Aballiboozo!
When a poor wretch fell into the hands of that hellish Tribunal which called itself the Holy Office, the Inquisitors always began by requiring him to tell them what he was accused of; and they persisted in this course of examination time after time, till by promises and threats, long suspense and solitary confinement, with the occasional aid of the rack, they had extorted from him matter of accusation against himself and as many of his friends, relations and acquaintances as they could induce, or compel, or entrap him to name. Even under such a judicial process I should never have been able to discover what Chapter in this Opus could have been thought to require an operation, which, having the fear of the expurgatorial scissars before my eyes I must not venture to mention here, by its appropriate name, tho' it is a Dictionary word and the use of it is in this sense strictly technical. My ignorance however has been enlightened, and I have been made acquainted with what in the simplicity of my heart I never could have surmised.
The Chapter condemned to that operation, the chapter which has been not bisked, but semiramised, is the hundred and thirty-sixth Chapter, concerning the Pedigree and Birth of Nobs; but whether the passage which called forth this severe sentence from the Censors were that in which Moses and Miss Jenny, the Sire and Dam of Nobs, are described as meeting in a field near Knavesmire Heath, like Dido dux et Trojanus; or whether it were the part where the consequences of that meeting are related as coming unexpectedly to light in a barn between Doncaster and Adwick-in-the-Street, my informant was not certain.
From another quarter I have been assured, that the main count in the indictment was upon the story of Le Cheval de Pierre, et les Officiers Municipaux. This I am told it was which alarmed the Literary Sensitives. The sound of the foot-steps of the Marble Statue in Don Juan upon the boards of the stage never produced a more aweful sense of astonishment in that part of the audience who were fixed all eyes and ears upon its entrance, than this Cheval de Pierre produced among the Board of Expurgators. After this I ought not to be surprized if the Publishers were to be served with a notice that the Lord Mayors of London and York, and the simple Mayors of every corporate town in England, reformed or unreformed, having a Magistrate so called, whether gentle or simple, had instituted proceedings against them for Scandalum Magnatum. This however I have the satisfaction of knowing, that Miss Graveairs smiled in good humour when she heard the Chapter read; the only serious look put on was at the quotation from Pindar, as if suspecting there might be something in the Greek which was not perfectly consistent with English notions of propriety. Nothing however could be more innocent than that Greek. And even after what has passed, she would agree with me that this Chapter which made the Elders blush, is one which Susanna would have read as innocently as it was written.
Nevertheless I say, O tempora! O mores! uttering the words exultantly, not in exprobration. I congratulate the age and the British Public. I congratulate my Country-men, my Country-women, and my Country-children. I congratulate Young England upon the March of Modesty! How delightful that it should thus keep pace with the March of Intellect! Redeunt Saturnia regna. In these days Liberality and Morality appear hand-in-hand upon the stage like the Two Kings of Brentford; and Piety and Profit have kissed each other at religious Meetings.
We have already a Family Shakespeare; and it cannot be supposed that the hint will always be disregarded which Mr. Matthew Gregory Lewis introduced so properly some forty years ago into his then celebrated novel called the Monk, for a Family Bible, upon the new plan of removing all passages that could be thought objectionable on the score of indelicacy. We may look to see Mr. Thomas Moore's Poems adapted to the use of Families; and Mr. Murray cannot do less than provide the Public with a Family Byron.
It may therefore be matter of grave consideration for me whether under all circumstances it would not be highly expedient to prepare a semiramised edition of this Opus, under the Title of the Family Doctor. It may be matter for consultation with my Publishers, to whose opinion as founded on experience and a knowledge of the public taste, an author will generally find it prudent to defer. Neither by them or me would it be regarded as an objection that the title might mislead many persons, who supposing that the “Family Doctor” and the “Family Physician” meant the same kind of Book, would order the Opus under a mistaken notion that it was a new and consequently improved work, similar to Dr. Buchan's, formerly well known as a stock-book. This would be no objection I say, but on the contrary an advantage to all parties. For a book which directs people how to physic themselves ought to be entitled Every Man his own Poisoner, because it cannot possibly teach them how to discriminate between the resemblant symptoms of different diseases. Twice fortunate therefore would that person have reason to think him or herself, who under such a misapprehension of its title should purchase the Family Doctor!
Ludicrous mistakes of this kind have sometimes happened. Mr. Haslewood's elaborate and expensive edition of the Mirror for Magistrates was ordered by a gentleman in the Commission of the Peace, not an hundred miles from the Metropolis; he paid for it the full price, and his unfortunate Worship was fain to take what little he could get for it from his Bookseller under such circumstances, rather than endure the mortification of seeing it in his bookcase. A lady who had a true taste as well as a great liking for poetry, ordered an Essay on Burns for the Reading Society of which she was a member. She opened the book expecting to derive much pleasure from a critical disquisition on the genius of one of her favourite Poets; and behold it proved to be an Essay on Burns and Scalds by a Surgeon!
But in this case it would prove an Agreeable Surprize instead of a disappointment; and if the intention had been to mislead, and thereby entrap the purchaser, the end might be pleaded, according to the convenient morality of the age, as justifying the means. Lucky indeed were the patient who sending for Morrison's Pills should be supplied with Tom D'Urfey's in their stead; happy man would be his dole who when he had made up his mind in dismal resolution to a dreadful course of drastics, should find that gelastics had been substituted, not of the Sardonian kind, but composed of the most innocent and salutiferous ingredients, gently and genially alterative, mild in their operation, and safe and sure in their effects.
On that score therefore there could be no objection to the publication of a Family Doctor. But believing as I believe, or rather, knowing as I know, that the Book is free from any such offence,