness, that they may be 
ready to embrace and follow all that which is good and profitable; and 
also not only to eschew and avoid, but to withstand and set at nought 
all evil and adverse fortune, whensoever it may happen unto them.”

Whoever studies the history of opinions, that is, of the aberrations, 
caprices and extravagancies of the human mind, may find some 
consolation in reflecting upon the practical morality which has been 
preached not only by men of the most erroneous faith, but even by 
fanatics, impostors and hypocrites, as if it were in the order of 
Providence that there should be no poison which had not also some 
medicinal virtue. The books of palmistry have been so worn by perusal 
that one in decent preservation is now among the rarities of 
literature; and it may be hoped that of the credulous numbers who have 
pored over them, many have derived more benefit from the wholesome 
lessons which were thus unexpectedly brought home to them, than they 
suffered detriment from giving ear to the profession of a fallacious 
art.

The lesson was so obvious that the Spaniards expressed it in one of 
their pithy proverbs, _es nuestra alma en nuestra palma._ The thought 
has been expanded into a sonnet by Bartolome Leonardo de Argensola, a 
poet whose strains of manly morality have not been exceeded in that 
language.

  _Fabio, pensar que el Padre soberano
     En esas rayas de la palma diestra
     (Que son arrugas de la piel) te muestra
   Los accidentes del discurso humano;
   Es beber con el vulgo el error vano
     De la ignorancia, su comun maestra.
     Bien te confieso, que la suerte nuestra,
   Mala, o buena, la puso en nuestra mano.
   Di, quién te estorvará el ser Rey, si vives
     Sin envidiar la suerte de los Reyes,
   Tan contento y pacifico en la tuya,
     Que estén ociosas para ti sus leyes;
   Y qualquier novedad que el Cielo influya,
     Como cosa ordinaria la recibes?_

   Fabius, to think that God hath interlined
     The human hand like some prophetic page,
   And in the wrinkles of the palm defined
     As in a map, our mortal pilgrimage,
   This is to follow, with the multitude
     Error and Ignorance, their common guides,
   Yet Heaven hath placed, for evil or for good,
     Our fate in our own hands, whate'er betides
   Being as we make it. Art thou not a king
     Thyself my friend, when envying not the lot
   Of thrones, ambition hath for thee no sting,
     Laws are to thee as they existed not,
   And in thy harmless station no event
     Can shake the calm of its assured content.

“Nature” says a Cheirologist, “was a careful workman in the creation 
of the human body. She hath set in the hand of man certain signs and 
tokens of the heart, brain and liver, because in them it is that the 
life of man chiefly consists, but she hath not done so of the eyes, 
ears, mouth, hands and feet, because those parts of the body seem 
rather to be made for a comeliness or beauty, than for any necessity.” 
What he meant to say was that any accident which threatened the three 
vital parts was betokened in the lines of the palm, but that the same 
fashioning was not necessary in relation to parts which might be 
injured without inducing the loss of life. Therefore every man's palm 
has in it the lines relating to the three noble parts, the more minute 
lines are only found on subjects of finer texture, and if they 
originally existed in husbandmen and others whose hands are rendered 
callous by their employments, they are effaced.

It was only cheirologically speaking that he disparaged what sailors 
in their emphatic language so truly call our precious eyes and limbs, 
not that he estimated them like Tippoo Sultan, who in one of his 
letters says, that if people persisted in visiting a certain person 
who was under his displeasure, “their ears and noses should be 
dispensed with.” This strange tyrant wrote odes in praise of himself, 
and describes the effect of his just government to be such, that in 
the security of his protection “the deer of the forest made their 
pillow of the lion and the tyger, and their mattress of the leopard 
and the panther.”

Tippoo did not consider ears and noses to be superfluities when in 
that wanton wickedness which seldom fails to accompany the possession 
of irresponsible power he spoke of dispensing with them. But in one 
instance arms and legs were regarded as worse than superfluous. Some 
years ago a man was exhibited who was born without either, and in that 
condition had found a woman base enough to marry him. Having got some 
money together, she one day set this wretched creature upon a 
chimney-piece, from whence he could not move, and went off with 
another man, stripping him of every thing that she could carry away. 
The first words he uttered, when some one came into the room and took 
him down, were an imprecation upon those people who had legs and arms, 
because, he said they were always in mischief!

The Mahommedans believe that every man's fate is written on his 
forehead, but that it can be read by those only whose eyes have been 
opened. The Brahmins say that the sutures of the skull describe in 
like manner the owner's destined fortune, but neither can this 
mysterious writing be seen by any one during his life, nor decyphered 
after his death. Both these notions are mere fancies which afford a 
foundation for nothing worse than fable. Something more extraordinary 
has been excogitated by W. Y. Playtes, Lecturer upon the Signs of the 
light of the Understanding. He announces to mankind that the prints of 
the nails of the Cross which our Lord shewed Thomas, are printed in 
the roots of the nails of the hands and feet of every man that is born 
into the world, for witnesses, and for leading us to believe in the 
truth of all the signs, and graven images and pictures that are seen 
in the Heavenly Looking Glass of Reflection, in the Sun and the Moon 
and the Stars. This Theosophist has published a short Prospectus of 
his intended work entitled the Horn Book for the remembrance of the 
Signs of Salvation, which Horn Book is (should subscriptions be 
forthcoming) to be published in one hundred and forty-four numbers, 
forming twelve octavo volumes of six hundred pages each, with fifty 
plates, maps and tables, and 365,000 marginal references,—being one 
thousand for every day in the year. Wonder not reader at the extent of 
this projected work; for, says the author, “the Cow of the Church of 
Truth giveth abundance of milk, for the Babes of Knowledge.” But for 
palmistry there was a plausible theory which made it applicable to the 
purposes of fraud.

Among the odd persons with whom Peter Hopkins had become acquainted in 
the course of his earlier pursuits, was a sincere student of the 
occult sciences, who, being a more refined and curious artist, 
whenever he cast the nativity of any one, took an impression from the 
palm of the hand, as from an engraved plate, or block. He had thus a 
fac-simile of what he wanted. According to Sir Thomas Browne, the 
variety in the lines is so great, that there is almost no strict 
conformity. Bewick in one of his works has in this manner printed his 
own thumb. There are French deeds of the 15th century which are signed 
by the imprint of five fingers dipt in ink, underwritten _Ce est la 
griffe de monseigneur._[1]

[Footnote 1: The Reader, who is curious in such matters, may turn to 
Ames and Herbert, (Dibdin, ii. 380.) for the hands in Holt's Lac 
Puerorum, emprynted at London by Wynkyn de Worde.]

Hopkins himself did not retain any lurking inclination to believe in 
this art. You could know without it, he said, whether a person were 
open-handed, or close-fisted, and this was a more useful knowledge 
than palmistry could give us. But the Doctor sometimes made use of it 
to amuse children, and gave them at the same time playful admonition, 
and wholesome encouragement.




CHAPTER CXCIX.

CONCERNING THE GREAT HONOURS TO WHICH CERTAIN HORSES HAVE ATTAINED, 
AND THE ROYAL MERITS OF NOBS.

  _Siento para contarlas que me llama
   El á mi, yo á mi pluma, ella á la fama._

BALBUENA.


There have been great and good horses whose merits have been recorded 
in history and in immortal song as they well deserved to be. Who has 
not heard of Bucephalus? of whom Pulteney said that he questioned 
whether Alexander himself had pushed his conquests half so far, if 
Bucephalus had not stooped to take him on his back. Statius hath sung 
of Arion who when he carried Neptune left the winds panting behind 
him, and who was the best horse that ever has been heard of for taking 
the water,

  _Sæpe per Ionium Libycumque natantibus ire
   Interjunctus equis, omnesque assuetus in oras
   Cæruleum deferre patrem._

       *       *       *       *       *

   Tramp, tramp across the land he went,
       Splash, splash across the sea.

But he was a dangerous horse in a gig. Hercules found it difficult to 
hold him in, and Polynices when he attempted to drive him made almost 
as bad a figure as the Taylor upon his ever memorable excursion to 
Brentford.

The virtues of Caligula's horse, whom that Emperor invited to sup with 
him, whom he made a Priest, and whom he intended to make Consul, have 
not been described by those historians who have transmitted to us the 
account of his extraordinary fortune; and when we consider of what 
materials, even in our days, both Priests and Senators are sometimes 
made, we may be allowed to demur at any proposition which might 
include an admission that dignity is to be considered an unequivocal 
mark of desert. More certain it is that Borysthenes was a good horse, 
for the Emperor Adrian erected a monument to his memory, and it was 
recorded in his epitaph that he used to fly over the plains and 
marshes and Etrurian hills, hunting Pannonian boars; he appears by his 
name to have been like Nobs, of Tartaric race.

Bavieca was a holy and happy horse,—I borrow the epithets from the 
Bishop of Chalons's sermon upon the Bells. Gil Diaz deserved to be 
buried in the same grave with him. And there is an anonymous Horse, of 
whom honorable mention is made in the Roman Catholic Breviary, for his 
religious merits, because after a Pope had once ridden him, he never 
would suffer himself to be unhallowed by carrying a woman on his back. 
These latter are both Roman Catholic Houyhnhnms, but among the 
Mahometans also, quadrupedism is not considered an obstacle to a 
certain kind of canonization. Seven of the Emperor of Morocco's horses 
have been Saints, or Marabouts as the Moors would call it; and some 
there were who enjoyed that honour in the year 1721 when Windus was at 
Mequinez. One had been thus distinguished for saving the Emperor's 
life: “and if a man,” says the Traveller, “should kill one of his 
children, and lay hold of this horse, he is safe. This horse has saved 
the lives of some of the captives, and is fed with _cuscuru_ and 
camel's milk. After the Emperor has drank, and the horse after him, 
some of his favourites are suffered to drink out of the same bowl.” 
This was probably the horse who had a Christian slave appointed to 
hold up his tail when he was led abroad, and to carry a vessel and 
towel—“for use unmeet to tell.”

I have discovered only one Houyhnhnm who was a martyr, excepting those 
who are sometimes burnt with the rest of the family by Captain Rock's 
people in Ireland. This was poor Morocco, the learned horse of Queen 
Elizabeth's days: he and his master Banks, having been in some danger 
of being put to death at Orleans, were both burnt alive by the 
Inquisition at Rome, as magicians.—The word martyr is here used in its 
religious acceptation: for the victims of avarice and barbarity who 
are destroyed by hard driving and cruel usage are numerous enough to 
make a frightful account among the sins of this nation.

Fabretti the antiquary had a horse who when he carried his master on 
an antiquarian excursion, assisted him in his researches; for this 
sagacious horse had been so much accustomed to stop where there were 
ruins, and probably had found so much satisfaction in grazing, or 
cropping the boughs among them at his pleasure, that he was become a 
sort of antiquary himself; and sometimes by stopping and as it were 
pointing like a setter, gave his master notice of some curious and 
half-hidden objects which he might otherwise have past by unperceived.

How often has a drunken rider been carried to his own door by a 
sure-footed beast, sensible enough to understand that his master was 
in no condition either to guide him, or to take care of himself. How 
often has a stage coach been brought safely to its inn after the 
coachman had fallen from the box. Nay was there not a mare at Ennis 
races in Ireland (Atalanta was her name) who having thrown her rider, 
kept the course with a perfect understanding of what was expected from 
her, looked back and quickened her speed as the other horses 
approached her, won the race, trotted a few paces beyond the post, 
then wheeled round, and came up to the scale as usual? And did not 
Hurleyburley do the same thing at the Goodwood races?

That Nobs was the best horse in the world I will not affirm. Best is 
indeed a bold word to whatever it be applied, and yet in the 
shopkeeper's vocabulary it is at the bottom of his scale of 
superlatives. A haberdasher in a certain great city is still 
remembered, whose lowest priced gloves were what he called Best, but 
then he had five degrees of optimism; Best, Better than Best, Best of 
all, Better than Best of all, and the Real Best. It may be said of 
Nobs then that he was one of the Real Best: equal to any that Spain 
could have produced to compare with him, though concerning Spanish 
horses, the antiquary and historian Morales, (properly and as it were 
prophetically baptized Ambrosio, because his name ought ever to be in 
ambrosial odour among his countrymen) concerning Spanish horses, I 
say, that judicious author has said, _la estima que agora se hace en 
todo el mundo de un caballo Español es la mas solemne cosa que puede 
haber en animales._

Neither will I assert that there could not have been a better horse 
than Nobs, because I remember how Roger Williams tells us, “one of the 
chiefest Doctors of England was wont to say concerning strawberries, 
that God could have made a better berry, but he never did.” Calling 
this to mind, I venture to say as that chiefest Doctor might, and we 
may believe would have said upon the present occasion, that a better 
horse than Nobs there might have been,—but there never was.

The Duchess of Newcastle tells us that her Lord, than whom no man 
could be a more competent judge, preferred barbs and Spanish to all 
others, for barbs, he said, were like gentlemen in their kind, and 
Spanish horses like Princes. This saying would have pleased the 
Doctor, as coinciding entirely with his own opinions. He was no 
believer in equality either among men or beasts; and he used to say, 
that in a state of nature Nobs would have been the king of his kind.

And why not? if I do not show you sufficient precedents for it call me 
FIMBUL FAMBI.




CHAPTER CC.

A CHAPTER OF KINGS.

   FIMBUL-FAMBI _heitr
   Sá er fatt kann segia,
   That er ósnotvrs athal._

  _Fimbul-fambi (fatuus) vocatur
   Qui pauca novit narrare:
   Ea est hominis insciti proprietas._

EDDA, _Háva Mál_.


There are other monarchies in the inferior world, besides that of the 
Bees, though they have not been registered by Naturalists, nor studied 
by them.

For example, the King of the Fleas keeps his court at Tiberias, as Dr. 
Clarke discovered to his cost, and as Mr. Cripps will testify for him.

The King of the Crocodiles resides in Upper Egypt; he has no tail, but 
Dr. Southey has made one for him.

The Queen Muscle may be found at the Falkland Islands.

The Oysters also have their King, according to Pliny. Theirs seems to 
be a sort of patriarchical monarchy, the King, or peradventure the 
Queen, Oyster being distinguished by its size and age, perhaps 
therefore the parent of the bed; for every bed, if Pliny err not, has 
its sovereign. In Pliny's time the diver made it his first business to 
catch the royal Oyster, because his or her Majesty being of great age 
and experience, was also possessed of marvellous sagacity, which was 
exercised for the safety of the commonweal; but if this were taken the 
others might be caught without difficulty, just as a swarm of Bees may 
be secured after the Queen is made prisoner. Seeing, however, that his 
Oyster Majesty is not to be heard of now at any of the Oyster shops in 
London, nor known at Colchester or Milton, it may be that liberal 
opinions have, in the march of intellect, extended to the race of 
Oysters, that monarchy has been abolished among them, and that 
republicanism prevails at this day throughout all Oysterdom, or at 
least in those parts of it which be near the British shores. It has 
been observed also by a judicious author that no such King of the 
Oysters has been found in the West Indian Pearl fisheries.

The King of the Bears rules over a territory which is on the way to 
the desert of Hawaida, and Hatim Tai married his daughter, though the 
said Hatim was long unwilling to become a Mac Mahon by marriage.

“I was told by the Sheikh Othman and his son, two pious and credible 
persons,” says the traveller Ibn Batista, “that the monkies have a 
leader whom they follow as if he were their King, (this was in 
Ceylon). About his head is tied a turban composed of the leaves of 
trees, (for a crown;) and he reclines upon a staff, (which is his 
sceptre). At his right and left hand are four Monkies with rods in 
their hands, (gold sticks), all of which stand at his head whenever 
the leading Monkey, (his Majesty) sits. His wives and children are 
daily brought in on these occasions, and sit down before him; then 
comes a number of Monkies (his privy council) which sit and form an 
assembly about him. After this each of them comes with a nut, a lemon 
or some of the mountain fruit, which he throws down before the leader. 
He then eats (dining in public, like the King of France) together with 
his wives, and children, and the four principal Monkies: they then all 
disperse. One of the Jogres also told me, that he once saw the four 
Monkies standing in the presence of the leader, and beating another 
Monkey with rods; after which they plucked off all his hair.”

The Lion is the King of Beasts. Hutchinson, however, opines that Bulls 
may be ranked in a higher class; for helmets are fortified with their 
horns, which is a symbol of pre-eminence. Certainly he says, both the 
Bull and Lion discover the King, but the Bull is a better and more 
significant representative of a King than the Lion. But neither Bull 
nor Lion is King of all Beasts, for a certain person whose name being 
anagrammatized rendereth Johnny the Bear, is notoriously the King of 
the Bears at this time: even Ursa Major would not dispute his title. 
And a certain honourable member of the House of Commons would by the 
tottle of that whole House be voted King of the Bores.

The King of the Codfish frequents the shores of Finmark. He has a sort 
of chubbed head, rising in the shape of a crown, his forehead is 
broad, and the lower jaw bone projects a little, in other parts he 
resembles his subjects, whom he leads and directs in their migrations. 
The Laplanders believe that the fisherman who takes him, will from 
that time forth be fortunate, especially in fishing; and they shew 
their respect for his Cod-Majesty when he is taken, by hanging him up 
whole to dry, instead of cutting off his head as they do to the common 
fish.

In Japan the Tai, which the Dutch call Steenbrassem, is the King of 
Fish, because it is sacred to their sea-god Jebis, and because of its 
splendid colours, and also, perhaps, because of its exorbitant price, 
it being so scarce, that for a court entertainment, or on other 
extraordinary occasions, one is not to be had under a thousand 
cobangs.

Among the Gangas or Priests of Congo, is one whose official title is 
Mutuin, and who calls himself King of the Water, for by water alone he 
professes to heal all diseases. At certain times all who need his aid 
are assembled on the banks of a river. He throws an empty vessel in, 
repeats some mysterious words, then takes it out full and distributes 
the water as an universal medicine.

The Herring has been called the King of Fish, because of its 
excellence, the Herring, as all Dutchmen know, and as all other men 
ought to know, exceeding every other fish in goodness. Therefore it 
may have been that the first dish which used to be brought to table in 
this country on Easter Day, was a Red Herring on horseback, set in a 
corn sallad.

Others have called the Whale, King of Fish. But Abraham Rees, D.D. and 
F.R.S. of Cyclopedian celebrity, assures us that the whale 
notwithstanding its piscine appearance, and its residence in the 
waters, has no claim to a place among fishes. Uncle Toby would have 
whistled Lillabullero at being told that the Whale was not a fish. The 
said Abraham Rees, however, of the double Dees, who is, as the 
advertisement on the cover of his own Cyclopedia, informs us, “of 
acknowledged learning and industry, and of unquestionable experience 
in this (the Cyclopedian) department of literary labour,” candidly 
admits that the Ancients may surely be excused for thinking Whales 
were fish. But how can Abraham Rees be excused for denying the Whale's 
claim to a place among the inhabitants of the Great Deep,—which was 
appointed for him at the Creation.

But the Great Fish who is undoubtedly the King of Fish, and of all 
creatures that exist in the sea, Whales, Mermen-and-Maids included, is 
the fish Arez, which Ormuzd created, and placed in the water that 
surrounds Hom, the King of Trees, to protect that sacred arboreal 
Majesty against the Great Toad sent there by Ahriman to destroy it.

It is related in the same archives of cosmogony that the King of the 
Goats is a White Goat, who carries his head in a melancholy and 
cogitabund position, regarding the ground,—weighed down perhaps by the 
cares of royalty; that the King of the Sheep has his left ear 
white,—from whence it may appear that the Royal Mutton is a black 
sheep, which the Royal Ram of the Fairy Tales is not: that the King of 
the Camels has two white ears: and that the King of the Bulls is 
neither Apis, nor John Bull, but a Black Bull with yellow ears. 
According to the same archives, a White Horse with yellow ears and 
full eyes is King of the Horses;—doubtless the Mythological Horse King 
would acknowledge Nobs for his Vicegerent. The Ass King is also white: 
his Asinine Majesty has no Vicegerent. The number of competitors being 
so great that he has appointed a regency.

The King of Dogs is yellow. The King of Hares red.

There are Kings among the Otters in the Highland waters, and also 
among their relations the Sea Otters. The royal Otter is larger than 
his subjects, and has a white spot upon the breast. He shuns 
observation, which it is sometimes provident for Kings to do, 
especially under such circumstances as his, for his skin is in great 
request, among soldiers and sailors; it is supposed to ensure victory, 
to secure the wearer from being wounded, to be a prophylactic in times 
of contagious sickness, and a preservative in shipwreck. But it is not 
easy to find an Otter King, and when found there is danger in the act 
of regicide, for he bears a charmed life. The moment in which he is 
killed proves fatal to some other creature, either man or beast, whose 
mortal existence is mysteriously linked with his. The nature of the 
Otter monarchy has not been described, it is evident, however, that 
his ministers have no loaves to dispose of,—but then they have plenty 
of fishes.

The Ant, who, when Solomon entered the Valley of Ants with his armies 
of Genii and men and birds, spoke to the nation of Ants, saying, O 
Ants, enter ye not your habitations, lest Solomon and his host tread 
you under foot, and perceive it not,—that wise pismire is said by 
certain commentators upon the Koran to have been the Queen of the 
Ants.

Men have held the Eagle to be the King of Birds; but notwithstanding 
the authority of Horace, the Gods know otherwise, for they appointed 
the Tchamrosch to that dignity, at the beginning. Some writers indeed 
would have the Eagle to be Queen, upon the extraordinary ground that 
all Eagles are hens; though in what manner the species is perpetuated 
these persons have not attempted to shew.

The Carrion Crows of Guiana have their King, who is a White Crow 
_(rara avis in terris)_ and has wings tipt with black. When a flight 
of these birds arrive at the prey which they have scented from afar, 
however ravenous they may be, they keep at a respectful distance from 
the banquet, till his Carrion Majesty has satisfied himself. But there 
is another Bird, in South America, whom all the Birds of prey of every 
species acknowledge for their natural sovereign, and carry food to him 
in his nest, as their tribute.

The King of the Elks is so huge an elk that other elks look like 
pismires beside him. His legs are so long, and his strength withal 
such, that when the snow lies eight feet deep it does not in the least 
impede his pace. He has an arm growing out of his shoulder, and a 
large suite who attend upon him wherever he goes, and render him all 
the service he requires.

I have never heard anything concerning the King of the Crickets except 
in a rodomontade of Matthew Merrygreeks, who, said Ralph Roister 
Doister,

        bet him on Christmas day
  That he crept in a hole, and had not a word to say.

Among the many images of Baal, one was the form or representation of a 
Fly, and hence, says Master Perkins, he is called Baalzebub the Lord 
of Flies, because he was thought to be the chiefest Fly in the world. 
That is he was held to be the King of the Flies. I wish the King of 
the Spiders would catch him.

The King of the Peacocks may be read of in the Fairy Tales. The 
Japanese name for a crane is Tsuri and the common people in that 
country always give that bird the same title which is given to their 
first secular Emperor, Tsiri-sama—my great Lord Crane.

The Basilisk, or crowned Cockatrice, who is the chick of a Cock's egg, 
is accounted the King of Serpents. And as it has been said that there 
is no Cock Eagle, so upon more probable cause it is affirmed that 
there is no female Basilisk, that is no Henatrice, the Cock laying 
only male eggs. But the most venomous of this kind is only an earthly 
and mortal vicegerent, for the true King of Serpents is named 
Sanc-ha-naga, and formerly held his court in Chacragiri, a mountain in 
the remote parts of the East, where he and his serpentine subjects 
were oppressed by the Rational Eagle Garuda. In the spirit of an 
imperial Eagle, Garuda required from them a serpent every day for his 
dinner, which was regarded by the serpents as a most unpleasant 
tribute, especially by such as were full grown and in good condition; 
for the Rational Eagle being large and strong enough to carry Vishnu 
on his back, expected always a good substantial snake sufficient for a 
meal. Sanc-ha-naga, like a Patriot King endeavoured to deliver his 
liege subjects from this consuming tyranny; the attempt drew upon him 
the wrath of Garuda, which would soon have been followed by his 
vengeance, and the King of Serpents must have been devoured himself, 
if he and all the snakes had not retired, as fast as they could 
wriggle to Sanc-ha-vana, in Sanc-ha-dwip, which is between Cali and 
the Sea; there they found an asylum near the palace of Carticeya, son 
of the mountain goddess Parvats, and Commander of the Celestial 
Armies. Carticeya is more powerful than Garuda, and therefore the 
divine Eagle is too rational to invade them while they are under his 
protection. It would have been more fortunate for the world if the 
King of Serpents had not found any one to protect him; for whatever 
his merits may be towards his subjects, he is a most pestilent 
Potentate, the breath of his nostrils is a fiery wind which destroys 
and consumes all creatures and all herbs within an hundred _yojanas_ 
of his abode, and which in fact is the Simoom, so fatal to those who 
travel in the deserts. The sage Agastya for a time put a stop to this 
evil, for he, by the virtue of his self-inflection, obtained such 
power, that he caught Sanc-ha-naga, and carried him about in an 
earthen vessel. That vessel however must have been broken in some 
unhappy hour, for the fiery and poisonous wind is now as frequent as 
ever in the deserts.

The Hindoos say that whoever performs yearly and daily rites in honour 
of the King of the Serpents, will acquire immense riches. _This_ King 
of the Serpents, I say, to wit Sanc'-ha-naga,—(or Sanc' ha-mucha, as 
he is also called from the shape of his mouth resembling that of a 
shell)—because there is another King of the Serpents, Karkotaka by 
name, whom the sage Narada for deceiving him, punished once by casting 
him into a great fire, and confining him there by a curse till he was 
delivered in the manner which the reader may find related in the 14th 
book of Nela and Damarante, as translated by Mr. Milman from the 
Sanscrit.

The Locusts according to Agur in the Book of Proverbs have no King, 
although they go forth all of them by bands. Perhaps their form of 
government has changed, for the Moors of Morocco inform us that they 
have a sovereign, who leads forth their innumerable armies; and as his 
nation belongs to the Mahometan world, his title is Sultan Jereed.

The Rose is the Queen of the Garden

           _plebei cedite flores;
  Hortorum regina suos ostendit honores._[1]

[Footnote 1: RAPIN.]

Bampfield Moore Carew was King of the Beggars; and James Bosvill, was 
King of the Gypsies. He lies buried in Rossington Churchyard, near 
Doncaster, and for many years the gypsies from the south visited his 
grave annually, and among other rites poured a flagon of ale upon it.

There was a personage at Oxford who bore in that University the 
distinguished title of Rex Rafforum. After taking his degree he 
exchanged it for that of the Reverend.

The _Scurræ_,—(we have no word in our language which designates men 
who profess and delight in indulging an ill-mannered and worse-minded 
buffoonery,)—the _Scurræ_ also have their King. He bears a Baron's 
coronet.

The throne of the Dandies has been vacant since the resignation of the 
personage dignified and distinguished by the title of Beau Brummel.

By an advertisement in the Times of Friday, June 18, 1830, I learn 
that the beautiful and stupendous Bradwell Ox, is at present the 
“truly wonderful King of the Pastures,” the said King Ox measuring 
fourteen feet in girth, and sixteen feet in length, being eighteen 
hands high, and five years and a half old, and weighing four thousand 
five hundred pounds, or more than five hundred and sixty stone, which 
is nearly double the size of large oxen in general.

Under the Twelve Cæsars, (and probably it might deserve the title long 
after them,) the Via Appia was called the Queen of Roads. That from 
Hyde Park Corner is _Regina viarum_ in the 19th century.

Easter Sunday has been called the King of Days, though Christmas Day 
might dispute the sovereignty, being in Greek the Queen day of the 
Kalendar. _Ἡ βασιλίσσα ἡμέρα_ Justin Martyr calls it.

Who is King of the Booksellers? There is no King among them at this 
time, but there is a Directory of five Members, Longman, Rees, Orme, 
Brown and Green in the East; the Emperor Murraylemagne, whom Byron 
used to call the Grand Murray, reigned alone in the West, till Henry 
Colburn divided his empire, and supported the station which he had 
assumed by an army of trumpeters which he keeps in constant pay.

If the Books had a King that monarchy must needs be an elective one, 
and the reader of these volumes knows where the election would fall. 
But literature being a Republic, this cannot be the King of Books. 
Suffice it that it is a BOOK FOR A KING, or, for our SOVEREIGN LADY 
THE QUEEN.




INTERCHAPTER XXI.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

           _Le Plebe è bestia
  Di cento teste, e non rinchiude in loro
  Pur oncia di saper._

CHIABRERA.


The Public, will, I very well know, make free with me _more suo_, as 
it thinks it has a right to do with any one who comes before it with 
anything designed for its service, whether it be for its amusement, 
its use, or its instruction. Now my Public, I will _more meo_ make 
free with you—that we may be so far upon equal terms.

  _οὐδὲν δεῖ παραμπέχειν λόγους._[1]

You have seldom or never had the truth spoken to you when you have 
been directly addressed. You have been called the enlightened Public, 
the generous Public, the judicious Public, the liberal Public, the 
discerning Public, and so forth. Nay your bare title THE PUBLIC, 
oftentimes stands alone _par excellence_ in its plain majesty like 
that of the king, as if needing no affix to denote its inherent and 
pre-eminent importance. But I will speak truth to you my Public.

  Be not deceived! I have no bended knees,
  No supple tongue, no speeches steep'd in oil,
  No candied flattery, nor honied words![2]

[Footnote 1: EURIPIDES.]

[Footnote 2: RANDOLPH'S ARISTIPPUS.]

I must speak the truth to you my Public,

  _Sincera verità non vuol tacersi._[3]

Where your enlightenedness (if there be such a word) consists and your 
generosity, and your judgement, and your liberality, and your 
discernment, and your majesty to boot,—to express myself as Whitfield 
or Rowland Hill would have done in such a case (for they knew the 
force of language)—I must say, it would puzzle the Devil to tell. _Il 
faut librement avec verité francher ce mot, sans en estre repris; ou 
si l'on est, c'est très-mal à propos._[4]

[Footnote 3: CHIABRERA.]

[Footnote 4: BRANTOME.]

I will tell you what you are; you are a great, ugly, many headed 
beast, with a great many ears which are long, hairy, ticklish, 
moveable, erect and never at rest.

Look at your picture in Southey's Hexameters,—that poem in which his 
laureated Doctorship writes verses by the yard instead of the foot,—he 
describes you as “many headed and monstrous,”

                      with numberless faces,
  Numberless bestial ears, erect to all rumours, and restless,
  And with numberless mouths which are fill'd with lies as with
    arrows.

Look at that Picture my Public!—It is very like you!

For individual readers I profess just as much respect as they 
individually deserve. There are a few persons in every generation for 
whose approbation,—rather let it be said for whose gratitude and 
love,—it is worth while “to live laborious days,” and for these 
readers of this generation and the generations that are to follow,—for 
these

  Such as will join their profit with their pleasure,
  And come to feed their understanding parts;—
  For these I'll prodigally spend myself,
  And speak away my spirit into air;
  For these I'll melt my brain into invention,
  Coin new conceits, and hang my richest words
  As polished jewels in their bounteous ears.[5]

[Footnote 5: BEN JONSON.]

Such readers, they who to their learning add knowledge, and to their 
knowledge wisdom and to their wisdom benevolence, will say to me

  _ὦ καλὰ λέγων, πολὺ δ᾽ ἄμεινον᾽ ἔτι τῶν λόγων
             ἐργασάμεν᾽, εἴθ᾽ ἐπέλ—
             θοις ἅπαντά μοι σαφῶς·
             ὡς ἐγώ μοι δοκῶ
   κἂν μακρὰν ὁδὸν διελθεῖν ὥς᾽ ἀκοῦσαι.
   πρὸς τάδ᾽ ὦ βέλτιστε θαῤῥήσας λέγ᾽, ὡς ἃ—
             παντες ἡδόμεσθά σοι._[6]

But such readers are very few. Walter Landor said that if ten such 
persons should approve his writings, he would call for a division and 
count a majority. To please them is to obtain an earnest of enduring 
fame; for which, if it be worth any thing, no price can be too great. 
But for the aggregate any thing is good enough. Yes my Public, Mr. 
Hume's arithmetic and Mr. Brougham's logic, Lord Castlereagh's syntax, 
Mr. Irving's religion and Mr. Carlisle's irreligion, the politics of 
the Edinburgh Review and the criticism of the Quarterly, Thames water, 
Brewer's beer, Spanish loans, old jokes, new constitutions, Irish 
eloquence, Scotch metaphysics, Tom and Jerry, Zimmerman on Solitude, 
Chancery Equity and Old Bailey Law, Parliamentary wit, the patriotism 
of a Whig Borough-monger, and the consistency of a British cabinet; 
_Et s'il y a encore quelque chose à dire, je le tiens pour dit;_—

[Footnote 6: ARISTOPHANES.]

Yes my Public,

  Nor would I you should look for other looks,
  Gesture, or compliment from me.[7]

[Footnote 7: BEN JONSON.]

_Minus dico quam vellem, et verba omninò frigidiora hæc quam ut satis 
exprimant quod concipio:_[8] these and any thing worse than these,—if 
worse than what is worst can be imagined, will do for you. If there be 
any thing in infinite possibility more worthless than these, more 
floccical-naucical, nihilish-pilish, assisal-teruncial, more good for 
nothing than good for nothingness itself, it is good enough for you.

[Footnote 8: PICUS MIRANDULA.]




INTERCHAPTER XXII.

VARIETY OF STILES.

  _Qualis vir, talis oratio._

ERASMI ADAGIA.


Authors are often classed, like painters, according to the school, in 
which they have been trained, or to which they have attached 
themselves. But it is not so easy to ascertain this in literature as 
it is in painting; and if some of the critics who have thus 
endeavoured to class them, were sent to school themselves and there 
whipt into a little more learning, so many silly classifications of 
this kind would not mislead those readers who suppose in the 
simplicity of their own good faith, that no man presumes to write upon 
a subject which he does not understand.

Stiles may with more accuracy be classed, and for this purpose metals 
might be used in literature as they are in heraldry. We might speak of 
the golden stile, the silver, the iron, the leaden, the pinchbeck and 
the bronze.

Others there are which cannot be brought under any of these 
appellations. There is the Cyclopean stile, of which Johnson is the 
great example; the sparkling, or micacious, possessed by Hazlitt, and 
much affected in Reviews and Magazines; the oleaginous, in which Mr. 
Charles Butler bears the palm, or more appropriately the olive branch: 
the fulminating—which is Walter Landor's, whose conversation has been 
compared to thunder and lightning; the impenetrable—which is sometimes 
used by Mr. Coleridge; and the Jeremy-Benthamite, which cannot with 
propriety be distinguished by any other name than one derived from its 
unparellelled and unparallellable author.

_Ex stilo,_ says Erasmus, _perpendimus ingenium cujusque, omnemque 
mentis habitum ex ipsâ dictionis ratione conjectamus. Est enim tumidi, 
stilus turgidus; abjecti, humilis, exanguis; asperi, scaber; 
amarulenti, tristis ac maledicus; deliciis affluentis, picturatus ac 
dissolutus; Breviter, omne vitæ simulacrum, omnis animi vis, in 
oratione perinde ut in speculo repræsentatur, ac vel intima pectoris, 
arcanis quibusdam vestigiis, deprehenduntur._

There is the lean stile, of which Nathaniel Lardner, and William Coxe 
may be held up as examples; and there is the larded one, exemplified 
in Bishop Andrews, and in Burton, the Anatomist of Melancholy; Jeremy 
Taylor's is both a flowery and a fruitful stile: Harvey the 
Meditationist's a weedy one. There are the hard and dry; the weak and 
watery; the manly and the womanly; the juvenile and the anile; the 
round and the pointed; the flashy and the fiery; the lucid and the 
opaque; the luminous and the tenebrous; the continuous and the 
disjointed. The washy and the slap-dash are both much in vogue, 
especially in magazines and reviews; so are the barbed and the 
venomed. The High-Slang stile is exhibited in the Court Journal and in 
Mr. Colburn's novels; the Low Slang in Tom and Jerry, Bell's Life in 
London, and most Magazines, those especially which are of most 
pretensions.

The flatulent stile, the feverish, the aguish, and the atrabilious are 
all as common as the diseases of body from which they take their name, 
and of mind in which they originate; and not less common than either 
is the dyspeptic stile, proceeding from a weakness in the digestive 
faculty.

Learned, or if not learned, Dear Reader, I had much to say of stile, 
but the under written passage from that beautiful book, Xenophon's 
Memorabilia Socratis, has induced me, as the Latins say, _stilum 
vertere_, and to erase a paragraph written with ink in which the gall 
predominated.

_Ἐγὼ δ᾽ οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς, ὦ Αντιφῶν, ὥσπερ ἄλλός τις ἢ ἵππῳ ἀγαθῷ ἢ κυνὶ 
ἢ ὂρνιθι ἥδεται, οὕτω καὶ ἒτι μᾶλλον ἥδομαι τοῖς φίλοις ἀγαθοῖς· καὶ, 
ἐάν τι σχῶ ἀγαθὸν διδάσκω, καὶ ἄλλοις σύνιστημι, παρ᾽ ὧν ἂν ἡγῶμαι 
ὠφελήσεσθαί τι αὐτοὺς εἰς ἀρετήν᾽ καὶ, τοὺς θησαυροὺς τῶν πάλι σοφῶν 
ἀνδρῶν, οὕς ἐκεῖνοι κατέλιπον ἐν βιβλίοις γράφεντες, ἀνελίττων κοινῆ 
σὺν τοῖς φίλοις διέρχομαι· καὶ ἄν τι ὁρῶμεν ἀγαθὸν, ἐκλεγόμεθα, καὶ 
μέγα νομίζομεν κέρδος, ἐὰν ἀλλήλοις ὠφέλιμοι γιγνώμεθα._




INTERCHAPTER XXIII.

A LITTLE ADVICE BESTOWED UPON THE SCORNFUL READER IN A SHORT 
INTERCHAPTER.

No man is so foolish, but may give another good counsel sometimes; and 
no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no other's 
counsel but his own.

BEN JONSON.


I will now bestow a little advice upon the scornful reader.

And who, the Devil, are you exclaims that reader, who are impertinent 
enough to offer your advice, and fool enough to suppose that I shall 
listen to it?

Whatever your opinion may be, Sir, concerning an Evil Principle, 
whether you hold with the thorough-paced Liberals, that there is no 
Principle at all, (and in one sense, exemplify this in your own 
conduct,) or with the Unitarians that there is no Evil one; or whether 
you incline to the Manichean scheme of Two Principles, which is said 
to have its advocates,—in either case the diabolical expletive in your 
speech is alike reprehensible: you deserve a reprimand for it; and you 
are hereby reprimanded accordingly.—Having discharged this duty, I 
answer your question in the words of Terence, with which I doubt not 
you are acquainted, because they are to be found in the Eton grammar: 
_Homo sum, nihil humani à me alienum puto._

And what the Devil have the words of Terence to do with my query?

You are again reprimanded Sir. If it be a bad thing to have the Devil 
at one's elbow, it cannot be a good one to have him at ones tongue's 
end. The sentence is sufficiently applicable. It is a humane thing to 
offer advice where it is wanted, and a very humane thing to write and 
publish a book which is intended to be either useful or delightful to 
those who read it.

A humane thing to write a book!—Martin of Galway's humanity is not a 
better joke than that!

Martin of Galway's humanity is no joke, Sir. He has began a good work, 
and will be remembered for it with that honour which is due to all who 
have endeavoured to lessen the sum of suffering and wickedness in this 
wicked world.

Answer me one question, Mr. Author, if you please. If your book is 
intended to be either useful or delightful, why have you filled it 
with such a parcel of nonsense?

What you are pleased to call by that name, Mr. Reader, may be either 
sense or nonsense according to the understanding which it meets with. 
_Quicquid recipitur, recipitur in modum recipientis._ Look in the 
seventh Chapter of the second book of Esdras, and at the twenty-fifth 
verse you will find the solution of your demand.

And do you suppose I shall take the trouble of looking into the Bible 
to please the humour of such a fellow as you?

If you do not, Sir, there are others who will; and more good may arise 
from looking into that book,—even upon such an occasion,—than either 
they or I can anticipate.

And so, scornful reader, wishing thee a better mind, and an 
enlightened understanding, I bid thee gladly and heartily farewell!




END OF VOL. VI.




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