Would not John Dory's name have died with him, and so been long ago dead as a door-nail, if a grotesque likeness for him had not been discovered in the Fish, which being called after him, has immortalized him and his ugliness? But if John Dory could have anticipated this sort of immortality when he saw his own face in the glass, he might very well have “blushed to find it fame.” There would have been no other memorial of Richard Jaquett at this day, than the letters of his name in an old deed and obsolete hand, now well nigh rendered illegible by time, if he had not in the reign of Edward VI. been Lord of the Manor of Tyburn with its appurtenances, wherein the gallows was included, wherefore from the said Jaquett it is presumed by antiquaries that the hangman hath been ever since corruptly called Jack Ketch. A certain William Dowsing who during the Great Rebellion was one of the Parliamentary Visitors for demolishing superstitious pictures and ornaments of Churches, is supposed by a learned critic to have given rise to an expression in common use among school-boys and blackguards. For this worshipful Commissioner broke so many “mighty great Angels” in glass, knocked so many Apostles and Cherubims to pieces, demolished so many pictures and stone-crosses, and boasted with such puritanical rancour of what he had done, that it is conjectured the threat of giving any one a dowsing, preserves his rascally name. So too while Bracton and Fleta rest on the shelves of some public Library, Nokes and Stiles are living names in the Courts of Law: and for John Doe and Richard Roe, were there ever two litigious fellows so universally known as these eternal antagonists!
Johnson tells a story of a man who was standing in an inn kitchen with his back to the fire, and thus accosted a traveller who stood next him, “Do you know Sir, who I am?” “No Sir,” replied the traveller—“I have not that advantage.” “Sir,” said the man, “I am the great Twalmley who invented the new Flood-gate Iron.”—Who but for Johnson would have heard of the great Twalmley now? Reader I will answer the question which thou hast already asked, and tell thee that his invention consisted in applying a sliding door, like a flood-gate, to an ironing-box, flat-irons having till then been used, or box-irons with a door and bolt.
Who was Tom Long the Carrier? when did he flourish? what road did he travel? did he drive carts, or waggons, or was it in the age of pack-horses? Who was Jack Robinson? not the once well known Jack Robinson of the Treasury, (for his celebrity is now like a tale that is told,) but the one whose name is in every body's mouth, because it is so easily and so soon said. Who was Magg? and what was his diversion? was it brutal, or merely boorish? the boisterous exuberance of rude and unruly mirth, or the gratification of a tyrannical temper and a cruel disposition? Who was Crop the Conjuror, famous in trivial speech, as Merlin in romantic lore, or Doctor Faustus in the school of German extravagance? What is remembered now of Bully Dawson? all I have read of him is, that he lived three weeks on the credit of a brass shilling because nobody would take it of him. “There goes a story of Queen Elizabeth,” says Ray, “that being presented with a Collection of English Proverbs, and told by the Author that it contained them all, ‘Nay,’ replied she, ‘Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton!’ which proverb being instantly looked for, happened to be wanting in his collection.” “Who this Bolton was,” Ray says, “I know not, neither is it worth enquiring.” Nevertheless I ask who was Bolton? and when Echo answers “who?” say in my heart Vanitas Vanitatum, omnia Vanitas. And having said this, conscience smites me with the recollection of what Pascal has said, Ceux qui écrivent contre la gloire, veulent avoir la gloire d'avoir bien écrit; et ceux qui le lisent, voulent avoir la gloire de l'avoir lu; et moi qui écris ceci, j'ai peut-être cette envie, et peut-être que ceux qui le liront, l'auront aussi.
Who was old Ross of Pottern, who lived till all the world was weary of him? all the world has forgotten him now. Who was Jack Raker, once so well known that he was named proverbially as a scape-grace by Skelton, and in the Ralph Roister Doister of Nicholas Udall,—that Udall, who on poor Tom Tusser's account, ought always to be called the bloody schoolmaster? Who was William Dickins, whose wooden dishes were sold so badly that when any one lost by the sale of his wares, the said Dickins and his dishes, were brought up in scornful comparison? Out-roaring Dick was a strolling singer of such repute that he got twenty shillings a day by singing at Braintree Fair: but who was that Desperate Dick that was such a terrible cutter at a chine of beef, and devoured more meat at ordinaries in discoursing of his frays and deep acting of his flashing and hewing, than would serve half a dozen brewers' draymen? It is at this day doubtful whether it was Jack Drum or Tom Drum whose mode of entertainment no one wishes to receive;—for it was to haul a man in by the head and thrust him out by the neck and shoulders. Who was that other Dick who wore so queer a hat-band that it has ever since served as a standing comparison for all queer things? By what name besides Richard was he known? Where did he live and when? His birth, parentage, education, life, character and behaviour, who can tell? Nothing, said the Doctor, is remembered of him now, except that he was familiarly called Dick, and that his queer hat-band, went nine times round and would not tie.
“O vain World's glory, and unstedfast state
Of all that lives on face of sinful earth!”2
Who was Betty Martin, and wherefore should she so often be mentioned in connection with my precious eye or yours? Who was Ludlam whose dog was so lazy that he leant his head against a wall to bark? And who was Old Cole whose dog was so proud that he took the wall of a dung-cart and got squeezed to death by the wheel? Was he the same person of whom the song says
Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he?
And was his dog proud because his master was called King? Here are questions to be proposed in the Examination papers of some Australian Cambridge, two thousand years hence, when the people of that part of the world shall be as reasonably inquisitive concerning our affairs, as we are now concerning those of the Greeks. But the Burneys, the Parrs and the Porsons, the Elmsleys, Monks and Blomfields of that age, will puzzle over them in vain, for we cannot answer them now.
2 SPENSER.
“Who was the Vicar of Bray? I have had a long chase after him,” said Mr. Brome to Mr. Rawlins, in 1735. “Simon Aleyn, or Allen, was his name; he was Vicar of Bray about 1540 and died in 1588; so he held the living near fifty years. You now partake of the sport that has cost me some pains to take. And if the pursuit after such game seems mean, one Mr. Vernon followed a butterfly nine miles before he could catch him.” Reader, do not refuse your belief of this fact, when I can state to you on my own recollection that the late Dr. Shaw, the celebrated Naturalist, a librarian of the British Museum and known by the name of the learned Shavius, from the facility and abundance of his Latin compositions, pointed out to my notice there many years ago two volumes written by a Dutchman upon the wings of a butterfly. “The dissertation is rather voluminous Sir, perhaps you will think,” said the Doctor, with somewhat of that apologetic air, which modest science is wont occasionally to assume in her communications with ignorance, “but it is immensely important.” Good natured, excellent enthusiast! fully didst thou appreciate the Book, the Dutchman, and above all the Butterfly.