CHAPTER LXI.
WHEREIN THE QUESTION IS ANSWERED WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN ASKED.
Ajutami, tu penna, et calamaio,
Ch' io hò tra mano una materia asciutta.
MATTIO FRANZESI.
Wherefore there is no portrait of my excellent friend, is a question which ought to be answered, because the solution will exhibit something of what in the words of the old drinking song he used to call his “poor way of thinking.” And it is a question which may well be asked, seeing that in the circle wherein he moved, there were some persons of liberal habits and feelings as well as liberal fortune, who enjoyed his peculiarities, placed the fullest reliance upon his professional skill, appreciated most highly his moral and intellectual character, and were indeed personally attached to him in no ordinary degree.
For another reason also ought this question to be resolved; a reason which whatever the reader may think, has the more weight with me, because it nearly concerns myself. “There is indeed,” says the Philosopher of Bemerton, “a near relation between seriousness and wisdom, and one is a most excellent friend to the other. A man of a serious, sedate and considerate temper, as he is always in a ready disposition for meditation, (the best improvement both of knowledge and manners,) so he thinks without disturbance, enters not upon another notion till he is master of the first, and so makes clean work with it:—whereas a man of a loose, volatile and shattered humour, thinks only by fits and starts, now and then in a morning interval, when the serious mood comes upon him; and even then too, let but the least trifle cross his way, and his desultorious fancy presently takes the scent, leaves the unfinished and half-mangled notion, and skips away in pursuit of the new game.” Reader, it must be my care not to come under this condemnation; and therefore I must follow to the end the subject which is before me: quare autem nobis—dicendum videtur, ne temere secuti putemur; et breviter dicendum, ne in hujusmodi rebus diutius, quam ratio præcipiendi postulet commoremur.1
1 CICERO.
Mr. Copley of Netherhall was particularly desirous of possessing this so-much-by-us-now-desiderated likeness, and would have invited an Artist from London, if the Doctor could have been prevailed upon to sit for it; but to this no persuasions could induce him. He never assigned a reason for this determination, and indeed always evaded the subject when it was introduced, letting it at the same time plainly be perceived that he was averse to it, and wished not to be so pressed as to draw from him a direct refusal. But once when the desire had been urged with some seriousness, he replied that he was the last of his race, and if he were to be the first who had his portrait taken, well might they who looked at it, exclaim with Solomon, “Vanity of vanities!”
In that thought indeed it was that the root of his objection lay. “Pauli in domo, præter se nemo superest,” is one of the most melancholy reflections to which Paulus Æmilius gave utterance in that speech of his which is recorded by Livy. The speedy extinction of his family in his own person was often in the Doctor's mind; and he would sometimes touch upon it when, in his moods of autumnal feeling, he was conversing with those persons whom he had received into his heart of hearts. Unworthy as I was, it was my privilege and happiness to be one of them; and at such times his deepest feelings could not have been expressed more unreservedly, if he had given them utterance in poetry or in prayer.