CHAPTER CXCII.
MORE OF THE DOCTOR'S PHILOSOPHY, WHICH WILL AND WILL NOT BE LIKED BY THE LADIES, AND SOME OF THE AUTHOR'S WHICH WILL AND WILL NOT BY THE GENTLEMEN. THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO COUNT CASTIGLIONE, AND TO SIR JOHN CHEKE.
Ou tend l'auteur à cette heure?
Que fait-il? Revient-il? Va-t-il? Ou s'il demeure?
L'AUTEUR.
Non, je ne reviens pas, car je n'ai pas été;
Je ne vais pas aussi, car je suis arrété;
Et ne demeure point, car, tout de ce pas même
Je pretens m'en aller.
MOLIERE.
The passage with which the preceding Chapter is concluded, is extracted from Sterne's Sermons, one of those discourses in which he tried the experiment of adapting the style of Tristram Shandy to the pulpit;—an experiment which proved as unsuccessful as it deserved to be. Gray however thought these sermons were in the style which in his opinion was most proper for the pulpit, and that they showed “a very strong imagination and a sensible head. But you see him, he adds, often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his perriwig in the face of his audience.”
The extract which has been set before the reader is one of those passages which bear out Gray's judgement; it is of a good kind, and in its kind so good, that I would not weaken its effect, by inserting too near it the following Epigram from an old Magazine, addressed to a lady passionately fond of cards.
Thou, whom at length incessant gaming dubs,
Thrice honourable title! Queen of Clubs,
Say what vast joys each winning card imparts,
And that, too justly, called the King of Hearts.
Say, when you mourn of cash and jewels spoil'd,
May not the thief be Knave of Diamonds stil'd?
One friend, howe'er, when deep remorse invades,
Awaits thee Lady; 'tis the Ace of Spades!
It has been seen that the Doctor looked upon the love of gaming as a propensity given us to counteract that indolence which if not thus amused, would breed for itself both real and imaginary evils. And dancing he thought was just as useful in counteracting the factitious inactivity of women in their youth, as cards are for occupying the vacuity of their minds at a later period. Of the three semi-intellectual propensities, as he called them which men are born with, those for hunting and gaming are useful only in proportion, as the earth is uncultivated, and those by whom it is inhabited. In a well ordered society there would be no gamblers, and the Nimrods of such a society, must like the heroes in Tongataboo, be contented with no higher sport than rat-catching: but dancing will still retain its uses. It will always be the most graceful exercise for children at an age when all that they do is graceful; and it will always be that exercise which can best be regulated for them, without danger of their exerting themselves too much, or continuing in it too long. And for young women in a certain rank, or rather region of life,—the temperate zone of society,—those who are above the necessity of labour, and below the station in which they have the command of carriages and horses,—that is for the great majority of the middle class;—it is the only exercise which can animate them to such animal exertion as may suffice