CHAPTER CXXVI.
MR. BAXTER'S OFFICES. MILLER'S CHARACTER OF MASON; WITH A FEW REMARKS IN VINDICATION OF GRAY'S FRIEND AND THE DOCTOR'S ACQUAINTANCE.
——Te sonare quis mihi
Genîque vim dabit tui?
Stylo quis æquor hocce arare charteum,
Et arva per papyrina
Satu loquace seminare literas?
JANUS DOUSA.
That dwelling house which the reader may find represented in Miller's History of Doncaster, as it was in his time, and in the Doctor's, and in mine,—that house in which the paper-hangers and painters were employed during the parenthesis, or to use a more historical term, the Interim of this part of our history,—that house which when, after an interval of many years, I saw it last, had the name R. Dennison on the door, is now, the Sheffield Mercury tells me, occupied as Mr. Baxter's Offices. I mean no disrespect to Mr. R. Dennison. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Baxter. I know nothing of these gentlemen, except that in 1830 the one had his dwelling there, and in 1836 the other his offices. But for the house itself, which can now be ascertained only by its site, totally altered as it is in structure and appearance, without and within,—when I think of it I cannot but exclaim, in what Wordsworth would call “that inward voice” with which we speak to ourselves in solitude, “If thou be'est it,” with reference to that alteration,—and with reference to its change of tenants and present appropriation I cannot but carry on the verse, and say—“but oh how fallen, how changed!”
In that house Peter Hopkins had entertained his old friend Guy; and the elder Daniel once, upon an often pressed and special invitation, had taken the longest journey he ever performed in his life, to pass a week there. For many years Mr. Allison and Mr. Bacon made it their house of call whenever they went to Doncaster. In that house Miller introduced Herschel to Dr. Dove; and Mason when he was Mr. Copley's guest never failed to call there, and enquire of the Doctor what books he had added to his stores,—for to have an opportunity of conversing with him was one of the pleasures which Mason looked for in his visits at Netherhall.
Miller disliked Mason: described him as sullen, reserved, capricious and unamiable; and this which he declared to be “the real character of this celebrated poet,” he inserted, he said, “as a lesson to mankind, to shew them what little judgement can be formed of the heart of an author, either by the sublimity of his conceptions, the beauty of his descriptions, or the purity of his sentiments.”
Often as Miller was in company with Mason, there are conclusive proofs that the knowledge which he attained of Mason's character, was as superficial as the poet's knowledge of music, for which as has heretofore been intimated, the Organist regarded him with some contempt.
He says that the reason which Mason assigned for making an offer to the lady whom he married, was, that he had been a whole evening in her company with others, and observed, that during all that time she never spoke a single word. Mason is very likely to have said this; but the person who could suppose that he said it in strict and serious sincerity, meaning that it should be believed to the letter, must have been quite incapable of appreciating the character of the speaker.