CHAPTER CCXLIV.—p. 513.

THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO SPEAK A WORD ON CHRISTIAN CHEERFULNESS:—QUOTES

BEN SIRACH,—SOLOMON,—BISHOP HACKET,—WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR,—BISHOP

REYNOLDS,—MILTON,—&C.

--_Ἀλλὰ σὺ ταῦτα μαθὼν, βιότου ποτί τέρμα

ψυχῇ τῶν ἀγαθῶν τλῆθι χαριζόμενος._

SIMONIDES.

FRAGMENTS TO THE DOCTOR.—p. 527.

A LOVE FRAGMENT FOR THE LADIES,—INTRODUCED BY A CURIOUS INCIDENT WHICH

THE AUTHOR BEGS THEY WILL EXCUSE.

Now will ye list a little space,

And I shall send you to solace;

You to solace and be blyth,

Hearken! ye shall hear belyve

A tale that is of verity.

ROSWALL AND LILLIAN.

A FRAGMENT ON BEARDS.

Yet have I more to say which I have thought upon, for I am filled as

the moon at the full!

ECCLESIASTICUS.

FRAGMENT ON MORTALITY.

FRAGMENT OF SIXTH VOLUME.

FRAGMENT.

_J'ay fait le précédent Chapitre un peu court; peut-être que celui-ce

sera plus long; je n'en suis pourtant pas bien assuré, nous l'allons

voir._

SCARRON.

FRAGMENT WHICH WAS TO HAVE ANSWERED THE QUESTION PROPOSED IN THE TWO

HUNDRED AND FORTY-SECOND CHAPTER.

_Io udii già dire ad un valente uomo nostro vicino, gli uomini abbiano

molte volte bisogno sì di lagrimare, come di ridere; e per tal cagione

egli affermava essere state da principio trovate le dolorose favole,

che si chiamarono Tragedie, accioche raccontate ne' teatri, come in

qual tempo si costumava di fare, tirassero le lagrime agli occhi di

coloro, che avevano di ciò mestiere; e cosi eglino piangendo della

loro infirmita guarissero. Ma come ciò sia a noi non istà bene di

contristare gli animi delle persone con cui favelliamo; massimamente

colà dove si dimori per aver festa e sollazzo, e non per piagnere; che

se pure alcuno è, che infermi per vaghezza di lagrimare, assai leggier

cosa fia di medicarlo con la mostarda forte, o porlo in alcun luogo al

fumo._

GALATEO, DEL M. GIOVANNI DELLA CASA.

FRAGMENT ON HUTCHINSON'S WORKS.

FRAGMENT RELATIVE TO THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL AT DONCASTER AND THE LIVING OF

ROSSINGTON.

FRAGMENT OF INTERCHAPTER.

MEMOIRS OF CAT'S EDEN.

FRAGMENT ON WIGS.

FRAGMENT OF INTERCHAPTER.

More than prince of cats, I can tell you.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

MEMOIR OF THE CATS OF GRETA HALL.

FRAGMENT OF INTERCHAPTER.

ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΤΑΣ.

_Ὁ μὲν διάβολος ἐνέπνενσέ τισι παρανόμοις ἀνθρώποις, καὶ εἰς τοὺς τῶν

βασιλέων ὕβρισαν ἀνδριάντας._

CHRYSOST. HOM. AD POPUL. ANTIOCHEN.

EPILUDE OF MOTTOES.—p. 615.

L'ENVOY.

THE DOCTOR, &c.

CHAPTER CCI.

QUESTION CONCERNING THE USE OF TONGUES.—THE ATHANASIAN

CONFESSORS.—GIBBON'S RELATION OF THE SUPPOSED MIRACLE OF TONGUES.—THE

FACTS SHOWN TO BE TRUE, THE MIRACLE IMAGINARY, AND THE HISTORIAN THE

DUPE OF HIS OWN UNBELIEF.

_Perseveremus, peractis quæ rem continebant, scrutari etiam ea quæ, si

vis verum connexa sunt, non cohærentia; quæ quisquis diligenter

inspicit, nec facit operæ prætium, nec tamen perdit operam._

SENECA.

For what use were our tongues given us? To speak with, to be sure,

will be the immediate reply of many a reader. But Master, Mistress,

Miss or Master Speaker (whichever you may happen to be), I beg leave

to observe that this is only one of the uses for which that member was

formed, and that for this alone it has deserved to be called an unruly

member, it is not its primary, nor by any means its most important

use. For what use was it given to thy labourer the ox, thy servant the

horse, thy friend,—if thou deservest to have such a friend,—the

dog,—thy playfellow the kitten,—and thy cousin the monkey?[1]

[Footnote 1: _Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia notis._

ENNIUS.]

In another place I shall answer my own question, which was asked in

this place, because it is for my present purpose to make it appear

that the tongue although a very convenient instrument of speech, is

not necessary for it.

It is related in Gibbon's great history, a work which can never be too

highly praised for its ability, nor too severely condemned for the

false philosophy which pervades it, that the Catholics, inhabitants of

Tipasa, a maritime colony of Mauritania, were by command of the Arian

King, Hunneric, Genseric's detestable son and successor, assembled on

the forum, and there deprived of their right hands and their tongues.

“But the holy confessors,” he proceeds to say, “continued to speak

without tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African

bishop, who published an history of the persecution within two years

after the event. ‘If any one,’ says Victor, ‘should doubt of the

truth, let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and

perfect language of Restitutus, the subdeacon, one of these glorious

sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the Emperor Zeno, and is

respected by the devout Empress.’ At Constantinople we are astonished

to find a cool, a learned, an unexceptionable witness, without

interest and without passion. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher,

has accurately described his own observations on these African

sufferers. ‘I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently

enquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed

without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of

my ears: I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been

completely torn away by the roots; an operation which the physicians

generally suppose to be mortal.’ The testimony of Æneas of Gaza might

be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the Emperor Justinian, in

a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus in his Chronicles of the

times; and of Pope Gregory the first, who had resided at

Constantinople as the minister of the Roman Pontiff. They all lived

within the compass of a century, and they all appeal to their personal

knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle, which

was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre

of the world, and submitted during a series of years, to the calm

examination of the senses.” He adds in a note that “the miracle is

enhanced by the singular instance of a boy who had _never_ spoken

before his tongue was cut out.”

Now comes the unbelieving historian's comment. He says, “this

supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke without

tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only, who

already believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the

stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion;

and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrines

of the Trinity, will not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of

an Athanasian miracle.”

Well has the sceptical historian applied the epithet stubborn to a

mind affected with the same disease as his own,

Oh dear unbelief

How wealthy dost thou make thy owner's wit!

Thou train of knowledge, what a privilege

Thou givest to thy possessor! anchorest him

From floating with the tide of vulgar faith

From being damn'd with multitudes![2]

[Footnote 2: MARSTON.]

Gibbon would not believe the story because it had been adduced as a

miracle in confirmation of the Catholic doctrine as opposed to the

Arian heresy. He might probably have questioned the relation between

the alleged miracle and the doctrine: and if he had argued that it is

not consistent with the plan of revelation (so far as we may presume

to reason upon it) for a miracle to be wrought in proof of a doctrinal

point, a Christian who believes sincerely in that very doctrine might

agree with him.

But the circumstances are attested, as he fairly admits, by the most

ample and unexceptionable testimony; and like the Platonic philosopher

whose evidence he quotes, he ought to have considered the matter of

fact, without regard to the application which the Catholics, in

perfect good faith, made of it. The story is true, but it is not

miraculous.

Cases which demonstrate the latter part of this question were known to

physiologists before a book was published at Paris in the year 1765,

the title of which I find in Mr. D'Israeli's Curiosities of

Literature, thus translated; “The Christian Religion proved by a

single fact; or a Dissertation in which is shown that those Catholics

whose tongues Hunneric King of the Vandals cut out, spoke miraculously

all the remainder of their days: from whence is deduced the

consequence of the miracle against the Arians, the Socinians and the

Deists, and particularly against the author of Emilius, by solving

their difficulties.” It bears this motto _Ecce Ego admirationem facio

populo huic, miraculo grandi et stupendo_. And Mr. D'Israeli closes

his notice of the Book by saying “there needs no farther account of it

than the title.” That gentleman who has contributed so much to the

instruction and entertainment of his contemporaries, will I am sure be

pleased at perusing the facts in disproof of the alleged miracle,

brought together here by one who as a Christian believes in miracles

and that they have not ceased, and that they never will cease.

In the Philosophical Transactions, and in the Gentleman's Magazine is

an account of a woman, Margaret Cutting by name, who about the middle

of the last century was living at Wickham Market in Suffolk. When she

was four years of age “a cancer ate off her tongue at the root, yet

she never lost the power of speech, and could both read distinctly

afterwards and sing.” Her speech was very intelligible, but it was a

little through the nose owing to the want of the uvula; and her voice

was low. In this case a new tongue had been formed, about an inch and

half in length and half an inch broad; but this did not grow till some

years after the cure.

Upon the publication of this case it was observed that some few

instances of a like nature had been recorded; and one in particular by

Tulpius of a man whom he had himself examined, who having had his

tongue cut out by the Turks, could after three years speak distinctly.

One of the persons who published an account of this woman saw several

men upon whom the same act of cruelty had been committed by these

barbarians or by the Algerines: “one of them,” says he, “aged

thirty-three, wrote a good hand, and by that means answered my

questions. He informed me that he could not pronounce a syllable, nor

make any articulate sound; though he had often observed that those who

suffered that treatment when they were very young, were some years

after able to speak; and that their tongues might be observed to grow

in proportion to the other parts of the body: but that if they were

adults, or full grown persons, at the time of the operation, they were

never able to utter a syllable. The truth of this observation was

confirmed to me by the two following cases. Patrick Strainer and his

son-in-law came to Harwich, in their way to Holland, the third of this

month. I made it my business to see and examine them. The father told

me he had his tongue cut out by the Algerines, when he was seven years

of age: and that some time after he was able to pronounce many

syllables, and can now speak most words tolerably well; his tongue, he

said, was grown at least half an inch. The son-in-law, who is about

thirty years of age, was taken by the Turks, who cut out his tongue;

he cannot pronounce a syllable; nor is his tongue grown at all since

the operation; which was more than five years ago.”

Sir John Malcolm in one of his visits to Persia, became acquainted

with Zâl Khan of Khist, who “was long distinguished as one of the

bravest and most attached followers of the Zend family. When the death

of Lootf Ali Khan terminated its powers, he along with the other

governors of provinces and districts in Furs, submitted to Aza Mahomed

Khan. That cautious and cruel monarch, dreading the ability, and

doubtful of the allegiance of this chief, ordered his eyes to be put

out. An appeal for the recall of the sentence being treated with

disdain, Zâl Khan loaded the tyrant with curses. ‘Cut out his tongue,’

was the second order. The mandate was imperfectly executed, and the

loss of half this member deprived him of speech. Being afterwards

persuaded that its being cut close to the root would enable him to

speak so as to be understood, he submitted to the operation; and the

effect has been, that his voice, though indistinct and thick, is yet

intelligible to persons accustomed to converse with him. This I

experienced from daily intercourse. He often spoke to me of his

sufferings and of the humanity of the present King, who had restored

him to his situation as head of his tribe, and governor of Khist.—I am

not an anatomist,” Sir John adds, “and cannot therefore give a reason

why a man, who could not articulate with half a tongue, should speak

when he had none at all. But the facts are as stated; and I had them

from the very best authority, old Zâl Khan himself.”[3]

[Footnote 3: This account of Zâl Khan, (Mrs. Southey writes me word)

was farther confirmed by the testimony of Mr. Bruce, her relative, who

knew him and had _looked_ into the tongue-less mouth. Mr. Bruce was

well acquainted with another person who had undergone the same cruel

punishment. Being a wealthy man, he bribed the executioner to spare a

considerable portion of the tongue; but finding that he could not

articulate a word with the imperfect member, he had it entirely

extracted—root and all, and then spoke almost as intelligibly as

before his punishment.

This person was well known at Calcutta, as well as at Bushire and

Shiraz—where Mr. Bruce first became acquainted with him. He was a man

of some consequence and received as such in the first circles at

Calcutta, and it was in one of those—a dinner party—that on the

question being warmly argued—as to the possibility of articulation

after the extraction of the tongue, he opened his mouth and desired

the company assembled to look into it, and so set their doubts on the

matter for ever at rest.]

A case occurred in the household of that Dr. Mark Duncan whom our

James I. would have engaged as his Physician in ordinary, but Duncan

having married at Saumur and settled in that city declined the

invitation, because his wife was unwilling to leave her friends and

relations and her native place. Yielding therefore as became him to

her natural and reasonable reluctance he passed the remainder of his

useful and honourable life at Saumur. It is noticed as a remarkable

circumstance that the five persons of whom his family consisted died

and were interred in as many different kingdoms, one in France,

another at Naples, a third at Stockholm, a fourth in London, and the

fifth in Ireland. A son of Duncan's valet, in his thirteenth year lost

his tongue by the effects of the small-pox, the root being so consumed

by this dreadful disease, that in a fit of coughing it came away. The

boy's speech was no otherwise affected by the loss than that he found

it difficult to pronounce the letter r. He was exhibited throughout

Europe, and lived long afterwards. A surgeon at Saumur composed a

treatise upon the case, and Duncan who was then Principal of the

College in that city supplied him with this title for it

Aglossostomographie. A rival physician published a dissertation to

prove that it ought to be Aglossostomatographie, and he placed these

verses at the conclusion of this odd treatise.

_Lecteur, tu t'esmerveilleras

Qu'un garçon qui n'a point de langue,

Prononce bien une harangue;

Mais bien plus tu t'estonneras

Qu'un barbier que ne sçait pas lire

Le grec, se mesle d'en escrire.

Que si ce plaisant épigramme,

Doux fruit d'un penser de mon âme

Te semble n'aller pas tant mal,

C'est que je l'ai fait à cheval._

_Quelques gens malins changerent le dernier vers dans les exemplaires

qu'ils purent trouver, et y mirent—C'est que je l'ai fait en cheval._

* * * * *

The reader who thinks upon what he reads, will find some materials for

thinking on, in what has here been collected for him. First as to the

physical facts:—they show that the power of reproduction exists in the

human body, in a greater degree than has been commonly supposed. But

it is probable that this power would be found only in young subjects,

or in adults whose constitutions were unusually healthful and

vigorous. A very small proportion of the snails which have been

decapitated by experimental physiologists, have reproduced their

heads; though the fact of such reproduction is certainly established.

Rhazes records two cases which had fallen under his own observation;

in one of which the tibia, in the other the underjaw had been

reproduced; neither acquired the consistency of the other bones. The

Doctor used to adduce these cases in support of a favourite theory of

his own, with which the reader will in due time be made acquainted.

Secondly, there is a moral inference to be drawn from the effect which

the story produced upon Gibbon. He could not invalidate, or dispute

the testimony upon which it came before him; but he chose to

disbelieve it. For he was ignorant that the facts might be physically

true, and he would not on any evidence give credit to what appeared

miraculous. A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom, or even to

knowledge, as a stubborn temper to happiness.

CHAPTER CCII.

A LAW OF ALFRED'S AGAINST LYING TONGUES. OBSERVATIONS ON LAX ONES.

As I have gained no small satisfaction to myself,—so I am desirous

that nothing that occurs here may occasion the least dissatisfaction

to others. And I think it will be impossible any thing should, if they

will be but pleased to take notice of my design.

HENRY MORE.

If the laws of our great Alfred, whose memory is held in such

veneration by all who are well acquainted with his history, and his

extraordinary virtues, and whose name has been so often taken in vain

by speculative reformers who were ignorant of the one, and incapable

of estimating the other;—if the laws of Alfred, I say, had continued

in use, everything relating to the reproduction of human tongues would

long before this time have been thoroughly understood; for by those

laws any one who broached a public falsehood, and persisted in it, was

to have his tongue cut out; and this punishment might not be commuted

for any smaller fine than that at which the life of the criminal would

have been rated.

The words of the law are these:

DE RUMORIBUS FICTITIIS.

_Si quis publicum mendacium confingat, et ille in eo firmetur, nullâ

levi re hoc emendet, sed lingua ei excidatur; nec minori precio redimi

liceat, quam juxta capitis æstimationem censebatur._

What a wholesome effect might such a law have produced upon orators at

public meetings, upon the periodical press, and upon the debates in

Parliament.

“I am charmed,” says Lady M. W. Montague, “with many points of the

Turkish law, to our shame be it spoken, better designed and better

executed than ours; particularly the punishment of convicted liars

(triumphant criminals in our country, God knows!): they are burnt in

the forehead with a hot iron, when they are proved the authors of any

notorious falsehoods. How many white foreheads should we see

disfigured, how many fine gentlemen would be forced to wear their wigs

as low as their eyebrows, were this law in practice with us!”

But who can expect that human laws should correct that propensity in

the wicked tongue! They who have “the poison of asps under their

lips,” and “which have said with our tongues will we prevail; we are

they that ought to speak: who is lord over us?”—they who “love to

speak all words that may do hurt, and who cut with lies like a sharp

razor”—what would they care for enactments which they would think

either to evade by their subtlety, or to defy in the confidence of

their numbers and their strength? Is it to be expected that those men

should regard the laws of their country, who set at nought the

denunciations of scripture, and will not “keep their tongues from

evil, and their lips that they speak no guile,” though they have been

told that it is “he who hath used no deceit in his tongue and hath not

slandered his neighbour, who shall dwell in the tabernacle of the

Lord, and rest upon his holy hill!”

Leave we them to their reward, which is as certain as that men shall

be judged according to their deeds. Our business is with the follies

of the unruly member, not with its sins: with loquacious speakers and

verbose writers, those whose “tongues are gentlemen-ushers to their

wit, and still go before it,”[1] who never having studied the

_exponibilia_, practice the art of battology by intuition; and in a

discourse which might make the woeful hearer begin to fear that he had

entered unawares upon eternity, bring forth, “as a man would say in a

word of two syllables, nothing.”[1] The West Britons had in their own

Cornish language this good proverbial rhyme, (the—graphy whereof, be

it ortho or not is Mr. Polwhele's),

_An lavor goth ewe lavar gwir,

Ne vedn nevera doaz vas a tavaz re hir._

The old saying is a true saying,

Never will come good from a tongue too long.

Oh it is a grievous thing to listen, or seem to listen, as one is

constrained to do, sometimes by the courtesy of society, and sometimes

by “the law of sermon,” to an unmerciful manufacturer of speech, who

before he ever arrives at the empty matter of his discourse,

_no puede—dexar—de decir

—antes,—siguiera

quatro, o cinco mil palabras!_[2]

[Footnote 1: BEN JONSON.]

[Footnote 2: CALDERON.]

Vossius mentions three authors, who, to use Bayle's language,—for in

Bayle the extract is found, _enfermaient de grands riens dans une

grande multitude de paroles_. Anaximenes the orator was one; when he

was about to speak, Theocritus of Chios said, “here begins a river of

words and a drop of sense,”—_Ἄρχεται λέξεων μὲν ποταμὸς, νοῦ δὲ

σταλαγμός._ Longolius, an orator of the lower Empire was the second.

The third was Faustus Andrelinus, Professor of Poetry at Paris, and

_Poeta Laureatus_: of him Erasmus _dicitur dixisse_,—is said to have

said, that there was but one thing wanting in all his poems and that

thing was comprised in one word of one syllable, _Νοῦς_.

It were better to be remembered as Bayle has remembered Petrus

Carmilianus, because of the profound obscurity in which this pitiful

poet was buried, than thus to be thought worthy of remembrance only

for having produced a great deal that deserved to be forgotten. There

is, or was, an officer of the Exchequer called Clericus Nihilorum, or

Clerk of the Nihils. If there were a High Court of Literature with

such an officer on its establishment, it would be no sinecure office

for him in these, or in any days, to register the names of those

authors who have written to no purpose, and the titles of those books

from which nothing is to be learnt.

_On ne vid jamais,_ says the Sieur de Brocourt, _homme qui ne die

plustost trop, que moins qu'il ne doit; et jamais parole proferée ne

servit tant, comme plusieurs teuës ont profite; car tousjours

pouvons-nous bien dire ce qu'avons teu, et non pas taire ce qu'avons

publié._ The latter part of this remark is true; the former is far too

general. For more harm is done in public life by the reticence of well

informed men, than by the loquacity of sciolists; more by the timidity

and caution of those who desire at heart the good of their country,

than by the audacity of those who labour to overthrow its

constitutions. It was said in the days of old, that “a man full of

words shall not prosper upon the earth.” _Mais nous avons changé tout

cela._

Even in literature a leafy style, if there be any fruit under the

foliage, is preferable to a knotty one, however fine the grain. Whipt

cream is a good thing; and better still when it covers and adorns that

amiable combination of sweetmeats and ratafia cakes soaked in wine, to

which Cowper likened his delightful poem, when he thus described the

“Task.” “It is a medley of many things, some that may be useful, and

some that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I am merry that I

may decoy people into my company, and grave that they may be the

better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of a philosopher, and

take the opportunity that disguise procures me, to drop a word in

favour of religion. In short there is some froth, and here and there a

bit of sweetmeat, which seems to entitle it justly to the name of a

certain dish the ladies call a Trifle.” But in Task or Trifle unless

the ingredients were good, the whole were nought. They who should

present to their deceived guests whipt white of egg, would deserve to

be whipt themselves.

If there be any one who begins to suspect that in tasking myself, and

trifling with my reader, my intent is not unlike Cowper's, he will

allow me to say to him, “by your leave Master Critic, you must give me

license to flourish my phrases, to embellish my lines, to adorn my

oratory, to embroider my speeches, to interlace my words, to draw out

my sayings, and to bombard the whole suit of the business for the time

of your wearing.”[3]

[Footnote 3: TAYLOR, the Water Poet.]

CHAPTER CCIII.

WHETHER A MAN AND HIMSELF BE TWO.—MAXIM OF BAYLE'S.—ADAM LITTLETON'S

SERMONS,—A RIGHT HEARTED OLD DIVINE WITH WHOM THE AUTHOR HOPES TO BE

BETTER ACQUAINTED IN A BETTER WORLD.—THE READER REFERRED TO HIM FOR

EDIFICATION.—WHY THE AUTHOR PURCHASED HIS SERMONS.

_Parolles._ Go to, thou art a witty fool, I have found thee.

_Clown._ Did you find me in yourself, Sir? or were you taught to find

me? The search, Sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in

you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of laughter.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

“Whether this author means to make his Doctor more fool or

philosopher, is more than I can discover,” says a grave reader, who

lays down the open book, and knits his brow while he considers the

question.

_Make_ him, good Reader! I, _make_ him!—make “the noblest work

of”——But as the Spaniards say, _el creer es cortesia_, and it is at

your pleasure either to believe the veracity of these biographical

sketches, or to regard them as altogether fictitious. It is at your

pleasure, I say; not at your peril: but take heed how you exercise

that pleasure in cases which are perilous! The worst that can happen

to you for disbelief in this matter is, that I shall give you little

credit for courtesy, and less for discrimination; and in Doncaster you

will be laughed to scorn. You might as well proclaim at Coventry your

disbelief in the history of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom; or tell the

Swiss that their tale of shooting the apple on the child's head was an

old story before William Tell was born.

But perhaps you did not mean to express any such groundless

incredulity, your doubt may be whether I represent or consider my

friend as having in his character a larger portion of folly or of

philosophy?

This you might determine, Reader, for yourself, if I could succeed in

delineating him to the life,—the inner I mean, not the outward man,

_Et en peu de papier, comme sur un tableau,

Vous pourtraire au naïf tout son bon, et son beau._[1]

He was the soul of goodness,

And all our praises of him are like streams

Drawn from a spring, that still rise full, and leave

The part remaining greatest.

But the Duchess of Newcastle hath decided in her philosophy that it is

not possible for any one person thoroughly to understand the character

of another. In her own words, “if the Mind was not joined and mixed

with the sensitive and inanimate parts, and had not interior as well

as exterior parts, the whole Mind of one man might perceive the whole

Mind of another man; but that being not possible—one whole Mind cannot

perceive another whole Mind.” By which observation we may perceive

there are no Platonic Lovers in Nature. An odd conclusion of her

Grace's, and from odd premises. But she was an odd personage.

[Footnote 1: PASQUIER.]

So far however the beautiful and fanciful as well as fantastic Duchess

is right, that the more congenial the disposition of two persons who

stand upon the same intellectual level, the better they understand

each other. The lower any one is sunk in animal life the less is he

capable of apprehending the motives and views of those who have

cultivated the better part of their nature.

If I am so unfortunate as to fail in producing the moral likeness

which I am endeavouring to pourtray, it will not be owing to any want

of sympathy with the subject in some of the most marked features of

his character.

It is a maxim of Bayle's _qu'il n'y a point de grand esprit dans le

caractère du quel il n'entre un peu de folie._ And he named Diogenes

as one proof of this. Think indeed somewhat more than a little upon

the words folly and philosophy, and if you can see any way into a

mist, or a stone wall, you will perceive that the same radicals are

found in both.

This sort of mixt character was never more whimsically described than

by Andrew Erskine in one of his letters to Boswell, in which he tells

him, “since I saw you I received a letter from Mr. D——; it is filled

with encomiums upon you; he says there is a great deal of humility in

your vanity, a great deal of tallness in your shortness, and a great

deal of whiteness in your black complexion. He says there's a great

deal of poetry in your prose, and a great deal of prose in your

poetry. He says that as to your late publication, there is a great

deal of Ode in your Dedication, and a great deal of Dedication in your

Ode. He says there is a great deal of coat in your waistcoat, and a

great deal of waistcoat in your coat, that there is a great deal of

liveliness in your stupidity, and a great deal of stupidity in your

liveliness. But to write you all he says would require rather more

fire in my grate than there is at present, and my fingers would

undoubtedly be numbed, for there is a great deal of snow in this

frost, and a great deal of frost in this snow.”

The Marquis de Custine in a book which in all its parts, wise or

foolish, strikingly characterises its author, describes himself thus:

_J'ai un mélange de gravitê et de légèreté qui m' empêchera de devenir

autre chose qu'un vieil enfant bien triste. Si je suis destiné à

éprouver de grands malheurs, j'aurai l'occasion de remercier Dieu de

m' avoir fait naitre avec cette disposition à la fois sérieuse et

frivole: le sérieux m' aidera à me passer du monde—l'enfantillage à

supporter le douleur. C'est à quoi il réussit meux que la raison._

_Un peu de folie_, there certainly was in the _grand esprit_ of my

dear master and more than _un peu_ there is in his faithful pupil. But

I shall not enter into a discussion whether the gravity of which the

Marquis speaks preponderated in his character, or whether it was more

than counterpoised by the levity. Enough of the latter, thank Heaven

enters into my own composition not only to preserve me from becoming

_un vieil enfant bien triste_, but to entitle me in all innocent

acceptance of the phrase to the appellation of a merry old boy, that

is to say, merry at becoming times, there being a time for all things.

I shall not enter into the discussion as it concerns my guide,

philosopher and friend, because it would be altogether unnecessary; he

carried ballast enough, whatever I may do. The elements were so

happily mixed in him that though Nature did not stand up and say to

all the world “this is a man,” because such a miracle could neither be

in the order of Nature or of Providence;—I have thought it my duty to

sit down and say to the public this was a Doctor.

There is another reason why I shall refrain from any such enquiry; and

that reason may be aptly given in the words of a right-hearted old

divine, with whom certain congenialities would lead my friend to

become acquainted in that world, where I also hope in due season to

meet and converse with him.

“People,” says Adam Littleton, “are generally too forward in examining

others, and are so taken up with impertinence and things that do not

concern them, that they have no time to be acquainted with themselves;

like idle travellers, that can tell you a world of stories concerning

foreign countries, and are very strangers at home. Study of ourselves

is the most useful knowledge, as that without which we can know

neither God nor any thing else aright, as we should know them.

“And it highly concerns us to know ourselves well; nor will our

ignorance be pardonable, but prove an everlasting reproach, in that we

and ourselves are to be inseparable companions in bliss or torment to

all eternity: and if we, through neglect of ourselves here, do not in

time provide for that eternity, so as to secure for ourselves future

happiness, God will at last make us know ourselves, when it will be

too late to make any good use of that knowledge, but a remediless

repentance that we and ourselves ever met in company; when poor ruined

self shall curse negligent sinful self to all ages, and wish direful

imprecations upon that day and hour that first joined them together.

“Again, God has given man that advantage above all other creatures,

that he can with reflex acts look back and pass judgement upon

himself. But seeing examination here supposes two persons, the one to

examine, the other to be examined, and yet seems to name but one, a

man to examine himself; unless a man and himself be two, and thus

every one of us have two selfs in him; let us first examine who 'tis

here is to execute the office of examinant, and then who 'tis that is

to be the party examined.

“Does the whole man in this action go over himself by parts? Or does

the regenerate part call the unregenerate part to account? Or if there

be a divided self in every man, does one self examine the other self,

as to wit, the spiritual self, the carnal self? Or is it some one

faculty in a man, by which a man brings all his other faculties and

parts to trial,—such a one as the conscience may be? If so, how then

is conscience itself tried, having no Peers to be tried by, as being

superior to all other human powers, and calling them all to the barr?”

Here let me interpose a remark. Whether a man and himself be two must

be all one in the end; but woe to that house in which the man and his

wife are!

The end of love is to have two made one

In will, and in affection.[2]

[Footnote 2: BEN JONSON.]

The old Lexicographer answers his own question thus: “Why, yes; I do

think 'tis the conscience of a man which examines the man, and every

part of him, both spiritual and carnal, as well regenerate as

unregenerate, and itself and all. For hence it was called

_conscientia_, as being that faculty by which a man becomes conscious

to himself, and is made knowing together with himself of all that good

and evil that lies working in his nature, and has been brought forth

in his actions. And this is not only the Register, and Witness and

Judge of all parts of man, and of all that they do, but is so

impartial an officer also, that it will give a strict account of all

itself at any time does, _accusing_ or _excusing_ even itself in every

motion of its own.”

Reader I would proceed with this extract, were it not for its length.

The application which immediately follows it, is eloquently and

forcibly made, and I exhort thee if ever thou comest into a library

where Adam Littleton's Sermons are upon the shelf,

look

Not _on_, but _in_ this Thee-concerning book![3]

Take down the goodly tome, and turn to the sermon of Self-Examination,

preached before the (Royal) Family at Whitehall, March 3, 1677-8. You

will find this passage in the eighty-sixth page of the second paging,

and I advice you to proceed with it to the end of the Discourse.

[Footnote 3: SIR WILLIAM DENNY.]

I will tell the reader for what reason I purchased that goodly tome.

It was because of my grateful liking for the author, from the end of

whose dictionary I, like Daniel in his boyhood, derived more

entertainment and information to boot, than from any other book which,

in those days, came within the walls of a school. That he was a truly

learned man no one who ever used that dictionary could doubt, and if

there had not been oddity enough in him to give his learning a zest,

he never could have compounded an appellation for the Monument,

commemorating in what he calls an heptastic vocable,—which may be

interpreted a seven-leagued word,—the seven Lord Mayors of London

under whose mayoralities the construction of that lying pillar went on

from its commencement to its completion. He called it, the

Fordo-Watermanno-Hansono-Hookero-Vinero-Sheldono-Davisian pillar.

I bought the book for the author's sake,—which in the case of a living

author is a proper and meritorious motive, and in the case of one who

is dead, may generally be presumed to be a wise one. It proved so in

this instance. For though there is nothing that bears the stamp of

oddity in his sermons, there is much that is sterling. They have a

merit of their own, and it is of no mean degree. Their manner is

neither Latimerist nor Andrewesian, nor Fullerish, nor

Cotton-Matherish, nor Jeremy Taylorish, nor Barrowish, nor Southish,

but Littletonian. They are full of learning, of wisdom, of sound

doctrine, and of benevolence, and of earnest and persuasive piety. No

one who had ears to hear could have slept under them, and few could

have listened to them without improvement.

CHAPTER CCIV.

ADAM LITTLETON'S STATEMENT THAT EVERY MAN IS MADE UP OF THREE

EGOS,—DEAN YOUNG—DISTANCE BETWEEN A MAN'S HEAD AND HIS HEART.

Perhaps when the Reader considers the copiousness of the argument, he

will rather blame me for being too brief than too tedious.

DR JOHN SCOTT.

In the passage quoted from Adam Littleton in the preceding chapter,

that good old divine enquired whether a man and himself were two. A

Moorish prince in the most extravagant of Dryden's extravagant

tragedies, (they do not deserve to be called romantic,) agrees with

him, and exclaims to his confidential friend,

Assist me Zulema, if thou wouldst be

The friend thou seem'st, assist me against me.

Machiavel says of Cosmo de Medici that who ever considered his gravity

and his levity might say there were two distinct persons in him.

“There is often times,” says Dean Young, (father of the poet) “a

prodigious distance betwixt a man's head and his heart; such a

distance that they seem not to have any correspondence; not to belong

to the same person, not to converse in the same world. Our heads are

sometimes in Heaven, contemplating the nature of God, the blessedness

of Saints, the state of eternity; while our hearts are held captive

below in a conversation earthly, sensual, devilish. 'Tis possible we

may sometimes commend virtue convincingly, unanswerably; and yet our

own hearts be never affected by our own arguments; we may represent

vice in her native dress of horror, and yet our hearts be not at all

startled with their own menaces: We may study and acquaint ourselves

with all the truths of religion, and yet all this out of curiosity, or

hypocrisy, or ostentation; not out of the power of godliness, or the

serious purpose of good living. All which is a sufficient proof that

the consent of the Head and of the Heart are two different things.”

Dean Young may seem in this passage to have answered Adam the

Lexicographist's query in the affirmative, by shewing that the head

belongs sometimes to one Self and the heart to the other. Yet these

two Selves, notwithstanding this continual discord, are so united in

matrimony, and so inseparably made one flesh, that it becomes another

query whether death itself can part them.

The aforesaid Dean concludes one of his Discourses with the advice of

an honest heathen. _Learn to be one Man_; that is, learn to live and

act alike. For says he, “while we act from contrary principles;

sometimes give, and sometimes defraud; sometimes love and sometimes

betray; sometimes are devout, and sometimes careless of God; this is

to be _two_ Men, which is a foolish aim, and always ends in loss of

pains. ‘No,’ says wise Epictetus, ‘_Learn to be one Man_,’ thou mayest

be a good man; or thou mayest be a bad man, and that to the purpose;

but it is impossible that thou shouldst be both. And here the

Philosopher had the happiness to fall in exactly with the notion of my

text. _We cannot serve two Masters._”

But in another sermon Adam Littleton says that “every man is made of

three Egos, and has three Selfs in him;” and that this “appears in the

reflection of Conscience upon actions of a dubious nature; whilst one

Self accuses, another Self defends, and the third Self passes

judgement upon what hath been so done by the man!” This he adduced as

among various “mean and unworthy comparisons, whereby to show that

though the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity” far exceeds our reason,

there want not natural instances to illustrate it. But he adds most

properly that we should neither “say or think ought of God in this

kind,” without a preface of reverence and asking pardon; “for it is

sufficient for us and most suitable to the mystery, so to conceive, so

to discourse of God, as He himself has been pleased to make Himself

known to us in his Word.”

If all theologians had been as wise, as humble and as devout as Adam

Littleton, from how many heresies and evils might Christendom have

been spared.

In the Doctor's own days the proposition was advanced, and not as a

paradox, that a man might be in several places at the same time.

_Presence corporelle de l'homme en plusieurs lieux prouvée possible

par les principes de la bonne Philosophie_, is the title of a treatise

by the Abbé de Lignac, who having been first a Jesuit, and then an

Oratorian, secularized himself without departing from the principles

in which he had been trained up. The object of his treatise was to

show that there is nothing absurd in the doctrine of

Transubstantiation. He made a distinction between man and his body,

the body being always in a state of change, the man remaining the

while identically the same. But how his argument that because a worm

may be divided and live, the life which animated it while it was

whole, continues a single life when it animates all the parts into

which the body may have separated, proves his proposition, or how his

proposition if proved could prove the hyper-mysterious figment of the

Romish Church to be no figment, but a divine truth capable of

philosophical demonstration, Œdipus himself were he raised from the

dead would be unable to explain.

CHAPTER CCV.

EQUALITY OF THE SEXES,—A POINT ON WHICH IT WAS NOT EASY TO COLLECT THE

DOCTOR'S OPINION.—THE SALIC LAW.—DANIEL ROGERS'S TREATISE OF

MATRIMONIAL HONOUR.—MISS HATFIELD'S LETTERS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE

FEMALE SEX, AND LODOVICO DOMENICHI'S DIALOGUE UPON THE NOBLENESS OF

WOMEN.

Mirths and toys

To cozen time withal: for o' my troth, Sir

I can love,—I think well too,—well enough;

And think as well of women as they are,—

Pretty fantastic things, some more regardful,

And some few worth a service. I'm so honest

I wish 'em all in Heaven and you know how hard, Sir,

'Twill be to get in there with their great farthingals.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

And not much easier now with their great sleeves.

AUTHOR, A.D. 1830.

The question concerning the equality of the sexes which was discussed

so warmly some thirty years ago in Magazines and Debating Societies,

was one upon which it was not easy to collect the Doctor's real

opinion. His manner indeed was frequently sportive when his meaning

was most serious, and as frequently the thoughts and speculations with

which he merely played, and which were sports or exercitations of

intellect and humour, were advanced with apparent gravity. The

propensity however was always restrained within due bounds, for he had

treasured up his father's lessons in his heart, and would have

regarded it as a crime ever to have trifled with his principles or

feelings. But this question concerning the sexes was a subject which

he was fond of introducing before his female acquaintance; it was like

hitting the right note for a dog when you play the flute, he said. The

sort of half anger, and the indignation, and the astonishment and the

merriment withal which he excited when he enlarged upon this fertile

theme, amused him greatly, and moreover he had a secret pleasure in

observing the invincible good humour of his wife, even when she

thought it necessary for the honour of her sex to put on a semblance

of wrath at the notions which he repeated, and the comments with which

he accompanied them.

He used to rest his opinion of male superiority upon divinity, law,

grammar, natural history, and the universal consent of nations. Noting

also by the way, that in the noble science of heraldry, it is laid

down as a rule “that amongst things sensitive the males are of more

worthy bearing than the females.”[1]

[Footnote 1: GWILLIM.]

The Salic law he looked upon as in this respect the Law of Nature. And

therefore he thought it was wisely appointed in France, that the royal

Midwife should receive a fee of five hundred crowns upon the birth of

a boy and only three hundred if it were a female child. This the

famous Louise Bourgeois has stated to be the custom, who for the

edification of posterity, the advancement of her own science, and the

use of French historians published a _Recit veritable de la naissance

de Messieurs et Dames les enfans de France_, containing minute details

of every royal parturition at which she had officiated.

But he dwelt with more force on the theological grounds of his

position. “The wife is the weaker vessel. Wives submit yourselves to

your husbands: be in subjection to them. The Husband is the head.

Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.” And here he had recourse to

the authority of Daniel Rogers (whom he liked the better for his

name's sake) who in his Treatise of Matrimonial Honour teaches that

the duty of subjection, is woman's chief commandment; and that she is

properly made subject by the Law of Creation and by the Law of

Penalty. As thus. All other creatures were created male and female at

the same time; man and woman were not so, for the Man was first

created—as a perfect creature, and afterwards the woman was thought

of. Moreover she was not made of the same matter, equally, with

man,—but of him, of a rib taken from him, and thirdly, she was made

for his use and benefit as a meet help-mate, “three weighty reasons

and grounds of the woman's subjection to the man, and that from the

purpose of the Creator; who might have done otherwise, that is, have

yielded to the Woman co-equal beginning, sameness of generation, or

relation of usefulness; for he might have made her without any such

precedency of matter, without any dependency upon him, and equally for

her good as for his. All shew at ennobling the Man as the Head and

more excellent, not that the Man might upbraid her, but that she might

in all these read her lesson of subjection. And doubtless, as Malachi

speaks, herein is wisdom, for God hath left nothing to be bettered by

our invention.

“The woman, being so created by God in the integrity of Nature had a

most divine honour and partnership of his image, put upon her in her

creation; yea, such as (without prejudice of those three respects)

might have held full and sweet correspondence with her husband. But

her sin still augmented her inequality, and brought her lower and

lower in her prerogative. For since she would take upon her, as a

woman, without respect to the order, dependence and use of her

creation, to enterprize so sad a business, as to jangle and demur with

the Devil about so weighty a point as her husband's freehold, and of

her own brain to lay him and it under foot, without the least parley

and consent of his, obeying Satan before him,—so that till she had put

all beyond question and past amendment, and eaten, she brought not the

fruit to him, therefore the Lord stript her of this robe of her

honour, and smote into the heart of Eve an instinct of inferiority, a

confessed yielding up of her insufficient self to depend wholly upon

her husband.”

This being a favourite commentary with the Doctor upon the first

transgression, what would he have said if he had lived to read an

Apology for Eve by one of her daughters, yes, an Apology for her and a

Defence, showing that she acted meritoriously in eating the Apple. It

is a choice passage and the reader shall have it from Miss Hatfield's

Letters on the Importance of the Female Sex.

“By the creation of woman, the great design was accomplished,—the

universal system was harmonized. Happiness and innocence reigned

together. But unacquainted with the nature or existence of

evil,—conscious only of good and imagining that all were of that

essence around her; without the advantages of the tradition of

forefathers to relate, or of ancient records to hand down, Eve was

fatally and necessarily ignorant of the rebellious disobedience of the

fallen Angels, and of their invisible vigilance and combination to

accomplish the destruction of the new favourites of Heaven.

“In so momentous an event as that which has ever been exclusively

imputed to her, neither her virtue nor her prudence ought to be

suspected; and there is little reason to doubt, that if the same

temptations had been offered to her husband under the same

appearances, but he also would have acquiesced in the commission of

this act of disobedience.

“Eve's attention was attracted by the manner in which the Serpent

first made his attack: he had the gift of speech, which she must have

observed to be a faculty peculiar to themselves. This appeared an

evidence of something supernatural. The wily tempter chose also the

form of the serpent to assist his design, as not only in wisdom and

sagacity that creature surpassed all others, but his figure was also

erect and beautiful, for it was not until the offended justice of God

denounced the curse, that the Serpent's crest was humbled to the dust.

“During this extraordinary interview, it is evident that Eve felt a

full impression of the divine command, which she repeated to the

tempter at the time of his solicitations. She told him they were not

to eat of _that_ Tree.—But the Serpent opposed her arguments with

sophistry and promises. He said unto the Woman, ye shall not surely

die—but shall be as Gods. What an idea to a mortal!—Such an image

astonished her!—It was not the gross impulses of greedy appetite that

urged her, but a nobler motive that induced her to examine the

consequences of the act.—She was to be better and happier;—to exchange

a mortal for an angelic nature. Her motive was

great,—virtuous,—irresistible. Might she not have felt herself awed

and inspired with a belief of a divine order?—Upon examination she

found it was to produce a greater good than as mortals they could

enjoy; this impression excited a desire to possess that good; and that

desire determined her will and the future destiny of a World!”

It must be allowed that this Lady Authoress has succeeded in what

might have been supposed the most difficult of all attempts, that of

starting a new heresy,—her followers in which may aptly be denominated

Eveites.

The novelty consists not in excusing the mother of mankind, but in

representing her transgression as a great and meritorious act. An

excuse has been advanced for her in Lodovico Domenichi's Dialogue upon

the nobleness of Women. It is there pleaded that the fruit of the

fatal tree had not been forbidden to Eve, because she was not created

when the prohibition was laid on. Adam it was who sinned in eating it,

not Eve, and it is in Adam that we have all sinned, and all die. Her

offence was in tempting him to eat, _et questo anchora senza intention

cattiva, essendo stata tentata dal Diavolo. L'huomo adunque peccò per

certa scientia, et la Donna ignorantemente, et ingannata._

I know not whether this special pleading be Domenichi's own; but he

must have been conscious that there is a flaw in it, and could not

have been in earnest, as Miss Hatfield is. The Veronese lady Isotta

Nogarola thought differently; _essendo studiosa molto di Theologia et

di Philosophia_, she composed a Dialogue wherein the question whether

Adam or Eve in the primal transgression had committed the greater sin.

How she determined it I cannot say, never having seen her works.

Domenichi makes another assertion in honour of womankind which Miss

Hatfield would undoubtedly consider it an honour for herself to have

disproved in her own person,—that no heresy, or error in the faith

ever originated with a woman.

Had this Lady, most ambitious of Eve's daughters, been contemporary

with Doctor Dove, how pleasant it would have been to have witnessed a

debate between them upon the subject! He would have wound her up to

the highest pitch of indignation, and she would have opened the

flood-gates of female oratory upon his head.

CHAPTER CCVI.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.—OPINIONS OF THE RABBIS.—ANECDOTE OF LADY JEKYLL

AND A TART REPLY OF WILLIAM WHISTON'S.—JEAN D'ESPAGNE.—QUEEN ELIZABETH

OF THE QUORUM QUARUM QUORUM GENDER.—THE SOCIETY OF GENTLEMEN AGREE

WITH MAHOMET IN SUPPOSING THAT WOMEN HAVE NO SOULS, BUT ARE OF OPINION

THAT THE DEVIL IS AN HERMAPHRODITE.

Sing of the nature of women; and then the song shall be surely full of

variety, old crotchets, and most sweet closes: it shall be humourous,

grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly, one in all and all

in one.

MARSTON.

The Doctor had other theological arguments in aid of the opinion which

he was pleased to support. The remark has been made which is curious,

or in the language of Jeremy Taylor's age, _considerable_, that we

read in Genesis how when God saw every thing else which he had made he

pronounced that it was very good, but he did not say this of the

woman.

There are indeed certain Rabbis who affirm that Eve was not taken out

of Adam's side: but that Adam had originally been created with a tail

(herein agreeing with the well-known theory of Lord Monboddo) and that

among the various experiments and improvements which were made in his

form and organization before he was finished, the tail was removed as

an inconvenient appendage, and of the excrescence or superfluous part

which was then lopt off, the Woman was formed.

We are not bound to believe the Rabbis in every thing, the Doctor

would say; and yet it cannot be denied that they have preserved some

valuable traditions which ought to be regarded with much respect. And

then by a gentle inclination of the head—and a peculiar glance of the

eye, he let it be understood that this was one of those traditions

which were entitled to consideration. It was not impossible he said,

but that a different reading in the original text might support such

an interpretation: the same word in Hebrew frequently signified

different things, and rib and tail might in that language be as near

each other in sound or as easily miswritten by a hasty hand, or

misread by an inaccurate eye as _costa_ and _cauda_ in Latin. He did

not pretend that this was the case—but that it might be so. And by a

like corruption (for to such corruptions all written and even all

printed books are liable) the text may have represented that Eve was

taken from the side of her husband instead of from that part of the

back where the tail grew. The dropping of a syllable might occasion

it.

And this view of the question he said, derived strong support from

that well known and indubitable text wherein the Husband is called the

Head; for although that expression is in itself most clear and

significative in its own substantive meaning, it becomes still more

beautifully and emphatically appropriate when considered as referring

to this interpretation and tradition, and implying as a direct and

necessary converse that the Wife is the Tail.

There is another legend relating to a like but even less worthy

formation of the first helpmate, and this also is ascribed to the

Rabbis. According to this mythos the rib which had been taken from

Adam was for a moment laid down, and in that moment a monkey stole it

and ran off with it full speed. An Angel pursued, and though not in

league with the Monkey he could have been no good Angel; for

overtaking him, he caught him by the Tail, brought it maliciously back

instead of the Rib, and of that Tail, was Woman made. What became of

the Rib, with which the Monkey got clear off, “was never to mortal

known.”

However the Doctor admitted that on the whole the received opinion was

the more probable. And after making this admission he related an

anecdote of Lady Jekyll who was fond of puzzling herself and others

with such questions as had been common enough a generation before her,

in the days of the Athenian Oracle. She asked William Whiston of

berhymed name and eccentric memory, one day at her husband's table to

resolve a difficulty which occurred to her in the Mosaic account of

the creation. “Since it pleased God, Sir,” said she, “to create the

Woman out of the Man, why did he form her out of the rib rather than

any other part.” Whiston scratched his head and answered. “Indeed

Madam I do not know, unless it be that the rib is the most crooked

part of the body.” “There!” said her husband, “you have it now: I hope

you are satisfied!”

He had found in the writings of the Huguenot divine, Jean D'Espagne,

that Women have never had either the gift of tongues, or of miracle;

the latter gift according to this theologian being withheld from them

because it properly accompanies preaching, and women are forbidden to

be preachers. A reason for the former exception the Doctor supplied;

he said it was because one tongue was quite enough for them: and he

entirely agreed with the Frenchman that it must be so, because there

could have been no peace on earth had it been otherwise. But whether

the sex worked miracles or not, was a point which he left the

Catholics to contend. Female Saints there certainly had been,—“the

Lord,” as Daniel Rogers said, “had gifted and graced many women above

some men especially with holy affections; I know not,” says that

divine, “why he should do it else (for he is wise and not superfluous

in needless things) save that as a Pearl shining through a chrystal

glass, so her excellency shining through her weakness of sex, might

show the glory of the workman.” He quoted also what the biographer of

one of the St. Catharines says, “that such a woman ought not to be

called a woman, but rather an earthly Angel, or a heavenly homo: _hæc

fœmina, sed potius Angelus terrestris, vel si malueris, homo cælestis

dicenda erat, quam fœmina._” In like manner the Hungarians thinking it

infamous for a nation to be governed by a woman—and yet perceiving the

great advantage of preserving the succession, when the crown fell to a

female, they called her King Mary, instead of Queen.

And Queen Elizabeth rather than be accounted of the feminine gender,

claimed it as her prerogative to be of all three. “A prime officer

with a White Staff coming into her presence” she willed him to bestow

a place then vacant upon a person whom she named. “May it please your

Highness Madam,” said the Lord, “the disposal of that place pertaineth

to me by virtue of this White Staff.” “True,” replied the Queen, “yet

I never gave you your office so absolutely, but that I still reserved

myself of the _Quorum_.” “Of the _Quarum_, Madam,” returned the Lord,

presuming, somewhat too far, upon her favour.—Whereat she snatched the

staff in some anger out of his hand, and told him “he should

acknowledge her of the _Quorum, Quorum, Quorum_ before he had it

again.”

It was well known indeed to Philosophers, he said, that the female is

an imperfection or default in nature, whose constant design is to form

a male; but where strength and temperament are wanting—a defective

production is the result. Aristotle therefore calls Woman a Monster,

and Plato makes it a question whether she ought not to be ranked among

irrational creatures. There were Greek Philosophers, who (rightly in

his judgment) derived the name of _Ἀθηνῆ_ from _Θῆλυς_ and _alpha

privativa_, as implying that the Goddess of wisdom, though Goddess,

was nevertheless no female, having nothing of female imperfection. And

a book unjustly ascribed to the learned Acidalius was published in

Latin, and afterwards in French, to prove that women were not

reasonable creatures, but distinguished from men by this specific

difference, as well as in sex.

Mahomet too was not the only person who has supposed that women have

no souls. In this Christian and reformed country, the question was

propounded to the British Apollo whether there is now, or will be at

the resurrection any females in Heaven—since, says the questioner,

there seems to be no need of them there! The Society of Gentlemen who,

(in imitation of John Dunton, his brother-in-law the elder Wesley, and

their coadjutors,) had undertaken in this Journal to answer all

questions, returned a grave reply, that sexes being corporeal

distinctions there could be no such distinction among the souls which

are now in bliss; neither could it exist after the resurrection, for

they who partook of eternal life neither marry nor are given in

marriage.

That same Society supposed the Devil to be an Hermaphrodite, for

though by his roughness they said he might be thought of the masculine

gender, they were led to that opinion because he appeared so often in

petticoats.

CHAPTER CCVII.

FRACAS WITH THE GENDER FEMININE.—THE DOCTOR'S DEFENCE.

If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be—as they

are.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

“Papp-paah!” says my daughter.

“You intolerable man!” says my wife.

“You abominable creature!” says my wife's eldest sister, “you wicked

wretch!”

“Oh Mr. Author,” says Miss Graveairs, “I did not expect this from

you.”

“Very well, Sir, very well! This is like you!” says the Bow-Begum.

“Was there ever such an atrocious libel upon the sex,” says the Lady

President of the Celestial Blues.

The Ladies of the Stocking unanimously agree in the sentence of

condemnation.

Let me see, who do I know among them. There is Mrs. Lapis Lazuli and

her daughter Miss Ultramarine,—there is Mrs. Bluestone, the most

caustic of female critics, and her friend Miss Gentian,—Heaven protect

me from the bitterness of her remarks,—there is Lady Turquoise, Lady

Celestina Sky, the widow Bluebeard, Miss Mazarine, and that pretty

creature Serena Cerulean, it does me good to look at her, she is the

blue-bell of the party. There is Miss Sapphire, Miss Priscilla

Prussian, Mrs. Indigo, and the Widow Woad. And Heaven knows who

beside. Mercy on me—it were better to be detected at the mysteries of

the Bona Dea, than be found here! Hear them how they open in

succession—

Infamous!

Shameful!

Intolerable!

This is too bad.

He has heaped together all the slanderous and odious things that could

be collected from musty books.

Talk of his Wife and Daughter. I do not believe any one who had wife

and daughter would have composed such a Chapter as that. An old

batchelor I warrant him, and mustier than his books.

Pedant!

Satirist!

Libeller!

Wretch!

Monster!

And Miss Virginia Vinegar compleats the climax by exclaiming with

peculiar emphasis, Man!

All Indigo-land is in commotion; and Urgand the Unknown would be in as

much danger _proh-Jupiter!_ from the Stockingers, if he fell into

their hands, as Orpheus from the Mænades. _Tantæne animis cælestibus

iræ?_

Why Ladies! dear Ladies! good Ladies! gentle Ladies! merciful Ladies!

hear me,—hear me! In justice, in compassion, in charity hear me! For

your own sakes, and for the honour of feminality hear me!

What has the wretch to say?

What _can_ he say?

What indeed _can be said_? Nevertheless let us hear him, so bad a case

must always be made worse by any attempt at defending it.

Hear him! hear him!

Englishwomen, countrywomen, and lovelies,—lovelies I certainly may

call you, if it be not lawful for me to say lovers,—hear me for your

honour, and have respect to your honour that you may believe, censure

me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may be better

judges. Who is here so unfeminine that would be a male creature? if

any, speak; for her have I offended. Who is here so coarse that would

not be a woman! if any, speak; for her have I offended. Who is here so

vile that will not love her sex? if any speak; for her have I

offended. I can have offended none but those who are ashamed of their

womanhood, if any such there be, which I am far from thinking.

Gentle Ladies do you in your conscience believe that any reasonable

person could possibly think the worse of womankind, for any of the

strange and preposterous opinions which my lamented and excellent

friend used to repeat in the playfulness of an eccentric fancy? Do you

suppose that he was more in earnest when he brought forward these

learned fooleries, than the Devil's Advocate when pleading against a

suit for canonization in the Papal Court?

_questo negro inchiostro, ch'io dispenzo

Non fu per dare, o donne, a i vostri nasi,

Ingrato odore, o d'altro che d'incenzo._[1]

[Footnote 1: MAURO.]

Hear but to the end, and I promise you on the faith of a true man a

Red Letter Chapter in your praise; not a mere panegyric in the manner

of those who flatter while they despise you, but such an honest

estimate as will bear a scrutiny,—and which you will not like the

worse because it may perhaps be found profitable as well as pleasing.

Forgive me, sacred sex of woman, that,

In thought or syllable, I have declaim'd

Against your goodness; and I will redeem it

With such religious honouring your names,

That when I die, some never thought-stain'd virgin

Shall make a relic of my dust, and throw

My ashes, like a charm, upon those men

Whose faiths they hold suspected.[2]

[Footnote 2: SHIRLEY.]

CHAPTER CCVIII.

VALUE OF WOMEN AMONG THE AFGHAUNS.—LIGON'S HISTORY OF BARBADOES, AND A

FAVORITE STORY OF THE DOCTOR'S THEREFROM.—CLAUDE SEISSEL, AND THE

SALIC LAW.—JEWISH THANKSGIVING.—ETYMOLOGY OF MULIER, WOMAN, AND

LASS;—FROM WHICH IT MAY BE GUESSED HOW MUCH IS CONTAINED IN THE LIMBO

OF ETYMOLOGY.

If thy name were known that writest in this sort,

By womankind, unnaturally, giving evil report,

Whom all men ought, both young and old, defend with all their might,

Considering what they do deserve of every living wight,

I wish thou should exiled be from women more and less,

And not without just cause thou must thyself confess.

EDWARD MORE.

It would have pleased the Doctor when he was upon this topic if he had

known how exactly the value of women was fixed among the Afghauns, by

whose laws twelve young women are given as a compensation for the

slaughter of one man, six for cutting off a hand, an ear, or a nose;

three for breaking a tooth, and one for a wound of the scalp.

By the laws of the Venetians as well as of certain Oriental people,

the testimony of two women was made equivalent to that of one man. And

in those of the Welsh King Hywel Dda, or Howel Dha, “the satisfaction

for the murder of a woman, whether she be married or not, is half that

of her brother,” which is upon the same standard of relative value. By

the same laws a woman was not to be admitted as bail for a man, nor as

witness against him.

He knew that a French Antiquarian (Claude Seissel) had derived the

name of the Salic law from the Latin word _Sal, comme une loy pleine

de sel, c'est a dire pleine de sapience,_[1] and this the Doctor

thought a far more rational etymology than what some one proposed

either seriously or in sport, that the law was called _Salique_

because the words _Si aliquis_ and _Si aliqua_ were of such frequent

occurrence in it. “To be born a manchild,” says that learned author

who first composed an Art of Rhetoric in the English tongue, “declares

a courage, gravity and constancy. To be born a woman, declares

weakness of spirit, neshenes of body and fickleness of mind.”[2]

Justin Martyr, after saying that the Demons by whom according to him

the system of heathen mythology was composed, spake of Minerva as the

first Intelligence and the daughter of Jupiter, makes this

observation; “now this we consider most absurd, to carry about the

image of Intelligence in a female form!” The Father said this as

thinking with the great French comic poet that a woman never could be

any thing more than a woman.

_Car, voyez-vous, la femme est, comme on dit, mon maître,

Un certain animal difficile à connoître,

Et de qui la nature est fort encline au mal;

Et comme un animal est toujours animal.

Et ne sera jamais qu' animal, quand sa vie

Dureroit cent mille ans; aussi, sans repartie,

La femme est toujours femme, et jamais ne sera

Que femme, tant qu'entier le monde durera._

[Footnote 1: BRANTÔME.]

[Footnote 2: WILSON.]

A favourite anecdote with our Philosopher was of the Barbadoes

Planters, one of whom agreed to exchange an English maid servant with

the other for a bacon pig, weight for weight, four-pence per pound to

be paid for the overplus, if the balance should be in favour of the

pig, sixpence if it were on the Maid's side. But when they were

weighed in the scales, Honour who was “extreme fat, lazy and good for

nothing,” so far outweighed the pig, that the pig's owner repented of

his improvident bargain, and refused to stand to it. Such a case Ligon

observes, when he records this notable story, seldom happened; but the

Doctor cited it as shewing what had been the relative value of women

and pork in the West Indies. And observe, he would say, of white

women, English, Christian women,—not of poor heathen blacks, who are

considered as brutes, bought and sold like brutes, worked like

brutes—and treated worse than any Government ought to permit even

brutes to be treated.

However, that women were in some respects better than men, he did not

deny. He doubted not but that Cannibals thought them so; for we know

by the testimony of such Cannibals as happen to have tried both, that

white men are considered better meat than negroes, and Englishmen than

Frenchmen, and there could be little doubt that for the same reason,

women would be preferred to men. Yet this was not the case with

animals, as was proved by buck venison, ox beef, and wether mutton.

The tallow of the female goat would not make as good candles as that

of the male. Nature takes more pains in elaborating her nobler work;

and that the male, as being the nobler, was that which Nature finished

with greatest care must be evident, he thought, to any one who called

to mind the difference between cock and hen birds, a difference

discoverable even in the egg, the larger and finer eggs with a denser

white, and a richer yolk, containing male chicks. Other and more

curious observations had been made tending to the same conclusion, but

he omitted them, as not perhaps suited for general conversation, and

not exactly capable of the same degree of proof. It was enough to hint

at them.

The great Ambrose Parey (the John Hunter and the Baron Larrey of the

sixteenth century) has brought forward many instances wherein women

have been changed into men, instances which are not fabulous: but he

observes, “you shall find in no history, men that have degenerated

into women; for nature always intends and goes from the imperfect to

the more perfect, but never basely from the more perfect to the

imperfect.” It was a rule in the Roman law, that when husband and wife

overtaken by some common calamity perished at the same time, and it

could not be ascertained which had lived the longest, the woman should

be presumed to have expired the first, as being by nature the

feeblest. And for the same reason if it had not been noted whether

brother or sister being twins came first in the world, the legal

conclusion was that the boy being the stronger was the first born.

And from all these facts he thought the writer must be a judicious

person who published a poem entitled the Great Birth of Man, or

Excellence of his creation over Woman.

Therefore according to the Bramins, the widow who burns herself with

the body of her husband, will in her next state be born a male; but

the widow, who refuses to make this self sacrifice, will never be any

thing better than a woman, let her be born again as often as she may.

Therefore it is that the Jew at this day begins his public prayer with

a thanksgiving to his Maker, for not having made him a woman;—an

escape for which the Greek philosopher was thankful. One of the things

which shocked a Moor who visited England was to see dogs, women, and

dirty shoes permitted to enter a place of worship, the Mahometans, as

is well known, excluding all three from their Mosques. Not that all

Mahometans believe that women have no souls. There are some who think

it more probable they have, and these more liberal Mussulmen hold that

there is a separate Paradise for them, because they say, if the women

were admitted into the Men's Paradise, it would cease to be

Paradise,—there would be an end of all peace there. It was probably

the same reason which induced Origen to advance an opinion that after

the day of Judgment women will be turned into men. The opinion has

been condemned among his heresies; but the Doctor maintained that it

was a reasonable one, and almost demonstrable upon the supposition

that we are all to be progressive in a future state. There was,

however, he said, according to the Jews a peculiar privilege and

happiness reserved for them, that is for all those of their chosen

nation, during the temporal reign of the Messiah, for every Jewish

woman is then to lie in every day!

“I never,” says Bishop Reynolds, “read of more dangerous falls in the

Saints than were Adam's, Sampson's, David's, Solomon's, and Peter's;

and behold in all these, either the first enticers, or the first

occasioners, are women. A weak creature may be a strong tempter:

nothing too impotent or useless for the Devil's service.” Fuller,

among his Good Thoughts has this paragraph:—“I find the natural

Philosopher making a character of the Lion's disposition, amongst

other his qualities, reporteth, first, that the Lion feedeth on men,

and afterwards (if forced with extremity of hunger) on women. Satan is

a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour. Only he inverts the method

and in his bill of fare takes the second first. Ever since he

over-tempted our grandmother Eve, encouraged with success he hath

preyed first on the weaker sex.”

“Sit not in the midst of women,” saith the son of Sirach in his

Wisdom, “for from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness.”

“Behold, this have I found, saith the Preacher, counting one by one to

find out the account; which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one

man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I

not found.”

“It is a bad thing,” said St. Augustine, “to look upon a woman, a

worse to speak to her, and to touch her is worst of all.” John Bunyan

admired the wisdom of God for making him shy of the sex, and boasted

that it was a rare thing to see him “carry it pleasant towards a

woman.” “The common salutation of women,” said he, “I abhor, their

company alone I cannot away with!” John, the great Tinker, thought

with the son of Sirach, that “better is the churlishness of a man,

than a courteous woman, a woman which bringeth shame and reproach.”

And Menu the law-giver of the Hindoos hath written that “it is the

nature of women in this world to cause the seduction of men.” And John

Moody in the play, says, “I ha' seen a little of them, and I find that

the best, when she's minded, won't ha' much goodness to spare.” A wife

has been called a daily calamity, and they who thought least

unfavourably of the sex have pronounced it a necessary evil.

“_Mulier_, quasi _mollior_,” saith Varro;[3] a derivation upon which

Dr. Featley thus commenteth: “Women take their name in Latin from

tenderness or softness, because they are usually of a softer temper

than men, and much more subject to passions, especially of fear,

grief, love and longing; their fear is almost perpetual, their grief

immoderate, their love ardent, and their longing most vehement. They

are the weaker vessels, not only weaker in body than men, and less

able to resist violence, but also weaker in mind and less able to hold

out in temptations; and therefore the Devil first set upon the woman

as conceiving it a matter of more facility to supplant her than the

man.” And they are such dissemblers, says the Poet,

as if their mother had been made

Only of all the falsehood of the man,

Disposed into that rib.

[Footnote 3: The Soothsayer in Cymbeline was of a like opinion with

Varro!

The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter,

Which we call _mollis aer_; and _mollis aer_

We term it _mulier_.

Southey's favorite play upon the stage was Cymbeline, and next to it,

As you like it.]

“Look indeed at the very name,” said the Doctor, putting on his

gravest look of provocation to the ladies.—“Look at the very

name—_Woman_, evidently meaning either _man's woe_—or abbreviated from

_woe to man_, because by woman was woe brought into the world.”

And when a girl is called a lass, who does not perceive how that

common word must have arisen? Who does not see that it may be directly

traced to a mournful interjection, _alas!_ breathed sorrowfully forth

at the thought the girl, the lovely and innocent creature upon whom

the beholder has fixed his meditative eye, would in time become a

woman,—a woe to man!

There are other tongues in which the name is not less significant. The

two most notoriously obstinate things in the world are a mule and a

pig. Now there is one language in which _pige_ means a young woman:

and another in which woman is denoted by the word _mulier_: which

word, whatever grammarians may pretend, is plainly a comparative,

applied exclusively and with peculiar force to denote the only

creature in nature which is more mulish than a mule. _Comment_, says a

Frenchman, _pourroit-on aymer les_ Dames, _puis qu'elles se nomment

ainsi du_ dam _et_ dommage _qu'elles apportent aux hommes!_[4]

[Footnote 4: BOUCHET.]

INTERCHAPTER XXIV.

A TRUE STORY OF THE TERRIBLE KNITTERS E' DENT WHICH WILL BE READ WITH

INTEREST BY HUMANE MANUFACTURERS, AND BY MASTERS OF SPINNING JENNIES

WITH A SMILE.—BETTY YEWDALE.—THE EXCURSION—AN EXTRACT FROM, AND AN

ILLUSTRATION OF.

_O voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani,

Mirate la dottrina, che s' asconde

Sotto 'l velame degli versi strani._

DANTE.

“It was about six an' fifty year sen, in June, when a woman cam fra'

Dent at see a Nebbor of ours e' Langdon.[1] They er terrible knitters

e' Dent[2]—sea my Fadder an' Mudder sent me an' my lile Sister, Sally,

back we' her at larn at knit. I was between sebben an' eight year

auld, an' Sally twea year younger—T' Woman reade on ya Horse, we Sally

afore her—an I on anudder, we a man walking beside me—whiles he gat up

behint an' reade—Ee' them Days Fwoak dud'nt gang e' Carts—but Carts er

t'best—I'd rader ride e' yan than e' onny Carriage—I us't at think if

I was t' Leady, here at t' Ho,'[3] how I wad tear about int'

rwoads—but sen I hae ridden in a Chaise I hate t' nwotion ont' warst

of ought—for t' Trees gang fleeing by o' ya side, an t' Wa' as[4] on

tudder, an' gars yan be as seek as a peeate.

[Footnote 1: The valley of Langdale, near Ambleside. The Langdale

Pikes are known to all tourists.]

[Footnote 2: Dent is a chapelry in the Parish and Union of Sedbergh,

W. Division of the wapentake of Staincliffe and Ewcross, W. Riding of

the County of York, sixteen miles E. from Kendal.—_Lewis's Topog.

Dict._]

[Footnote 3: i.e. At the Hall.]

[Footnote 4: Wa' as, i.e. Walls, as in p. 86.]

“Weel, we dud'nt like Dent at a—' nut that they wer bad tull us—but

ther way o' leeving—it was round Meal—an' they _stoult_ it int' frying

pan, e' keaeks as thick as my fing-er.—Then we wer _stawed_[5] we' sae

mickle knitting—We went to a _Skeul_ about a mile off—ther was a

Maister an' Mistress—they larnt us our Lessons, yan a piece—an' then

we knit as hard as we cud drive, striving whilk cud knit t' hardest

yan again anudder—we hed our _Darracks_[6] set afore we com fra' Heam

int' mwornin; an' if we dud'nt git them duun we warrant to gang to our

dinners—They hed o' macks o' contrivances to larn us to knit swift—T'

Maister wad wind 3 or 4 clues togedder, for 3 or 4 Bairns to knitt

off—_that'_ at knit slawest raffled tudders yarn, an' than she gat

weel thumpt (but ther was baith Lasses an' Lads 'at learnt at

knit)—Than we ust at sing a mack of a sang, whilk we wer at git at

t'end on at every needle, ca'ing ower t' Neams of o' t' fwoak in t'

Deaal—but Sally an me wad never ca' _Dent_ Fwoak—sea we ca'ed Langdon

Fwoak—T' Sang was—

Sally an' I, Sally an' I,

For a good pudding pye,

Taa hoaf wheat, an' tudder hoaf rye,

Sally an' I, for a good pudding pye.

We sang this (altering t' neams) at every needle: and when we com at

t' end cried ‘off’ an' began again an' sea we strave on o' t' day

through.

[Footnote 5: i.e. cloyed, saturated, fatigued. BROCKETT'S Glossary of

North Country words.]

[Footnote 6: i.e. _Days-works_. So the Derwent is called the Darron.]

“We wer _stawed_, as I telt yea—o' t' pleser we hed was when we went

out a bit to beat t' fire for a nebbor 'at was baking—that was a grand

day for us!—At Kursmas teea, ther was t' maskers—an' on Kursmas day at

mworn they gav' us sum reed stuff to' t' Breakfast—I think it maun ha'

been Jocklat—but we dud'nt like 't at a', 't ommost puzzened us!—an'

we cared for nought but how we wer to git back to Langdon—Neet an' Day

ther was nought but _this_ knitting! T' Nebbors ust at gang about fra'

house to house, we' ther wark,—than yan fire dud, ye knaw, an' they

cud hev a better—they hed girt lang black peeats—an' set them up an

hed in a girt round we' a whol at top—an a' t' Fwoak sat about it.

When ony o' them gat into a hubble we' ther wark, they shouted out

‘_turn a Peeat_’—an' _them'_ at sat naarest t' fire turnt yan, an'

meaad a _low_[7]—for they nivver hed onny cannal.—We knat quorse

wosset stockings—some gloves—an' some neet caps, an' wastecwoat

breests, an' petticwoats. I yance knat a stocking, for mysell, e' six

hours—Sally yan e' sebben—an' t'woman's Doughter, 'at was aulder than

us e' eight—an' they sent a nwote to our Fwoak e' Langdon at tell

them.

[Footnote 7: i.e. _a flame_; it is an Icelandic word. See Haldorson's

Lexicon. _At loga, ardere_ and _Loga, flamma_. So in St. George for

England,

As timorous larks amazed are

With light, and with a _low_-bell.]

“Sally an' me, when we wer by our sells, wer always contrivin how we

wer at git away, when we sleept by oursells we talk't of nought

else—but when t' woman's Doughter sleept we' us we wer _qwhite_

mum—summat or udder always happent at hinder us, till yan day, between

Kursmas an' Cannalmas, when t' woman's Doughter stait at heaam, we

teuk off. Our house was four mile on 'todder side o' Dent's Town—whor,

efter we hed pass t' Skeul, we axed t'way to Kendal—It hed been a hard

frost, an' ther was snaw on t' grund—but it was beginnin to thow, an'

was varra sloshy an' cauld—but we _poted_ alang leaving our lile

footings behint us—we hed our cloggs on—for we durst'nt change them

for our shoon for fear o' being fund out—an' we had nought on but our

hats, an' bits o' blue bedgowns, an' brats—sea ye may think we cuddent

be varra heeat—I hed a sixpence e' my pocket, an' we hed three or four

shilling mare in our box, 'at our Fwoak hed ge'en us to keep our

pocket we'—but, lile mafflins[8] as we wer, we thought it wad be misst

an' durst'nt tak ony mare.

[Footnote 8: _Maffling_—_a state of perplexity_.—BROCKETT. Maffled,

mazed, and maisled (as used a little further on) have all a like

sense.]

“Afore we gat to Sebber[9] we fell hungry; an' ther was a fine, girt,

reed house nut far off t' rwoad, whar we went an' begged for a bit o'

breead—but they wadd'nt give us ought—sea we trampt on, an com to a

lile theakt house, an' I said—‘Sally thou sall beg t' neesht—thou's

less than me, an mappen they'll sarra us’—an' they dud—an' gav us a

girt shive[10] o' breead—at last we gat to _Scotch Jins_, as they ca'

t' public House about three mile fra Sebber (o' this side) a Scotch

woman keept it.—It was amaist dark, sea we axt her at let us stay o'

neet—she teuk us in, an' gav us sum boilt milk and breead—an' suun put

us to bed—we telt her our taael; an' she sed we wer int' reet at run

away.

[Footnote 9: i.e. Sedbergh.]

[Footnote 10: i.e. a slice. So in Titus Andronicus.

“Easy it is

Of a cut loaf to steal a _shive_ we know.”]

“Neesht mwornin she gav us sum mare milk an' breead, an' we gav her

our sixpence—an' then went off-sledding away amangt' snaw, ower that

cauld moor (ye ken' 't weel enough) naarly starved to deeath, an'

maisled—sea we gat on varra slawly, as ye may think—an' 't rain'd tua.

We begged again at anudder lile theakt house, on t' Hay Fell—there was

a woman an' a heap of raggeltly Bairns stannin round a Teable—an' she

gave us a few of their poddish, an' put a lock of sugar into a sup of

cauld tea tull them.

“Then we trailed on again till we com to t' Peeat Lane Turnpike

Yat—they teuk us in there, an' let us warm oursells, an' gav us a bit

o' breead. They sed had duun re'et to com away; for Dent was t'

poorest plaace in t' warld, and we wer seafe to ha' been hungert—an'

at last we gat to Kendal, when 't was naar dark—as we went up t'

streat we met a woman, an' axt t' way to Tom Posts—(_that_ was t' man

at ust te bring t' Letters fra' Kendal to Ammelsid an' Hawksheead

yance a week—an' baited at his house when we com fra' Langdon) she

telt us t' way an' we creept on, but we leaked back at her twea or

three times—an' she was still stanning, leuking at us—then she com

back an' _quiesed_ us a deal, an' sed we sud gang heam with her—We

telt her whor we hed cum fra' an' o' about our Tramp 'at we hed

hed.—She teuk us to her house—it was a varra poor yan—down beside t'

brig at we had cum ower into t' Town—Ther was nea fire on—but she went

out, an' brought in sam _eilding_[11] (for they can buy a pennerth, or

sea, o' quols or Peeats at onny time there) an' she set on a good

fire—an' put on t' kettle—then laited[12] up sum of her awn claes, an'

tiet them on us as weel as she cud, an' dried ours—for they wer as wet

as thack—it hed rained a' t' way—Then she meead us sum tea—an' as she

hedden't a bed for us in her awn house she teuk us to a nebbors—Ther

was an aud woman in a Bed naar us that flaed us sadly—for she teuk a

fit int' neet an' her feace turnt as black as a cwol—we laid

trimmiling, an' hutched oursells ower heead e' bed—Fwoks com an' steud

round her—an' we heeard them say 'at we wer asleep—sea we meade as if

we wer asleep, because we thought if we wer asleep they waddn't kill

us—an' we wisht oursells e' t' streets again, or onny whor—an' wad ha'

been fain to ha' been ligging under a Dyke.

[Footnote 11: _Fire-elding_,—the common term for fuel. _Ild_ in Danish

is _fire_. Such words were to be expected in Cumberland. The

commencement of Landor's lines to Southey, 1833, will explain why—

Indweller of a peaceful vale,

Ravaged erewhile by white-hair'd Dane, &c.]

[Footnote 12: To _late_ or _leat_ is to seek out. See BROCKETT. It is

from the Icelandic _at leyta_, quærere. Cf. Haldorson in V.]

“Neesht mwornin we hed our Brekfast, an' t' woman gav us baith a

hopenny Keack beside (that was as big as a penny 'an now) to eat as we

went—an' she set us to t' top o' t' House o' Correction Hill—It was

freezing again, an' t' rwoad was terrible slape; sea we gat on varra

badly—an' afore we com to Staavley (an' that was but a lile bit o' t'

rwoad) we fell hung'ry an' began on our keacks—then we sed we wad walk

sea far, an' then tak a bite—an' then on again an' tak anudder—and

afore we gat to t' Ings Chapel they wer o' gane—Every now an' than we

stopped at reest—an' sat down, an' grat,[13] under a hedge or wa'a

crudled up togedder, taking haud o' yan anudders hands at try at warm

them, for we were fairly maizled wi' t' cauld—an' when we saw onny

body cumming we gat up an' walked away—but we duddn't meet monny

Fwoak—I dunnat think Fwoak warr sea mickle in t' rwoads e' them Days.

[Footnote 13: i.e. wept, from the old word _greet_, common to all the

Northern languages. Chaucer, Spenser, &c., use it. See Specimen

Glossarii in Edda Sæmundar hinns Froda V. _Grætr, ploratus, at græta,

plorare,_ Hence _grief_ &c.]

“We scraffled[14] on t' this fashion—an' it was quite dark afore we

gat to Ammelsid Yat—our feet warr sare an' we warr naarly dune for—an'

when we turnt round Windermer Watter heead, T' waves blasht sea

dowly[15] that we _warr_ fairly heart-brossen—we sat down on a cauld

steane an' grat sare—but when we hed hed our belly-full o' greeting we

gat up, an feelt better[16] fort' an' sea dreed on again—slaw enough

ye may be sure—but we warr e' _kent_ rwoads—an' now when I gang that

gait I can nwote o' t' spots whor we reested—for them lile bye lwoans

erent sea micklealtert, as t' girt rwoads, fra what they warr. At

Clappers-gait t' Fwoak wad ha' knawn us, if it heddent been dark, an'

o' ther duirs steeked,[17] an geen us a relief, if we hed begged

there—but we began at be flate[18] 'at my Fadder an' Mudder wad be

angert at us for running away.

[Footnote 14: i.e. struggled on. BROCKETT in V.]

[Footnote 15: i.e. lonely, melancholy. _Ibid._]

[Footnote 16: The scholar will call to mind the _ὀλοοῖο τεταρπώμεσθα

γόοιο_ of the Iliad, xxiii. 98., with like expressions in the Odyssey,

e.g. xi. 211, xix. 213, and the reader of the Pseudo Ossian will

remember the words of Fingal. “Strike the harp in my hall, and let

Fingal hear the song. _Pleasant is the joy of grief._”]

[Footnote 17: “Steek the heck,”—i.e. shut the door. BROCKETT.]

[Footnote 18: From the verb “Flay” to _frighten_.]

“It was twea o'clock int' mworning when we gat to our awn Duir—I c'aed

out Fadder! Fadder!—Mudder! Mudder! ower an' ower again—She hard us,

an' sed—‘That's our Betty's voice’—‘Thou's nought but fancies, lig

still,’ said my Fadder—but she waddent; an' sea gat up, an' opent'

Duir and there warr we stanning doddering[19]—an' daized we' cauld, as

deer deead as macks nea matter—When she so us she was mare flate than

we—She brast out a crying—an' we grat—an my Fadder grat an' a'—an'

they duddent flight,[20] nor said nought tull us, for cumming

away,—they warrant a bit angert—an' my Fadder sed we sud nivver gang

back again.

[Footnote 19: We still speak of _Dodder_ or _Quaker's_ grass,—a word

by the way, older than the Sect.]

[Footnote 20: A. S. _Flitan_—to scold.]

“T' Fwoaks e' Dent nivver mist us, tilt' Neet—because they thought 'at

we hed been keept at dinner time 'at finish our tasks—but when neet

com, an' we duddent cum heam, they set off efter us to Kendal—an' mun

ha' gane by Scotch Jins when we warr there—how they satisfied

thersells I knan't, but they suppwosed we hed gane heam—and sea they

went back—My Fadder wasn't lang, ye may be seur, o' finding out' T'

Woman at Kendal 'at was sea good tull us—an' my Mudder put her doun a

pot o' Butter, an' meead her a lile cheese an' sent her.”

INTERPOLATION.

The above affecting and very simple story, Reader, was taken down from

the mouth of Betty Yewdale herself, the elder of the two children,—at

that time an old woman, but with a bright black eye that lacked no

lustre. A shrewd and masculine woman, Reader, was Betty Yewdale,—fond

of the Nicotian weed and a short pipe so as to have the full flavour

of its essence,—somewhat, sooth be said, too fond of it, for the

pressure of the pipe produced a cancer in her mouth, which caused her

death.—Knowest thou, gentle Reader, that most curious of all curious

books—(we stop not to inquire whether Scarron be indebted to it, or it

to Scarron)—the Anatomy of Melancholy by Democritus Junior, old Burton

to wit?—Curious if thou art, it cannot fail, but that thou knowest it

well,—curious or not, hear what he says of Tobacco, poor Betty

Yewdale's bane!

“Tobacco, divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco, which goes far beyond

all their panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a

sovereign remedy to all diseases. A good vomit, I confesse, a vertuous

herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally

used; but, as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as

tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods,

lands, health, hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruine and

overthrow of body and soul.”

Gentle Reader! if thou knowest not the pages of honest old Burton—we

speak not of his melancholy end, which melancholy may have wrought,

but of his honesty of purpose, and of his life,—thou wilt not be

unacquainted with that excellent Poem of Wordsworth's,—“The Excursion,

being a Portion of the Recluse.”—_If any know not the wisdom contained

in it, forthwith let them study it!_—Acquainted with it or not, it is

Betty Yewdale that is described in the following lines, as holding the

lanthorn to guide the steps of old Jonathan, her husband, on his

return from working in the quarries, if at any time he chanced to be

beyond his usual hour. They are given at length;—for who will not be

pleased to read them _decies repetita_?

Much was I pleased, the grey-haired wanderer said,

When to those shining fields our notice first

You turned; and yet more pleased have from your lips,

Gathered this fair report of them who dwell

In that Retirement; whither, by such course

Of evil hap and good as oft awaits

A lone wayfaring Man, I once was brought.

Dark on my road the autumnal evening fell

While I was traversing yon mountain pass,

And night succeeded with unusual gloom;

So that my feet and hands at length became

Guides better than mine eyes—until a light

High in the gloom appeared, too high, methought,

For human habitation, but I longed

To reach it destitute of other hope.

I looked with steadiness as sailors look,

On the north-star, or watch-tower's distant lamp,

And saw the light—now fixed—and shifting now—

Not like a dancing meteor; but in line

Of never varying motion, to and fro.

It is no night fire of the naked hills,

Thought I, some friendly covert must be near.

With this persuasion thitherward my steps

I turn, and reach at last the guiding light;

Joy to myself! but to the heart of Her

Who there was standing on the open hill,

(The same kind Matron whom your tongue hath praised)

Alarm and disappointment! The alarm

Ceased, when she learned through what mishap I came,

And by what help had gained those distant fields.

Drawn from her Cottage, on that open height,

Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood

Or paced the ground,—to guide her husband home,

By that unwearied signal, kenned afar;

An anxious duty! which the lofty Site

Traversed but by a few irregular paths,

Imposes, whensoe'er untoward chance

Detains him after his accustomed hour

When night lies black upon the hills. ‘But come,

Come,’ said the Matron,—‘to our poor abode;

Those dark rocks hide it!’ Entering, I beheld

A blazing fire—beside a cleanly hearth

Sate down; and to her office, with leave asked,

The Dame returned.—Or ere that glowing pile

Of mountain turf required the builder's hand

Its wasted splendour to repair, the door

Opened, and she re-entered with glad looks,

Her Helpmate following. Hospitable fare,

Frank conversation, make the evening's treat:

Need a bewildered Traveller wish for more?

But more was given; I studied as we sate

By the bright fire, the good Man's face—composed

Of features elegant; an open brow

Of undisturbed humanity; a cheek

Suffused with something of a feminine hue;

Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard;

But in the quicker turns of his discourse,

Expression slowly varying, that evinced

A tardy apprehension. From a fount

Lost, thought I, in the obscurities of time,

But honour'd once, those features and that mien

May have descended, though I see them here,

In such a Man, so gentle and subdued,

Withal so graceful in his gentleness,

A race illustrious for heroic deeds,

Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.

This pleasing fancy (cherished and upheld

By sundry recollections of such fall

From high to low, ascent from low to high,

As books record, and even the careless mind

Cannot but notice among men and things,)

Went with me to the place of my repose.

BOOK V. THE PASTOR.

* * * * *

[Miss Sarah Hutchinson, Mrs. Wordsworth's sister, and Mrs. Warter took

down the story from the old woman's lips and Southey laid it by for

the Doctor, &c. She then lived in a cottage at Rydal, where I

afterwards saw her. Of the old man it was told me—(for I did not see

him)——“He is a perfect picture,—like those we meet with in the better

copies of Saints in our old Prayer Books.”

There was another comical History intended for an Interchapter to the

Doctor, &c. of a runaway match to Gretna Green by two people in humble

life,—but it was not handed over to me with the MS. materials. It was

taken down from the mouth of the old woman who was one of the

parties—and it would probably date back some sixty or seventy years.]

CHAPTER CCIX.

EARLY APPROXIMATION TO THE DOCTOR'S THEORY.—GEORGE FOX.—ZACHARIAH BEN

MOHAMMED.—COWPER.—INSTITUTES OF MENU.—BARDIC PHILOSOPHY. MILTON.—SIR

THOMAS BROWNE.

There are distinct degrees of Being as there are degrees of Sound; and

the whole world is but as it were a greater Gamut, or scale of music.

NORRIS.

Certain theologians, and certain theosophists, as men who fancy

themselves inspired sometimes affect to be called, had approached so

nearly to the Doctor's hypothesis of progressive life, and

propensities continued in the ascending scale, that he appealed to

them as authorities for its support. They saw the truth, he said, as

far as they went; but it was only to a certain point: a step farther

and the beautiful theory would have opened upon them. “How can we

choose, said one, but remember the mercy of God in this our land in

this particular, that no ravenous dangerous beasts do range in our

nation, if men themselves would not be wolves and bears and lions one

to another!” And why are they so, observed the Doctor commenting upon

the words of the old Divine; why are they so, but because they have

actually been lions and bears and wolves? why are they so, but

because, as the wise heathen speaks, more truly than he was conscious

of speaking, _sub hominum effigie latet ferinus animus_. The temper is

congenital, the propensity innate; it is bred in the bone; and what

Theologians call the old Adam, or the old Man, should physiologically,

and perhaps therefore preferably, be called the old Beast.

That wise and good man William Jones of Nayland has in his sermon upon

the nature and œconomy of Beasts and Cattle, a passage which in

elucidating a remarkable part of the Law of Moses, may serve also as a

glose or commentary upon the Doctor's theory.

“The Law of _Moses_, in the xith chapter of _Leviticus_, divides the

brute creation into two grand parties, from the fashion of their feet,

and their manner of feeding, that is, from the _parting of the hoof_,

and the _chewing of the cud_; which properties are indications of

their general characters, as _wild_ or _tame_. For the dividing of the

hoof and the chewing of the cud are peculiar to those cattle which are

serviceable to man's life, as sheep, oxen, goats, deer, and their

several kinds. These are shod by the Creator for a peaceable and

inoffensive progress through life; as the Scripture exhorts us to be

_shod_ in like manner _with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace_.

They live temperately upon herbage, the diet of students and saints;

and after the taking of their food, chew it deliberately over again

for better digestion; in which act they have all the appearance a

brute can assume of pensiveness or meditation; which is,

metaphorically, called _rumination_,[1] with reference to this

property of certain animals.

[Footnote 1: Pallentes _ruminat_ herbas.—VIRGIL.

Dum jacet, et lentè revocatas _ruminat_ herbas.—OVID.

It were hardly necessary to recal to an English reader's recollection

the words of Brutus to Cassius,

Till then, my noble friend, _chew_ upon this,—JULIUS CÆSAR.

or those of Agrippa in Antony and Cleopatra,

Pardon what I have spoke;

For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,

By duty _ruminated_.]

“Such are these: but when we compare the beasts of the field and the

forest, they, instead of the harmless hoof, have feet which are _swift

to shed blood_, (Rom. iii. 15.) sharp claws to seize upon their prey,

and teeth to devour it; such as lions, tygers, leopards, wolves,

foxes, and smaller vermin.

“Where one of the Mosaic marks is found, and the other is wanting,

such creatures are of a middle character between the wild and the

tame; as the swine, the hare, and some others. Those that part the

hoof afford us wholesome nourishment; those that are shod with any

kind of hoof may be made useful to man; as the camel, the horse, the

ass, the mule; all of which are fit to travel and carry burdens. But

when the foot is divided into many parts, and armed with claws, there

is but small hope of the manners; such creatures being in general

either murderers, or hunters, or thieves; the malefactors and felons

of the brute creation: though among the wild there are all the

possible gradations of ferocity and evil temper.

“Who can review the creatures of God, as they arrange themselves under

the two great denominations of wild and tame, without wondering at

their different dispositions and ways of life! sheep and oxen lead a

sociable as well as a peaceful life; they are formed into flocks and

herds; and as they live honestly they walk openly in the day. The time

of darkness is to them, as to the virtuous and sober amongst men, a

time of rest. But the beast of prey goeth about in solitude; the time

of darkness is to him the time of action; then he visits the folds of

sheep, and stalls of oxen, thirsting for their blood; as the thief and

the murderer visits the habitations of men, for an opportunity of

robbing, and destroying, under the concealment of the night. When the

sun ariseth the beast of prey retires to the covert of the forest; and

while the cattle are spreading themselves over a thousand hills in

search of pasture, the tyrant of the desert is laying himself down in

his den, to sleep off the fumes of his bloody meal. The ways of men

are not less different than the ways of beasts; and here we may see

them represented as on a glass; for, as the quietness of the pasture,

in which the cattle spend their day, is to the howlings of a

wilderness at night, such is the virtuous life of honest labour to the

life of the thief, the oppressor, the murderer, and the midnight

gamester, who live upon the losses and sufferings of other men.”

But how would the Doctor have delighted in the first Lesson of that

excellent man's Book of Nature,—a book more likely to be useful than

any other that has yet been written with the same good intent.

THE BEASTS.

“The ass hath very long ears, and yet he hath no sense of music, but

brayeth with a frightful noise. He is obstinate and unruly, and will

go his own way, even though he is severely beaten. The child, who will

not be taught, is but little better; he has no delight in learning,

but talketh of his own folly, and disturbeth others with his noise.

“The dog barketh all the night long, and thinks it no trouble to rob

honest people of their rest.

“The fox is a cunning thief, and men, when they do not fear God, are

crafty and deceitful. The wolf is cruel and blood-thirsty. As he

devoureth the lamb, so do bad men oppress and tear the innocent and

helpless.