The doctor, &c., vol. 6 (of 7)
Date: 2023-12-29T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: English literature -- 19th century

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

CHAPTER 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.

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.

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.

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..

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

ARCH-CHAPTER.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CHAPTER CXCV.

ANOTHER LESSON WITH THE STORY AND MANNER OF ITS PRODUCTION.

Οὐδεὶς ἐρεῖ ποθ᾽, ὡς ὑπόβλητον λόγον,
———ἔλεξας, ἀλλὰ τῆς σαυτῦ φρενός.
SOPHOCLES.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

INTERCHAPTER XXI.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

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

INTERCHAPTER XXII.

VARIETY OF STILES.

Qualis vir, talis oratio.
ERASMI ADAGIA.

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 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

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

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.

2 The blank is in the original MS. Quære, ninety-five?

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.

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.

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

2 Pisgah Sight of Palestine, Book iii. c. vii.

CHAPTER 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

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

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

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.

CHAPTER 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.”

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

1 DRYDEN.

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

3 Webster's Westward Ho. Act. v. Sc. i.—Anno 1600.

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.”

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

2 SHAKESPEARE.

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.

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

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.”

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

7 SHAKESPEARE.

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

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 ♀ and ☿ 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

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

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.

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

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.

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.”

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

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.

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.

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.

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.”

1 PHINEAS FLETCHER.

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?

1 WORDSWORTH.

2 CHURCHILL.

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

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

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

1 EURIPIDES.

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

3 CHIABRERA.

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

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;—

6 ARISTOPHANES.

Yes my Public,

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

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.

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 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.

W. Nicol, 60, Pall Mall.

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Table of Contents

- THE DOCTOR,

- &c.

- THE DOCTOR,

- &c.

- VOL. VI.

- PREFACE.

- PRELUDE OF MOTTOES.

- CONTENTS.

- THE DOCTOR,

- &c.

- CHAPTER CLXXII.

- CHAPTER CLXXIII.

- CHAPTER CLXXIV.

- CHAPTER CLXXV.

- CHAPTER CLXXVI.

- CHAPTER CLXXVII.

- CHAPTER CLXXVIII.

- CHAPTER CLXXIX.

- CHAPTER CLXXX.

- CHAPTER CLXXXI.

- CHAPTER CLXXXII.

- CHAPTER CLXXXIII.

- CHAPTER CLXXXIV.

- CHAPTER CLXXXV.

- CHAPTER CLXXXVI.

- CHAPTER CLXXXVII.

- INTERCHAPTER XX.

- CHAPTER CLXXXVIII.

- CHAPTER CLXXXIX.

- CHAPTER CXC.

- CHAPTER CXCI.

- CHAPTER CXCII.

- CHAPTER CXCIII.

- CHAPTER CXCIV.

- CHAPTER CXCV.

- CHAPTER CXCVI.

- CHAPTER CXCVII.

- CHAPTER CXCVIII.

- CHAPTER CXCIX.

- CHAPTER CC.

- INTERCHAPTER XXI.

- INTERCHAPTER XXII.

- INTERCHAPTER XXIII.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE