CHARLEMAGNE, CASIMIR THE POET, MARGARET DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, NOCTURNAL REMEMBRANCER.—THE DOCTOR NOT AMBITIOUS OF FAME.—THE AUTHOR IS INDUCED BY MR. FOSBROOKE AND NORRIS OF BEMERTON TO EJACULATE A HEATHEN PRAYER IN BEHALF OF HIS BRETHREN.
Tutte le cose son rose et viole
Ch' io dico ò ch' io dirò de la virtute.
FR. SANSOVINO.
It is recorded of Charlemagne by his secretary Eginhart, that he had always pen, ink and parchment beside his pillow, for the purpose of noting down any thoughts which might occur to him during the night: and lest upon waking he should find himself in darkness, a part of the wall, within reach from the bed was prepared, like the leaf of a tablet, with wax, on which he might indent his memoranda with a style.
The Jesuit poet Casimir had a black tablet always by his bedside, and a piece of chalk, with which to secure a thought, or a poetical expression that might occur to him, si quid insomnis noctu non infeliciter cogitabat ne id sibi periret. In like manner it is related of Margaret Duchess of Newcastle that some of her young ladies always slept within call, ready to rise at any hour in the night, and take down her thoughts, lest she should forget them before morning.
Some threescore years ago a little instrument was sold by the name of the Nocturnal Remembrancer; it consisted merely of some leaves of what is called asses-skin, in a leathern case wherein there was one aperture from side to side, by aid of which a straight line could be pencilled in the dark: the leaf might be drawn up, and fixed at measured distances, till it was written on from top to bottom.
Our Doctor, (—now that thou art so well acquainted with him and likest him so cordially, Reader, it would be ungenerous in me to call him mine)—our Doctor needed no such contrivances. He used to say that he laid aside all his cares when he put off his wig, and that never any were to be found under his night cap. Happy man, from whom this might be believed! but so even had been the smooth and noiseless tenour of his life that he could say it truly. Anxiety and bereavements had brought to him no sleepless nights, no dreams more distressful than even the realities that produce and blend with them. Neither had worldly cares or ambitious hopes and projects ever disquieted him, and made him misuse in midnight musings the hours which belong to sleep. He had laid up in his mind an inexhaustible store of facts and fancies, and delighted in nothing more than in adding to these intellectual treasures; but as he gathered knowledge only for its own sake, and for the pleasure of the pursuit, not with any emulous feelings, or aspiring intent
—to be for ever known,
And make the years to come his own,
he never said with the studious Elder Brother in Fletcher's comedy,