Blest as he had been in all other things to the extent of his wishes, it would be unreasonable in him, he said, to look upon this as a misfortune; so to repine would indicate little sense of gratitude to that bountiful Providence which had so eminently favored him; little also of religious acquiescence in its will. It was not by any sore calamity nor series of afflictions that the extinction of his family had been brought on; the diminution had been gradual, as if to show that their uses upon earth were done. His grandfather had only had two children; his parents but one, and that one was now ultimus suorum. They had ever been a family in good repute, walking inoffensively towards all men, uprightly with their neighbours, and humbly with their God; and perhaps this extinction was their reward. For what Solon said of individuals, that no one could truly be called happy till his life had terminated in a happy death, holds equally true of families.
Perhaps too this timely extinction was ordained in mercy, to avert consequences which might else so probably have arisen from his forsaking the station in which he was born; a lowly, but safe station, exposed to fewer dangers, trials or temptations, than any other in this age or country, with which he was enabled to compare it. The sentiment with which Sanazzaro concludes his Arcadia was often in his mind, not as derived from that famous author, but self-originated: per cosa vera ed indubitata tener ti puoi, che chi più di nascoso e più lontano dalla moltitudine vive, miglior vive; e colui trà mortali si può con più verità chiamar beato, che senza invidia delle altrui grandezze, con modesto animo della sua fortuna si contenta. His father had removed him from that station; he would not say unwisely, for his father was a wise and good man, if ever man deserved to be so called; and he could not say unhappily; for assuredly he knew that all the blessings which had earnestly been prayed for, had attended the determination. Through that blessing he had obtained the whole benefit which his father desired for him, and had escaped evils which perhaps had not been fully apprehended. His intellectual part had received all the improvement of which it was capable, and his moral nature had sustained no injury in the process; nor had his faith been shaken, but stood firm, resting upon a sure foundation. But the entail of humble safety had been, as it were, cut off; the birth-right—so to speak—had been renounced. His children, if God had given him children, must have mingled in the world, there to shape for themselves their lot of good or evil; and he knew enough of the world to know how manifold and how insidious are the dangers, which, in all its paths, beset us. He never could have been to them what his father had been to him;—that was impossible. They could have had none of those hallowing influences both of society and solitude to act upon them, which had imbued his heart betimes, and impressed upon his youthful mind a character that no after circumstances could corrupt. They must inevitably have been exposed to more danger, and could not have been so well armed against it. That consideration reconciled him to being childless. God, who knew what was best for him, had ordained that it should be so; and he did not, and ought not to regret, that having been the most cultivated of his race, and so far the happiest, it was decreed that he should be the last. God's will is best.
Ὣς ἔφατ ἔυχὸμενος; for with some aspiration of piety he usually concluded his more serious discourse, either giving it utterance, or with a silent motion of the lips, which the expression of his countenance, as well as the tenour of what had gone before, rendered intelligible to those who knew him as I did.
CHAPTER LXII.
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE DISCOVERY OF A CERTAIN PORTRAIT AT DONCASTER.
Call in the Barber! If the tale be long
He'll cut it short, I trust.
MIDDLETON.
Here I must relate a circumstance which occurred during the few hours of my last, and by me ever-to-be-remembered visit to Doncaster. As we were on the way from the Old Angel Inn to the Mansion House, adjoining which stood, or to speak more accurately had stood, the Kebla to which the steps of my pilgrimage were bent, we were attracted by a small but picturesque groupe in a shaving-shop, exhibited in strong relief by the light of a blazing fire, and of some glaring lamps. It was late in autumn and on a Saturday evening, at which time those persons in humble life, who cannot shave themselves, and whose sense of religion leads them to think that what may be done on the Saturday night ought not to be put off till the Sunday morning, settle their weekly account with their beards. There was not story enough in the scene to have supplied Wilkie with a subject for his admirable genius to work upon, but he would certainly have sketched the groupe if he had seen it as we did. Stopping for a minute, at civil distance from the door, we observed a picture over the fire-place, and it seemed so remarkable that we asked permission to go in and look at it more nearly. It was an unfinished portrait, evidently of no common person, and by no common hand; and as evidently it had been painted many years ago. The head was so nearly finished that nothing seemed wanting to complete the likeness; the breast and shoulders were faintly sketched in a sort of whitewash which gave them the appearance of being covered with a cloth. Upon asking the master of the shop if he could tell us whose portrait it was, Mambrino, who seemed to be a good-natured fellow, and was pleased at our making the enquiry, replied that it had been in his possession many years, before he knew himself. A friend of his had made him a present of it, because, he said, the gentleman looked by his dress as if he was just ready to be shaved, and had an apron under his chin; and therefore his shop was the properest place for it. One day however the picture attracted the notice of a passing stranger, as it had done ours, and he recognized it for a portrait of Garrick. It certainly was so; and any one who knows Garrick's face may satisfy himself of this when he happens to be in Doncaster. Mambrino's shop is not far from the Old Angel, and on the same side of the street.