I did not revisit the sea-shore, nor seek for the fiend's treasure; yet, while I ponder on the past, I often think, and my confessor was not backward in favoring the idea, that it might be a good rather than an evil spirit, sent by my guardian angel, to show me the folly and misery of pride. So well at least did I learn this lesson, roughly taught as I was, that I am known now by all my friends and fellow-citizens by the name of Guido il Cortese.
From the North British Review
PHILIP DODDRIDGE, AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS.
In the ornithological gallery of the British Museum is suspended the portrait of an extinct lawyer, Sir John Doddridge, the first of the name who procured any distinction to his old Devonian family. Persons skilful in physiognomy have detected a resemblance betwixt King James's solicitor-general and his only famous namesake. But although it is difficult to identify the sphery figure of the judge with the slim consumptive preacher, and still more difficult to light up with pensive benevolence the convivial countenance in which official gravity and constitutional gruffiness have only yielded to good cheer; yet, it would appear, that for some of his mental features the divine was indebted to his learned ancestor. Sir John was a bookworm and a scholar; and for a great period of his life a man of mighty industry. His ruling passion went with him to the grave; for he chose to be buried in Exeter Cathedral, at the threshold of its library. His nephew was the rector of Shepperton in Middlesex; but at the Restoration, as he kept a conscience, he lost his living. In the troubles of the Civil War, the judge's estate of two thousand a year had also been lost out of the family, and the ejected minister was glad to rear his son as a London apprentice, who became, on the twenty-sixth of June, 1702, the father of Philip Doddridge.
The child's first lessons were out of a pictorial Bible, occasionally found in the old houses of England and Holland. The chimney of the room where he and his mother usually sat, was adorned with a series of Dutch tiles, representing the chief events of scriptural story. In bright blue, on a ground of glistering white, were represented the serpent in the tree, Adam delving outside the gate of Paradise, Noah building his great ship, Elisha'a bears devouring the naughty children, and all the outstanding incidents of holy writ. And when the frost made the fire burn clear, and little Philip was snug in the arm-chair beside his mother, it was endless joy to hear the stories that lurked in the painted porcelain. That mother could not foresee the outgoings of her early lesson; but when the tiny boy had become a famous divine, and was publishing his Family Expositor, he could not forget the nursery Bible in the chimney tiles. At ten years of age he was sent to the school at Kingston, which his grandfather Baumann had taught long ago; and here his sweet disposition, and alacrity for learning drew much love around him—a love which he soon inspired in the school at St. Albans, whither his father subsequently removed him. But whilst busy there with his Greek and Latin, his heart was sorely wrung by the successive tidings of the death of either parent. His father was willing to indulge a wish he had now begun to cherish, and had left money enough to enable the young student to complete his preparations for the Christian ministry. Of this provision a self-constituted guardian got hold, and embarked it in his own sinking business. His failure soon followed, and ingulfed the little fortune of his ward; and, as the hereditary plate of the thrifty householders was sold along with the bankrupt's effects, if he had ever felt the pride of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the poor scholar must have felt some pathos in seeing both spoon and tankard in the broker's inventory.
A securer heritage, however, than parental savings, is parental faith and piety. Daniel Doddridge and his wife had sought for their child first of all the kingdom of heaven, and God gave it now. Under the ministry of Rev. Samuel Clarke of St. Alban's, his mind had become more and more impressed with the beauty of holiness, and the blessedness of a religious life; and, on the other hand, that kind-hearted pastor took a deepening interest in his amiable and intelligent orphan hearer. Finding that he had declined the generous offer of the Duchess of Bedford, to maintain him at either University, provided he would enter the established church, Dr. Clarke applied to his own and his father's friends, and procured a sufficient sum to send him to a dissenting academy at Kibworth, in Leicestershire, then conducted by an able tutor, whose work on Jewish antiquities still retains considerable value—the Rev. David Jennings.
To trace Philip Doddridge's early career would be a labor of some amusement and much instruction. And we are not without abundant materials. No man is responsible for his remote descendants. Sir John Doddridge, judge of the Court of King's Bench, would have blushed to think that his great-grandnephew was to be a Puritan preacher. With more reason might Dr. Doddridge have blushed to think that his great-grandson was to be a coxcomb. But so it has proved. Twenty years ago Mr. John Doddridge Humphreys gave to the world five octavos of his ancestor's correspondence, which, on the whole, we deem the most eminent instance, in modern times, of editorial incompetency. But the book contains many curiosities to reward the dust-sifting historian. And were it not our object to hasten on and sketch the ministerial model to which our last number alluded, we could cheerfully halt for half an hour, and entertain our readers and ourselves with the sweepings of Dr. Doddridge's Kibworth study.
Suffice it to say that the protégé of the good Dr. Clarke rewarded his patron's kindness. His classical attainments were far above the usual University standard, and he read with avidity the English philosophers from Bacon down to Shaftesbury. He early exhibited that hopeful propensity—the noble avarice of books. In his first half-yearly account of nine pounds are entries for "King's Inquiry," and an interleaved New Testament; and a guinea presented by a rich fellow-student, is invested in "Scott's Christian Life." Nor was he less diligent in perusing the stores of the Academy Library. In six months we find him reading sixty volumes; and some of them as solid as Patrick's Exposition and Tillotson's Sermons. With such avidity for information, professional and miscellaneous, and with a style which was always elastic and easy, and with brilliant talent constantly gleaming over the surface of unruffled temper and warm affections, it is not wonderful that his friends hoped and desired for him high distinction; but it evinces unusual and precocious attainments, that, when he had scarcely reached majority, he should have been invited to succeed Mr. Jennings as pastor at Kibworth, and that whilst still a young man he should have been urged by his ministerial brethren to combine with his pastorate the responsible duties of a college tutor....
From such a catastrophe the hand of God saved Philip Doddridge. In 1729 he was removed to Northampton, and from that period may be dated the consolidation of his character, and the commencement of a new and noble career. The anguish of spirit occasioned by parting with a much-loved people, and the solemn consciousness of entering on a more arduous sphere, both tended to make him thoughtful, and that thoughtfulness was deepened by a dangerous sickness. Nor in this sobering discipline must we leave out of view one painful but salutary element—a mortified affection. Mr. Doddridge had been living as a boarder in the house of his predecessor's widow, and her only child—the little girl whom he had found amusement in teaching an occasional lesson, was now nearly grown up, and had grown up so brilliant and engaging, that the soft heart of the tutor was terribly smitten. The charms of Clio and Sabrina, and every former flame, were merged in the rising glories of Clarinda—as by a classical apotheosis Miss Kitty was now known to his entranced imagination; and in every vision of future enjoyment Clarinda was the beatific angel. But when he decided in favor of Northampton, Miss Jennings showed a will of her own, and absolutely refused to go with him. To the romantic lover the disappointment was all the more severe, because he had made so sure of the young lady's affection; nor was it mitigated by the mode in which Miss Jennings conveyed her declinature. However, her scorn, if not an excellent oil, was a very good eyesalve. It disenchanted her admirer, and made him wonder how a reverend divine could ever fancy a spoiled child, who had scarcely matured into a petulant girl. And as the mirage melted, and Clarinda again resolved into Kitty, other realities began to show themselves in a sedater and truer light to the awakened dreamer. As an excuse for an attachment at which Doddridge himself soon learned to smile, it is fair to add that love was in this instance prophetic. Clarinda turned out a remarkable woman. She married an eminent dissenting minister, and became the mother of Dr. John Aiken and Mrs. Barbauld, and in her granddaughter, Lucy Aiken, her matrimonial name still survives; so that the curious in such matters may speculate how far the instructions of Doddridge contributed to produce the "Universal Biography," "Evenings at Home," and "Memoirs of the Courts of the Stuarts."