Bisogna far quel che si deve fare,
E non gia tutto quello che si vuole.1
Thus he was accustomed to think upon this subject.
1 PANANTI.
But was he well placed at Doncaster?
It matters not where those men are placed, who, as South says, “have souls so dull and stupid as to serve for little else but to keep their bodies from putrefaction.” Ordinary people whether their lot be cast in town or country, in the metropolis or in a village, will go on in the ordinary way, conforming their habits to those of the place. It matters nothing more to those who live less in the little world about them, than in a world of their own, with the whole powers of the head and of the heart too (if they have one) intently fixed upon some favourite pursuit:—if they have a heart I say, for it sometimes happens that where there is an excellent head, the heart is nothing more than a piece of hard flesh. In this respect, the highest and the meanest intellects are, in a certain sense, alike self-sufficient; that is they are so far independent of adventitious aid, that they derive little advantage from society and suffer nothing from the want of it. But there are others for whose mental improvement, or at least mental enjoyment, collision and sympathy and external excitement seem almost indispensable. Just as large towns are the only places in which first-rate workmen in any handycraft business can find employment, so men of letters and of science generally appear to think that no where but in a metropolis can they find the opportunities which they desire of improvement or of display. These persons are wise in their generation, but they are not children of light.
Among such persons it may perhaps be thought that our friend should be classed; and it cannot be doubted that in a more conspicuous field of action, he might have distinguished himself, and obtained a splendid fortune. But for distinction he never entertained the slightest desire, and with the goods of fortune which had fallen to his share he was perfectly contented. But was he favourably situated for his intellectual advancement?—which if such an enquiry had come before him concerning any other person, is what he would have considered to be the question-issimus. I answer without the slightest hesitation, that he was.
In London he might have mounted a Physician's wig, have ridden in his carriage, have attained the honours of the College, and added F. R. S. to his professional initials. He might, if Fortune opening her eyes had chosen to favour desert, have become Sir Daniel Dove, Bart. Physician to his Majesty. But he would then have been a very different person from the Dr. Dove of Doncaster, whose memory will be transmitted to posterity in these volumes, and he would have been much less worthy of being remembered. The course of such a life would have left him no leisure for himself; and metropolitan society in rubbing off the singularities of his character, would just in the same degree have taken from its strength.
It is a pretty general opinion that no society can be so bad as that of a small country town; and certain it is that such towns offer little or no choice. You must take what they have and make the best of it. But there are not many persons to whom circumstances allow much latitude of choice any where except in those public places, as they are called, where the idle and the dissipated, like birds of a feather, flock together. In any settled place of residence men are circumscribed by station and opportunities, and just as much in the capital, as in a provincial town. No one will be disposed to regret this, if he observes where men have most power of chusing their society, how little benefit is derived from it, or in other words with how little wisdom it is used.
After all, the common varieties of human character will be found distributed in much the same proportion everywhere, and in most places there will be a sprinkling of the uncommon ones. Everywhere you may find the selfish and the sensual, the carking and the careful, the cunning and the credulous, the worldling and the reckless. But kind hearts are also every where to be found, right intentions, sober minds, and private virtues,—for the sake of which let us hope that God may continue to spare this hitherto highly-favoured nation, notwithstanding the fearful amount of our public and manifold offences.
The society then of Doncaster, in the middle of the last century, was like that of any other country town which was neither the seat of manufactures, nor of a Bishop's see; in either of which more information of a peculiar kind would have been found,—more active minds, or more cultivated ones. There was enough of those eccentricities for which the English above all other people are remarkable, those aberrations of intellect which just fail to constitute legal insanity, and which, according to their degree, excite amusement, or compassion. Nor was the town without its full share of talents; these there was little to foster and encourage, but happily there was nothing to pervert and stimulate them to a premature and mischievous activity.