These I shall produce for the entertainment of the idle reader, and for the recreation of the busy one; for the amusement of the young, and the contentment of the old; for the pleasure of the wise, and the approbation of the good; and these when produced will be the monument of Daniel Dove. Of such a man it may indeed be said that he
Is his own marble; and his merit can
Cut him to any figure, and express
More art than Death's Cathedral palaces,
Where royal ashes keep their court!4
Some of my contemporaries may remember a story once current at Cambridge, of a luckless undergraduate, who being examined for his degree, and failing in every subject upon which he was tried, complained that he had not been questioned upon the things which he knew. Upon which the examining master, moved less to compassion by the impenetrable dulness of the man than to anger by his unreasonable complaint, tore off about an inch of paper, and pushing it towards him, desired him to write upon that all he knew!
2 PHINEAS FLETCHER, 186.
3 ROBERT GREEN.
4 MIDDLETON.
And yet bulky books are composed, or compiled by men who know as little as this poor empty individual. Tracts and treatises and tomes, may be, and are written by persons, to whom the smallest square sheet of delicate note paper, rose-coloured, or green, or blue, with its embossed border, manufactured expressly for ladies' fingers and crow quills, would afford ample room, and verge enough, for expounding the sum total of their knowledge upon the subject whereon they undertake to enlighten the public.
Were it possible for me to pour out all that I have taken in from him, of whose accumulated stores I, alas! am now the sole living depository, I know not to what extent the precious reminiscences might run.
Per sua gratia singulare
Par ch' io habbi nel capo una seguenza,
Una fontana, un fiume, un lago, un mare,
Id est un pantanaccio d'eloquenza.5
5 MATTEO FRANZESI.