This is an example of purely imaginative love. But before we proceed

with that subject, the remainder of Sir John Sinclair's story must be

given. Some years afterward he passed some days at Duneira in

Perthshire, with the late Lord Melville, and in the course of

conversation told him this anecdote of Mr. Windham. Upon which Lord

Melville said, “I am more interested in that matter than you imagine.

You must know that I was riding down from Blair to Dunkeld in company

with some friend, and we called at Baron Maclaren's, where a most

beautiful young woman desired to speak with me. We went accordingly to

the bank of a river near her father's house, when she said, ‘Mr.

Dundas, I hear that you are a very great man, and what is much better,

a very good man, I will venture therefore to tell you a secret. There

is a young man in this neighbourhood who has a strong attachment to

me, and to confess the truth, I have a great regard for him. His name

is William Dick; he has been bred to the medical profession; and he

says, that if he could get to be a surgeon in the East Indies, he

could soon make his fortune there, and would send for me to marry him.

Now I apply to you, Mr. Dundas, as a great and good man, in hopes that

you can do something for us: and be assured that we shall be for ever

grateful, if you will procure him an appointment.’”

Mr. Dundas was so much struck with the impressive manner of her

address, that he took her by the hand and said, “my good girl, be

assured that if an opportunity offers, I shall not forget your

application.” The promise was not forgotten. It was not long before an

East India Director with whom he was dining, told him that he had then

at his disposal an appointment of surgeon in the East India Company's

service, and offered it to him for any one whom he would wish to serve

in that line. Dundas immediately related his adventure, much to the

amusement of the Director. Mr. Dick obtained the appointment, and was

soon able to send for his betrothed. She had several offers in the

course of the voyage and after her arrival, but she refused to listen

to any one. Her husband attained to great eminence in his profession,

made a handsome fortune, came home and purchased an estate in the

neighbourhood where he was born.

There is no man among those who in that generation figured in public

life, of whom a story like this could be so readily believed as of

Windham. He was one whose endowments and accomplishments would have

recommended him at the Court of Elizabeth,—and whose speeches, when he

did not abase himself to the level of his hearers, might have

commanded attention in the days of Charles I.

* * * * *

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.

The reader must not expect that we have done with our beards yet;

shaving, as he no doubt knows but too well, is one of those things at

which we may cut and come again, and in the present Chapter

To shave, or not to shave, that is the question;

a matter which, hath not hitherto been fully considered. The question

as relates to the expenditure of time, has been, profitably I trust,

disposed of; and that of its effect upon health has been, as Members

of Parliament say, poo-pooh'd. But the propriety of the practice is

yet to be investigated upon other grounds.

Van Helmont tells us that Adam was created without a beard, but that

after he had fallen and sinned, because of the sinful propensities

which he derived from the fruit of the forbidden Tree, a beard was

made part of his punishment and disgrace, bringing him thus into

nearer resemblance with the beasts towards whom he had made his nature

approximate; “_ut multorum quadrupedum compar, socius et similis

esset, eorundem signaturam præ se ferret, quorum more ut salax, ita et

vultum pilis hirtum ostenderet._” The same stigma was not inflicted

upon Eve, because even in the fall she retained much of her original

modesty, and therefore deserved no such opprobrious mark.

Van Helmont observes also that no good Angel ever appears with a

beard, and this, he says, is a capital sign by which Angels may be

distinguished,—a matter of great importance to those who are in the

habit of seeing them. “_Si apparuerit barbatus Angelus, malus esto.

Eudæmon enim nunquam barbatus apparuit, memor casus ob quem viro barba

succrevit._” He marvelled therefore that men should suppose the beard

was given them for an ornament, when Angels abhor it, and when they

see that they have it in common with he-goats. There must be something

in his remark; for take the most beautiful Angel that ever Painter

designed, or Engraver copied, put him on a beard, and the celestial

character will be so entirely destroyed, that the simple appendage of

a tail will cacodemonize the Eudæmon.

This being the belief of Van Helmont, who declares that he had

profited more by reveries and visions than by study, though he had

studied much and deeply, ought he, in conformity to his own belief, to

have shaved, or not? Much might be alleged on either side: for to wear

the beard might seem in a person so persuaded, a visible sign of

submission to the Almighty will, in thus openly bearing the badge of

punishment, the mark of human degradation which the Almighty has been

pleased to appoint: but, on the other hand, a shaven face might seem

with equal propriety, and in like manner denote, a determination in

the man to put off, as far as in him lay this outward and visible sign

of sin and shame, and thereby assert that fallen nature was in him

regenerate,

_Belle est vraiment l'opinion premiere;

Belle est encores l'opinion derniere;

A qui des deux est-ce doncq' que je suis?_[1]

[Footnote 1: PASQUIER.]

Which of the two opinions I might incline to is of no consequence,

because I do not agree with Van Helmont concerning the origin of the

beard; though as to what he affirms concerning good Angels upon his

own alleged knowledge, I cannot contradict him upon mine, and have

moreover freely confessed that when we examine our notions of Angels

they are found to support him. But he himself seems to have thought

both opinions probable, and therefore, according to the casuists,

safe; so, conforming to the fashion of his times, without offence to

his own conscience, he neither did the one thing, nor the other; or

perhaps it may be speaking more accurately to say that he did both;

for he shaved his beard, and let his mustachios grow.

Upon this subject, P. Gentien Hervet, Regent of the College at Orleans

printed three discourses in the year 1536. In the first of these _De

radendâ barbâ_, he makes it appear that we are bound to shave the

beard. In the second _De alendâ barbâ_, he proves we ought to let the

beard grow. And in the third _De vel radendâ vel alendâ barbâ_ he

considers that it is lawful either to shave or cultivate the beard at

pleasure. “_Si bien_,” says the Doctor in Theology, M. Jean Baptiste

Thiers, in his grave and erudite _Histoire des Perruques_, published

_aux depens de l'Autheur_, at Paris in 1690,—_si bien, que dans la

pensée de ce sçavant Theologien, le question des barbes, courtes ou

longues, est une question tout-a-fait problematique, et où par

consequent on peut prendre tel party que l'on veut, pour ou contre._

[The following Extracts were to have been worked up in this Chapter.]

D'Israeli quotes an author who, in his Elements of Education, 1640,

says, “I have a favourable opinion of that young gentleman who is

curious in fine mustachios. The time he employs in adjusting, dressing

and curling them, is no lost time: for the more he contemplates his

mustachios, the more his mind will cherish, and be animated by,

masculine and courageous notions.”

There are men whose beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to

stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's packsaddle.

SHAKSPEARE.

“Human felicity,” says Dr. Franklin, “is produced not so much by great

pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages

that occur every day. Thus if you teach a poor young man to shave

himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the

happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum

may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly

consumed it: but in the other case he escapes the frequent vexation of

waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive

breaths and dull razors; he shaves when most convenient to him, and

enjoys daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument.”

By Jupiter,

Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard

I would not shave 't to day.

SHAKSPEARE.

D'Israeli says that a clergyman who had the longest and largest beard

of any Englishman in Elizabeth's reign, gave as a reason for wearing

it the motive it afforded “that no act of his life might be unworthy

the gravity of his appearance.”

* * * * *

FRAGMENT ON MORTALITY.

When Fuller in his Pisgah Sight of Palestine, comes to the city of

Aigalon, where Elon, Judge of Israel, was buried, “of whom nothing

else is recorded save his name, time of his rule (ten years), and

place of his interment; slight him not he says, because so little is

reported of him, it tending much to the praise of his policy in

preventing foreign invasions, and domestic commotions, so that the

land enjoyed peace, as far better than victory, as health is to be

preferred before a recovery from sickness. Yea, times of much doing

are times of much suffering, and many martial achievements are rather

for the Prince's honour, than the people's ease.”

“To what purpose,” says Norris, “should a man trouble both the world's

and his own rest, to make himself great? For besides the emptiness of

the thing, the Play will quickly be done, and the Actors must all

retire into a state of equality, and then it matters not who

personated the Emperor, or who the Slave.”

The Doctor's feelings were in unison with both these passages;—with

the former concerning the quiet age in which it was his fortune to

flourish; and with the latter in that it was his fortune to flourish

in the shade. “It is with times,” says Lord Bacon, “as it is with

ways; some are more up hill and down hill, and some are more flat and

plain; and the one is better for the liver, and the other for the

writer.”

He assented also to the Christian-Platonist of Bemerton when he asked,

“to what purpose should a man be very earnest in the pursuit of Fame?

He must shortly die, and so must those too who admire him.” But

nothing could be more opposed to his way of thinking than what follows

in that philosopher,—“Nay, I could almost say, to what purpose should

a man lay himself out upon study and drudge so laboriously in the

mines of learning? He is no sooner a little wiser than his brethren,

but Death thinks him ripe for his sickle; and for aught we know, after

all his pains and industry, in the next world, an ideot, or a mechanic

will be as forward as he.” In the same spirit Horace Walpole said in

his old age, “What is knowledge to me, who stand on the verge, and

must leave my old stores as well as what I may add to them,—and how

little could that be!”

When Johnson was told that Percy was uneasy at the thought of leaving

his house, his study, his books—when he should die,—he replied—“a man

need not be uneasy on these grounds, for as he will retain his

consciousness, he may say with the Philosopher, _omnia mea mecum

porto._”

“Let attention,” says the thoughtful John Miller in his Bampton

Lectures, which deserve to be side by side with those of the lamented

Van Mildert, “let attention be requested to what seems here an

accessory sign of the adaptation of all our heavenly Father's dealings

to that which he ‘knows to be in man’—I mean his merciful shortening

of the term of this present natural life, subsequently to the period

when all-seeing justice had been compelled to destroy the old world

for its disobedience.

“I call it merciful, because, though we can conceive no length of day

which could enable man with his present faculties to exhaust all that

is made subject to his intellect, yet observing the scarcely credible

rapidity of some minds and the no less wonderful retention of others,

we may well conceive a far severer, nay too severe a test of

resignation and patience to arise from length of years. To learn is

pleasant; but to be ‘ever learning, and never able to come to sure

knowledge of the truth,’ (if it were only in matters of lawful and

curious and ardent speculation,) is a condition which we may well

imagine to grow wearisome by too great length of time. ‘Hope delayed’

might well ‘make the heart sick’ in many such cases. We may find an

infidel amusing himself on the brink of the grave with many imaginary

wishes for a little longer respite, that he might witness the result

of this or that speculation; but I am persuaded that the heart which

really loves knowledge most truly and most wisely will be affected

very differently. From every fresh addition to its store (as far as

concerns itself,) it will only derive increase to that desire

wherewith it longs to become disentangled altogether from a state of

imperfection, and to be present in the fulness of that light, wherein

‘every thing that is in part shall be done away.’ Here, then, in one

of the most interesting and most important of all points (the

shortening of human life) we find a representation in Scripture which

may be accounted favourable to its credibility and divine authority on

the safest grounds of reason and experience. For certainly, as to the

bare matter of fact, such representation corresponds in the strictest

manner (as far as we have known and have seen) with the state of life

as at present existing; and accepting it as true, we can perceive at

once, a satisfactory explanation of it by referring it, as a provision

for man's well being, to the wisdom and mercy of an Omnipotent Spirit

who knew, and knows ‘what is in man.’”

* * * * *

FRAGMENT OF SIXTH VOLUME.

Reader, we are about to enter upon the sixth volume of this our Opus;

and as it is written in the forms of Herkeru, Verily the eye of Hope

is upon the high road of Expectation.

Well begun, says the Proverb, is half done. Horace has been made to

say the same thing by the insertion of an apt word which pentametrizes

the verse,

_Dimidium facti qui bene cæpit habet._

D. Juan de Villagutierre Soto-Mayor in setting forth the merits of

Columbus for having discovered the New World, and thereby opened the

way for its conquest by the Spaniards, observes that _el principio en

todas las operaciones humanas es el mas dificultoso estado; y assi una

vez vencido, se reputa y debe reputarse por la mitad della obra, ò por

la principal de ella; y el proseguir despues en lo comenzado no

contiene tanta dificultad._

When Gabriel Chappuis dedicated the eighteenth book of Amadis, by him

translated from the Spanish, to the Noble and Virtuous Lord Jan

Anthoine Gros, Sieur de S. Jouere, &c., he says, after a preamble of

eulogies upon the Dedicates and the Book, _Vous recevrez donc, s'il

vous plaist ce petit livre d'aussy bon œil que ont fait ceux ausquels

j'ay dedié les trois livres precedens, m'asseurant que s'il vous

plaist en avoir la lecture, vous y trouverez grande delectation, comme

à la verité l'histoire qui y est descrite, et mesmes en tous les

precedens et en ceux qui viendront apres, a esté inventée pour

delecter; mais avec tant de beaux traits, et une infinité de divers

accidens et occurrences qu'il est impossible qu'avec le plaisir et le

delectation, l'on n'en tire un grand proffet, comme vous

experementerez, moyennant la grace de Dieu._

* * * * *

_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.

Deborah's strong affection for her father was not weakened by

marriage; nor his for her by the consequent separation. Caroline

Bowles says truly, and feelingly and beautifully,

It is not love that steals the heart from love;

'Tis the hard world and its perplexing cares,

Its petrifying selfishness, its pride,

Its low ambition, and its paltry aims.

There was none of that “petrifying selfishness” in the little circle

which lost so much when Deborah was removed from her father's

parsonage. In order that that loss might be less painfully felt, it

was proposed by Mr. Allison that Sunday should always be kept at the

Grange when the season or the weather permitted. The Doctor came if he

could; but for Mrs. Dove it was always to be a holiday.

“The pleasures of a volatile head,” says Mrs. Carter, “are much less

liable to disappointment, than those of a sensible heart.” For such as

can be contented with rattles and raree-shows, there are rattles and

raree-shows in abundance to content them; and when one is broken it is

mighty easily replaced by another. But the pleasures arising from the

endearments of social relations, and the delicate sensibilities of

friendly affection, are more limited, and their objects

incontrovertible; they are accompanied with perpetual tender

solicitude, and subject to accidents not to be repaired beneath the

Sun. It is no wonder however that the joys of folly should have their

completion in a world with which they are to end, while those of

higher order must necessarily be incompleat in a world where they are

only to begin.[1]

[Footnote 1: From the writing of the latter paragraph I should judge

this to be one of the latest sentences Southey ever wrote.—In the MS.

it was to have followed c. cxxxv. vol. iv. p. 361.]

* * * * *

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.

The Reader may remember, when he is thus reminded of it, that I

delayed giving an account of Pompey, in answer to the question who he

was, till the Dog-days should come. Here we are, (if _here_ may be

applied to time) in the midst of them, July 24, 1830.

Horace Walpole speaks in a letter of two or three Mastiff-days so much

fiercer were they that season than our common Dog-days. This year they

might with equal propriety be called Iceland-Dog-days. Here we are

with the thermometer every night and morning below the temperate

point, and scarcely rising two degrees above it at middle day. And

then for weather;—as Voiture says, _Il pleut pla-ple-pli-plo-plus._

If then as Robert Wilmot hath written, “it be true that the motions of

our minds follow the temperature of the air wherein we live, then I

think the perusing of some mournful matter, tending to the view of a

notable example, will refresh your wits in a gloomy day, and ease your

weariness of the louring night:” and the tragical part of my story

might as fitly be told now in that respect, as if “weary winter were

come upon us, which bringeth with him drooping days and weary nights.”

But who does not like to put away tragical thoughts? Who would not

rather go to see a broad farce than a deep tragedy? Sad thoughts even

when they are medicinal for the mind, are as little to the mind's

liking, as physic is grateful to the palate when it is needed most.

* * * * *

FRAGMENT ON HUTCHINSON'S WORKS.[1]

[Footnote 1: A Chapter was to have been devoted to the Hutchinsonian

philosophy, and I am inclined to believe that this was a part of it.]

These superstitions are unquestionably of earlier date than any

existing records, and commenced with the oldest system of idolatry,

the worship of the heavenly bodies. Hutchinson's view is that when

Moses brought the Jews out of their captivity, all men believed that

“Fire, Light, or the Operation of the Air, did every thing in this

material system:” those who believed rightly in God, knew that these

secondary causes acted as his instruments, but “those who had fallen

and lost communication with the Prophets and the truth of tradition,

and were left to reason, (though they reasoned as far as reason could

reach) thought the Heavens of a divine nature, and that they not only

moved themselves and the heavenly bodies but operated all things on

earth; and influenced the bodies, and governed the minds and fortunes

of men: and so they fell upon worshipping them, and consulting them

for times and seasons.” “The Devil,” he says, “chose right; this was

the only object of false worship which gave any temptation; and it had

very specious inducements.” And it was because he thus prevailed over

“the Children of disobedience,” that the Apostle stiles him “the

Prince of the Powers of the Air.” “This made the Priests and

Physicians of the antient heathen cultivate the knowledge of these

Powers, and afterwards made them star-gazers and observe the motions

of those bodies for their conjunctions and oppositions, and all the

stuff of their lucky and unlucky days and times, and especially to

make advantage of their eclipses, for which they were stiled Magi, and

looked upon as acquaintance of their Gods; and so much of the latter

as is of any use, and a great deal more, we are obliged to them for.”

“But these,” he says, “who thought that the Heavens ordered the events

of things by their motions and influences, and that they were to be

observed and foreseen by men, robbed God of his chief attributes, and

were ordered then, and ought still, to be punished with death.”

Hutchinson is one of the most repulsive writers that ever produced any

effect upon his contemporaries. His language is such as almost

justified Dr. Parr in calling it the Hutchinsonian jargon; and his

system is so confusedly brought forward that one who wishes to obtain

even a general knowledge of it, must collect it as he can from

passages scattered through the whole of his treatises. Add to these

disrecommendations that it is propounded in the coarsest terms of

insolent assumption, and that he treats the offence of those who

reject the authority of scripture,—that is of his interpretation of

Hebrew, and his exposition of the Mosaic philosophy, as “an infectious

scurvy or leprosy of the soul which can scarcely be cured by any thing

but eternal brimstone.”

The Paradise Lost, he calls, “that cursed farce of Milton, where he

makes the Devil his hero:” and of the ancient poets and historians he

says that “the mischief which these vermin did by praising their

heroes in their farces or princes for conquering countries, and

thereby inciting other princes to imitate them were the causes of the

greatest miseries that have befallen mankind.” But Sir Isaac Newton

was the great object of his hatred. “Nothing but villainy,” he said,

“was to be expected from men who had made a human scheme, and would

construe every text concerning it, so as to serve their purpose; he

could only treat them as the most treacherous men alive. I hope,” he

says, “I have power to forgive any crimes which are committed only

against myself; I am not required, nor have I any power to forgive

treason against the king, much less to forgive any crimes whereby any

attempt to dispossess Jehovah Aleim. Nay, if I know of them and do not

reveal them, and do not my endeavour to disappoint them in either, I

am accessary. I shall put these things where I can upon the most

compassionate side; the most favourable wish I can make for them is,

that they may prove their ignorance so fully, that it may abate their

crimes; but if their followers will shew that he or his accomplices

knew anything, I must be forced to make Devils of them. There are many

other accidents besides design or malice, which make men

atheists,—studying or arguing to maintain a system, forged by a man

who does not understand it, and in which there must be some things

false, makes a man a villain whether he will or no.

“He, (Newton) first framed a philosophy, which is two thirds of the

business of the real scriptures, and struck off the rest. And when he

found his philosophy was built upon, and to be supported by emptiness,

he was forced to patch up a God to constitute space. His equipage

appears to have been the translation of the apostate Jews, and some

blind histories of the modern heathen _Deus_, and an empty head to

make his _Deus_; Kepler's banter of his powers, and some tacit

acknowledgements as he only supposed, of the ignorantest heathens; an

air-pump to make, and a pendulum or swing to prove a vacuum; a

loadstone, and a bit of amber, or jet, to prove his philosophy; a

telescope, a quadrant, and a pair of compasses to make infinite

worlds, circles, crooked lines, &c.; a glass bubble, prisms and

lenses, and a board with a hole in it, to let light into a dark room

to form his history of light and colours; and he seems to have spent

his time, not only when young, as some boys do, but when he should

have set things right, in blowing his phlegm through a straw, raising

bubbles, and admiring how the light would glare on the sides of them.”

No mention of Hutchinson is made in Dr. Brewster's Life of Newton, his

system was probably thought too visionary to deserve notice, and the

author unworthy of it because he had been the most violent and

foul-mouthed of all Sir Isaac's opponents. The Mathematical Principles

of Natural philosophy, he called a cobweb of circles and lines to

catch flies. “Mathematics,” he said, “are applicable to any _data_,

real or imaginary, true or false, more pestilent and destructive

positions had been fathered upon that science than upon all others put

together, and mathematicians had been put to death, both by Heathens

and Christians for attributing much less to the heavenly bodies than

Newton had done.” He compared his own course of observations with

Newton's. His had been in the dark bowels of the earth, with the

inspired light of scripture in his hand,—there he had learnt his

Hebrew, and there he had studied the causes and traced the effects of

the Deluge. “The opportunities,” he said, “were infinitely beyond what

any man can have by living in a box, peeping out at a window, or

letting the light in at a hole: or in separating and extracting the

spirit from light, which can scarce happen in nature, or from

refracting the light, which only happens upon the rainbow, bubbles,

&c., or by making experiments with the loadstone, talc or amber, which

differ in texture from most other bodies, and are only found in masses

of small size; or by arranging a pendulum, which perhaps has not a

parallel case in nature: or by the effects produced by spirit or light

upon mixing small parcels of extracted fluids or substances, scarce

one of which ever happened, or will happen in nature: or by taking

cases which others have put, or putting cases which never had, nor

ever will have any place in nature: or by forming figures or lines of

crooked directions of motions or things, which most of them have no

place, so the lines no use in nature, other than to serve hypotheses

of imaginary Powers, or courses, which always have been useless, when

any other Powers, though false, have been assigned and received; and

must all finally be useless, when the true Powers are shewn.”

Such passages show that Hutchinson was either grossly incapable of

appreciating Newton's discoveries, or that he wilfully and maliciously

depreciated them. His own attainments might render the first of these

conclusions improbable, and the second would seem still more so upon

considering the upright tenour of his life. But the truth seems to be,

that having constructed a system with great labour, and no little

ability, upon the assumption that the principles of natural philosophy

as well as of our faith, are contained in the scriptures, and that the

true interpretation of scripture depended upon the right understanding

of the Hebrew primitives, which knowledge the apostate Jews had lost,

and he had recovered, his belief in this system had all the

intolerance of fanaticism or supposed infallibility; and those who

strongly contravened it, deserved in his opinion the punishments

appointed in the Mosaic law for idolatry and blasphemy. Newton and

Clarke were in this predicament. Both, in his judgement, attributed so

much to secondary causes,—those Powers which had been the first

objects of idolatry, that he considered their Deity to be nothing more

than the Jupiter of the philosophizing heathens; and he suspects that

their esoteric doctrine resolved itself into Pantheism. Toland indeed

had told him that there was a scheme in progress for leading men

through Pantheism and Atheism, and made him acquainted with all their

designs, divine or diabolical, and political or anarchical! and all

the villanies and forgeries they had committed to accomplish them.

First they sought to make men believe in a God who could not punish,

and then—that there was no God, and Toland was engaged, for pay, in

this scheme of propagandism, “because he had some learning, and more

loose humour than any of them.” The Pantheisticon was written with

this view. Toland was only in part the author, other hands assisted,

and Hutchinson says, he knew “there was a physician, and a patient of

his a divine, who was very serviceable in their respective stations in

prescribing proper doses, even to the very last.” But they “carried

the matter too far,” “they discovered a secret which the world had not

taken notice of, and which it was highly necessary the world should

know.” For “though it be true to a proverb, that a man should not be

hanged for being a fool, they shewed the principles of these men so

plainly, which were to have no superior, to conform to any religion,

laws, oaths, &c., but be bound by none, and the consequences of

propagating them, that they thereby shewed the wisdom of the heathen

people, who because they could not live safely, stoned such men; and

the justice of the heathen Emperors and Kings, who put such to death,

because they could have no security from them, and if their doubts, or

notions had prevailed, all must have gone to anarchy or a

commonwealth, as it always did, when and where they neglected to cut

them off.”

That atheism had its propagandists then as it has now is certain, and

no one who has watched the course of opinion among his contemporaries

can doubt that Socinianism, or semi-belief, gravitates towards

infidelity. But to believe that Newton and Clarke were engaged in the

scheme which is here imputed to them, we must allow more weight to

Toland's character than to theirs, and to Hutchinson's judgement.

What has here been said of Hutchinson exhibits him in his worst

light,—and it must not hastily be concluded that because he breathed

the fiercest spirit of intolerance, he is altogether to be disliked as

a man, or despised as an author. Unless his theory, untenable as it

is, had been constructed with considerable talent, and supported with

no common learning,—he could never have had such men as Bishop Horne

and Jones of Nayland among his disciples. Without assenting to his

system, a biblical student may derive instruction from many parts of

his works.

There is one remarkable circumstance in his history. When he was a

mere boy a stranger came to board with his father, who resided at

Spennythorn in the North-Riding of Yorkshire, upon an estate of forty

pounds a year. The father's intention was to educate this son for the

office of steward to some great landed proprietor, and this stranger

agreed to instruct him in every branch of knowledge requisite for such

an employment, upon condition of being boarded free of expence,

engaging at the same time to remain till he had completed the boy's

education. What he had thus undertaken he performed well; “he was,

perhaps,” says Hutchinson, “as great a mathematician as either of

those whose books he studied, and taught me as much as I could see any

use for, either upon the earth or in the heavens, without poisoning me

with any false notions fathered upon the mathematics.” The curious

part of this story is that it was never known who this scientific

stranger was, for he carefully and effectually concealed every thing

that could lead to a discovery. Hutchinson was born in 1674, and his

education under this tutor was completed at the age of nineteen.

* * * * *

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

ROSSINGTON.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Parish of Rossington in the union and soke of

Doncaster was for many generations the seat of the Fossard and Mauley

families. In the reign of Henry VII., it was granted by that monarch

to the corporation of Doncaster.

The following extract is from Mr. John Wainwright's History and

Antiquities of Doncaster and Conisbro'.

“Connected with the history of this village, is a singular and curious

specimen of Egyptian manners, as practised by the itinerant gypsies of

the British Empire. In a letter, which we had the pleasure of

receiving from the Rev. James Stoven, D.D. the worthy and learned

rector of this place, it is remarked, that about one hundred and

twenty years ago, the gypsies commenced here a curious custom, which

they practised once in almost every year, occasioned by the interment,

in the churchyard of this place, (of) one of their principal leaders,

Mr. Charles Bosville, on the 30th of June, 1708 or 9. Having, from a

boy, been much acquainted with this village, I have often heard of

their (the gypsies) abode here, and with them Mr. James Bosville,

their king, under whose authority they conducted themselves with great

propriety and decorum, never committing the least theft or offence.

They generally slept in their farmers' barns, who, at those periods,

considered their property to be more safely protected than in their

absence. Mr. Charles Bosville (but how related to the king does not

appear,) was much beloved in this neighbourhood, having a knowledge of

medicine, was very attentive to the sick, well bred in manners, and

comely in person. After his death, the gypsies, for many years, came

to visit his tomb, and poured upon it hot ale; but by degrees they

deserted the place,—(These circumstances must yet hang on their

remembrance; as, only a year ago, 1821, an ill drest set of them

encamped in our lanes, calling themselves Boswell's.)—These words in

the parentheses came within my own knowledge.”

It is added in a note—“_Boswell's Gang_, is an appellation, very

generally applied to a collection of beggars, or other idle

itinerants, which we often see encamped in groups in the lanes and

ditches of this part of England.”

In quoting this, I by no means assent to the statement that Gypsies

are Egyptians.—They are of Hindostanee origin.]

The Grammar school was next door to Peter Hopkins's, being kept in one

of the lower apartments of the Town Hall. It was a free school for the

sons of freemen, the Corporation allowing a salary of £50. _per annum_

to the schoolmaster, who according to the endowment must be a

clergyman. That office was held by Mr. Crochley, who had been bred at

Westminster, and was elected from thence to Christ Church, Oxford in

1742. He came to Doncaster with a promise from the Corporation that

the living of Rossington, which is in their gift and is a valuable

benefice, should be given him provided he had fifty scholars when it

became vacant. He never could raise their numbers higher than

forty-five; the Corporation adhered to the letter of their agreement;

the disappointment preyed on him, and he died a distressed and

broken-hearted man.

Yet it was not Crochley's fault that the school had not been more

flourishing. He was as competent to the office as a man of good

natural parts could be rendered by the most compleat course of

classical education. But in those days few tradesmen ever thought of

bestowing upon their sons any further education than was sufficient to

qualify them for trade; and the boys who were desirous to be placed

there, must have been endued with no ordinary love of learning, for a

grammar school is still any thing rather than a _Ludus Literarius_.

Two or three years before the Doctor's marriage a widow lady came to

settle at Doncaster, chiefly for the sake of placing her sons at the

Grammar School there, which though not in high repute was at least

respectably conducted. It was within five minutes walk of her own

door, and thus the boys had the greatest advantage that school-boys

can possibly enjoy, that of living at home, whereby they were saved

from all the misery and from most of the evil with which

boarding-schools, almost without an exception, abounded in those days,

and from which it may be doubted whether there are any yet that are

altogether free. Her name was Horseman, she was left with six

children, and just with such means as enabled her by excellent

management to make what is called a respectable appearance, the boys

being well educated at the cheapest rate, and she herself educating

two daughters who were fortunately the eldest children. Happy girls!

they were taught what no Governess could teach them, to be useful as

soon as they were capable of being so; to make their brother's shirts

and mend their stockings; to make and mend for themselves, to cipher

so as to keep accounts; to assist in household occupations, to pickle

and preserve, to make pastry, to work chair-bottoms, to write a fair

hand, and to read Italian. This may seem incongruous with so practical

a system of domestic education. But Mrs. Horseman was born in Italy,

and had passed great part of her youth there.

The father, Mr. Duckinton, was a man of some fortune, whose delight

was in travelling, and who preferred Italy to all other countries.

Being a whimsical person he had a fancy for naming each of his

children, after the place where it happened to be born. One daughter

therefore was baptized by the fair name of Florence, Mrs. Horseman,

was christened Venetia, like the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, whose

husband was more careful of her complexion than of her character.

Fortunate it was that he had no daughter born at Genoa or at Nantes,

for if he had, the one must have concealed her true baptismal name

under the alias of Jenny; and the other have subscribed herself Nancy,

that she might not be reproached with the brandy cask. The youngest of

his children was a son, and if he had been born in the French capital

would hardly have escaped the ignominious name of Paris, but as Mr.

Duckinton had long wished for a son, and the mother knowing her

husband's wishes had prayed for one, the boy escaped with no worse

name than Deodatus.

* * * * *

FRAGMENT OF INTERCHAPTER.

Kissing has proverbially been said to go by favour. So it is but too

certain, that Preferment does in Army and Navy, Church and State; and

so does Criticism.

That Kissing should do so is but fair and just; and it is moreover in

the nature of things.

That Promotion should do so is also in the nature of things—as they

are. And this also is fair where no injustice is committed. When other

pretensions are equal, favour is the feather which ought to be put

into the scale. In cases of equal fitness, no wrong is done to the one

party, if the other is preferred for considerations of personal

friendship, old obligations, or family connection; the injustice and

the wrong would be if these were overlooked.

To what extent may favour be reasonably allowed in criticism?

If it were extended no farther than can be really useful to the person

whom there is an intention of serving, its limits would be short

indeed. For in that case it would never proceed farther than truth and

discretion went with it. Far more injury is done to a book and to an

author by injudicious or extravagant praise, than by intemperate or

malevolent censure.

Some persons have merrily surmised that Job was a reviewer because he

exclaimed “Oh that mine enemy had written a book!” Others on the

contrary have inferred that reviewing was not known in his days,

because he wished that his own words had been printed and published.

* * * * *

[The timbers were laid for a Chapter on wigs, and many notes and

references were collected.—This Fragment is all that remains.]

Bernardin St. Pierre, who with all his fancies and oddities, has been

not undeservedly a popular writer in other countries as well as in his

own, advances in the most extravagant of his books, (the _Harmonies de

la Nature_,) the magnificent hypothesis that men invented great wigs

because great wigs are _semblables aux criniers des lions_, like

lion's manes. But as wigs are rather designed to make men look grave

than terrible, he might with more probability have surmised that they

were intended to imitate the appearance of the Bird of Wisdom.

The Doctor wore a wig: and looked neither like a Lion, nor like an Owl

in it. Yet when he first put it on, and went to the looking-glass, he

could not help thinking that he did not look like a Dove.

But then he looked like a Doctor, which was as it became him to look.

He wore it professionally.

It was not such a wig as Dr. Parr's, which was of all contemporary

wigs _facile princeps_. Nor was it after the fashion of that which may

be seen in “immortal buckle,” upon Sir Cloudesley Shovel's monument in

Westminster Abbey——&c.

* * * * *

MEMOIRS OF CAT'S EDEN.

[The following Fragments were intended to be worked up into an

Interchapter on the History of Cats. The first fairly written out was

to have been, it would appear, the commencement. The next is an

Extract from Eulia Effendi. “That anecdote about the King of the Cats,

Caroline, you must write out for me, as it must be inserted,” said the

lamented Author of the Doctor, &c. to Mrs. Southey. The writer of the

lines is not known, they were forwarded to the Author when at

Killerton. The “Memoirs of Cats of Greta Hall” was to have furnished

the particulars, which the first fragment states had got abroad.

What was to have been the form of the Interchapter the Editor does not

know, neither does Mrs. Southey. The playful letter is given exactly

as it was written. A beautiful instance, as will be acknowledged by

all, of that confidence which should exist between a loving father and

a dutiful daughter. Sir Walter Scott wrote feelingly when he said,

Some feelings are to mortals given

With less of earth in them than heaven:

And if there be a human tear

From passion's dross refined and clear,

A tear so limpid and so meek,

It would not stain an angel's cheek,

'Tis that which pious fathers shed

Upon a duteous daughter's head!]

FRAGMENT OF INTERCHAPTER.

More than prince of cats, I can tell you.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

An extract from the Register of Cat's Eden has got abroad, whereby it

appears that the Laureate, Dr. Southey, who is known to be a

philofelist, and confers honours upon his Cats according to their

services, has raised one to the highest rank in peerage, promoting him

through all its degrees by the following titles, His Serene Highness

the Arch-Duke Rumpelstilzchen, Marquis Macbum, Earl Tomlemagne, Baron

Raticide, Waowlher and Skaratchi.

The first of these names is taken from the German Collection of

_Kinder und Haus-Märchen_. A Dwarf or Imp so called was to carry off

the infant child of the Queen as the price of a great service which he

had rendered her, but he had consented to forego his right if in the

course of three days she could find out what was his name. This she

never could have done, if the King had not on the first day gone

hunting, and got into the thickest part of the wood, where he saw a

ridiculous Dwarf hopping about before a house which seemed by its

dimensions to be his home, and singing for joy; these were the words

of his song,

_Heute back ich, morgen brau ich,

Ubermorgen hohl ich der Frau Konigin ihr kind,

Ach wie gut ist, das niemand weiss

Dass ich Rumpelstilzchen heiss._

I bake to-day, and I brew to-morrow,

Mrs. Queen will see me the next day to her sorrow,

When according to promise her child I shall claim,

For none can disclose, because nobody knows

That Rumpelstilzchen is my name.

Now if Rumpelstilzchen had had as many names as a Spanish Infante, the

man must have a good memory who could have carried them away upon

hearing them once.

* * * * *

“The Cats of Diorigi are celebrated all over Greece, for nowhere are

to be found cats so pretty, so vigilant, so caressing and well-bred

as at Diorigi. The Cats of the Oasis in Egypt, and of Sinope are

justly renowned for their good qualities, but those of Diorigi are

particularly fat, brilliant, and playing different colours. They are

carried from here to Persia, to Ardebeil where they are shut up in

cages, proclaimed by the public criers and sold for one or two

_tomans_. The Georgians also buy them at a great price, to save their

whiskers which are commonly eaten up by mice. The criers of Ardebeil,

who cry these cats have a particular melody to which they sing their

cry in these words,

O you who like a Cat

That catches mouse and rat,

Well-bred, caressing, gay

Companion to sport and play,

Amusing and genteel,

Shall never scratch and steal.

Singing these words they carry the cats on their head and sell them

for great prices, because the inhabitants of Ardebeil are scarce able

to save their woollen cloth from the destruction of mice and rats.

Cats are called Hurre, Katta, Senorre, Merabe, Matshi, Weistaun,

Wemistaun, but those of Diorigi are particularly highly esteemed.

Notwithstanding that high reputation and price of the Cats of Diorigi,

they meet with dangerous enemies in their native place, where

sometimes forty or fifty of them are killed secretly, tanned, and

converted into fur for the winter time. It is a fur scarce to be

distinguished from Russian ermelin, and that of the red cats is not to

be distinguished from the fox that comes from Ozalov.”[1]

[Footnote 1: EVLIA EFFENDI.]

A labouring man returning to his cottage after night-fall, passed by a

lone house in ruins, long uninhabited. Surprized at the appearance of

light within, and strange sounds issuing from the desolate interior,

he stopt and looked in through one of the broken windows, and there in

a large old gloomy room, quite bare of furniture except that the

cobwebs hung about its walls like tapestry, he beheld a marvellous

spectacle. A small coffin covered with a pall stood in the midst of

the floor, and round and round and round about it with dismal

lamentations in the feline tongue, marched a circle of Cats, one of

them, being covered from head to foot with a black veil, and walking

as chief mourner. The man was so frightened with what he saw that he

waited to see no more, but went straight home, and at supper told his

wife what had befallen him.

Their own old Cat, who had been sitting, as was her wont, on the elbow

of her Master's chair, kept her station very quietly, till he came to

the description of the chief Mourner, when, to the great surprize and

consternation of the old couple, she bounced up, and flew up the

chimney exclaiming—“Then I am King of the Cats.”

* * * * *

_Keswick, January 9th._

DEAR MASTER,

Let our boldness not offend,

If a few lines of duteous love we send;

Nor wonder that we deal in rhyme, for long

We've been familiar with the founts of song;

Nine thorougher tabbies you would rarely find,

Than those who laurels round your temples bind:

For how, with less than nine lives to their share,

Could they have lived so long on poet's fare?

Athens surnamed them from their mousing powers,

And Rome from that harmonious MU of ours,

In which the letter U, (as we will trouble you

To say to TODD) should supersede ew—

This by the way—we now proceed to tell,

That all within the bounds of home are well;

All but your faithful cats, who inly pine;

The cause your Conscience may too well divine.

Ah! little do you know how swiftly fly

The venomed darts of feline jealousy;

How delicate a task to deal it is

With a Grimalkin's sensibilities,

When Titten's tortoise fur you smoothed with bland

And coaxing courtesies of lip and hand,

We felt as if, (poor Puss's constant dread)

Some school-boy stroked us both from tail to head;

Nor less we suffer'd while with sportive touch

And purring voice, you played with grey-backed Gutch;

And when with eager step, you left your seat,

To get a peep at Richard's snow-white feet,

Himself all black; we long'd to stop his breath

With something like his royal namesake's death;

If more such scenes our frenzied fancies see,

Resolved we hang from yonder apple tree—

And were not that a sad catastrophe!

O! then return to your deserted lake,

Dry eyes that weep, and comfort hearts that ache;

Our mutual jealousies we both disown,

Content to share, rather than lose a throne.

The Parlour, Rumples undisputed reign,

Hurley's the rest of all your wide domain.

Return, return, dear Bard _κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν_,

Restore the happy days that once have been,

Resign yourself to Home, the Muse and us.

(_Scratch'd_)

RUMPLESTITCHKIN,

HURLYBURLYBUS.

* * * * *

MEMOIR OF THE CATS OF GRETA HALL.

For as much, most excellent Edith May, as you must always feel a

natural and becoming concern in whatever relates to the house wherein

you were born, and in which the first part of your life has thus far

so happily been spent, I have for your instruction and delight

composed these Memoirs of the Cats of Greta Hall: to the end that the

memory of such worthy animals may not perish, but be held in deserved

honour by my children, and those who shall come after them. And let me

not be supposed unmindful of Beelzebub of Bath, and Senhor Thomaz de

Lisboa, that I have not gone back to an earlier period, and included

them in my design. Far be it from me to intend any injury or

disrespect to their shades! Opportunity of doing justice to their

virtues will not be wanting at some future time, but for the present I

must confine myself within the limits of these precincts.

In the autumn of the year 1803 when I entered upon this place of

abode, I found the hearth in possession of two cats whom my nephew

Hartley Coleridge, (then in the 7th year of his age,) had named Lord

Nelson, and Bona Marietta. The former, as the name implies, was of the

worthier gender: it is as decidedly so in Cats, as in grammar and in

law. He was an ugly specimen of the streaked-carrotty, or

Judas-coloured kind; which is one of the ugliest varieties. But

_nimium ne crede colori_. In spite of his complection, there was

nothing treacherous about him. He was altogether a good Cat,

affectionate, vigilant and brave; and for services performed against

the Rats was deservedly raised in succession to the rank of Baron,

Viscount and Earl. He lived to a good old age; and then being quite

helpless and miserable, was in mercy thrown into the river. I had more

than once interfered to save him from this fate; but it became at

length plainly an act of compassion to consent to it. And here let me

observe that in a world wherein death is necessary, the law of nature

by which one creature preys upon another is a law of mercy, not only

because death is thus made instrumental to life, and more life exists

in consequence, but also because it is better for the creatures

themselves to be cut off suddenly, than to perish by disease or

hunger,—for these are the only alternatives.

There are still some of Lord Nelson's descendants in the town of

Keswick. Two of the family were handsomer than I should have supposed

any Cats of this complection could have been; but their fur was fine,

the colour a rich carrot, and the striping like that of the finest

tyger or tabby kind. I named one of them William Rufus; the other

Danayn le Roux, after a personage in the Romance of Gyron le Courtoys.

Bona Marietta was the mother of Bona Fidelia, so named by my nephew

aforesaid. Bona Fidelia was a tortoise-shell cat. She was filiated

upon Lord Nelson, others of the same litter having borne the

unequivocal stamp of his likeness. It was in her good qualities that

she resembled him, for in truth her name rightly bespoke her nature.

She approached as nearly as possible in disposition, to the ideal of a

perfect cat:—he who supposes that animals have not their difference of

disposition as well as men, knows very little of animal nature. Having

survived her daughter Madame Catalani, she died of extreme old age,

universally esteemed and regretted by all who had the pleasure of her

acquaintance.

Bona Fidelia left a daughter and a granddaughter; the former I called

Madame Bianchi—the latter Pulcheria. It was impossible ever to

familiarize Madame Bianchi, though she had been bred up in all

respects like her gentle mother, in the same place, and with the same

persons. The nonsense of that arch-philosophist Helvetius would be

sufficiently confuted by this single example, if such rank folly

contradicted as it is by the experience of every family, needed

confutation. She was a beautiful and singular creature, white, with a

fine tabby tail, and two or three spots of tabby, always delicately

clean; and her wild eyes were bright and green as the Duchess de

Cadaval's emerald necklace. Pulcheria did not correspond as she grew

up to the promise of her kittenhood and her name; but she was as fond

as her mother was shy and intractable. Their fate was extraordinary as

well as mournful. When good old Mrs. Wilson died, who used to feed and

indulge them, they immediately forsook the house, nor could they be

allured to enter it again, though they continued to wander and moan

around it, and came for food. After some weeks Madame Bianchi

disappeared, and Pulcheria soon afterwards died of a disease endemic

at that time among cats.

For a considerable time afterwards, an evil fortune attended all our

attempts at re-establishing a Cattery. Ovid disappeared and Virgil

died of some miserable distemper. You and your cousin are answerable

for these names: the reasons which I could find for them were, in the

former case the satisfactory one that the said Ovid might be presumed

to be a master in the Art of Love; and in the latter, the probable one

that something like Ma-ro—might be detected in the said Virgil's notes

of courtship. There was poor Othello: most properly named, for black

he was, and jealous undoubtedly he would have been, but he in his

kittenship followed Miss Wilbraham into the street, and there in all

likelihood came to an untimely end. There was the Zombi—(I leave the

Commentators to explain that title, and refer them to my History of

Brazil to do it)—his marvellous story was recorded in a letter to

Bedford,—and after that adventure he vanished. There was Prester John,

who turned out not to be of John's gender, and therefore had the name

altered to Pope Joan. The Pope I am afraid came to a death of which

other Popes have died. I suspect that some poison which the rats had

turned out of their holes, proved fatal to their enemy. For some time

I feared we were at the end of our Cat-a-logue: but at last Fortune as

if to make amends for her late severity sent us two at

once,—the-never-to-be-enough-praised Rumpelstilzchen, and the

equally-to-be-admired Hurlyburlybuss.

And “first for the first of these” as my huge favourite, and almost

namesake Robert South, says in his Sermons.

When the Midgeleys went away from the next house, they left this

creature to our hospitality, cats being the least moveable of all

animals because of their strong local predilections;—they are indeed

in a domesticated state the serfs of the animal creation, and properly

attached to the soil. The change was gradually and therefore easily

brought about, for he was already acquainted with the children and

with me; and having the same precincts to prowl in was hardly sensible

of any other difference in his condition than that of obtaining a

name; for when he was consigned to us he was an anonymous cat; and I

having just related at breakfast with universal applause the story of

Rumpelstilzchen from a German tale in Grimm's Collection, gave him

that strange and magnisonant appellation; to which upon its being

ascertained that he came when a kitten from a bailiff's house, I added

the patronymic of Macbum. Such is his history, his character may with

most propriety be introduced after the manner of Plutarch's parallels

when I shall have given some previous account of his great compeer and

rival Hurlyburlybuss,—that name also is of Germanic and Grimmish

extraction.

Whence Hurlyburlybuss came was a mystery when you departed from the

Land of Lakes, and a mystery it long remained. He appeared here, as

Mango Capac did in Peru, and Quetzalcohuatl among the Aztecas, no one

knew from whence. He made himself acquainted with all the philofelists

of the family—attaching himself more particularly to Mrs. Lovell, but

he never attempted to enter the house, frequently disappeared for

days, and once since my return for so long a time that he was actually

believed to be dead and veritably lamented as such. The wonder was

whither did he retire at such times—and to whom did he belong; for

neither I in my daily walks, nor the children, nor any of the servants

ever by any chance saw him anywhere except in our own domain. There

was something so mysterious in this, that in old times it might have

excited strong suspicion, and he would have been in danger of passing

for a Witch in disguise, or a familiar. The mystery however was solved

about four week's ago, when as we were returning from a walk up the

Greta, Isabel saw him on his transit across the road and the wall from

Shulicrow, in a direction toward the Hill. But to this day we are

ignorant who has the honour to be his owner in the eye of the law; and

the owner is equally ignorant of the high favour in which

Hurlyburlybuss is held, of the heroic name which he has obtained, and

that his fame has extended far and wide—even unto Norwich in the East,

and Escott and Crediton and Kellerton in the West, yea—that with

Rumpelstilzchen he has been celebrated in song, by some hitherto

undiscovered poet, and that his glory will go down to future

generations.

The strong enmity which unhappily subsists between these otherwise

gentle and most amiable cats, is not unknown to you. Let it be imputed

as in justice it ought, not to their individual characters (for Cats

have characters,—and for the benefit of philosophy, as well as

_felisophy_, this truth ought generally to be known) but to the

constitution of Cat nature,—an original sin, or an original necessity,

which may be only another mode of expressing the same thing:

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,

Nor can one purlieu brook a double reign

Of Hurlyburlybuss and Rumpelstilzchen.

When you left us, the result of many a fierce conflict was that Hurly

remained master of the green and garden, and the whole of the out of

door premises. Rumpel always upon the appearance of his victorious

enemy retiring into the house as a citadel or sanctuary. The conqueror

was perhaps in part indebted for this superiority to his hardier

habits of life, living always in the open air, and providing for

himself; while Rumpel (who though born under a bum-bailiff's roof was

nevertheless kittened with a silver spoon in his mouth) past his hours

in luxurious repose beside the fire, and looked for his meals as

punctually as any two-legged member of the family. Yet I believe that

the advantage on Hurly's side is in a great degree constitutional

also, and that his superior courage arises from a confidence in his

superior strength, which as you well know is visible in his make. What

Bento and Maria Rosa used to say of my poor Thomaz, that he was _muito

fidalgo_ is true of Rumpelstilzchen, his countenance, deportment and

behaviour being such that he is truly a gentleman-like Tom-cat. Far be

it from me to praise him beyond his deserts,—he is not beautiful, the

mixture, tabby and white, is not good (except under very favourable

combinations) and the tabby is not good of its kind. Nevertheless he

is a fine cat, handsome enough for his sex, large, well-made, with

good features, and an intelligent countenance, and carrying a splendid

tail, which in Cats and Dogs is undoubtedly the seat of honour. His

eyes which are soft and expressive are of a hue between chrysolite and

emerald. Hurlyburlybuss's are between chrysolite and topaz. Which may

be the more esteemed shade for the _olho de gato_ I am not lapidary

enough to decide. You should ask my Uncle. But both are of the finest

water. In all his other features Hurly must yield the palm, and in

form also; he has no pretensions to elegance, his size is ordinary and

his figure bad: but the character of his face and neck is so

masculine, that the Chinese who use the word bull as synonymous with

male, and call a boy a bull-child, might with great propriety

denominate him a bull-cat. His make evinces such decided marks of

strength and courage that if cat-fighting were as fashionable as

cock-fighting, no Cat would stand a fairer chance for winning a Welsh

main. He would become as famous as the Dog Billy himself, whom I look

upon as the most distinguished character that has appeared since

Buonaparte.

Some weeks ago Hurlyburlybuss was manifestly emaciated and enfeebled

by ill health, and Rumpelstilzchen with great magnanimity made

overtures of peace. The whole progress of the treaty was seen from the

parlour window. The caution with which Rumpel made his advances, the

sullen dignity with which they were received, their mutual uneasiness

when Rumpel after a slow and wary approach, seated himself

whisker-to-whisker with his rival, the mutual fear which restrained

not only teeth and claws, but even all tones of defiance, the mutual

agitation of their tails which, though they did not expand with anger,

could not be kept still for suspense and lastly the manner in which

Hurly retreated, like Ajax still keeping his face toward his old

antagonist were worthy to have been represented by that painter who

was called the Rafaelle of Cats. The overture I fear was not accepted

as generously as it was made; for no sooner had Hurlyburlybuss

recovered strength than hostilities were recommenced with greater

violence than ever, Rumpel who had not abused his superiority while he

possessed it, had acquired mean time a confidence which made him keep

the field. Dreadful were the combats which ensued as their ears, faces

and legs bore witness. Rumpel had a wound which went through one of

his feet. The result has been so far in his favour that he no longer

seeks to avoid his enemy, and we are often compelled to interfere and

separate them. Oh it is aweful to hear the “dreadful note of

preparation” with which they prelude their encounters!—the long low

growl slowly rises and swells till it becomes a high sharp yowl,—and

then it is snapt short by a sound which seems as if they were spitting

fire and venom at each other. I could half persuade myself that the

word felonious is derived from the feline temper as displayed at such

times. All means of reconciling them and making them understand how

goodly a thing it is for cats to dwell together in peace, and what

fools they are to quarrel and tear each other are in vain. The

proceedings of the Society for the Abolition of War are not more

utterly ineffectual and hopeless.

All we can do is to act more impartially than the Gods did between

Achilles and Hector, and continue to treat both with equal regard.

And thus having brought down these Memoirs of the Cats of Greta Hall

to the present day, I commit the precious memorial to your keeping,

and remain

Most dissipated and light-heeled daughter,

Your most diligent and light-hearted father,

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

_Keswick, 18 June, 1824_.

* * * * *

FRAGMENT OF INTERCHAPTER.

[The following playful effusion was likewise, as the “Memoirs of Cat's

Eden,” intended for “THE DOCTOR, &C.,” but how it was to have been

moulded, so as to obscure the incognito, I do not know. It will tend,

if I mistake not, to shew the easy versatility,—the true

_εὐτραπελία_,—of a great and a good man's mind. “Fortune,” says

Fluellen, “is turning and inconstant, and variations, and

mutabilities,”—but one who, in the midst of constant and laborious

occupations, could revel in such a recreation as this “Chapter on the

Statues” was Fortune's master, and above her wheel.

ARS UTINAM MORES ANIMUMQUE EFFINGERE POSSET:

PULCHRIOR IN TERRIS NULLA TABELLA FORET.[1]

[Footnote 1: MART. EPIGR.]

It may be added that there was another very curious collection of

Letters intended for “THE DOCTOR, &C.,” but they have not come to my

hand. They were written in a peculiar dialect and would have required

much mother wit and many vocabularies to have decyphered them. She who

suggested them,—a woman “of infinite jest,—of most excellent fancy,”—a

good woman, and a kind,—is now gathered to her rest!]

ΕΙΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΤΑΣ.

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

βασιλέων ὕβρισαν ἀνδριάντας._

CHRYSOST. HOM. AD POPUL. ANTIOCHEN.

My dear daughter,

Having lately been led to compose an inscription for one of our Garden

statues, an authentic account of two such extraordinary works of art

has appeared to me so desirable that I even wonder at myself for

having so long delayed to write one. It is the more incumbent on me to

do this, because neither of the artists have thought proper to

inscribe their names upon these master-pieces,—either from that

modesty which often accompanies the highest genius, or from a

dignified consciousness that it was unnecessary to set any mark upon

them, the works themselves sufficiently declaring from what hands they

came.

I undertake this becoming task with the more pleasure because our

friend Mrs. Keenan has kindly offered to illustrate the intended

account by drawings of both Statues,—having as you may well suppose

been struck with admiration by them. The promise of this co-operation

induces me not to confine myself to a mere description, but to relate

on what occasion they were made, and faithfully to record the very

remarkable circumstances which have occurred in consequence;

circumstances I will venture to say, as well attested and as well

worthy of preservation as any of those related in the History of the

Portuguese Images of Nossa Senhora, in ten volumes quarto,—a book of

real value, and which you know I regard as one of the most curious in

my collection. If in the progress of this design I should sometimes

appear to wander in digression, you will not impute it to any habitual

love of circumlocution; and the speculative notions which I may have

occasion to propose, you will receive as mere speculations and judge

of them accordingly.

Many many years ago I remember to have seen these popular and rustic

rhymes in print,

God made a great man to plough and to sow,

God made a little man to drive away the crow;

they were composed perhaps to make some little man contented with that

office, and certain it is that in all ages and all countries it has

been an object of as much consequence to preserve the seed from birds

when sown, as to sow it. No doubt Adam himself when he was driven to

cultivate the ground felt this, and we who are his lineal descendants

(though I am sorry to say we have not inherited a rood of his estates)

have felt it also, in our small but not unimportant concern, the

Garden. Mrs. L., the Lady of that Garden used to complain grievously

of the depredations committed there, especially upon her pease. Fowls

and Ducks were condemned either to imprisonment for life, or to the

immediate larder for their offences of this kind; but the magpies (my

protegées) and the sparrows, and the blackbirds and the thrushes bade

defiance to the coop and the cook. She tried to fright them away by

feathers fastened upon a string, but birds were no more to be

frightened by feathers than to be caught by chaff. She drest up two

mopsticks; not to be forgotten, because when two youths sent their

straw hats upon leaving Keswick to K. and B., the girls consigned the

hats to these mopsticks and named the figures thus attired in due

honour of the youths, L. N., and C. K. These mopsticks however were

well drest enough to invite thieves from the town,—and too well to

frighten the birds. Something more effectual was wanted, and Mrs. L.

bespoke a man of Joseph Glover.

Such is the imperfection of language that write as carefully and

warily as we can it is impossible to use words which will not

frequently admit of a double construction, upon this indeed it is that

the Lawyers have founded the science of the Law, which said science

they display in extracting any meaning from any words, and generally

that meaning that shall be most opposite to the intention for which

they were used. When I say that your Aunt L. bespoke a man of Joseph

Glover, I do not mean that she commissioned him to engage a labourer:

nor that she required him actually to make a man like

Frankenstein,—though it must be admitted that such a man as

Frankenstein made, would be the best of all scarecrows, provided he

were broken in so as to be perfectly manageable. To have made a man

indeed would have been more than even Paracelsus would have undertaken

to perform; for according to the receipt which that illustrious

Bombast ab Hohenheim has delivered to posterity, an homunculus cannot

be produced in a hot-bed in less than forty weeks and forty days; and

this would not have been in time to save the pease; not to mention

that one of his homunculi had it been ready could not have served the

purpose, for by his account, when it was produced, it was smaller even

than Mark Thumb. Such an order would have been more unreasonable than

any of those which Juno imposed upon Hercules; whereas the task

imposed by Mrs. L. was nothing more than Glover thought himself

capable of executing, for he understood the direction plainly and

simply in its proper sense, as a carpenter ought to understand it.

An ordinary Carpenter might have hesitated at undertaking it, or

bungled in the execution. But Glover is not an ordinary Carpenter. He

says of himself that he should have been a capital singer, only the

pity is, that he has no voice. Whether he had ever a similar

persuasion of his own essential but unproducible talents for sculpture

or painting I know not:—but if ever genius and originality were

triumphantly displayed in the first effort of an untaught artist, it

was on this occasion. Perhaps I am wrong in calling him untaught;—for

there is a supernatural or divine teaching;—and it will appear

presently that if there be any truth in heathen philosophy, or in that

of the Roman Catholicks (which is very much the same in many respects)

some such assistance may be suspected in this case.

With or without such assistance, but certainly _con amore_, and with

the aid of his own genius, if of no other, Glover went to work: ere

long shouts of admiration were heard one evening in the kitchen, so

loud and of such long continuance that enquiry was made from the

parlour into the cause, and the reply was that Mrs. L.'s man was

brought home. Out we went, father, mother and daughters, (yourself

among them,—for you cannot have forgotten that memorable hour), My

Lady and the Venerabilis,—and Mrs. L. herself, as the person more

immediately concerned. Seldom as it happens that any artist can embody

with perfect success the conceptions of another, in this instance the

difficult and delicate task had been perfectly accomplished. But I

must describe the Man,—calling him by that name at present, the power,

_æon_ or intelligence which had incorporated itself with that ligneous

resemblance of humanity not having at that time been suspected.

Yet methinks more properly might he have been called youth than man,

the form and stature being juvenile. The limbs and body were slender,

though not so as to convey any appearance of feebleness, it was rather

that degree of slenderness which in elegant and refined society is

deemed essential to grace. The countenance at once denoted strength

and health and hilarity, and the incomparable carpenter had given it

an expression of threatful and alert determination, suited to the

station for which he was designed and the weapon which he bore. The

shape of the face was rather round than oval, resembling methinks the

broad harvest moon; the eyes were of the deepest black, the eyebrows

black also; and there was a blackness about the nose and lips, such as

might be imagined in the face of Hercules, while he was in the act of

lifting and strangling the yet unsubdued and struggling Antæus. On his

head was a little hat, low in the crown and narrow in the brim. His

dress was a sleeved jacket without skirts,—our ancestors would have

called it a gipion, _jubon_ it would be rendered if ever this

description were translated into Spanish, _gibão_ in Portuguese,

_jupon_ or _gippon_ in old French. It was fastened from the neck

downward with eight white buttons, two and two, and between them was a

broad white stripe, the colour of the gipion being brown: whether the

strype was to represent silver lace, or a white facing like that of

the naval uniform, is doubtful and of little consequence. The lower

part of his dress represented innominables and hose in one, of the

same colour as the gipion. And he carried a fowling-piece in his hand.

Great was the satisfaction which we all expressed at beholding so

admirable a man; great were the applauses which we bestowed upon the

workman with one consent; and great was the complacency with which

Glover himself regarded the work of his own hands. He thought, he

said, this would please us. Please us indeed it did, and so well did

it answer that after short trial Mrs. L. thinking that a second image

would render the whole garden secure, and moreover that it was not

good for her Man to be alone, directed Glover to make a woman also.

The woman accordingly was made. Flesh of his flesh and bone of his

bone, she could not be, the Man himself not being made of such

materials; but she was wood of his wood and plank of his plank,—which

was coming as nearly as possible to it, made of the same tree and

fashioned by the same hand.

The woman was in all respects a goodly mate for the man, except that

she seemed to be a few years older; she was rather below the mean

stature, in that respect resembling the Venus de Medicis; slender

waisted yet not looking as if she were tight-laced, nor so thin as to

denote ill health. Her dress was a gown of homely brown, up to the

neck. The artist had employed his brightest colours upon her face,

even the eyes and nose partook of that brilliant tint which is

sometimes called the roseate hue of health or exercise, sometimes the

purple light of love. The whites of her eyes were large. She also was

represented in a hat, but higher in the crown and broader in the rim

than the man's, and where his brim was turned up, her's had a downward

inclination giving a feminine character to that part of her dress.

She was placed in the garden; greatly as we admired both pieces of

workmanship, we considered them merely as what they seemed to be; they

went by the names of Mrs. L.'s Man and Woman; and even when you

departed for the south they were still known only by that vague and

most unworthy designation. Some startling circumstances after awhile

excited a more particular attention to them. Several of the family

declared they had been frightened by them; and K. one evening, came in

saying that Aunt L.'s woman had _given her_ a jump. Even this did not

awaken any suspicion of their supernatural powers as it ought to have

done, till on a winter's night, one of the maids hearing a knock at

the back door opened it; and started back when she saw that it was the

woman with a letter in her hand! This is as certain as that Nosso

Senhor dos Passes knocked at the door of S. Roque's convent in Lisbon

and was not taken in,—to the infinite regret of the monks when they

learnt that he had gone afterwards to the Graça Convent and been

admitted there. It is as certain that I have seen men, women and

children of all ranks kissing the foot of the said Image in the

Church, and half Lisbon following his procession in the streets. It is

as certain as all the miracles in the Fasti, the Metamorphoses, and

the Acta Sanctorum.

Many remarkable things were now called to mind both of the man and

woman;—how on one occasion they had made Miss C.'s maid miscarry

of—half a message; and how at another time when Isaac was bringing a

basket from Mr. C.'s, he was frightened into his wits by them. But on

Sunday evening last the most extraordinary display of wonderful power

occurred, for in the evening the woman instead of being in her place

among the pease, appeared standing erect on the top of Mr. Fisher's

haymow in the forge field, and there on the following morning she was

seen by all Keswick, who are witnesses of the fact.

You may well suppose that I now began to examine into the mystery, and

manifold were the mysteries which I discovered, and many the analogies

in their formation of which the maker could never by possibility have

heard; and many the points of divine philosophy and theurgic science

which they illustrated. In the first place two Swedenborgian

correspondencies flashed upon me in the material whereof they were

constructed. They were intended to guard the Garden. There is a

proverb which says, set a thief to catch a thief, and therefore it is

that they were _fir_ statues. Take it in English and the

correspondence is equally striking; they were made of _deal_, because

they were to do a _deal_ of good. The dark aspect of the male figure

also was explained; for being stationed there contra _fures_, it was

proper that he should have a furious countenance. Secondly, there is

something wonderful in their formation:—they are bifronted, not merely

bifaced like Janus, but bifronted from top to toe. Let the thief be as

cunning as he may he cannot get behind them.—They have no backs, and

were they disposed to be indolent and sit at their posts it would be

impossible. They can appear at the kitchen door, or on the haymow,

they can give the children and even the grown persons of the family a

jump, but to sit is beyond their power however miraculous it may be;

for impossibilities cannot be effected even by miracle, and as it is

impossible to see without eyes, or to walk without legs,—or for a ship

to float without a bottom, so is it for a person in the same

predicament as such a ship—to sit.

Yet farther mysteries; both hands of these marvellous statues are

right hands and both are left hands, they are at once ambidexter and

ambisinister. It was said by Dryden of old Jacob Tonson that he had

two left legs: but these marvellous statues have two left legs and two

right legs each, and yet but four legs between them, that is to say

but two a-piece. In the whole course of my reading I have found no

account of any statues so wonderful as these. For though the Roman

Janus was bifronted, and my old acquaintance Yamen had in like manner

a double face, and many of the Hindoo and other Oriental Deities have

their necks set round with heads, and their elbows with arms, yet it

is certain that all these Gods have backs, and sides to them also. In

this point no similitude can be found for our Images. They may be

likened to the sea as being bottomless,—but as being without a back

and in the mystery of having both hands and legs at once right and

left they are unequalled; none but themselves can be their parallel.

Now my daughter I appeal to you and to all other reasonable persons,—I

put the question to your own plain sense,—is it anyways likely that

statues so wonderful, so inexpressibly mysterious in their properties

should be the mere work of a Keswick carpenter, though aided as he was

by Mrs. L.'s directions? Is it not certain that neither he, nor Mrs.

L., had the slightest glimpse, the remotest thought of any such

properties,—she when she designed, he when he executed the marvellous

productions? Is it possible that they should? Would it not be

preposterous to suppose it?

This supposition therefore being proved to be absurd, which in

mathematics is equal to a demonstration that the contrary must be

true, it remains to enquire into the real origin of their stupendous

qualities. Both the ancient Heathens and the Romanists teach that

certain Images of the Gods or of the Saints have been made without the

aid of human hands, and that they have appeared no one knew whence or

how. The Greeks called such images Diopeteis, as having fallen from

the sky, and I could enumerate were it needful sundry Catholic Images

which are at this day venerated as being either of angelic workmanship

or celestial origin. We cannot however have recourse to this solution

in the present case; for Glover is so veracious a man that if he had

found these figures in his workshop without knowing how they came

there,—or if he had seen them grow into shape while he was looking

on,—he would certainly not have concealed a fact so extraordinary. All

Keswick would have known it. It must have become as notorious as

Prince Hohenloe's miracles.

There remains then another hypothesis, which is also common to the

ancient Pagans and the Romanists;—that some superior powers finding a

congruity in the Images have been pleased to communicate to them a

portion of their influence, and even of their presence, and so if I

may be allowed the word, have actually become _inligneate_ in them.

Were my old acquaintance, Thomas Taylor, here, who entirely believes

this, he would at once determine which of his Heathen Deities have

thus manifested their existence. Who indeed that looks at the Youth

but must be reminded of Apollo? Said I that his face resembled in its

rotundity the Moon? the Sun would have been the fitter similitude,—the

sun shorn of its beams;—Phœbus,—such as he appeared when in the

service of Admetus. And for his female companion, her beauty and the

admiration which it excites in all beholders, identify her with no

less certainty for Venus. We have named them therefore the Apollo de

L., and the Venus de Glover; in justice to both artists; and in

farther honour of them and of the Images themselves have composed the

following inscription:

No works of Phidias we; but Mrs. L.

Designed, and we were made by Joseph Glover.

Apollo, I, and yonder Venus stands,

Behold her, and you cannot chuse but love her.

If antient sculptors could behold us here

How would they pine with envy and abhorrence!

For even as I surpass their Belvedere

So much doth she excel the pride of Florence.

EPILUDE OF MOTTOES.

Careless! bring your apprehension along with you.

CONGREVE.

If I have written a sentence, or a word, that can bear a captious or

unreasonable construction, I earnestly intreat a more lenient

interpretation. When a man feels acutely, he may perhaps speak at

times more pointedly than he ought; yet, in the present instance, I am

conscious of no sentiment which I could wish to alter.

BISHOP JEBB.

_νὴ τὸν Ποσειδῶ, καὶ λέγει γ᾽, ἅπερ λέγει,

δίκαια πάντα, κοὐδὲν αὐτῶν ψεύδεται._

ARISTOPHANES.

Will you be true?

TRO. Who, I? alas, it is my vice, my fault.

While others fish with craft for great opinion,

I with great truth catch mere simplicity.

Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,

With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.

Fear not my truth; the moral of my wit

Is—‘plain and true;’ there's all the reach of it.

SHAKESPEARE.

—_come augel che pria s'avventa e teme

Stassi fra i rami paventoso e solo

Mirando questo ed or quell' altro colle;

Cosi mi levo e mi ritengo insieme,

L'ale aguzzando al mio dubbioso volo._

GIUSTO DE' CONTI.

Whosoever be reader hereof maie take it by reason for a riche and a

newe labour; and speciallie princes and governours of the common

wealth, and ministers of justice, with other. Also the common people

eche of theim maie fynd the labour conveniente to their estate. And

herein is conteigned certaine right highe and profounde sentences, and

holsome counsaylles, and mervaillous devyses agaynste the encumbraunce

of fortune; and ryght swete consolacions for theim that are

overthrowen by fortune. Finally it is good to them that digeste it,

and thanke God that hath given such grace to the Auctour in gevyng us

example of vertuous livyng, with hye and salutary doctrynes, and

marvailous instructions of perfectness.—A ryght precious meale is the

sentences of this boke; but fynally the sauce of the saied swete style

moveth the appetyte. Many bookes there be of substanciall meates, but

they bee so rude and so unsavery, and the style of so small grace,

that the first morcell is lothsome and noyfull; and of suche bookes

foloweth to lye hole and sounde in lybraries; but I trust this will

not. Of trouth great prayse is due to the auctour of his travayle.

LORD BERNERS.

The current that with gentle murmur glides,

Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;

But when his fair course is not hindered,

He makes sweet music with the enamel'd stones,

Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;

And so by many winding nooks he strays,

With willing sport, to the wild ocean.

Then let me go, and hinder not my course;

I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,

And make a pastime of each weary step,

Till the last step have brought me to my rest.

SHAKESPEARE.

Sith you have long time drawn the weeds of my wit and fed yourselves

with the cockle of my conceits, I have at last made you gleaners of my

harvest, and partakers of my experience.—Here shall you find the style

varying according to the matter, suitable to the style, and all of

these aimed to profit. If the title make you suspect, compare it with

the matter, it will answer you; if the matter, apply it with the

censures of the learned, they will countenance the same; of the

handling I repent me not, for I had rather you should condemn me for

default in rhetorick, than commend my style and lament my judgement.

Thus resolved both of the matter, and satisfied in my method, I leave

the whole to your judgements; which, if they be not depraved with

envy, will be bettered in knowledge, and if not carried away with

opinion, will receive much profit.

THOMAS LODGE.

This good Wine I present, needs no Ivy-bush. They that taste thereof

shall feel the fruit to their best content, and better understanding.

The learned shall meet with matter to refresh their memories; the

younger students, a directory to fashion their discourse; the weakest

capacity, matter of wit, worth and admiration.

T. L. D. M. P's. Epistle Prefatory to the Learned Summarie

upon the famous Poem of William of Salust, Lord of BARTAS.

This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeon's pease,

And utters it again when Jove doth please;

He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares.

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

Imagination thro' the trick

Of Doctors, often makes us sick;

And why, let any sophist tell,

May it not likewise make us well!

CHURCHILL.

His mind fastens

On twenty several objects, which confound

Deep sense with folly.

WEBSTER.

It is a crown unto a gentle breast,

To impart the pleasure of his flowing mind,

(Whose sprightly motion never taketh rest)

To one whose bosom he doth open find.

THOMAS SCOTT.

—Be prepared to hear:

And since you know you cannot see yourself

So well as by reflection, I, your glass,

Will modestly discover to yourself

That of yourself which you yet know not of.

SHAKESPEARE.

And whereas in my expression I am very plain and downright, and in my

teaching part seem to tautologize, it should be considered, (and

whoever has been a teacher will remember) that the learners must be

plainly dealt with, and must have several times renewed unto them the

same thing.—Therefore I have chosen so to do in several places,

because I had rather (in such cases) speak three words too many, than

one syllable too few.

THOMAS MACE.

_Lire et repasser souvent

Sur Athenes et sur Rome,

C'est dequoy faire un Sçavant,

Mais, non pas un habile homme._

_Meditez incessamment,

Devorez livre apres livre,

D'est en vivant seulement

Que vous apprendrez à vivre._

_Avant qu'en sçavoir les loix,

La clarté nous est ravie:

Il faudroit vivre deux fois

Pour bien conduire sa vie._

DE CHARLEVAL.

If we could hit on't, gallants, there are due

Certain respects from writers, and from you.

PROLOGUE TO THE ADVENTURES OF FIVE HOURS.

—Here you have a piece so subtly writ

Men must have wit themselves to find the wit.

EPILOGUE TO THE ADVENTURES OF FIVE HOURS.

All puddings have two ends, and most short sayings

Two handles to their meaning.

LORD DIGBY.

Reader, Now I send thee like a Bee to gather honey out of flowers and

weeds; every garden is furnished with either, and so is ours. Read and

meditate; thy profit shall be little in any book, unless thou read

alone, and unless thou read all and record after.

HENRY SMITH.

The most famous of the Pyramids was that of Hermes.—Through each door

of this Pyramid was an entrance into seven apartments, called by the

names of the Planets. In each of them was a golden Statue. The biggest

was in the apartment of Osiris, or the Sun. It had a book upon its

forehead, and its hand upon its mouth. Upon the outside of the Book

was written this inscription. _I must be read in a profound silence._

TRAVELS OF CYRUS.

—_Facio ego ut solent, qui quanto plus aliquem mirantur et explicare

volunt quod sentiunt, eo minus id assequuntur quod volunt, ut quamquam

magnum aliquid animo concipiunt, verba tamen desint, et moliri potius

quàm dicere potuisse videantur._

HERMOLAUS BARBARUS JO. PICO MIRANDULÆ.

_Nihil mihi potest esse beatius quam scire; discendum verò ut sciamus.

Ego quidem sapientiæ ambitum, tanquam animi nostri ærarium quoddam

semper judicavi, id quod communia commentationum nostrarum vectigalia

inferenda censeo, sed proba; unde sibi suum quisque in usum sumat sine

invidia atque simultate._

J. C. SCALIGER.

_Feliz yerba es la yedra, si se enrama

A un muro altivo, á quien no alcanza el corte

De la envidia; puer queda con su altura,

El mas vistoso, y ella mas segura._

BALBUENA, EL BERNARDO.

—_en poco tiempo te he dicho

lo que passò en mucho tiempo._

CALDERON, EL MAESTRO DE DANZAR.

I'll range the plenteous intellectual field,

And gather every thought of sovereign power

To chase the moral maladies of man;

Thoughts which may bear transplanting to the skies,

Nor wholly wither there where Seraphs sing,

Refined, exalted,—not annull'd—in heaven.

YOUNG.

Let every man enjoy his whim;

What's he to me, or I to him.

CHURCHILL.

And whereas I may seem too smart or satyrical in some particular

places, I do not at all repent me, as thinking what is said to such

ill-deserving persons much too little.

THOMAS MACE.

—Play the fool with wits,

'Gainst fools be guarded, 'tis a certain rule

Wits are safe things; there's danger in a fool.

CHURCHILL.

And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

Bearing their own misfortune on the back

Of such as have before endured the like.

RICHARD II.

Our life indeed has bitterness enough

To change a loving nature into gall:

Experience sews coarse patches on the stuff

Whose texture was originally all

Smooth as the rose-leaf's, and whose hues were bright

As are the colours of the weeping cloud

When the sun smiles upon its tears.

MRS. LENOX CONYNGHAM.

Thus much we know, eternal bliss and pure,

By God's unfailing promise, is secure

To them who their appointed lot endure

Meekly, striving to fulfil,

In humble hopefulness, God's will.

MRS. LENOX CONYNGHAM.

I thowt how hard it is to denye

A ladye's preyer, wych after the entent

Of the poete is a myghty comaundement;

Wherfore me thoht as in this caas

That my wyt war lakkyd bettyr it was

That my wyl, and therfore to do

My ladyes preyer I assentyd to.

OSBERN BOKENAM.

_Al peco de los años

lo eminente se rinde;

que à lo facil del tiempo

no ay conquista dificil._

CALDERON.

We only meet on earth

That we may know how sad it is to part:

And sad indeed it were, if in the heart

There were no store reserved against a dearth,

No calm Elysium for departed Mirth,

Haunted by gentle shadows of past pleasure,

Where the sweet folly, the light-footed measure,

And graver trifles of the shining hearth

Live in their own dear image.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

Sweet are the thoughts that smother from conceit:

For when I come and sit me down to rest,

My chair presents a throne of majesty;

And when I set my bonnet on my head,

Methinks I fit my forehead for a crown;

And when I take a truncheon in my fist,

A sceptre then comes tumbling in my thoughts.

ROBERT GREENE.

_Quandquam verò hoc mihi non polliceri possum, me ubique veritatem

quam sectatus sum, assecutum esse; sed potius eo fine ea proposui, ut

et alios ad veritatis investigationem invitarem: tamen ut rectè

Galenus habet, τολμητέον τε καὶ ξητητεὸν τὸ ἀληθὲς, εἰ γὰρ καὶ μὴ

τύχομεν αὐτοῦ πάντως, δήπου πλησιέστερον ἢ νῦν ἐσμὲν ἀφιζόμεθα.

Audendum est, et veritas investiganda, quam etiamsi non assequamur,

omnino tamen propius quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus. Quo verò ego

animo ad scribendum accessi, eo ut alii ad legendum accedant, opto._

SENNERTUS.

I do confess the imperfect performance. Yet I must take the boldness

to say, I have not miscarried in the whole; for the mechanical part of

it is regular. That I may say with as little vanity, as a builder may

say he has built a house according to the model laid down before him,

or a gardener that he has set his flowers in a knot of such or such a

figure.

CONGREVE.

As wheresoever these leaves fall, the root is in my heart, so shall

they have ever true impressions thereof. Thus much information is in

very leaves, that they can tell what the Tree is; and these can tell

you I am a friend and an honest man.

DONNE.

_On ne recognoistroit les monts, sans les valees;

Et les tailles encor artistement meslees

En œuvre mosaÿque, ont, pour plus grand beauté,

Divers prix, divers teint, diverse quantité.

Dieu veuille qu'en mes chants la plus insigne tache

Semble le moucheron qu'une pucelle attache

A sa face neigeuse, et que bien peu d'erreurs

Donnent lustre aux beaux traicts de mes hautes fureurs._

DU BARTAS, LA MAGNIFICENCE.

Hills were not seen but for the vales betwixt;

The deep indentings artificial mixt

Amid mosaicks, for mere ornament,

Have prizes, sizes and dyes different.

And, Oh, God grant, the greatest spot you spy

In all my frame, may be but as the fly,

Which on her ruff, (whiter than whitest snows)

To whiten white, the fairest virgin sows,

(Or like the velvet on her brow, or like

The dunker mole on Venus' dainty cheek,)

And that a few faults may but lustre bring

To my high furies where I sweetest sing.

SYLVESTER.

Be as capricious and sick-brained as ignorance and malice can make

thee, here thou art rectified; or be as healthful as the inward calm

of an honest heart, learning, and temper can state thy disposition,

yet this book may be thy fortunate concernment and companion.

SHIRLEY.

Humble and meek befitteth men of years,

Behold my cell, built in a silent shade,

Holding content for poverty and peace,

And in my lodge is fealty and faith,

Labour and love united in one league.

I want not, for my mind affordeth wealth,

I know not envy, for I climb not high;

Thus do I live, and thus I mean to die.

ROBERT GREENE.

The events of to-day make us look forward to what will happen

to-morrow; those of yesterday carry our views into another world.

DANBY.

Mine earnest intent is as much to profit as to please, _non tam ut

populo placerem, quam ut populum juvarem:_ and these my writings shall

take, I hope like gilded pills, which are so composed as well to tempt

the appetite and deceive the palate, as to help and medicinally work

upon the whole body. My lines shall not only recreate, but rectify the

mind.

BURTON.

—Sit thou a patient looker on;

Judge not the play, before the play is done,

Her plot has many changes; every day

Speaks a new scene, the last act crowns the play.

QUARLES.

Lord, if thy gracious bounty please to fill

The floor of my desires, and teach me skill

To dress and chuse the corn, take those the chaff that will.

QUARLES.

_Je n'ay pas plus faict mon livre, que mon livre m'a faict,—livre

consubstantiel à son autheur._

MONTAIGNE.

—_se le parole che usa lo scrittore portan seco un poco, non dirà di

difficultà, ma d'acutezza recondita, et non cosi nota, come quelle che

si dicono parlando ordinariamente, danno una certa maggior auttorità

alla scrittura, et fanno che il lettore va piu ritenuto, et sopra di

se, et meglio considera, et si diletta dell' ingegno et dottrina di

chi scrive; et col buon giudicio affaticandosi un poco gusta quel

piacere, che s'ha nel conseguir le cose difficili. Et se l'ignorantia

di chi legge è tanta, che non posse superar quella difficultà, non è

la colpa dello scrittore._

CASTIGLIONE, IL CORTIGIANO.

_Certo estava eu que o Doutor sabia de tudo o que disse, nao só os

termos e fundamentos, mas acuda o mas difficultoza, e substancial;—mas

o praticar dellas de modo, que eu as entendesse, he graça de seu

saber, e naõ sufficiencia do meu ingenho._

FRANCISCO RODRIGUES LOBO.

Sir, Our greatest business is more in our power than the least, and we

may be surer to meet in Heaven than in any place upon earth; and

whilst we are distant here, we may meet as often as we list in God's

presence, by soliciting in our prayers for one another.

DONNE.

_Or ti riman, Lettor, sovra 'l tuo banco,

Dietro pensando a ciò che si preliba,

S'esser vuoi lieto assai prima che stanco.

Messo t'ho innanzi; omai per te li ciba;

Che a se ritorce tutta la mia cura

Quella materia ond'io son fatto scriba._

DANTE.

I have been often told that nobody now would read any thing that was

plain and true;—that was accounted dull work, except one mixed

something of the sublime, prodigious, monstrous, or incredible; and

then they would read the one for the sake of the other.—So rather than

not be read, I have put in a proportionable little of the monstrous.

If any thing be found fault with, it is possible I may explain and

add.

HUTCHINSON.

Who seeketh in thee for profit and gain

Of excellent matter soon shall attain.

T. H.

Pay me like for like; give me good thoughts for great studies; and at

leastwise shew me this courtly courtesy to afford me good words, which

cost you nothing, for serious thoughts hatched up with much

consideration. Thus commending my deserts to the learned, and

committing my labour to the instruction of the ignorant, I bid you all

heartily farewell.

LAZARUS PIOT.

Even at this time, when I humbly thank God, I ask and have his comfort

of sadder meditations, I do not condemn in myself that I have given my

wit such evaporations as these.

DONNE.

L'ENVOY.

Gentle Reader—for if thou art fond of such works as these, thou are

like to be the Gentleman and the Scholar—I take upon me to advertise

thee that the Printer of THE DOCTOR, &C. is William Nicol of the

Shakspeare Press—the long tried Friend of the lamented Southey, and of

their mutual Friend, the late Grosvenor Bedford, of Her Majesty's

Exchequer—

_Felices animæ, et quales neque candidiores

Terra tulit!_

The Sonnet following, Gentle Reader, I do thee to wit, is the

composition of the above kind hearted and benevolent William Nicol—and

I wish it to be printed, because on Grosvenor Bedford's last short

visit to Southey in 1836, he expressed himself much pleased with it.

May be, if thou art fond of the gentle craft, it may please thee too,

and so I wish thee heartily farewell!

Who wrote THE DOCTOR? Who's the scribe unknown?—

Time may discover, when the grave has closed

Its earthy jaws o'er us, who now are posed

To father that which greatest pen might own;

Learning diffuse, quaint humour, lively wit,

Satire severe and bold, or covert, sly,

Turning within itself the mental eye

To fancies strange that round its orbit flit,

Unknown to others and by self scarce seen;

Teaching, in sweetest English, England's plan,—

When England was herself, her laurels green—

Honour to God and charity to man:

Who wrote the Doctor? her best Son, I ween,

Whether his works, or his fair life you scan.

THE EDITOR.

W. NICOL, 60, PALL MALL.