THE DOCTOR,
&c.
There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other.
BUTLER'S REMAINS.
THE DOCTOR,
&c.
VOL. IV.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN AND LONGMAN.
1837.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. NICOL, 51, PALL-MALL.
PRELUDE OF MOTTOES.
TO THE READER IN ORDINARY.
The Muses forbid that I should restrain your meddling, whom I see already busy with the title, and tricking over the leaves: it is your own. I departed with my right, when I let it first abroad; and now so secure an interpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise nor dispraise from you can affect me.—The commendation of good things may fall within a many, the approbation but in a few; for the most commend out of affection, self-tickling, an easiness or imitation; but men judge only out of knowledge. That is the trying faculty; and to those works that will bear a judge, nothing is more dangerous than a foolish praise. You will say, I shall not have yours therefore; but rather the contrary, all vexation of censure. If I were not above such molestations now, I had great cause to think unworthily of my studies, or they had so of me. But I leave you to your exercise. Begin.
BEN JONSON.
Je n'adresse point ce Livre à un Grand, sur une vaine opinion que j'aurois de le garantir ou de l'envie, ou de le faire vivre contre les rudes assauts du temps, d'autant que sa principale recommendation doit deriver de son propre fonds, et non de l'appuy de celuy à qui je le dedierois: car rien ne l'auctorisera, s'il n'est remply de belles conceptions, et tissu d'un langage bref, nerveux, et escrit d'une plume franche, resoluë et hardie. La rondeur d'escrire plaist; ces choses sont pour donner prix et pointe à nos escrits, et dépiter le temps et la mort. Je prie Dieu que ces Tomes ressemblent à la beauté d'un jardin, duquel l'un cueille une belle rose, l'autre une violette, ou une giroflée; ainsi souhaitay-je qu'en ceste diversité de sujects, dont elles sont plaines, chacun tire dequoy resveiller, resjouyr et contenter son esprit.
NICOLAS PASQUIER.
Non ego me methodo astringam serviliter ullâ,
Sed temeré Hyblææ more vagabor apis,
Quò me spes prædæ, et generandi gloria mellis,
Liberaque ingenii quo feret ala mei.
COWLEY.
Take not too much at once, lest thy brain turn edge; Taste it first as a potion for physic, and by degrees thou shalt drink it as beer for thirst.
FULLER.
Qui l'a fait? Quiconque il soit, en ce a esté prudent, qu'il n'y a point mis son nom.
RABELAIS.
Io me n' andrò con la barchetta mia,
Quanto l' acqua comporta un picciol legno;
E ciò ch' io penso con la fantasia,
Di piacere ad ognuno è 'l mio disegno:
Convien che varie cose al mondo sia,
Come son varj volti e vario ingegno,
E piace a l' uno il bianco, a l' altro il perso,
O diverse materie in prosa o in verso.
Forse coloro ancor che leggeranno,
Di questa tanto piccola favilla
La mente con poca esca accenderanno
De' monti o di Parnaso o di Sibilla:
E de' miei fior come ape piglieranno
I dotti, s' alcun dolce ne distilla;
Il resto a molti pur darà diletto,
E lo autore ancor fia benedetto.
PULCI.
Most Prefaces are effectually apologies, and neither the Book nor the Author one jot the better for them. If the Book be good, it will not need an apology; if bad it will not bear one: for where a man thinks by calling himself noddy in the epistle, to atone for shewing himself to be one in the text, he does, with respect to the dignity of an author, but bind up two fools in one cover.
SIR ROGER D'ESTRANGE.
Inter cuncta leges,—
Quâ ratione queas traducere leniter ævum;
Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cupido,
Ne pavor, et rerum mediocriter utilium spes;—
Quid minuat curas; quid te tibi reddat amicum;
Quid purè tranquillet, honos, an dulce lucellum,
An secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitæ.
HORACE.
Si ne suis je toutesfois hors d'esperance, que si quelqu'un daigne lire, et bien gouster ces miens escrits, (encores que le langage n'en soit eslevé, ny enflé) il ne les trouvera du tout vuides de saveur; ny tant desgarniz d'utilité, qu'ils n'en puissent tirer plaisir et profit, pourveu que leurs esprits ne soyent auparavant saisiz de mal vueillance, ou imbuz de quelques autres mauvaises opinions. Je prie doncques tous Lecteurs entrer en la lecture des presents discours, delivres de toute passion et emulation. Car quand l'amertume d'envie ou mal vueillance, est detrempee en desir de contredire, elle ne laisse jamais le goust que depravé et mal jugeant.
PIERRE DE ST. JULIEN.
Here are no forced expressions, no rack'd phrase,
No Babel compositions to amaze
The tortured reader, no believed defence
To strengthen the bold Atheist's insolence,
No obscene syllable that may compel
A blush from a chaste maid.
MASSINGER.
Read, and fear not thine own understanding; this book will create a clear one in thee; and when thou hast considered thy purchase, thou wilt call the price of it a charity to thyself.
SHIRLEY.
One caveat, good Reader, and then God speed thee!——Do not open it at adventures, and by reading the broken pieces of two or three lines, judge it; but read it through, and then I beg no pardon if thou dislikest it. Farewell.
THOMAS ADAMS.
Listen while my tongue
Reveals what old Harmodius wont to teach
My early age; Harmodius, who had weigh'd
Within his learned mind whate'er the schools
Of Wisdom, or thy lonely whispering voice,
O faithful Nature, dictate of the laws
Which govern and support this mighty frame
Of universal being.
AKENSIDE.
Δεῦρ᾽ ἒλθ᾽, ὃπως ἂν καὶ σοφώτερος γένῃ.
EURIPIDES.
CONTENTS.
THE AUTHOR APOSTROPHIZES SOME OF HIS FAIR READERS; LOOKS FARTHER THAN THEY ARE LIKELY TO DO, AND GIVES THEM A JUST THOUGH MELANCHOLY EXHORTATION TO BE CHEERFUL WHILE THEY MAY.
Hark how the birds do sing,
And woods do ring!
All creatures have their joy, and Man hath his:
Yet if we rightly measure,
Man's joy and pleasure
Rather hereafter, than in present is.
HERBERT.
THE AUTHOR INTRODUCES HIS READERS TO A RETIRED DUCHESS, AND SUGGESTS A PARALLEL BETWEEN HER GRACE AND THE RETIRED TOBACCONIST.
In midst of plenty only to embrace
Calm patience, is not worthy of your praise;
But he that can look sorrow in the face
And not be daunted, he deserves the bays.
This is prosperity, where'er we find
A heavenly solace in an earthly mind.
HUGH CROMPTON.
PERCY LODGE. THAXTED GRANGE. RAPIN THE JESUIT AND SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
It seems that you take pleasure in these walks Sir.
Cleanthes. Contemplative content I do, my Lord;
They bring into my mind oft meditations
So sweetly precious, that in the parting
I find a shower of grace upon my cheeks,
They take their leave so feelingly.
MASSINGER.
CONCERNING INTERCHAPTERS.
If we present a mingle-mangle, our fault is to be excused, because the whole world is become a hodge-podge.
LYLY.
INCIDENTAL MENTION OF HAMMOND, SIR EDMUND KING, JOANNA BAILLIE, SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, AND MR. THOMAS PEREGRINE COURTENAY. PETER COLLINSON AN ACQUAINTANCE OF MR. ALLISON'S. HOLIDAYS AT THAXTED GRANGE.
And sure there seem of human kind
Some born to shun the solemn strife;
Some for amusive tasks design'd
To soothe the certain ills of life,
Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose,
New founts of bliss disclose,
Call forth refreshing shades and decorate repose.
SHENSTONE.
A TRANSITIONAL CHAPTER, WHEREIN THE AUTHOR COMPARES HIS BOOK TO AN OMNIBUS AND A SHIP, QUOTES SHAKESPEARE, MARCO ANTONIO DE CAMOS, QUARLES, SPENSER, AND SOMEBODY ELSE, AND INTRODUCES HIS READERS TO SOME OF THE HEATHEN GODS, WITH WHOM PERHAPS THEY WERE NOT ACQUAINTED BEFORE.
We are not to grudge such interstitial and transitional matter as may promote an easy connection of parts and an elastic separation of them, and keep the reader's mind upon springs as it were.
HENRY TAYLOR'S Statesman.
CONCERNING MAGAZINES, AND THE FORMER AND PRESENT RACE OF ALPHABET-MEN.
Altri gli han messo nome Santa Croce,
Altri lo chiaman l' A. B. C. guastando
La misura, gl' accenti, et la sua voce.
SANSOVINO.
HUNTING IN AN EASY CHAIR. THE DOCTOR'S BOOKS.
That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes for variety I confer
With Kings and Emperors, and weigh their counsels,
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account, and in my fancy
Deface their ill placed statues.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.
THOMAS GENT AND ALICE GUY, A TRUE TALE, SHOWING THAT A WOMAN'S CONSTANCY WILL NOT ALWAYS HOLD OUT LONGER THAN TROY TOWN, AND YET THE WOMAN MAY NOT BE THE PARTY WHO IS MOST IN FAULT.
Io dico, non dimando
Quel che tu vuoi udir, perch' io l'ho visto
Ove s' appunta ogni ubi, e ogni quando.
DANTE.
THE AUTHOR HINTS AT CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE LIFE OF THOMAS GENT ON WHICH HE DOES NOT THINK IT NECESSARY TO DWELL.
Round white stones will serve they say,
As well as eggs, to make hens lay.
BUTLER.
THE READER IS REMINDED OF PRINCE ABINO JASSIMA AND THE FOX-LADY. GENT NOT LIKE JOB, NOR MRS. GENT LIKE JOB'S WIFE.
A me parrebbe a la storia far torto,
S' io non aggiungo qualche codicillo;
Acciò che ognun chi legge, benedica
L' ultimo effetto de la mia fatica.
PULCI.
DR. SOUTHEY. JOHN BUNYAN. BARTHOLOMÆUS SCHERÆUS. TERTULLIAN. DOMENICO BERNINO. PETRARCH. JEREMY TAYLOR. HARTLEY COLERIDGE. DIEGO DE SAN PEDRO, AND ADAM LITTLETON.
Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.
Titty, Tiffin, keep it stiff in!
Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky!
Liard, Robin, you must bob in!
Round, around, around, about, about!
All good come running in, all ill keep out.
MIDDLETON.
CONCERNING JOB'S WIFE.
This insertion is somewhat long, and utterly impertinent to the principal matter, and makes a great gap in the tale; nevertheless is no disgrace, but rather a beauty and to very good purpose.
PUTTENHAM.
POINTS OF SIMILITUDE AND DISSIMILITUDE BETWEEN SIR THOMAS BROWN AND DOCTOR DOVE.
But in these serious works designed
To mend the morals of mankind,
We must for ever be disgraced
With all the nicer sons of taste,
If once the shadow to pursue
We let the substance out of view.
Our means must uniformly tend
In due proportion to their end,
And every passage aptly join
To bring about the one design.
CHURCHILL.
THE AUTHOR RECOMMENDS A CERTAIN WELL-KNOWN CHARACTER AS A CANDIDATE FOR HONOURS, BOTH ON THE SCORE OF HIS FAMILY AND HIS DESERTS. HE NOTICES ALSO OTHER PERSONS WHO HAVE SIMILAR CLAIMS.
Thoricht, auf Bessrung der Thoren zu harren!
Kinder der klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehort.
GOETHE.
THE DOCTOR IN HIS CURE. IRRELIGION THE REPROACH OF HIS PROFESSION.
Virtue, and that part of philosophy
Will I apply, that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
TAMING OF THE SHREW.
EFFECT OF MEDICAL STUDIES ON DIFFERENT DISPOSITIONS. JEW PHYSICIANS, ESTIMATION AND ODIUM IN WHICH THEY WERE HELD.
Confiesso la digression; mas es facil al que no quisiere leerla, passar al capitulo siguiente, y esta advertencia sirva de disculpa.
LUIS MUNOZ.
WHEREIN IT APPEARS THAT SANCHO'S PHYSICIAN AT BARATARIA ACTED ACCORDING TO PRECEDENTS AND PRESCRIBED LAWS.
Lettor, tu vedi ben com' io innalzo
La mia materia, e però con piu arte
Non ti maravigliar s' i' la rincalzo.
DANTE.
A CHAPTER WHEREIN STUDENTS IN SURGERY MAY FIND SOME FACTS WHICH WERE NEW TO THEM IN THE HISTORY OF THEIR OWN PROFESSION.
If I have more to spin
The wheel shall go.
HERBERT.
SOME ALLUSION TO, AND SOME USE OF THE FIGURE OF SPEECH CALLED PARENTHESIS.
J'ecrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre, et non pas peut-étre dans une confusion sans dessein; c'est le veritable ordre, et qui marquera toujours mon objet par le desordre même.
PASCAL.
THE AUTHOR MORALIZES UPON THE VANITY OF FAME; AND WISHES THAT HE HAD BOSWELLIZED WHILE IT WAS IN HIS POWER TO HAVE DONE SO.
Mucho tengo que llorar,
Mucho tengo que reir.
GONGORA.
FAME IN THE BOROUGH ROAD. THE AUTHOR DANIELIZES.
Duc, Fama,—
Duc me insolenti tramite; devius
Tentabo inaccessos profanis
Invidiæ pedibus recessus.
VINCENT BOURNE.
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.
THE DOCTOR'S THEORY OF PROGRESSIVE EXISTENCE.
Quam multæ pecudes humano in corpore vivunt!
PALINGENIUS.
ELUCIDATIONS OF THE COLUMBIAN THEORY.
Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
WHEREIN THE AUTHOR SPEAKS OF A TRAGEDY FOR THE LADIES, AND INTRODUCES ONE OF WILLIAM DOVE'S STORIES FOR CHILDREN.
Y donde sobre todo de su dueño
El gran tesoro y el caudal se infiere,
Es que al grande, al mediano, y al pequeño,
Todo se da de balde á quien lo quiere.
BALBUENA.
[THE STORY OF THE THREE BEARS.]
A tale which may content the minds
Of learned men and grave philosophers.
GASCOYNE.
CHILDREN AND KITTENS. APHORISMS ASCRIBED TO THE LAUREATE, DR. SOUTHEY. MORE COLUMBIAN PHILOSOPHY.
Oh! if in after life we could but gather
The very refuse of our youthful hours!
CHARLES LLOYD.
THE DOCTOR ABSTAINS FROM SPECULATING ON PERILOUS SUBJECTS. A STORY OF ST. ANSELM.
This field is so spacious, that it were easy for a man to lose himself in it; and if I should spend all my pilgrimage in this walk, my time would sooner end than my way.
BISHOP HALL.
DR. CADOGAN. A REMARKABLE CASE OF HEREDITARY LONGEVITY. REMARKS ON THE ORDINARY TERM OF HUMAN LIFE.
Live well, and then how soon so e'er thou die,
Thou art of age to claim eternity.
RANDOLPH.
MORE THOUGHTS CONCERNING LIFE, DEATH AND IMMORTALITY.
Clericus es? legito hæc. Laicus? legito ista libenter.
Crede mihi, invenies hic quod uterque voles.
D. DU.-TR. MED.
A TRANSITION, AN ANECDOTE, AN APOSTROPHE, AND A PUN, PUNNET, OR PUNDIGRION.
Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures;
Et sermone opus est, modo tristi, sæpe jocoso.
HORACE.
REGINALD HEBER. A MISTAKE OBVIATED, WHICH MIGHT OTHERWISE EASILY BE MADE.
Perhaps some Gull, as witty as a Goose,
Says with a coy skew look, “it's pretty, pretty!
But yet that so much wit he should dispose
For so small purpose, faith” saith he, “'tis pity!”
DAVIES OF HEREFORD.
THE PEDIGREE AND BIRTH OF NOBS, GIVEN IN REPLY TO THE FIRST QUERY IN THE SECOND CHAPTER P. I.
Theo. Look to my Horse, I pray you, well.
Diego. He shall Sir.
Inc. Oh! how beneath his rank and call was that now!
Your Horse shall be entreated as becomes
A Horse of fashion, and his inches.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
THE AUTHOR RELATES SOME ANECDOTES, REFERS TO AN OPINION EXPRESSED BY A CRITIC ON THE PRESENT OPUS, AND DESCANTS THEREON.
Every man can say B to a battledore, and write in praise of virtue and the seven liberal sciences; thresh corn out of full sheaves, and fetch water out of the Thames. But out of dry stubble to make an after-harvest, and a plentiful crop without sowing, and wring juice out of a flint, that is Pierce a God's name, and the right trick of a workman.
NASH.
THE DOCTOR,
&c.
CHAPTER CVI.
THE AUTHOR APOSTROPHIZES SOME OF HIS FAIR READERS; LOOKS FARTHER THAN THEY ARE LIKELY TO DO, AND GIVES THEM A JUST THOUGH MELANCHOLY EXHORTATION TO BE CHEERFUL WHILE THEY MAY.
Hark how the birds do sing,
And woods do ring!
All creatures have their joy, and Man hath his:
Yet if we rightly measure,
Man's joy and pleasure
Rather hereafter, than in present is.
HERBERT.
Bertha, Arabella, Sarah, Mary, Caroline, Dorothea, Elizabeth, Kate, Susan,—how many answer to these names, each thinking that peradventure she may be the individual especially addressed—
Alcun' è che risponde a chi nol chiama;1
you are looking with impatience for Deborah's wedding day, and are ready to inveigh against me for not immediately proceeding to that part of my story. Well has Sir William Davenant said,
Slow seems their speed whose thoughts before them run;
but it is true in one sense as applied to you, and in another as applied to myself. To you my progress appears slow because you are eager to arrive at what, rightly considering it the most important point upon the whole journey of life, you may perhaps expect to prove the most interesting in this volume. Your thoughts have sped forward to that point and no farther. Mine travel beyond it, and this, were there no other motive, would retard me now. You are thinking of the bride and bridegroom, and the bridesmaid, and the breakfast at the vicarage, and the wedding dinner at the Grange, and the Doncaster bells which rung that day to the Doctor's ears the happiest peal that ever saluted them, from St. George's tower. My thoughts are of a different complexion; for where now are the joys and the sorrows of that day, and where are all those by whom they were partaken! The elder Allisons have long since been gathered to their fathers. Betsey and her husband (whom at that day she had never seen) are inhabitants of a distant church-yard. Mr. Bacon's mortal part has mouldered in the same grave with Margaret's. The Doctor has been laid beside them; and thither his aged widow Deborah was long ago brought home, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
1 PETRARCH.
“The deaths of some, and the marriages of others,” says Cowper, “make a new world of it every thirty years. Within that space of time the majority are displaced, and a new generation has succeeded. Here and there one is permitted to stay longer, that there may not be wanting a few grave Dons like myself to make the observation.”
Man is a self-survivor every year;
Man like a stream is in perpetual flow.
Death's a destroyer of quotidian prey:
My youth, my noontide his, my yesterday;
The bold invader shares the present hour,
Each moment on the former shuts the grave.
While man is growing, life is in decrease,
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun,
As tapers waste that instant they take fire.2
Yet infinitely short as the term of human life is when compared with time to come, it is not so in relation to time past. An hundred and forty of our own generations carry us back to the Deluge, and nine more of ante-diluvian measure to the Creation,—which to us is the beginning of time; for “time itself is but a novelty, a late and upstart thing in respect of the Ancient of Days.”3 They who remember their grandfather and see their grandchildren, have seen persons belonging to five out of that number; and he who attains the age of threescore has seen two generations pass away. “The created world,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it, and may be after it.” There is no time of life after we become capable of reflection, in which the world to come must not to any considerate mind appear of more importance to us than this;—no time in which we have not a greater stake there. When we reach the threshold of old age all objects of our early affections have gone before us, and in the common course of mortality a great proportion of the later. Not without reason did the wise compilers of our admirable liturgy place next in order after the form of matrimony, the services for the visitation and communion of the sick, and for the burial of the dead.
2 YOUNG.
3 SAMUEL JOHNSON the elder.
I would not impress such considerations too deeply upon the young and happy. Far be it from me to infuse bitters into the cup of hope!
Dum fata sinunt
Vivite læti: properat cursu
Vita citato, volucrique die
Rota præcipitis vertitur anni.
Duræ peragunt pensa sorores,
Nec sua retro fila revolvunt.4
What the Spaniards call desengaño (which our dictionaries render “discovery of deceit, the act of undeceiving, or freeing from error,”—and for which if our language has an equivalent word, it is not in my vocabulary,)—that state of mind in which we understand feelingly the vanity of human wishes, and the instability of earthly joys,—that sad wisdom comes to all in time; but if it came too soon it would unfit us for this world's business and the common intercourse of life. When it comes in due season it fits us for a higher intercourse and for a happier state of existence.
4 SENECA.
CHAPTER CVII.
THE AUTHOR INTRODUCES HIS READERS TO A RETIRED DUCHESS, AND SUGGESTS A PARALLEL BETWEEN HER GRACE AND THE RETIRED TOBACCONIST.
In midst of plenty only to embrace
Calm patience, is not worthy of your praise;
But he that can look sorrow in the face
And not be daunted, he deserves the bays.
This is prosperity, where'er we find
A heavenly solace in an earthly mind.
HUGH CROMPTON.
There is a very pleasing passage in a letter of the Duchess of Somerset's, written in the unreserved intimacy of perfect friendship, without the slightest suspicion that it would ever find its way to the press. “'Tis true my dear Lady Luxborough,” she says, “times are changed with us, since no walk was long enough, or exercise painful enough to hurt us, as we childishly imagined; yet after a ball, or a masquerade, have we not come home very well contented to pull off our ornaments and fine clothes, in order to go to rest? Such methinks is the reception we naturally give to the warnings of our bodily decays; they seem to undress us by degrees, to prepare us for a rest that will refresh us far more powerfully than any night's sleep could do. We shall then find no weariness from the fatigues which either our bodies or our minds have undergone; but all tears shall be wiped from our eyes, and sorrow and crying and pain shall be no more: we shall then without weariness move in our new vehicles, and transport ourselves from one part of the skies to another, with much more ease and velocity, than we could have done in the prime of our strength, upon the fleetest horses, the distance of a mile. This cheerful prospect enables us to see our strength fail, and await the tokens of our approaching dissolution with a kind of awful pleasure. I will ingenuously own to you, dear Madam, that I experience more true happiness in the retired manner of life that I have embraced, than I ever knew from all the splendour or flatteries of the world. There was always a void; they could not satisfy a rational mind: and at the most heedless time of my youth I well remember that I always looked forward with a kind of joy to a decent retreat when the evening of life should make it practicable.”
“If one only anticipates far enough, one is sure to find comfort,” said a young moralizer, who was then for the first time experiencing some of the real evils of life. A sense of its vanities taught the Duchess that wisdom, before she was visited with affliction. Frances, wife and widow of Algernon seventh Duke of Somerset, was a woman who might perhaps have been happier in a humbler station, but could not have been more uncorrupted by the world. Her husband inherited from his father the honours of the Seymour, from his mother those of the Percy family: but Lord Beauchamp,—
Born with as much nobility as would,
Divided, serve to make ten noblemen
Without a herald; but with so much spirit
And height of soul, as well might furnish twenty,—1
Lord Beauchamp I say, the son thus endowed, who should have succeeded to these accumulated honours, died on his travels at Bologna of the small-pox, in the flower of his youth. His afflicted mother in reply to a letter of consolation expressed herself thus: “The dear lamented son I have lost was the pride and joy of my heart: but I hope I may be the more easily excused for having looked on him in this light, since he was not so from the outward advantages he possessed, but from the virtues and rectitude of his mind. The prospects which flattered me in regard to him, were not drawn from his distinguished rank, or from the beauty of his person; but from the hopes that his example would have been serviceable to the cause of virtue, and would have shown the younger part of the world that it was possible to be cheerful without being foolish or vicious, and to be religious without severity or melancholy. His whole life was one uninterrupted course of duty and affection to his parents, and when he found the hand of death upon him, his only regret was to think on the agonies which must rend their hearts: for he was perfectly contented to leave the world, as his conscience did not reproach him with any presumptuous sins, and he hoped his errors would be forgiven. Thus he resigned his innocent soul into the hands of his merciful Creator, on the evening of his birthday, which completed him nineteen.”
1 SHIRLEY.
In another letter she says, “when I lost my dear, and by me ever-lamented son, every faculty to please (if ever I were possessed of any such) died with him. I have no longer any cheerful thoughts to communicate to my friends; but as the joy and pride of my heart withers in his grave, my mind is continually haunting those mansions of the dead, and is but too inattentive to what passes in a world where I have still duties and attachments which I ought to be, and I hope I may truly say, I am, thankful for. But I enjoy all these blessings with trembling and anxiety, for after my dear Beauchamp, what human things can appear permanent? Youth, beauty, virtue, health, were not sufficient to save him from the hand of death, and who then can think themselves secure? These are the melancholy considerations which generally entertain my waking hours; though sometimes I am able to view the bright side of my fate, and ask myself for whom I grieve? only for myself? how narrow an affection does this imply! Could he have lived long as my fondest wish desired, what could I have asked at the end of that term more than the assurance that he should be placed where I humbly hope, and confidently trust, he is, beyond the reach of sorrow, sin, or sickness?”
I have said that this Duchess, the Eusebia of Dr. Watts' Miscellanies, and once more known as the Cleora of her then famous friend Mrs. Rowe's Letters, might perhaps have been happier in a humbler station; but she could not have been more meek and more amiable, nor have possessed in a greater degree the christian virtue of humility. She was one of the daughters and coheiresses of the Honourable Henry Thynne, and was of the bed-chamber to the Princess of Wales, in which office she continued after that Princess became Queen Caroline. It was through her intercession that Savage's life was spared. When the Queen being prejudiced against that wretched man had refused to hear any application in his behalf, “she engaged in it,” says Johnson, “with all the tenderness that is excited by pity, and all the zeal that is kindled by generosity; an advocate,” he calls her, “of rank too great to be rejected unheard, and of virtue too eminent to be heard without being believed.” Her husband's father was commonly called the proud Duke of Somerset,—an odious designation, which could not have been obtained unless it had been richly deserved: but there are some evil examples which incidentally produce a good effect, and Lord Beauchamp whose affability and amiable disposition endeared him to all by whom he was known, was perhaps more carefully instructed in the principles of Christian humility, and more sensible of their importance and their truth, because there was in his own family so glaring an instance of the folly and hatefulness of this preposterous and ridiculous sin. “It is a most terrible thing for his parents,” says Horace Walpole, “Lord Beauchamp's death; if they were out of the question, one could not be sorry for such a mortification to the pride of old Somerset. He has written the most shocking letter imaginable to poor Lord Hartford, telling him that it is a judgment upon him for all his undutifulness, and that he must always look upon himself as the cause of his son's death. Lord Hartford is as good a man as lives, and has always been most unreasonably ill-treated by that old tyrant.” The Duke was brute enough to say that his mother had sent him abroad to kill him. It was not his mother's fault that he had not been secured, as far as human precautions avail against the formidable disease of which he died. Three years before that event she said in one of her letters, “Inoculation is at present more in fashion than ever; half my acquaintance are shut up to nurse their children, grandchildren, nephews or nieces. I could be content notwithstanding the fine weather to stay in town upon the same account, if I were happy enough to see my son desire it; but that is not the case, and at his age it must either be a voluntary act or left undone.”
The proud Duke lived to the great age of eighty-six, and his son died little more than twelvemonths after him, leaving an irreproachable name. The Duchess survived her son ten years, and her husband four. Upon the Duke's death the Seymour honours were divided between two distant branches of that great and ancient house; those of the Percys devolved to his only daughter and heiress the Lady Elizabeth, then wife of Sir Hugh Smithson, in whom the Dukedom of Northumberland was afterwards revived. The widow passed the remainder of her days at a seat near Colnbrook, which her husband had purchased from Lord Bathurst, and had named Percy Lodge: Richkings was its former appellation. Pope in one of his letters calls it “Lord Bathurst's extravagante bergerie,” in allusion to the title of an old mock-romance. “The environs,” says the Duchess, “perfectly answer to that title, and come nearer to my idea of a scene in Arcadia than any place I ever saw. The house is old but convenient, and when you are got within the little paddock it stands on, you would believe yourself an hundred miles from London, which I think a great addition to its beauty.” Moses Brown wrote a poem upon it, the Duke and Duchess having appointed him their laureate for the nonce; but though written by their command, it was not published till after the death of both, and was then inscribed to her daughter, at that time Countess of Northumberland. If Olney had not a far greater poet to boast of, it might perhaps have boasted of Moses Brown. Shenstone's Ode on Rural Elegance, which is one of his latest productions, related especially to this place. He inscribed it to the Duchess, and communicated it to her in manuscript through their mutual friend Lady Luxborough, sister to Bolingbroke, who possessed much of her brother's talents, but nothing of his cankered nature.
The Duchess was a great admirer of Shenstone's poetry, but though pleased with the poem, and gratified by the compliment, she told him that it had given her some pain, and requested that wherever her name or that of Percy Lodge occurred, he would oblige her by leaving a blank, without suspecting her of an affected or false modesty, for to that accusation she could honestly plead not guilty. The idea he had formed of her character, he had taken, she said, from a partial friend whose good nature had warped her judgment. The world in general since they could find no fault in his poem, would blame the choice of the person to whom it was inscribed, and draw mortifying comparisons between the ideal lady, and the real one. “But I,” said she, “have a more impartial judge to produce than either my friend or the world,—and that is my own heart, which though it may flatter me I am not quite so faulty as the world would represent, at the same time loudly admonishes me that I am still further from the valuable person Lady Luxborough has drawn you in to suppose me. I hope you will accept these reasons as the genuine and most sincere sentiments of my mind, which indeed they are, though accompanied with the most grateful sense of the honour you designed me.”
I have said something, and have yet more to say of a retired Tobacconist; and I will here describe the life of a retired Duchess, of the same time and country, drawn from her own letters. Some of Plutarch's parallels are less apposite, and none of them in like manner equally applicable to those of high station and those of low degree.
The duchess had acquired that taste for landscape gardening, the honour of introducing which belongs more to Shenstone than to any other individual, and has been properly awarded to him by D'Israeli, one of the most just and generous of critical authors. Thus she described the place of her retreat when it came into their possession: “It stands in a little paddock of about a mile and a half round; which is laid out in the manner of a French park, interspersed with woods and lawns. There is a canal in it about twelve hundred yards long, and proportionably broad, which has a stream continually running through it, and is deep enough to carry a pleasure-boat. It is well stocked with carp and tench; and at its upper end there is a green-house, containing a good collection of orange, myrtle, geranium, and oleander trees. This is a very agreeable room, either to drink tea, play at cards, or sit in with a book on a summer's evening. In one of the woods (through all which there are winding paths), there is a cave; which though little more than a rude heap of stones, is not without charms for me. A spring gushes out at the back of it; which, falling into a basin (whose brim it overflows), passes along a channel in the pavement where it loses itself. The entrance to this recess is overhung with periwinkle, and its top is shaded with beeches, large elms, and birch. There are several covered benches, and little arbours interwoven with lilacs, woodbines, seringas and laurels; and seats under shady trees, disposed all over the park. One great addition to the pleasure of living here, is the gravelly soil; which after a day of rain (if it holds up only for two or three hours), one may walk over without being wet through one's shoes: and there is one gravel walk that encompasses the whole. We propose to make an improvement, by adding to the present ground a little pasture farm which is just without the pale, because there is a very pretty brook of clear water which runs through the meadows to supply our canal, and whose course winds in such a manner that it is almost naturally a serpentine river. I am afraid I shall have tired you with the description of what appear to me beauties in our little possession; yet I cannot help adding one convenience that attends it:—this is, the cheap manner in which we keep it: since it only requires a flock of sheep, who graze the lawns fine; and whilst these are feeding, their shepherd cleans away any weeds that spring up in the gravel, and removes dry leaves or broken branches that would litter the walks.”
“On the spot where the green-house now stands, there was formerly a chapel, dedicated to St. Leonard; who was certainly esteemed as a tutelar saint of Windsor Forest and its purlieus, for the place we left was originally a hermitage founded in honour of him. We have no relics of the saint; but we have an old covered bench with many remains of the wit of my lord Bathurst's visitors, who inscribed verses upon it. Here is the writing of Addison, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Gay, and, what he esteemed no less, of several fine ladies. I cannot say that the verses answered my expectation from such authors; we have however all resolved to follow the fashion, and to add some of our own to the collection. That you may not be surprized at our courage for daring to write after such great names, I will transcribe one of the old ones, which I think as good as any of them:
Who set the trees shall he remember
That is in haste to fell the timber?
What then shall of thy woods remain,
Except the box that threw the main?
There has been only one added as yet by our company, which is tolerably numerous at present. I scarcely know whether it is worth reading or not:
By Bathurst planted, first these shades arose;
Prior and Pope have sung beneath these boughs:
Here Addison his moral theme pursued,
And social Gay has cheer'd the solitude.
There is one walk that I am extremely partial to, and which is rightly called the Abbey-walk, since it is composed of prodigiously high beech-trees, that form an arch through the whole length, exactly resembling a cloister. At the end is a statue; and about the middle a tolerably large circle, with Windsor chairs round it: and I think, for a person of contemplative disposition, one would scarcely find a more venerable shade in any poetical description.”
She had amused herself with improving the grounds of Percy Lodge before her husband's death, as much for his delight as her own.
“Those shady elms, my favourite trees,
Which near my Percy's window grew,
(Studious his leisure hours to please)
I decked last year for smell and shew;
To each a fragrant woodbine bound,
And edged with pinks the verdant mound.
Nor yet the areas left ungraced
Betwixt the borders and each tree;
But on them damask roses placed,
Which rising in a just degree,
Their glowing lustre through the green
Might add fresh beauties to the scene.”
Afterwards when it became her own by the Duke's bequest, and her home was thereby fixed upon the spot of earth which she would have chosen for herself, the satisfaction which she took in adding to it either beauty or convenience was enhanced by the reflection that in adorning it she was at the same time shewing her value for the gift, and her gratitude to the lamented giver. “Every thing,” said she, “both within and without the house reminds me of my obligations to him; and I cannot turn my eyes upon any object which is not an object of his goodness to me.—And as I think it a duty while it pleases God to continue us here, not to let ourselves sink into a stupid and unthankful melancholy, I endeavour to find out such entertainments as my retirement, and my dear Lord's unmerited bounty will admit of.”
And oh the transport, most allied to song,
In some fair villa's peaceful bound,
To catch soft hints from nature's tongue
And bid Arcadia bloom around:
Whether we fringe the sloping hill,
Or smoothe below the verdant mead;
Whether we break the falling rill,
Or thro' meandering mazes lead;
Or in the horrid bramble's room
Bid careless groups of roses bloom;
Or let some sheltered lake serene
Reflect flowers, woods, and spires, and brighten all the scene.
O sweet disposal of the rural hour!
O beauties never known to cloy!
While worth and genius haunt the favoured bower,
And every gentle breast partakes the joy.
While Charity at eve surveys the swain,
Enabled by these toils to cheer
A train of helpless infants dear,
Speed whistling home across the plain;
Sees vagrant Luxury, her handmaid grown,
For half her graceless deeds atone,
And hails the bounteous work, and ranks it with her own.2
2 SHENSTONE.
The Duchess was too far advanced in life to find any of that enjoyment in her occupations, which her own poet described in these stanzas, and which he felt himself only by an effort of reflection. But if there was not the excitement of hope, there was the satisfaction of giving useful employment to honest industry. “When one comes,” said she, “to the last broken arches of Mirza's bridge, rest from pain must bound our ambition, for pleasure is not to be expected in this world. I have no more notion of laying schemes to be executed six months, than I have six years hence; and this I believe helps to keep my spirits in an even state of cheerfulness to enjoy the satisfactions that present themselves, without anxious solicitude about their duration. As our journey seems approaching towards the verge of life, is it not more natural to cast our eyes to the prospect beyond it, than by a retrospective view to recall the troublesome trifles that ever made our road difficult or dangerous? Methinks it would be imitating Lot's wife (whose history is not recorded as an example for us to follow) to want to look back upon the miserable scene we are so near escaping from.”
In another letter to the same old friend she says, “I have a regular, and I hope a religious family. My woman, though she has not lived with me quite three years, had before lived twenty-three betwixt Lord Grantham's and Lady Cowper's: my housekeeper has been a servant as long: the person who takes in my accounts, pays my bills, and overlooks the men within doors, has been in the family thirteen years; and the other, who has lived ten, has the care of the stables and every thing without. I rise at seven, but do not go down till nine when the bell rings and my whole family meet me at chapel. After prayers we go to breakfast; any friend who happens to be there, myself, and my chaplain, have ours in the little library; the others in their respective eating rooms. About eleven if the weather permits, we go to walk in the park, or take the air in the coach; but if it be too bad for either we return to our various occupations. At three we dine, sit perhaps near an hour afterwards, then separate till we meet at eight for prayers; after which we adjourn again to the library, where somebody reads aloud (unless some stranger comes who chooses cards), until half past nine, when we sup, and always part before eleven. This to the fine would sound a melancholy monastic life; and I cannot be supposed to have chosen it from ignorance of the splendour and gaiety of a court, but from a thorough experience that they can give no solid happiness; and I find myself more calmly pleased in my present way of living, and more truly contented, than I ever was in the bloom and pomp of my youth. I am no longer dubious what point to pursue. There is but one proper for the decline of life, and indeed the only one worth the anxiety of a rational creature at any age: but how do the fire of youth, and flattery of the world blind our eyes, and mislead our fancies, after a thousand imaginary pleasures which are sure to disappoint us in the end!”
The Duchess was a person whose moral constitution had not been injured by the atmosphere of a court. But though she kept aloof from its intrigues and had acquired even a distaste for its vanities, she retained always an affectionate regard for Queen Caroline's memory. “I should have been glad,” she says to Lady Pomfret, “to have shared your reverence and have indulged my own at Blansfelden, whilst you were overlooking the fields and the shades where our late mistress had passed the first scenes of her life, before the cares of royalty had clouded the natural vivacity of her temper, or the disguise which greatness is often forced to wear had veiled any of her native goodness; and certainly she had a greater stock of both than is often found in any rank.” She could never think of her without a sigh, she said. The most amiable mistress she calls her that ever adorned a court, and so fitted to charm in society, that it was impossible not to grudge her to that life which involved her in cares and encompassed her with such a cloud of different people, that her real lustre could not always reach those who perhaps had the most pleasure in it.
Before the loss of her son (from which the Duchess never entirely recovered), her spirits had been affected by the state of her husband's health. “The many solitary hours I pass in a day,” she says, “and the melancholy employment of attending a person in his sufferings, to whom I owe every happiness I enjoy, cannot furnish me with many smiling ideas relating to this world.” The country in its wintry appearances accorded with her feelings, “where,” said she, “every thing around instructs me that decay is the lot of all created beings; where every tree spreads out its naked arms to testify the solemn truth, which I thank heaven I feel no pain in assenting to. It has long been my fixed opinion, that in the latter part of life, when the duties owing to a family no longer call upon us to act on the public stage of life, it is not only more decent, but infinitely more eligible to live in an absolute retirement. However this is not the general opinion of the world, and therefore I conclude that it is better it is not so, since Providence undoubtedly orders better for us than we are able to do for ourselves.”
During the latter years of her life, however, she enjoyed that absolute retirement which was her heart's desire. But the peaceful mansion in which this wise and amiable woman passed her latter years was, after her decease, inhabited by one of those men who insulted public decency by the open and ostentatious profligacy of their lives. Mrs. Carter writing from the Castle Inn at Marlborough, which had not long before been one of the residences of the Seymour family, says, “this house I consider with great respect and veneration, not without a strong mixture of regret, that what was once the elegant abode of virtue and genius, and honoured by the conversation of the Duchess of Somerset and Mrs. Rowe, should now resound with all the disorderly and riotous clamour of an inn. And yet its fate is more eligible than that of Percy Lodge, as it stands the chance of receiving indifferently good and bad people, and is not destined to be the constant reception of shocking profligate vice.”
CHAPTER CVIII.
PERCY LODGE. THAXTED GRANGE. RAPIN THE JESUIT AND SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
It seems that you take pleasure in these walks Sir.
Cleanthes. Contemplative content I do, my Lord;
They bring into my mind oft meditations
So sweetly precious, that in the parting
I find a shower of grace upon my cheeks,
They take their leave so feelingly.
MASSINGER.
The difference was very great between Thaxted Grange and Percy Lodge, though somewhat less than that between Northumberland House and the Tobacconists at No. 113 Bishopsgate Street. Yet if a landscape painter who could have embodied the spirit of the scene had painted both, the Grange might have made the more attractive picture, though much had been done to embellish the Lodge by consulting picturesque effect, while the Allisons had aimed at little beyond comfort and convenience in their humble precincts.
From a thatched seat in the grounds of the Lodge, open on three sides and constructed like a shepherd's hut, there was a direct view of Windsor Castle, seen under the boughs of some old oaks and beeches. Sweet Williams, narcissuses, rose-campions, and such other flowers as the hares would not eat, had been sown in borders round the foot of every tree. There was a hermitage, absurdly so called, in the wood, with a thatched covering, and sides of straw; and there was a rosary, which though appropriately named, might sound as oddly to the ears of a Roman Catholic. A porter's lodge had been built at the entrance; and after the Duke's death the long drawing room had been converted into a chapel, in Gothic taste, with three painted windows, which, having been bespoken for Northumberland House, but not suiting the intended alterations in that mansion, were put up here. The Duchess and her servant had worked cross-stitch chairs for this chapel in fine crimson, the pattern was a Gothic mosaic, and they were in Gothic frames.
Se o mundo nos nao anda a' vontade
Naō he pera estranhar, pois he hum sonho
Que nunca con ninguem tratou verdade.
Se quando se nos mostra mais risonho,
Mais brande, mais amigo, o desprezemos,
He graō virtude, e á sua conta o ponho.
Mais se, (o que he mais certo) o desprezamos
Depois que nos engeita e nos despreza,
Que premio, ou que louvor disso esperamos?1
All here however was as it should be: Percy Lodge was the becoming retreat of a lady of high rank, who having in the natural course of time and things outlived all inclination for the pomps and vanities of the world, and all necessity for conforming to them, remembered what was still due to her station; and doing nothing to be seen of men, had retired thither to pass the remainder of her days in privacy and religious peace.
1 DIOGO BERNARDES.
All too was as it should be at Thaxted Grange. Picturesque was a term which had never been heard there; and taste was as little thought of as pretended to; but the right old English word comfort, in its good old English meaning, was nowhere more thoroughly understood. Nor anywhere could more evident indications of it be seen both within and without.
A tradesman retiring from business in these days with a fortune equivalent to what Mr. Allison had made, would begin his improvements upon such a house as the Grange by pulling it down. Mr. Allison contented himself with thoroughly repairing it. He had no dislike to low rooms, and casement windows. The whole furniture of his house cost less than would now be expended by a person of equal circumstances in fitting up a drawing-room. Every thing was for use, and nothing for display, unless it were two fowling pieces, which were kept in good order over the fire place in the best kitchen, and never used but when a kite threatened the poultry, or an owl was observed to frequent the dove-cote in preference to the barn.
But out of doors as much regard was shown to beauty as to utility. Miss Allison and Betsey claimed the little garden in front of the house for themselves. It was in so neglected a state when they took possession, that between children and poultry and stray pigs, not a garden flower was left there to grow wild: and the gravel walk from the gate to the porch was overgrown with weeds and grass, except a path in the middle which had been kept bare by use. On each side of the gate were three yew trees, at equal distances. In the old days of the Grange they had been squared in three lessening stages, the uppermost tapering pyramidally to a point. While the house had been shorn of its honours, the yews remained unshorn; but when it was once more occupied by a wealthy habitant, and a new gate had been set up and the pillars and their stone-balls cleaned from moss and lichen and short ferns, the unfortunate evergreens were again reduced to the formal shape in which Mr. Allison and his sister remembered them in their childhood. This was with them a matter of feeling, which is a better thing than taste. And indeed the yews must either have been trimmed, or cut down, because they intercepted sunshine from the garden and the prospect from the upper windows. The garden would have been better without them, for they were bad neighbours; but they belonged to old times, and it would have seemed a sort of sacrilege to destroy them.
Flower-beds used, like beds in the kitchen garden, to be raised a little above the path, with nothing to divide them from it, till about the beginning of the seventeenth century the fashion of bordering them was introduced either by the Italians or the French. Daisies, periwinkles, feverfew, hyssop, lavender, rosemary, rue, sage, wormwood, camomile, thyme and box, were used for this purpose: a German horticulturist observes that hyssop was preferred as the most convenient; box however gradually obtained the preference. The Jesuit Rapin claims for the French the merit of bringing this plant into use, and embellishes his account of it by one of those school-boy fictions which passed for poetry in his days, and may still pass for it in his country. He describes a feast of the rural gods:
Adfuit et Cybele, Phrygias celebrata per urbes;
Ipsaque cum reliquis Flora invitata deabus
Venit, inornatis, ut erat neglecta, capillis;
Sive fuit fastus, seu fors fiducia formæ.
Non illi pubes ridendi prompta pepercit,
Neglectam risere. Deam Berecynthia mater
Semotam à turba, casum miserata puellæ,
Exornat, certâque comam sub lege reponit,
Et viridi imprimis buxo (nam buxifer omnis
Undique campus erat) velavit tempora nymphæ.
Reddidit is speciem cultus, cœpitque videri
Formosa, et meruit: novus hinc decor additus ori.
Ex illo, ut Floram decuit cultura, per artem
Floribus ille decor posthac quæsitus, et hortis:
Quem tamen Ausonii cultores, quemque Pelasgi
Nescivere, suos nullâ qui lege per hortos
Plantabant flores, nec eos componere norant
Areolis, tonsâque vias describere buxo.
Culta super reliquas Francis topiaria gentes,
Ingenium seu mite soli cœlique benigni
Temperies tantam per sese adjuverit artem;
Sive illam egregiæ solers industria gentis
Extuderit, seris seu venerit usus ab annis.
The fashion which this buxom Flora introduced had at one time the effect of banishing flowers from what should have been the flower garden: the ground was set with box in their stead disposed in patterns more or less formal, some intricate as a labyrinth and not a little resembling those of Turkey carpets, where mahometan laws interdict the likeness of any living thing, and the taste of Turkish weavers excludes any combination of graceful forms. One sense at least was gratified when fragrant herbs were used in these “rare figures of composures,” or knots as they were called, hyssop being mixed in them with thyme, as aiders the one to the other, the one being dry, the other moist. Box had the disadvantage of a disagreeable odour; but it was greener in winter and more compact in all seasons. To lay out these knots and tread them required the skill of a master-gardener: much labour was thus expended without producing any beauty. The walks between them were sometimes of different colours, some would be of lighter or darker gravel, red or yellow sand; and when such materials were at hand, pulverised coal and pulverised shells.
Such a garden Mr. Cradock saw at Bordeaux no longer ago than the year 1785; it belonged to Monsieur Rabi, a very rich Jew merchant, and was surrounded by a bank of earth, on which there stood about two hundred blue and white flower-pots; the garden itself was a scroll work cut very narrow, and the interstices filled with sand of different colours to imitate embroidery; it required repairing after every shower, and if the wind rose the eyes were sure to suffer. Yet the French admired this and exclaimed, superbe! magnifique!
Neither Miss Allison nor her niece, would have taken any pleasure in gardens of this kind, which had nothing of a garden but the name. They both delighted in flowers; the aunt because flowers to her were “redolent of youth,” and never failed to awaken tender recollections; Betsey for an opposite reason; having been born and bred in London, a nosegay there had seemed always to bring her a foretaste of those enjoyments for which she was looking forward with eager hope. They had stocked their front garden therefore with the gayest and the sweetest flowers that were cultivated in those days; larkspurs both of the giant and dwarf species, and of all colours; sweet-williams of the richest hues; monks-hood for its stately growth; Betsey called it the dumbledore's delight, and was not aware that the plant in whose helmet- rather than cowl-shaped flowers that busy and best-natured of all insects appears to revel more than in any other, is the deadly aconite of which she read in poetry: the white lily, and the fleur-de-lis; peonies, which are still the glory of the English garden; stocks and gilly flowers which make the air sweet as the gales of Arabia; wall-flowers, which for a while are little less fragrant, and not less beautiful; pinks and carnations added their spicy odours; roses red and white peeped at the lower casements, and the jessamine climbed to those of the chambers above. You must nurse your own flowers if you would have them flourish, unless you happen to have a gardener who is as fond of them as yourself. Eve was not busier with her's in Paradise, her “pleasant task injoined,” than Betsey Allison and her aunt, from the time that early spring invited them to their cheerful employment, till late and monitory autumn closed it for the year.
“Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these;” and Solomon in all his wisdom never taught more wholesome lessons than these silent monitors convey to a thoughtful mind and an “understanding heart.” “There are two books,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “from whence I collect my divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant Nature, that universal and public manuscript that lies expansed unto the eyes of all. Those that never saw him in the one, have discovered him in the other. This was the scripture and theology of the heathens: the natural motion of the sun made them more admire him than its supernatural station did the children of Israel; the ordinary effects of nature wrought more admiration in them, than in the other all his miracles. Surely the heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters, than we Christians who cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of nature.”
INTERCHAPTER XIV.
CONCERNING INTERCHAPTERS.
If we present a mingle-mangle, our fault is to be excused, because the whole world is become a hodge-podge.
LYLY.
It occurs to me that some of my readers may perhaps desire to be informed in what consists the difference between a Chapter and an Inter Chapter; for that there is a difference no considerate person would be disposed to deny, though he may not be able to discover it. Gentle readers,—readers after my own heart, you for whom this opus was designed long before it was an opus, when as Dryden has said concerning one of his own plays, “it was only a confused mass of thoughts, tumbling over one another in the dark; when the fancy was yet in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things towards the light, there to be distinguished, and then either chosen or rejected by the judgement,”—good-natured readers, you who are willing to be pleased, and whom therefore it is worth pleasing,—for your sakes,
And for because you shall not think that I
Do use the same without a reason why,1