CHAPTER CC.—p. 355.

A CHAPTER OF KINGS.

FIMBUL-FAMBI _heitr

Sá er fatt kann segia,

That er ósnotvrs athal._

_Fimbul-fambi (fatuus) vocatur

Qui pauca novit narrare:

Ea est hominis insciti proprietas._

EDDA, _Háva Mál._

INTERCHAPTER XXI.—p. 372.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

_Le Plebe è bestia

Di cento teste, e non rinchiude in loro

Pur oncia di saper._

CHIABRERA.

INTERCHAPTER XXII.—p. 378.

VARIETY OF STILES.

_Qualis vir, talis oratio._

ERASMI ADAGIA.

INTERCHAPTER XXIII.—p. 383.

A LITTLE ADVICE BESTOWED UPON THE SCORNFUL READER IN A SHORT

INTERCHAPTER.

No man is so foolish, but may give another good counsel sometimes; and

no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no other

counsel but his own.

BEN JONSON.

THE DOCTOR, &c.

CHAPTER CLXXII.

DESCARTES' NOTION CONCERNING THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE. A SICILIAN

PROPOSAL FOR BREEDING UP CHILDREN TO BE IMMORTAL. ASGILL'S ARGUMENT

AGAINST THE NECESSITY OF DYING.

O harmless Death! whom still the valiant brave,

The wise expect, the sorrowful invite;

And all the good embrace, who know the Grave

A short dark passage to eternal light.

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.

Sir Kenelm Digby went to Holland for the purpose of conversing with

Descartes, who was then living in retirement at Egmont. Speculative

knowledge, Digby said to him, was no doubt a refined and agreeable

pursuit, but it was too uncertain and too useless to be made a man's

occupation, life being so short that one has scarcely time to acquire

well the knowledge of necessary things. It would be far more worthy of

a person like Descartes, he observed, who so well understood the

construction of the human frame, if he would apply himself to discover

means of prolonging its duration, rather than attach himself to the

mere speculation of philosophy. Descartes made answer that this was a

subject on which he had already meditated; that as for rendering man

immortal, it was what he would not venture to promise, but that he was

very sure he could prolong his life to the standard of the Patriarchs.

Saint-Evremond to whom Digby repeated this, says that this opinion of

Descartes was well known both to his friends in Holland and in France.

The Abbé Picot, his disciple and his martyr, was so fully persuaded of

it that it was long before he would believe his master was dead, and

when at length unwillingly convinced of what it was no longer possible

to deny or doubt, he exclaimed, _que c'en étoit fait et que la fin du

Genre humain alloit venir!_

A certain Sicilian physician who commented upon Galen was more

cautious if not more modest than Descartes. He affirmed that it was

certainly possible to render men immortal, but then they must be bred

up from the earliest infancy with that view; and he undertook so to

train and render them,—if they were fit subjects.—Poor children! if it

had indeed been possible thus to divest them of their reversionary

interest in Heaven.

A much better way of abolishing death was that which Asgill imagined,

when he persuaded himself from Scripture that it is in our power to go

to Heaven without any such unpleasant middle passage. Asgill's is the

worst case of intolerance that has occurred in this country since

persecution has ceased to affect life or member.

This remarkable man was born about the middle of the seventeenth

century and bred to the Law in Lincoln's Inn under Mr. Eyre a very

eminent lawyer of those days. In 1698 he published a treatise with

this title—“Several assertions proved, in order to create another

species of money than Gold and Silver,” and also an “Essay on a

Registry for Titles of Lands.” Both subjects seem to denote that on

these points he was considerably advanced beyond his age. But the

whole strength of his mind was devoted to his profession, in which he

had so completely trammelled and drilled his intellectual powers that

he at length acquired a habit of looking at all subjects in a legal

point of view. He could find flaws in an hereditary title to the

crown. But it was not to seek flaws that he studied the Bible; he

studied it to see whether he could not claim under the Old and New

Testament something more than was considered to be his share. The

result of this examination was that in the year 1700 he published “An

Argument proving that according to the Covenant of Eternal Life

revealed in the Scriptures Man may be translated from hence into that

Eternal Life without passing through death, although the Human Nature

of Christ himself could not be thus translated till he had passed

through death.”

That, the old motto, (says he) worn upon tomb-stones, “Death is the

Gate of Life,” is a lie, by which men decoy one another into death,

taking it to be a thorough-fare into Eternal Life, whereas it is just

so far out of the way. For die when we will, and be buried where we

will, and lie in the grave as long as we will, we must all return from

thence and stand again upon the Earth before we can ascend into the

Heavens. “_Hinc itur ad astra._” He admitted that “this custom of the

world to die hath gained such a prevalency over our minds by

prepossessing us of the necessity of death, that it stands ready to

swallow his argument whole without digesting it.” But the dominion of

death, he said, is supported by our fear of it, by which it hath

bullied the world to this day. Yet “the custom of the World to die is

no argument one way or other;” however, because he knew that custom

itself is admitted as an evidence of title, upon presumption that such

custom had once a reasonable commencement and that this reason doth

continue, it was incumbent upon him to answer this Custom by shewing

the time and reason of its commencement and that the reason was

determined.

“First then,” says he, “I do admit the custom or possession of Death

over the world to be as followeth: that Death did reign from Adam to

Moses by an uninterrupted possession over all men women and children,

created or born, except one breach made upon it in that time by Enoch;

and hath reigned from Moses unto this day by the like uninterrupted

possession, except one other breach made upon it in this time by

Elijah. And this is as strong a possession as can be alledged against

me.

“The religion of the World now is that Man is born to die. But from

the beginning it was not so, for Man was made to live. God made not

Death till Man brought it upon himself by his delinquency. Adam stood

as fair for Life as Death, and fairer too, because he was in the

actual possession of Life,—as Tenant thereof at the Will of God, and

had an opportunity to have made that title perpetual by the Tree of

Life, which stood before him with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and

Evil. And here 'tis observable how the same act of man is made the

condition both of his life and death: ‘put forth thy hand and pull and

eat and die,’ or ‘put forth thy hand and pull and eat and live for

ever.’ 'Tis not to be conceived that there was any physical virtues in

either of these Trees whereby to cause life or death; but God having

sanctified them by those two different names, he was obliged to make

good his own characters of them, by commanding the whole Creation to

act in such a manner as that Man should feel the effects of this word,

according to which of the Trees he first put forth his hand. And it is

yet more strange, that man having life and death set before him at the

same time and place, and both to be had upon the same condition, that

he should single out his own death and leave the Tree of Life

untouched. And what is further strange, even after his election of

death he had an interval of time before his expulsion out of Paradise,

to have retrieved his fate by putting forth his hand to the Tree of

Life; and yet he omitted this too!

“But by all this it is manifest that as the form or person of man in

his first creation was capable of eternal life without dying, so the

fall of man which happened to him after his creation hath not disabled

his person from that capacity of eternal life. And therefore durst Man

even then have broken through the Cherubim and flaming sword, or could

he now any way come at the Tree of Life, he must yet live for ever,

notwithstanding his sin committed in Paradise and his expulsion out of

it. But this Tree of Life now seems lost to Man; and so he remains

under the curse of that other Tree, ‘in the day that thou eatest

thereof thou shalt die.’ Which sentence of the Law is the cause of the

death of Man, and was the commencement of the Custom of Death in the

World, and by the force of this Law Death has kept the possession

(before admitted) to this day.

“By his act of delinquency and the sentence upon it, Adam stood

attainted and became a dead man in law, though he was not executed

till about nine hundred years afterwards.” Lawyer as Asgill was, and

legally as he conducts his whole extraordinary argument, he yet offers

a moral extenuation of Adam's offence. Eve after her eating and Adam

before his eating, were, he says, in two different states, she in the

state of Death, and he in the State of Life; and thereby his was much

the harder case. For she by her very creation was so much a part of

himself that he could not be happy while she was miserable. The loss

of her happiness so much affected him by sympathy that all his other

enjoyments could do him no good; and therefore since he thought it

impossible for her to return into the same state with him, he chose,

rather than be parted from her, to hazard himself in the same state

with her. Asgill then resumes his legal view of the case: the offence

he says was at last joint and several; the sentence fell upon Mankind

as descendants from these our common ancestors, and so upon Christ

himself. And this is the reason why in the genealogy of our Saviour as

set down by two Evangelists his legal descent by Joseph is only

counted upon, “because all legal descents are accounted from the

father.” As he was born of a Virgin to preserve his nature from the

defilement of humanity, so was he of a Virgin espoused to derive upon

himself the curse of the Law by a legal father: for which purpose it

was necessary that the birth of Christ should, in the terms of the

Evangelist, be on this wise and no otherwise. And hence the Genealogy

of Christ is a fundamental part of Eternal Life.

The reader will soon perceive that technically as Asgill treated his

strange argument, he was sincerely and even religiously convinced of

its importance and its truth. “Having shewn,” he proceeds, “how this

Law fell upon Christ, it is next incumbent on me to shew that it is

taken away by his death, and consequently that the long possession of

Death over the World can be no longer a title against Life. But when I

say this Law is taken away, I don't mean that the words of it are

taken away; for they remain with us to this day and being matter of

Record must remain for ever; but that it is satisfied by other matter

of Record, by which the force of it is gone. Law satisfied is no Law,

as a debt satisfied is no debt. Now the specific demand of the Law was

Death; and of a man; and a man made under the Law. Christ qualified

himself to be so: and as such suffered under it, thus undergoing the

literal sentence. This he might have done and not have given the Law

satisfaction, for millions of men before him had undergone it and yet

the Law was nevertheless dissatisfied with them and others, but He

declared _It is finished_ before he gave up the ghost. By the dignity

of his person he gave that satisfaction which it was impossible for

mankind to give.”

For the Law, he argues, was not such a civil contract that the breach

of it could be satisfied; it was a Law of Honour, the breach whereof

required personal satisfaction for the greatest affront and the

highest act of ingratitude to God, inasmuch as the slighter the thing

demanded is, the greater is the affront in refusing it. “Man by his

very creation entered into the labours of the Creator and became Lord

of the Universe which was adapted to his enjoyments. God left him in

possession of it upon his parole of honour, only that he would

acknowledge it to be held of Him, and as the token of this tenure that

he would only forbear from eating of one tree, withal telling him that

if he did eat of it, his life should go for it. If man had had more

than his life to give, God would have had it of him. This was rather a

resentment of the affront, than any satisfaction for it; and therefore

to signify the height of this resentment God raises man from the dead

to demand further satisfaction from him. Death is a commitment to the

prison of the Grave till the Judgement of the Great Day; and then the

grand Habeas Corpus will issue to the Earth and to the Sea, to give up

their dead: to remove the Bodies, with the cause of their commitment.

“Yet was this a resentment without malice; for as God maintained his

resentment under all his love, so He maintained his love under all his

resentment. For his love being a love of kindness flowing from his own

nature, could not be diminished by any act of man; and yet his honour

being concerned to maintain the truth of his word, he could not

falsify that to gratify his own affection. And thus he bore the

passion of his own love, till he had found out a salvo for his honour

by that Son of Man who gave him satisfaction at once by the dignity of

his person. Personal satisfactions by the Laws of Honour are esteemed

sufficient or not, according to the equality or inequality between the

persons who give or take the affront. Therefore God to vindicate his

honour was obliged to find out a person for this purpose equal to

Himself: the invention of which is called the manifold wisdom of God,

the invention itself being the highest expression of the deepest love,

and the execution of it, in the death of Christ, the deepest

resentment of the highest affront.

“Now inasmuch as the person of our Saviour was superior to the human

nature, so much the satisfaction by his death surmounted the offence.

He died under the Law but he did not arise under it, having taken it

away by his death. The life regained by him in his resurrection was by

Conquest, by which, according to all the Laws of Conquest, the Law of

Death is taken away. For by the Laws of Conquest the Laws of the

conquered are _ipso facto_ taken away, and all records and writings

that remain of them are of no more force than waste paper. Hence the

title of Christ to Eternal Life is become absolute,—by absolute”—says

this theologo-jurist,—“I mean discharged from all tenure or condition,

and consequently from all forfeiture. And as his title to life is thus

become absolute by Conquest, so the direction of it is become eternal

by being annexed to the Person of the Godhead: thus Christ ever since

his resurrection did, and doth, stand seized of an absolute and

indefeazable Estate of Eternal Life, without any tenure or condition

or other matter or thing to change or determine it for ever.” “I had

reason” says Asgill “thus to assert the title of Christ at large;

because this is the title by and under which I am going to affirm my

argument and to claim Eternal Life for myself and all the world.”

“And first I put it upon the Profession of Divinity to deny one word

of the fact as I have repeated it. Next I challenge the Science of the

Law to shew such another Title as this is. And then I defy the

Logicians to deny my Argument: of which this is the abstract: That the

Law delivered to Adam before the Fall is the original cause of Death

in the World: That this Law is taken away by the Death of Christ: That

therefore the legal power of death is gone. And I am so far from

thinking this Covenant of Eternal Life to be an allusion to the forms

of Title amongst men, that I rather adore it as the precedent for them

all; believing with that great Apostle that the things on Earth are

but the patterns of things in the Heavens where the Originals are

kept.” This he says because he has before made it appear that in the

Covenant of Eternal Life all things requisite to constitute a legal

instrument are found, to wit, the date, the parties, the contents, and

consideration, the sealing, and execution, the witnesses, and the

Ceremony required of Man, whereby to execute it on his part and take

the advantage of it.

By the sacrifice which our Lord offered of himself, this technical but

sincere and serious enthusiast argues, more than an atonement was

made. “And that this superabundancy might not run to waste, God

declared that Man should have Eternal Life absolute as Christ himself

had it; and hence Eternal Life is called the Gift of God through our

Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, over and above our redemption. Why

then,” he asks, “doth Death remain in the World? Why because Man knows

not the Way of Life—‘the way of Life they have not known.’ Because our

faith is not yet come to us—‘when the Son of Man comes shall he find

faith upon the earth?’ Because Man is a beast of burden that knows not

his own strength in the virtue of the Death and the power of the

Resurrection of Christ. Unbelief goes not by reason or dint of

argument, but is a sort of melancholy madness, by which if we once

fancy ourselves bound, it hath the same effect upon us as if we really

were so. Death is like Satan, who appears to none but those who are

afraid of him: Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. Because

Death had once dominion over us, we think it hath and must have it

still. And this I find within myself, that though I can't deny one

word I have said in fact or argument, yet I can't maintain my belief

of it without making it more familiar to my understanding, by turning

it up and down in my thoughts and ruminating upon some proceedings

already made upon it in the World.

“The Motto of the Religion of the World is _Mors Janua Vitæ_; if we

mean by this the Death of Christ, we are in the right; but if we mean

our own Death then we are in the wrong. Far be it from me to say that

Man may not attain to Eternal Life, though he should die; for the Text

runs double. ‘_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that liveth and

believeth on me, shall never die; and though he were dead he shall

live._’ This very Text shows that there is a nearer way of entering

into Eternal Life than by the way of Death and Resurrection. Whatever

circumstances a man is under at the time of his death, God is bound to

make good this Text to him, according to which part of it he builds

his faith upon; if he be dead there's a necessity for a resurrection;

but if he be alive there's no occasion for Death or Resurrection

either. This text doth not maintain two religions, but two articles of

faith in the same religion, and the article of faith for a present

life without dying is the higher of the two.

“No man can comprehend the heights and depths of the Gospel at his

first entrance into it; and in point of order, ‘the last enemy to be

destroyed is Death.’ The first essay of Faith is against Hell, that

though we die we may not be damned; and the full assurance of this is

more than most men attain to before Death overtakes them, which makes

Death a terror to men. But they who attain it can sing a requiem ‘Lord

now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace!’ and if God takes them

at their word, they lie down in the faith of the Resurrection of the

Just. But whenever he pleases to continue them, after that attainment,

much longer above ground, that time seems to them an interval of

perfect leisure, till at last espying Death itself, they fall upon it

as an enemy that must be conquered, one time or other, through faith

in Christ. This is the reason why it seems intended that a respite of

time should be allotted to believers after the first Resurrection and

before the dissolution of the World, for perfecting that faith which

they began before their death but could not attain to in the first

reach of life: for Death being but a discontinuance of Life, wherever

men leave off at their death, they must begin at their resurrection.

Nor shall they ascend after their resurrection, till they have

attained to this faith of translation, and by that very faith they

shall be then convinced that they need not have died.

“When Elijah courted death under the juniper tree in the wilderness,

and ‘said—now Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my

fathers,’ that request shews that he was not educated in this faith of

translation, but attained it afterwards by study. Paul tells ‘we shall

not all die but we shall all be changed;’ yet though he delivered this

to be his faith in general, he did not attain to such a particular

knowledge of the way and manner of it as to prevent his own death: he

tells us he had not yet attained the Resurrection of the dead, but was

pressing after it. He had but a late conversion, and was detained in

the study of another part of divinity, the confirming the New

Testament by the Old and making them answer one another,—a point

previous to the faith of translation, and which must be learned before

it—in order to it. But this his pressing (though he did not attain,)

hath much encouraged me,” says Asgill, “to make this enquiry, being

well assured that he would not have thus pursued it, had he not

apprehended more in it than the vulgar opinion.

“We don't think ourselves fit to deal with one another in human

affairs till our age of one and twenty. But to deal with our offended

Maker, to counterplot the malice of fallen Angels, and to rescue

ourselves from eternal ruin, we are generally as well qualified before

we can speak plain, as all our life-time after. Children can say over

their religion at four or five years old, and their parents that

taught them can do no more at four or five and fifty. The common Creed

of the Christian religion may be learned in an hour: and one days

philosophy will teach a man to die. But to know the virtue of the

Death and Power of the Resurrection of Christ, is a science calculated

for the study of Men and Angels for ever.

“But if man may be thus changed without death, and that it is of no

use to him in order to Eternal Life; what then is Death? Or, whereunto

serveth it? What is it? Why 'tis a misfortune fallen upon man from the

beginning, and from which he has not yet dared to attempt his

recovery: and it serves as a Spectre to fright us into a little better

life (perhaps) than we should lead without it. Though God hath formed

this Covenant of Eternal Life, Men have made an agreement with Death

and Hell, by way of composition to submit to Death, in hope of

escaping Hell by that obedience; and under this allegiance we think

ourselves bound never to rebel against it! The study of Philosophy is

to teach men to die, from the observations of Nature; the profession

of Divinity is to enforce the doctrine from Revelation: and the

science of the Law is to settle our civil affairs pursuant to these

resolutions. The old men are making their last Wills and Testaments;

and the young are expecting the execution of them by the death of the

testators; and thus

_Mortis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis._

I was under this Law of Death once; and while I lay under it, I felt

the terror of it, till I had delivered myself from it by those

thoughts which must convince them that have them. And in this thing

only, I wish, for their sakes, that all men were as I am. The reason

why I believe that this doctrine is true, is, because God hath said

it: yet I could not thus assert it by argument, if I did not conceive

it with more self-conviction than I have from any maxims or positions

in human science. The Covenant of Eternal Life is a Law of itself and

a science of itself, which can never be known by the study of any

other science. It is a science out of Man's way, being a pure

invention of God. Man knows no more how to save himself than he did to

create himself; but to raise his ambition for learning this, God

graduates him upon his degree of knowledge in it, and gives him badges

of honour as belonging to that degree, upon the attainment whereof a

man gains the title of a Child of the Resurrection: to which title

belongs this badge of honour, to die no more but make our exit by

translation, as Christ, who was the first of this Order, did before

us. And this world being the academy to educate Man for Heaven, none

shall ever enter there till they have taken this degree here.

“Let the Dead bury the Dead! and the Dead lie with the Dead! And the

rest of the Living go lie with them! I'll follow him that was dead,

and is alive, and living for ever. And though I am now single, yet I

believe that this belief will be general before the general change, of

which Paul speaks, shall come; and that then, and not before, shall be

the Resurrection of the Just, which is called the first Resurrection;

and after that the Dead so arisen, with the Living, then alive, shall

have learned this faith, which shall qualify them to be caught up

together in the air, then shall be the General Resurrection, after

which Time shall be no more.

“The beginning of this faith, like all other parts of the Kingdom of

Heaven will be like a grain of mustard seed, spreading itself by

degrees till it overshadow the whole earth. And since ‘the things

concerning Him must have an end,’ in order to this they must have a

beginning. But whoever leads the van will make the world start, and

must expect for himself to walk up and down, like Cain, with a mark on

his forehead, and run the gauntlet for an Ishmaelite, having every

man's hand against him because his hand is against every man; than

which nothing is more averse to my temper. This makes me think of

publishing with as much regret as he that ran way from his errand when

sent to Niniveh: but being just going to cross the water—(he was going

to Ireland,—) I dared not leave this behind me undone, lest a Tempest

send me back again to do it. And to shelter myself a little, (though I

knew my speech would betray me) I left the Title page anonymous. Nor

do I think that any thing would now extort my name from me but the

dread of the sentence, ‘he that is ashamed of me and of my words, of

him will I be ashamed before my Father and his Angels:’ for fear of

which I dare not but subscribe my argument, though with a trembling

hand; having felt two powers within me all the while I have been about

it, one bids me write, and the other bobs my elbow. But since I have

wrote this, as Pilate did his inscription, without consulting any one,

I'll be absolute as he was; ‘what I have written, I have written.’

“Having pursued that command, ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God,’ I yet

expect the performance of that promise, ‘to receive in this life an

hundred fold, and in the world to come life everlasting.’ I have a

great deal of business yet in this world, without doing of which

Heaven itself would be uneasy to me: but when that is done I know no

business I have with the dead, and therefore do depend that I shall

not go hence by ‘returning to the dust,’ which is the sentence of that

law from which I claim a discharge: but that I shall make my exit by

way of translation, which I claim as a dignity belonging to that

Degree in the Science of Eternal Life of which I profess myself a

graduate. And if after this I die like other men, I declare myself to

die of no religion. Let no one be concerned for me as a desperade: I

am not going to renounce the other part of our religion, but to add

another article of faith to it, without which I cannot understand the

rest. And if it be possible to believe too much in God, I desire to be

guilty of that sin.

“Behold ye despisers and wonder! Wonder to see Paradise lost, with the

Tree of Life in the midst of it! Wonder and curse at Adam for an

original fool, who in the length of one day never so much as thought

to put forth his hand, for him and us, and pull and eat and live for

ever! Wonder at and damn ourselves for fools of the last impression,

that in the space of seventeen hundred years never so much as thought

to put forth our hands, every one for himself, and seal and execute

the Covenant of Eternal Life.

“To be even with the World at once, he that wonders at my faith, I

wonder at his unbelief. The Blood of Christ hath an incident quality

which cleaneth from sin; and he that understands this never makes any

use of his own personal virtues as an argument for his own salvation,

lest God should overbalance against him with his sins; nor doth God

ever object a man's sins to him in the day of his faith; therefore

till I am more sinful than He was holy, my sins are no objection

against my faith. And because in Him is all my hope, I care not

(almost) what I am myself.

“It is observed in the mathematics that the practice doth not always

answer the theory; and that therefore there is no dependence upon the

mere notions of it as they lie in the brain, without putting them

together in the form of a tool or instrument, to see how all things

fit. This made me distrust my own thoughts till I had put them

together, to see how they would look in the form of an argument. But

in doing this, I thank God I have found every joint and article to

come into its own place and fall in with and suit one another to a

hair's breadth, beyond my expectation: or else I could not have had

the confidence to produce this as an engine in Divinity to convey man

from Earth to Heaven. I am not making myself wings to fly to Heaven

with, but only making myself ready for that conveyance which shall be

sent me. And if I should lose myself in this untrodden path of Life, I

can still find out the beaten Road of Death blindfold. If therefore,

after this, ‘I go the way of my fathers’ I freely waive that haughty

epitaph, _magnis tamen excidit ausis_, and instead knock under table

that Satan hath beguiled me to play the fool with myself, in which

however he hath shewed his masterpiece; for I defy the whole clan of

Hell to produce another lye so like to truth as this is. But if I act

my motto, and go the way of an Eagle in the air, then have I played a

trump upon Death and shewn myself a match for the Devil.

“And while I am thus fighting with Death and Hell, it looks a little

like foul play for Flesh and Blood to interpose themselves against me.

But if any one hath spite enough to give me a polt, thinking to

falsify my faith by taking away my life, I only desire them first to

qualify themselves for my executioners, by taking this short test in

their own consciences: whoever thinks that any thing herein contained

is not fair dealing with God and Man, let him—or her—burn this book,

and cast a stone at him that wrote it.”

CHAPTER CLXXIII.

MORE CONCERNING ASGILL. HIS DEFENCE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, HIS

EXPULSION, FARTHER SPECULATIONS AND DEATH.

Let not that ugly Skeleton appear!

Sure Destiny mistakes; this Death's not mine!

DRYDEN.

The substance of Asgill's argument has been given in his own words,

but by thus abstracting and condensing it his peculiar manner is lost.

This though it consisted more perhaps in appearance than in reality,

is characteristic of the author, and may be well exemplified in the

concluding passage of one of his political pamphlets:

“But I shall raise more choler by this way of writing,

For writing and reading are in themselves commendable things,

But 'tis the way of writing at which offence is taken,

And this is the misfortune of an Author,

That unless some are angry with him, none are pleased.

Which puts him under this dilemma,

That he must either ruin himself or his Printer.

“But to prevent either, as far as I can, I would rather turn Trimmer

and compound too. And to end all quarrels with my readers (if they

please to accept the proposal,

And to shew withal that I am no dogmatical Author,)

I now say to them all, in print, what I once did to one of them, by

word of mouth. Whoever meets with any thing in what I publish, which

they don't like,

_Let 'em strike it out._

But to take off part of the Odium from me,

They say others write like me,

In short paragraphs:

(An easy part of a mimick,)

But with all my heart!

I don't care who writes like me,

So I do'nt write like them.”

Many a book has originated in the misfortunes of its Author. Want,

imprisonment, and disablement by bodily infirmity from active

occupation, have produced almost as many works in prose or rhyme, as

leisure, voluntary exertion, and strong desire. Asgill's harmless

heresy began in an involuntary confinement to which he was reduced in

consequence of an unsuccessful speculation; he had engaged in this

adventure (by which better word our forefathers designated what the

Americans call a _spec_,) with the hope of increasing his fortune,

instead of which he incurred so great a loss that he found it

necessary to keep his chamber in the Temple for some years. There he

fell to examining that “Book of Law and Gospel,” both which we call

the Bible; and examining it as he would have perused an old deed with

the hope of discovering in it some clause upon which to ground a claim

at law, this thought, he says, first came into his head; but it was a

great while coming out. He was afraid of his own thoughts, lest they

were his own only, and as such a delusion. And when he had tried them

with pen, ink and paper, and they seemed to him plainer and plainer

every time he went over them, and he had formed them into an Argument,

“to see how they would bear upon the proof,” even then he had no

intention of making them public.

“But writing an ill hand,” says he, “I resolved to see how it would

look in print. On this I gave the Printer my Copy, with money for his

own labour, to print off some few for myself, and keep the press

secret. But I remember before he got half way through, he told me his

men fancied I was a little crazed, in which I also fancied he spoke

one word for them and two for himself. However I bid him go on; and at

last it had so raised his fancy that he desired my leave to print off

one edition at the risque of his own charge, saying he thought some of

the Anabaptists would believe it first. I being just then going for

Ireland, admitted him, with this injunction, he should not publish

them 'till I was got clear out of Middlesex; which I believe he might

observe; though by what I heard afterwards, they were all about town

by that time I got to St. Albans: and the book was in Ireland almost

as soon as I was, (for a man's works will follow him,) with a noise

after me that I was gone away mad.”

Asgill was told in Ireland that the cry which followed him would

prevent his practice; it had a contrary effect, for “people went into

Court to see him as a Monster and heard him talk like a man.” In the

course of two years he gained enough by his profession to purchase

Lord Kenmure's forfeited estate, and to procure a seat in the Irish

House of Commons. The purchase made him enemies; as he was on the way

to Dublin he met the news that his book had been burnt by Order of the

House. He proceeded however, took the oaths and his seat, and the Book

having been condemned and executed without hearing the author in its

defence, nothing more was necessary than to prove him the Author and

expel him forthwith, and this was done in the course of four days.

After this he returned to England and obtained a seat for Bramber,

apparently for the mere sake of securing himself against his

creditors. This borough he represented for two years; but in the first

Parliament after the Union some of the Scotch Members are said to have

looked upon it as a disgrace to the House of Commons that a man who

enjoyed his liberty only under privilege should sit there, and instead

of attempting to remedy a scandal by straight forward means, they took

the easier course of moving for a Committee to examine his book. Their

report was that it was profane and blasphemous, highly reflecting upon

the Christian Religion. He was allowed however to make his defence,

which he thus began.

“Mr. Speaker, this day calls me to something I am both unapt and

averse to—Preaching. For though, as you see, I have vented some of my

thoughts in religion, yet I appeal to my conversation, whether I use

to make that the subject of my discourse. However that I may not let

this accusation go against me by a _Nihil dicit_, I stand up to make

my defence. I have heard it from without doors that I intended to

withdraw myself from this day's test and be gone; which would have

given them that said it an opportunity to boast that they had once

spoken truth. But _quo me fata trahunt_, I'll give no man occasion to

write _fugam fecit_ upon my grave-stone.”

He then gave the history of his book and of his expulsion in Ireland,

and thanked the House for admitting him to a defence before they

proceeded to judgement. “I find,” said he, “the Report of the

Committee is not levelled at the argument itself which I have

advanced, nor yet against the treatise I have published to prove it,

but against some expressions in that proof, and which I intend to give

particular answers to. But there is something else laid to my charge

as my design in publishing that argument, of higher concern to me than

any expressions in the treatise, or any censure that can fall on me

for it; as if I had wrote it with a malicious intention to expose the

scriptures as false, because they seemed to contain what I asserted;

and that therefore if that assertion did not hold true, the Scripture

must be false. Now whether this was my intention or no, there is but

one Witness in Heaven or Earth can prove, and that is He that made me,

and in whose presence I now stand, and Who is able to strike me dead

in my place; and to Him I now appeal for the truth of what I protest

against: that I never did write or publish that argument with any

intention to expose the Scriptures; but on the contrary, (though I was

aware that I might be liable to that censure, which I knew not how to

avoid) I did both write and publish it, under a firm belief of the

truth of the Scriptures: and with a belief, (under that) that what I

have asserted in that argument is within that truth. And if it be not,

then I am mistaken in my argument and the Scripture remains true. Let

God be true and every man a lyar. And having made this protestation, I

am not much concerned whether I am believed in it or not; I had rather

tell a truth than be believed in a lie at any time.”

He then justified the particular passage which had been selected for

condemnation, resting his defence upon this ground, that he had used

familiar expressions with the intent of being sooner read and more

readily understood. There was indeed but a single word which savoured

of irreverence, and certainly no irreverence was intended in its use:

no one who fairly perused his argument but must have perceived that

the levity of his manner in no degree detracted from the seriousness

of his belief. “Yet,” said he, “if by any of those expressions I have

really given offence to any well-meaning Christian, I am sorry for it,

though I had no ill intention in it: but if any man be captious to

take exceptions for exception sake, I am not concerned. I esteem my

own case plain and short. I was expelled one House for having too much

land; and I am going to be expelled another for having too little

money. But if I may yet ask one question more; pray what is this

blasphemous crime I here stand charged with? A belief of what we all

profess, or at least what no one can deny. If the death of the body be

included in the Fall, why is not the life of the body included in the

Resurrection? And what if I have a firmer belief of this than some

others have? Am I therefore a blasphemer? Or would they that believe

less take it well of me to call them so. Our Saviour in his day took

notice of some of little faith and some of great faith, without

stigmatizing either of them with blasphemy for it. But I do not know

how 'tis, we are fallen into such a sort of uniformity that we would

fain have Religion into a Tyrant's bed, torturing one another into our

own size of it only. But it grows late, and I ask but one saying more

to take leave of my friends with. I do believe that had I turned this

Defence into a Recantation, I had prevented my Expulsion: but I have

reserved my last words as my ultimate reason against that Recantation.

He that durst write that book, dares not deny it!”

“And what then?” said this eccentric writer, when five years

afterwards he published his Defence. “Why then they called for

candles; and I went away by the light of 'em: and after the previous

question and other usual ceremonies, (as I suppose) I was expelled the

House. And from thence I retired to a Chamber I once had in the

Temple; and from thence I afterwards surrendered myself in discharge

of my bail, and have since continued under confinement. And under that

confinement God hath been pleased to take away, ‘the Desire of mine

Eyes with a stroke,’ which hath however drowned all my other troubles

at once; for the less are merged in the greater;

_Qui venit hic fluctus, fluctus supereminet omnes._

And since I have mentioned her, I'll relate this of her. She having

been educated a Protestant of the Church of England, by a Lady her

Grandmother, her immediate parents and other relations being Roman

Catholics, an honest Gentleman of the Romish persuasion, who knew her

family, presented her, while she was my fellow-prisoner, with a large

folio volume, being the history of the Saints canonized in that

Church, for her reading; with intention, as I found, to incline her

that way. With which, delighting in reading, she entertained herself

'till she shad gone through it; and some time after that she told me

that she had before some thoughts towards that religion, but that the

reading that history had confirmed her against it.

“And yet she would never read the book I was expelled for 'till after

my last expulsion; but then reading it through, told me she was

reconciled to the reasons of it, though she could not say she believed

it. However she said something of her own thoughts with it, that hath

given me the satisfaction that she is ‘dead in Christ,’ and thereby

sure of her part in the first Resurrection: the Dead in Christ shall

arise first. And this _pars decessa mei_ leaving me half dead while

she remains in the grave, hath since drawn me, in diving after her,

into a nearer view and more familiar though more unusual thoughts of

that first Resurrection than ever I had before. From whence I now find

that nothing less than this _fluctus decumanus_ would have cast me

upon, or qualified me for, this theme, if yet I am so qualified. And

from hence I am advancing that common Article in our Creed, the

Resurrection of the Dead, into a professed study; from the result of

which study I have already advanced an assertion, which (should I vent

alone) perhaps would find no better quarter in the world than what I

have advanced already. And yet, though I say it that perhaps should

not, it hath one quality we are all fond of,—it is News; and another

we all should be fond of, it is good News: or at least, good to them

that are so, ‘for to the froward all things are froward.’

“Having made this Discovery, or rather collected it from the Word of

Life; I am advancing it into a Treatise whereby to prove it in special

form, not by arguments of wit or sophistry, but from the evidence and

demonstration of the truth as it is in Jesus: which should I

accomplish I would not be prevented from publishing that edition to

gain more than I lost by my former; nor for more than Balak ever

intended to give, or than Balaam could expect to receive, for cursing

the people of Israel, if God had not spoilt that bargain. I find it as

old as the New Testament, ‘if by any means I may attain the

Resurrection of the Dead.’ And though Paul did not then so attain,

(not as if I had already attained,) yet he died in his calling, and

will stand so much nearer that mark at his Resurrection. But if Paul,

with that effusion of the Spirit upon him in common with the other

Apostles, and that superabundant revelation given him above them all,

by that rapture unto things unutterable, did not so attain in that his

day; whence should I a mere Lay, (and that none of the best neither)

without any function upon me, expect to perfect what he left so

undone?—In pursuit of this study I have found, (what I had not before

observed) that there are some means since left us towards this

attainment, which Paul had not in his day; for there now remain extant

unto the world, bound up with that now one entire record of the Bible,

two famous Records of the Resurrection that never came to Paul's

hands; and for want whereof, perhaps, he might not then so attain. But

having now this intelligence of them, and fearing that in the day of

Account I may have a special surcharge made upon me for these

additional Talents and further Revelations; and bearing in mind the

dreadful fate of that cautious insuring servant who took so much care

to redeliver what he had received _in statu quo_ as he had it that it

might not be said to be the worse for his keeping, I have rather

adventured to defile those Sacred Records with my own study and

thoughts upon them, than to think of returning them wrapt up in a

napkin clean and untouched.

“Whether ever I shall accomplish to my own satisfaction what I am now

so engaged in, I do not yet know; but 'till I do, I'll please myself

to be laughed at by this cautious insuring world, as tainted with a

frenzy of dealing in Reversions of Contingencies. However in the mean

time I would not be thought to be spending this interval of my days by

myself in beating the air, under a dry expectancy only of a thing so

seemingly remote as the Resurrection of the Dead: like

Courtiers-Extraordinary fretting out their soles with attendances in

ante-rooms for things or places no more intended to be given them than

perhaps they are fit to have them. For though I should fall short of

the attainment I am attempting, the attempt itself hath translated my

Prison into a Paradise; treating me with food and enamouring me with

pleasures that man knows not of: from whence, I hope, I may without

vanity say,

_Deus nobis hæc otia fecit._”

What the farther reversion might be to which Asgill fancied he had

discovered a title in the Gospels, is not known. Perhaps he failed in

satisfying himself when he attempted to arrange his notions in logical

and legal form, and possibly that failure may have weakened his

persuasion of the former heresy: for though he lived twenty years

after the publication of his Defence and the announcement of this

second discovery in the Scriptures, the promised argument never

appeared. His subsequent writings consist of a few pamphlets in favour

of the Hanoverian succession. They were too inconsiderable to

contribute much towards eking out his means of support, for which he

was probably chiefly indebted to his professional knowledge. The

remainder of his life was past within the Rules of the King's Bench

Prison, where he died in 1738 at a very advanced age, retaining his

vivacity and his remarkable powers of conversation to the last. If it

be true that he nearly attained the age of an hundred (as one

statement represents) and with these happy faculties unimpaired, he

may have been tempted to imagine that he was giving the best and only

convincing proof of his own argument. Death undeceived him, and Time

has done him justice at last. For though it stands recorded that he

was expelled the House of Commons as being the Author of a Book in

which are contained many profane and blasphemous expressions, highly

reflecting upon the Christian Religion! nothing can be more certain

than that this censure was undeserved, and that his expulsion upon

that ground was as indefensible as it would have been becoming, if, in

pursuance of the real motives by which the House was actuated, an Act

had been past disqualifying from that time forward any person in a

state of insolvency from taking or retaining a seat there.

In the year 1760 I find him mentioned as “the celebrated gentleman

commonly called ‘translated Asgill.’” His name is now seen only in

catalogues, and his history known only to the curious:—“_Mais, c'est

assez parlé de luy, et encore trop, ce diront aucuns, qui pourront

m'en blasmer, et dire que j'estois bien de loisir quand j'escrivis

cecy; mais ils seront bien plus de loisir de la lire, pour me

reprendre._”[1]

[Footnote 1: BRANTOME.]

CHAPTER CLXXIV.

THE DOCTOR INDULGES IN THE WAY OF FANTASTIC AND TYPICAL SPECULATION ON

HIS OWN NAME, AND ON THE POWERS OF THE LETTER D., WHETHER AS REGARDS

DEGREES AND DISTINCTIONS, GODS AND DEMIGODS, PRINCES AND KINGS,

PHILOSOPHERS, GENERALS OR TRAVELLERS.

My mouth's no dictionary; it only serves as the needful interpreter of

my heart.

QUARLES.

There were few things in the way of fantastic and typical speculation

which delighted the Doctor so much as the contemplation of his own

name:

DANIEL DOVE.

D. D. it was upon his linen and his seal. D. D. he used to say,

designated the highest degree in the highest of the sciences, and he

was D. D. not by the forms of a University, but by Nature or Destiny.

Besides, he maintained, that the letter D was the richest, the most

powerful, the most fortunate letter in the alphabet, and contained in

its form and origin more mysteries than any other.

It was a potential letter under which all powerful things were

arranged; Dictators, Despots, Dynasties, Diplomas, Doctors,

Dominations; Deeds and Donations and Decrees; Dioptrics and Dynamics;

Dialectics and Demonstrations.

Diaphragm, Diathesis, Diet, Digestion, Disorder, Disease, Diagnosis;

Diabrosis, Diaphragmatis, Diaphthora, Desudation, Defluxions,

Dejection, Delirium, Delivery, Dyspepsy, Dysmenorrhœa, Dysorœxia,

Dyspnœa, Dysuria, Dentition, Dropsy, Diabetes, Diarrhœa, Dysentery;

then passing almost in unconscious but beautiful order from diseases

to remedies and their consequences, he proceeded with Dispensation,

Diluents, Discutients, Deobstruents, Demulcents, Detergents,

Desiccatives, Depurantia, Diaphoretics, Dietetics, Diachylon,

Diacodium, Diagrydium, Deligations, Decoctions, Doses, Draughts,

Drops, Dressings, Drastics, Dissolution, Dissection. What indeed he

would say, should we do in our profession without the Ds?

Or what would the Divines do without it—Danger, Despair, Death, Devil,

Doomsday, Damnation; look to the brighter side, there is the Doxology,

and you ascend to _Διὸς_, and Deus and Deity.

What would become of the farmer without Dung, or of the Musician

without the Diapason? Think also of Duets in music and Doublets at

Backgammon. And the soldier's toast in the old Play, “the two Ds Drink

and your Duty.”[1]

[Footnote 1: Shirley, Honoria and Mammon.]

Look at the moral evils which are ranged under its banners,

Dissentions, Discord, Duels, Dissimulation, Deceit, Dissipation,

Demands, Debts, Damages, Divorce, Distress, Drunkenness,

Dram-drinking, Distraction, Destruction.

When the Poet would describe things mournful and calamitous, whither

doth he go for epithets of alliterative significance? where but to the

letter D? there he hath Dim, Dusky, Drear, Dark, Damp, Dank, Dismal,

Doleful, Dolorous, Disastrous, Dreadful, Desperate, Deplorable.

Would we sum up the virtues and praise of a perfect Woman, how should

we do it but by saying that she was devout in religion, decorous in

conduct, domestic in habits, dextrous in business, dutiful as a wife,

diligent as a mother, discreet as a mistress, in manner debonnaire, in

mind delicate, in person delicious, in disposition docile, in all

things delightful. Then he would smile at Mrs. Dove and say, I love my

love with a D. and her name is Deborah.

For degrees and distinctions, omitting those which have before been

incidentally enumerated, are there not Dauphin and Dey, Dux, Duke,

Doge. Dominus, with its derivatives Don, the Dom of the French and

Portugueze, and the Dan of our own early language; Dame, Damsel, and

Damoisel in the untranslated masculine. Deacons and Deans, those of

the Christian Church, and of Madagascar whose title the French write

Dian, and we should write Deen not to confound them with the

dignitaries of our Establishment. Druids and Dervises, Dryads,

Demigods and Divinities.

Regard the Mappa Mundi. You have Denmark and Dalecarlia, Dalmatia and

the fertile Delta, Damascus, Delos, Delphi and Dodona, the Isles of

Domingo and Dominica, Dublin and Durham and Dorchester and Dumfries,

the shires of Devon, Dorset and Derby and the adjoining Bishoprick.

Dantzic and Drontheim, the Dutchy of Deux Ponts; Delhi the seat of the

Great Mogul, and that great city yet unspoiled, which

Geryon's sons

Call El Dorado,—

the Lakes Dembea and Derwentwater, the rivers Dwina, Danube and

Delawar, Duero or Douro call it which you will, the Doubs and all the

Dons, and our own wizard Dee,—which may be said to belong wholly to

this letter, the vowels being rather for appearance than use.

Think also, he would say of the worthies, heroes and sages in D.

David, and his namesake of Wales. Diogenes, Dædalus, Diomede, and

Queen Dido, Decebalus the Dacian King, Deucalion, Datames the Carian

whom Nepos hath immortalized, and Marshal Daun who so often kept the

King of Prussia in check, and sometimes defeated him. Nay if I speak

of men eminent for the rank which they held, or for their exploits in

war, might I not name the Kings of Persia who bore the name of Darius,

Demaratus of Sparta, whom the author of Leonidas hath well pourtrayed

as retaining in exile a reverential feeling toward the country which

had wronged him: and Deodatus, a name assumed by, or given to Lewis

the 14th, the greatest actor of greatness that ever existed. Dion who

lives for ever in the page of Plutarch; the Demetrii, the Roman Decii,

Diocletian, and Devereux Earl of Essex, he by whom Cadiz was taken,

and whose execution occasioned the death of the repentant Elizabeth by

whom it was decreed. If of those who have triumphed upon the ocean

shall we not find Dragat the far-famed corsair, and our own more

famous and more dreadful Drake. Dandolo the Doge who at the age of

[2] triumphed over the perfidious Greeks, and was first chosen by the

victorious Latins to be the Emperor of Constantinople: Doria of whom

the Genoese still boast. Davis who has left his name so near the

Arctic Pole. Dampier of all travellers the most observant and most

faithful.[3] Diaz who first attained that Stormy Cape, to which from

his time the happier name of Good Hope hath been given; and Van Diemen

the Dutchman. If we look to the learned, are there not Duns Scotus and

Descartes. Madame Dacier and her husband. Damo the not-degenerate

daughter of Pythagoras, and though a woman renowned for secrecy and

silence; Dante and Davila, Dugdale and Dupin; Demosthenes, Doctor Dee,

(he also like the wizard stream all our own) and Bishop Duppa to whom

the _Εικὼν Βασιλικὴ_ whether truly or not, hath been ascribed: Sir

Kenelm Digby by whom it hath been proved that Dogs make syllogisms;

and Daniel Defoe. Here the Doctor always pronounced the christian name

with peculiar emphasis, and here I think it necessary to stop, that

the Reader may take breath.

[Footnote 2: The blank is in the original MS. Quære, _ninety-five_?]

[Footnote 3: “One of the most faithful, as well as exact and excellent

of all voyage writers.” _Vindiciæ Eccl. Angl._ p. 115. Unhappily

Southey's wish to continue this work was not responded to. The

continuation would have proved invaluable now; for who, so well as he,

knew the wiles of the Romish Church, and the subtilties of the

Jesuit?]

CHAPTER CLXXV.

THE DOCTOR FOLLOWS UP HIS MEDITATIONS ON THE LETTER D. AND EXPECTS

THAT THE READER WILL BE CONVINCED THAT IT IS A DYNAMIC LETTER, AND

THAT THE HEBREWS DID NOT WITHOUT REASON CALL IT DALETH—THE DOOR—AS

THOUGH IT WERE THE DOOR OF SPEECH.—THE MYSTIC TRIANGLE.

More authority dear boy, name more; and sweet my child let them be men

of good repute and carriage.—

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

The Doctor as I have said in the last Chapter pronounced with peculiar

emphasis the christian name of Daniel Defoe. Then taking up the

auspicious word.—Is there not Daniel the prophet, in honour of whom my

baptismal name was given, Daniel if not the greatest of the prophets,

yet for the matter of his prophecies the most important. Daniel the

French historian, and Daniel the English poet; who reminds me of other

poets in D not less eminent. Donne, Dodsley, Drayton, Drummond,

Douglas the Bishop of Dunkeld, Dunbar, Denham, Davenant, Dyer, Durfey,

Dryden, and Stephen Duck; Democritus the wise Abderite, whom I

especially honour for finding matter of jest even in the profoundest

thought, extracting mirth from philosophy, and joining in delightful

matrimony wit with wisdom. Is there not Dollond the Optician.

Dalembert and Diderot among those Encyclopedists with whose renown

all Europe rings from side to side,

Derham the Astro-Physico—and Christo—Theologian, Dillenius the

botanist, Dion who for his eloquence was called the golden-mouthed;

Diagoras who boldly despising the false Gods of Greece, blindly and

audaciously denied the God of Nature. Diocles who invented the

cissoid, Deodati, Diodorus, and Dion Cassius. Thus rich was the letter

D even before the birth of Sir Humphrey Davy, and the catastrophe of

Doctor Dodd: before Daniel Mendoza triumphed over Humphreys in the

ring, and before Dionysius Lardner, Professor at the St —— 'niversity

of London, projected the Cabinet Cyclopædia, Daniel O'Connell fought

Mr. Peel, triumphed over the Duke of Wellington, bullied the British

Government, and changed the British Constitution.

If we look to the fine arts, he pursued, the names of Douw, and Durer,

Dolce and Dominichino instantly occur. In my own profession, among the

ancients, Dioscorides; among the moderns Dippel, whose marvellous oil

is not more exquisitely curious in preparation than powerful in its

use; Dover of the powder; Dalby of the Carminative; Daffy of the

Elixir; Deventer by whom the important art of bringing men into the

world has been so greatly improved; Douglas who has rendered lithotomy

so beautiful an operation, that he asserteth in his motto it may be

done speedily, safely, and pleasantly; Dessault now rising into fame

among the Continental surgeons, and Dimsdale who is extending the

blessings of inoculation. Of persons eminent for virtue or sanctity,

who ever in friendship exceeded Damon the friend of Pythias? Is there

not St. John Damascenus, Dr. Doddridge, Deborah the Nurse of Rebekah,

who was buried beneath Beth-el under an Oak, which was called

Allon-bachuth, the Oak of Weeping, and Deborah the wife of Lapidoth,

who dwelt under her palm-trees between Ramah and Beth-el in Mount

Ephraim, where the children of Israel came up to her for judgment, for

she was a mother in Israel; Demas for whom St. Paul greets the

Colossians, and whom he calleth his fellow labourer; and Dorcas which

being interpreted is in Hebrew Tabitha and in English Doe, who was

full of good works and alms-deeds, whom therefore Peter raised from

the dead, and whom the Greeks might indeed truly have placed among the

_Δευτερόποτμοι_; Daniel already named, but never to be remembered too

often, and Dan the father of his tribe. Grave writers there are, the

Doctor would say, who hesitate not to affirm that Dan was the first

King of Denmark more properly called Danmark from his name, and that

he instituted there the military order of Dannebrog. With the

pretensions of these Danish Antiquaries he pursued, I meddle not.

There is surer authority for the merits of this my first namesake.

“Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall

be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's

heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.” Daniel quoth the

Doctor, is commonly abbreviated into Dan, from whence doubtless it

taketh its root; and the Daniel therefore who is not wise as a

serpent, falsifieth the promise of the patriarch Jacob.

That this should have been the Dan who founded the kingdom of Denmark

he deemed an idle fancy. King Dans in that country however there have

been, and among them was King Dan called Mykelati or the Magnificent,

with whom the Bruna Olld, or age of Combustion, ended in the North,

and the Hougs Olld or age of barrows began, for he it was who

introduced the custom of interment. But he considered it as indeed an

honour to the name, that Death should have been called _Δάνος_ by the

Macedonians, not as a dialectic or provincial form of _Θάνατος_ but

from the Hebrew Dan, which signifies, says Jeremy Taylor, a Judge, as

intimating that Judges are appointed to give sentence upon criminals

in life and death.

Even if we look at the black side of the shield we still find that the

D preserves its power: there is Dathan, who with Korah and Abiram went

down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them; Dalila by

whom Sampson was betrayed; Dionysius the acoustical tyrant; Domitian

who like a true vice-gerent of Beelzebub tormented flies as well as

men; Decius the fiercest of the persecutors; the inhuman Dunstan, and

the devilish Dominic, after whom it seems all but an anticlimax to

name the _ipsissimus_ Diabolus, the Devil himself. And here let us

remark through how many languages the name of the author of evil

retains its characteristic initial, _Διάβολος_, Diabolus, Diavolo,

Diablo, Diabo, Diable, in Dutch Duival, in Welsh Diawl, and though the

Germans write him Teufel, it is because in their coarser articulation

the D passes into the cognate sound of T, without offending their

obtuser organs of hearing. Even in the appellations given him by

familiar or vulgar irreverence, the same pregnant initial prevails, he

is the Deuce, and Old Davy and Davy Jones. And it may be noted that in

the various systems of false religion to which he hath given birth,

the Delta is still a dominant inchoative. Witness Dagon of the

Philistines, witness the Daggial of the Mahommedans, and the forgotten

root from whence the _Διὸς_ of the Greeks is derived. Why should I

mention the Roman Diespiter, the Syrian Dirceto, Delius with his

sister Delia, known also as Dictynna and the great Diana of the

Ephesians. The Sicyonian Dia, Dione of whom Venus was born, Deiphobe

the Cumæan Sybil who conducted Æneas in his descent to the infernal

regions. Doris the mother of the Nereids, and Dorus father of the race

of Pygmies. Why should I name the Dioscuri, Dice and Dionysus, the

Earth, Mother Demeter, the Demiourgos, gloomy Dis, Demogorgon dread

and Daphne whom the Gods converted into a Laurel to decorate the brows

of Heroes and Poets.

Truly he would say it may be called a dynamic letter; and not without

mystery did the Hebrews call it Daleth, the door, as though it were

the door of speech. Then its form! how full of mysteries! The wise

Egyptians represented it by three stars disposed in a triangle: it was

their hieroglyphic of the Deity. In Greek it is the Delta.

Δ

In this form were the stupendous Pyramids built, when the sage

Egyptians are thought to have emblematised the soul of man, which the

divine Plato supposed to be of this shape. This is the mysterious

triangle, which the Pythagoreans called Pallas, because they said it

sprang from the brain of Jupiter, and Tritogeneia, because if three

right lines were drawn from its angles to meet in the centre, a triple

birth of triangles was produced, each equal to the other.

[Figure: a tetrahedron]

I pass reverently the diviner mysteries which have been illustrated

from hence, and may perhaps be typified herein. Nor will I do more

than touch upon the mechanical powers which we derive from a knowledge

of the properties of the figures, and upon the science of

Trigonometry. In its Roman and more familiar form, the Letter hath

also sublime resemblances or prototypes. The Rainbow resting upon the

earth describes its form. Yea, the Sky and the Earth represent a grand

and immeasurable D; for when you stand upon a boundless plain, the

space behind you and before in infinite longitude is the straight

line, and the circle of the firmament which bends from infinite

altitude to meet it, forms the bow.

For himself, he said, it was a never failing source of satisfaction

when he reflected how richly his own destiny was endowed with Ds. The

D was the star of his ascendant. There was in the accident of his

life,—and he desired it to be understood as using the word accident in

its scholastic acceptations,—a concatenation, a concentration. Yea he

might venture to call it a constellation of Ds. Dove he was born;

Daniel he was baptized; Daniel was the name of his father; Dinah of

his mother, Deborah of his wife; Doctor was his title, Doncaster his

dwelling place; in the year of his marriage, which next to that of his

birth was the most important of his life, D was the Dominical letter;

and in the amorous and pastoral strains wherein he had made his

passion known in the magazines, he had called himself Damon and his

mistress Delia.

CHAPTER CLXXVI.

THE DOCTOR DISCOVERS THE ANTIQUITY OF THE NAME OF DOVE FROM PERUSING

JACOB BRYANT'S ANALYSIS OF ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY.—CHRISTOPHER AND

FERDINAND COLUMBUS.—SOMETHING ABOUT PIGEON-PIE, AND THE REASON WHY THE

DOCTOR WAS INCLINED TO THINK FAVOURABLY OF THE SAMARITANS.

An I take the humour of a thing once, I am like your tailor's needle;

I go through.

BEN JONSON.

Dove also was a name which abounded with mystical significations, and

which derived peculiar significance from its mysterious conjunction

with Daniel. Had it not been said “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless

as Doves?” To him the text was personally applicable in both parts.

Dove he was by birth. Daniel by baptism or the second birth, and

Daniel was Dan, and Dan shall be a serpent by the way.

But who can express his delight when in perusing Jacob Bryant's

Analysis of ancient Mythology, he found that so many of the most

illustrious personages of antiquity proved to be Doves, when their

names were truly interpreted or properly understood! That erudite

interpreter of hidden things taught him that the name of the Dove was

Iön and Iönah, whence in immediate descent the Oän and Oannes of

Berosus and Abydenus, and in longer but lineal deduction Æneas,

Hannes, Hanno, Ionah, _Ιοάννης_, Johannes, Janus, Eanus among the

elder Romans, Giovanni among the later Italians, Juan, Joam, Jean,

John, Jan, Iwain, Ivan, Ewan, Owen, Evan, Hans, Ann, Hannah, Nannette,

Jane, Jeannette, Jeanne, Joanna and Joan; all who had ever borne these

names, or any name derived from the same radical, as doubtless many

there were in those languages of which he had no knowledge, nor any

means of acquiring it, being virtually Doves. Did not Bryant expressly

say that the prophet Jonah was probably so named as a messenger of the

Deity, the mystic Dove having been from the days of Jonah regarded as

a sacred symbol among all nations where any remembrance of the

destruction and renovation of mankind was preserved! It followed

therefore that the prophet Jonah, Hannibal, St. John, Owen Glendower,

Joan of Arc, Queen Anne, Miss Hannah More, and Sir Watkin Williams

Wynn, were all of them his namesakes, to pretermit or pass over Pope

Joan, Little John, and Jack the Giantkiller. And this followed, not

like the derivation of King Pepin from _Ὅσπερ_, by a jump in the

process, such as that from _διάπερ_ to napkin; nor like the equally

well known identification of a Pigeon with an Eel Pye, in the logic of

which the Doctor would have detected a fallacy, but in lawful

etymology, and according to the strict interpretation of words. If he

looked for the names through the thinner disguise of language there

was Semiramis who having been fed by Doves, was named after them. What

was Zurita the greatest historian of Arragon, but a young stock Dove?

What were the three Palominos so properly enumerated in the

Bibliotheca of Nicolas Antonio. Pedro the Benedictine in whose sermons

a more than ordinary breathing of the spirit might not unreasonably be

expected from his name; Francisco who translated into Castillian the

Psychomachia of the Christian poet Aurelius Prudentius, and Diego the

Prior of Xodar, whose _Liber de mutatione aeris, in quo assidua, et

mirabilis mutationis temporum historia, cum suis causis, enarratur_,

he so greatly regretted that he had never been able to procure: what

were these Palominos? what but Doves?—Father Colombiere who framed the

service for the Heart of Jesus which was now so fashionable in

Catholic countries, was clearly of the Dove genus. St. Columba was a

decided Dove; three there were certainly, the Senonian, the Cordovan

and the Cornish: and there is reason to believe that there was a

fourth also, a female Dove, who held a high rank in St. Ursula's great

army of virgins. Columbo the Anatomist, deservedly eminent as one of

those who by their researches led the way for Harvey, he also was a

Dove. Lastly,—and the Doctor in fine taste always reserved the

greatest glory of the Dove name, for the conclusion of his

discourse—lastly, there was Christopher Columbus, whom he used to call

his famous namesake. And he never failed to commend Ferdinand Columbus

for the wisdom and piety with which he had commented upon the mystery

of the name, to remark that his father had conveyed the grace of the

Holy Ghost to the New World, shewing to the people who knew him not

who was God's beloved son, as the Holy Ghost had done in the figure of

a Dove at the baptism of St. John, and bearing like Noah's Dove the

Olive Branch, and the Oil of Baptism over the waters of the ocean.

And what would our onomatologist have said if he had learned to read

these words in that curious book of the &c. family, the Oriental

fragments of Major Edward Moor: “In respect to St. Columba, or Colomb,

and other superstitious names and things in close relationship, I

shall have in another place something to say. I shall try to connect

_Col-omb_, with Kal-O'm,—those infinitely mysterious words of Hindu

mythology: and with these, divers _Mythé_, converging into or

diverging from O'M—A U M,—the Irish _Ogham_,—I A M,—_Amen,

ΙΛω_,—Il-Kolmkill, &c. &c. &c.” Surely had the onomatologist lived to

read this passage, he would forthwith have opened and corresponded

with the benevolent and erudite etcæterarist of Bealings.

These things were said in his deeper moods. In the days of courtship

he had said in song that Venus's car was drawn by Doves, regretting at

the time that an allusion which came with such peculiar felicity from

him, should appear to common readers to mean nothing more than what

rhymers from time immemorial had said before him. After marriage he

often called Mrs. Dove his Turtle, and in his playful humours when the

gracefulness of youth had gradually been superseded by a certain

rotundity of form, he sometimes named her _φάττα_ his ring-dove. Then

he would regret that she had not proved a stock-dove,—and if she

frowned at him, or looked grave, she was his pouting pigeon.

One inconvenience however Mrs. Dove felt from his reverence for the

name. He never suffered a pigeon-pie at his table. And when he read

that the Samaritans were reproached with retaining a trace of Assyrian

superstition because they held it unlawful to eat this bird, he was

from that time inclined to think favourably of the schismatics of

Mount Gerizim.

CHAPTER CLXXVII.

SOMETHING ON THE SCIENCE AND MYSTERY OF NUMBERS WHICH IS NOT ACCORDING

TO COCKER.—REVERIES OF JEAN D'ESPAGNE, MINISTER OF THE FRENCH-REFORMED

CHURCH IN WESTMINSTER, AND OF MR. JOHN BELLAMY.—A PITHY REMARK OF

FULLER'S AND AN EXTRACT FROM HIS PISGAH SIGHT OF PALESTINE, TO

RECREATE THE READER.

None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd

As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd

Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school,

And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

It may easily be supposed that the Doctor was versed in the science of

numbers; not merely that common science which is taught at schools and

may be learnt from Cocker's Arithmetic, but the more recondite

mysteries which have in all ages delighted minds like his; and of

which the richest specimens may be seen in the writings of the Hugonot

Minister Jean de l'Espagne, and in those of our contemporary Mr. John

Bellamy, author of the Ophion, of various papers in the Classical

Journal, and defender of the Old and New Testament.

_Cet auteur est assez digne d'etre lu_, says Bayle of Jean de

l'Espagne, and he says it in some unaccountable humour, too gravely

for a jest. The writer who is thus recommended was Minister of the

Reformed French Church in Westminster, which met at that time in

Somerset Chapel, and his friend Dr. De Garencieres, who wrote

commendatory verses upon him in French, Latin and Greek, calls him

_Belle lumiere des Pasteurs,

Ornement du Siecle ou nous sommes,

Qui trouve des admirateurs

Par tout ou il y a des hommes._

He was one of those men to whom the Bible comes as a book of problems

and riddles, a mine in which they are always at work, thinking that

whatever they can throw up must needs be gold. Among the various

observations which he gave the world without any other order, as he

says, than that in which they presented themselves to his memory,

there may be found good, bad and indifferent. He thought the English

Church had improperly appointed a Clerk to say Amen for the people.

Amen being intended, among other reasons, as a mark whereby to

distinguish those who believed with the officiating Priest from

Idolaters and Heretics. He thought it was not expedient that Jews

should be allowed to reside in England, for a Jew would perceive in

the number of our tolerated sects, a confusion worse than that of

Babel; and as the multitude here are always susceptible of every folly

which is offered, and the more monstrous the faith, to them the better

mystery, it was to be feared, he said, that for the sake of converting

two or three Jews we were exposing a million Christians to the danger

of Judaizing; or at least that we should see new religions start up,

compounded of Judaism with Christianity. He was of opinion, in

opposition to what was then generally thought in England that one

might innocently say God bless you, to a person who sneezed, though he

candidly admitted that there was no example either in the Old or New

Testament, and that in all the Scriptures only one person is mentioned

as having sneezed, to wit the Shunamite's son. He thought it more

probable from certain texts that the Soul at death departs by way of

the nostrils, than by way of the mouth according to the vulgar

notion:—had he previously ascertained which way it came in, he would

have had no difficulty in deciding which way it went out. And he

propounded and resolved a question concerning Jephtha which no person

but himself ever thought of asking: _Pourquoy Dieu voulant delivrer

les Israelites, leur donna pour liberateur, voire pour Chef et

Gouverneur perpetuel, un fils d'une paillarde?_ “O Jephtha, Judge of

Israel,” that a Frenchman should call thee in filthy French _fils

d'une putain!_

But the peculiar talent of the _Belle Lumiere des Pasteurs_ was for

cabalistic researches concerning numbers, or what he calls _L'Harmonie

du Temps_. Numbers, he held, (and every generation, every family,

every individual was marked with one,) were not the causes of what

came to pass, but they were marks or impresses which God set upon his

works, distinguishing them by the difference of these their cyphers.

And he laid it down as a rule that in doubtful points of computation,

the one wherein some mystery could be discovered was always to be

preferred. QUOY?—(think how triumphantly his mouth opened and his nose

was erected and his nostrils were dilated, when he pronounced that

interrogation)—QUOY? _la varieté de nos opinions qui provient

d'imperfection, aneantira-t-elle les merveilles de Dieu?_ In the

course of his Scriptural computations he discovered that when the Sun

stood still at the command of Joshua, it was precisely 2555 years

after the Creation, that is seven years of years, a solar week, after

which it had been preordained that the Sun should thus have its

sabbath of rest: _Ceci n'est il pas admirable?_ It was on the tenth

year of the tenth year of the years that the Sun went back ten

degrees, which was done to show the chronology: _ou est le stupide qui

ne soit ravi en admiration d'une si celeste harmonie?_ With equal

sagacity and equal triumph he discovered how the generations from Adam

to Christ went by twenty-twos; and the generations of Christ by

sevens, being 77 in all, and that from the time the promise of the

Seed was given till its fulfilment there elapsed a week of years,

seven times seventy years, seventy weeks of years, and seven times

seventy weeks of years by which beautiful geometry, if he might be

permitted to use so inadequate a term, the fullness of time was made

up.

What wonderful significations also hath Mr. Bellamy in his kindred

pursuits discovered and darkly pointed out! Doth he not tell us of

seven steps, seven days, seven priests, seven rams, seven bullocks,

seven trumpets, seven shepherds, seven stars, seven spirits, seven

eyes, seven lamps, seven pipes, seven heads, four wings, four beasts,

four kings, four kingdoms, four carpenters; the number three he has

left unimproved,—but for two,—

which number Nature framed

In the most useful faculties of man,

To strengthen mutually and relieve each other,

Two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs and feet,

That where one failed the other might supply,

for this number Mr. Bellamy has two cherubims, two calves, two

turtles, two birds alive, two [1], two baskets of figs, two

olive trees, two women grinding, two men in the fields, two woes, two

witnesses, two candlesticks; and when he descends to the unit, he

tells us of one tree, one heart, one stick, one fold, one pearl,—to

which we must add one Mr. John Bellamy the Pearl of Commentators.

[Footnote 1: The blank is in the MS.]

But what is this to the exquisite manner in which he elucidates the

polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, showing us that the inferior Gods

of their mythology were in their origin only men who had exercised

certain departments in the state, a discovery which he illustrates in

a manner the most familiar, and at the same time the most striking for

its originality. Thus, he says, if the Greeks and Romans had been

Englishmen, or if we Englishmen of the present day were Greeks and

Romans, we should call our Secretary at War, Lord Bathurst for

instance, Mars; the Lord Chancellor (Lord Eldon to wit) Mercury,—as

being at the head of the department for eloquence.—(But as Mercury is

also the God of thieves may not Mr. Bellamy, grave as he is, be

suspected of insinuating here that the Gentlemen of the Long Robe are

the most dextrous of pickpockets?)—The first Lord of the Admiralty,

Neptune. The President of the College of Physicians, Apollo. The

President of the Board of Agriculture, Janus. Because with one face he

looked forward to the new year, while at the same time he looked back

with the other on the good or bad management of the agriculture of the

last, wherefore he was symbolically represented with a second face at

the back of his head. Again Mr. Bellamy seems to be malicious, in thus

typifying or seeming to typify Sir John Sinclair between two

administrations with a face for both. The ranger of the forests he

proceeds, would be denominated Diana. The Archbishop of Canterbury,

Minerva;—Minerva in a Bishop's wig! The first Lord of the Treasury,

Juno; and the Society of Suppression of Vice,—Reader, lay thy watch

upon the table, and guess for three whole minutes what the Society for

the Suppression of Vice would be called upon this ingenious scheme, if

the Greeks and Romans were Englishmen of the present generation, or if

we of the present generation were heathen Greeks and Romans. I leave a

_carte blanche_ before this, lest thine eye outrunning thy judgement,

should deprive thee of that proper satisfaction which thou wilt feel

if thou shouldst guess aright. But exceed not the time which I have

affixed for thee, for if thou dost not guess aright in three minutes,

thou wouldest not in as many years.

* * * * *

VENUS. Yes Reader. By Cyprus and Paphos and the Groves of Idalia. By

the little God Cupid,—by all the Loves and Doves,—and by the lobbies

of the London theatres—he calls the Society for the Suppression of

Vice, VENUS!

Fancy, says Fuller, runs riot when spurred with superstition. This is

his marginal remark upon a characteristic paragraph concerning the

Chambers about Solomon's Temple, with which I will here recreate the

reader. “As for the mystical meaning of these chambers, Bede no doubt,

thought he hit the very mark—when finding therein the three conditions

of life, all belonging to God's Church: in the ground chamber, such as

live in marriage; in the middle chamber such as contract; but in the

_excelsis_ or third story, such as have attained to the sublimity of

perpetual virginity. Rupertus in the lowest chamber lodgeth those of

practical lives with Noah; in the middle—those of mixed lives with

Job; and in the highest—such as spend their days with Daniel in holy

speculations. But is not this rather _lusus_, than _allusio_, sporting

with, than expounding of scriptures? Thus when the gates of the Oracle

are made _five square_, Ribera therein reads our conquest over the

five senses, and when those of the door of the Temple are said to be

_four square_, therein saith he is denoted the _quaternion_ of

Evangelists. After this rate, Hiram (though no doubt dexterous in his

art) could not so soon fit a pillar with a fashion as a Friar can fit

that fashion with a mystery. If made three square, then the Trinity of

Persons: four square, the cardinal virtues: five square, the

_Pentateuch of Moses_: six square, the _Petitions_ or the _Lord's

Prayer_: seven square, their _Sacraments_: eight square, the

_Beatitudes_: nine square, the Orders of Angels: ten square, the

Commandments: eleven square, the moral virtues: twelve square, the

articles of the creed are therein contained. In a word—for matter of

numbers—fancy is never at a loss—like a beggar, never out of her way,

but hath some haunts where to repose itself. But such as in expounding

scriptures reap more than God did sow there, never eat what they reap

themselves, because such grainless husks, when seriously thrashed out,

vanish all into chaff.”[2]

[Footnote 2: Pisgah Sight of Palestine, Book iii. c. vii.]

CLXXVIII.

THE MYSTERY OF NUMBERS PURSUED, AND CERTAIN CALCULATIONS GIVEN WHICH

MAY REMIND THE READER OF OTHER CALCULATIONS EQUALLY

CORRECT—ANAGRAMMATIZING OF NAMES, AND THE DOCTOR'S SUCCESS THEREIN.

“There is no efficacy in numbers, said the wiser Philosophers; and

very truly,”—saith Bishop Hacket in repeating this sentence; but he

continues,—“some numbers are apt to enforce a reverent esteem towards

them, by considering miraculous occurrences which fell out in _holy

Scripture_ on such and such a number.—_Non potest fortuitò fieri, quod

tam sæpe fit_, says Maldonatus whom I never find superstitious in this

matter. It falls out too often to be called contingent; and the

oftener it falls out, the more to be attended.”[1]

[Footnote 1: On referring to Bishop Hacket's Sermons I find this Motto

it not copied out _Verbatim_. See p. 245.]

This choice morsel hath led us from the science of numbers. Great

account hath been made of that science in old times. There was an

epigrammatist who discovering that the name of his enemy Damagoras

amounted in numerical letters to the same sum as _Λοιμὸς_ the plague,

inferred from thence that Damagorus and the Plague were one and the

same thing; a stingless jest serving like many satires of the present

age to show the malice and not the wit of the satirist. But there were

those among the ancients who believed that stronger influences existed

in the number of a name, and that because of their arithmetical

inferiority in this point, Patroclus was slain by Hector, and Hector

by Achilles. Diviners grounded upon this a science which they called

Onomantia or Arithmomantia. When Maurice of Saxony to the great fear

of those who were most attached to him, engaged in war against Charles

V, some one encouraged his desponding friends by this augury, and said

that if the initials of the two names were considered, it would be

seen that the fortunes of Maurice preponderated over those of Charles

in the proportion of a thousand to a hundred.

A science like this could not be without attractions for the Doctor;

and it was with no little satisfaction that he discovered in the three

Ds with which his spoons and his house linen were marked, by

considering them as so many capital Deltas, the figures 444, combining

the complex virtues of the four thrice told. But he discovered greater

secrets in the names of himself and his wife when taken at full

length. He tried them in Latin and could obtain no satisfactory

result, nor had he any better success in Greek when he observed the

proper orthography of _Δανιὴλ_ and _Δεββῶρα_.[2] But anagrammatists

are above the rules of orthography, just as Kings, Divines and Lawyers

are privileged, if it pleases them, to dispense with the rules of

grammar. Taking these words therefore letter by letter according to

the common pronunciation (for who said he pronounces them Danieel and

Deboarah?) and writing the surname in Greek letters instead of

translating it, the sum which it thus produced was equal to his most

sanguine wishes, for thus it proved

Daniel and Deborah Dove.

_Δανιὲλ_ _Δεβόῥα_ _Δοὺε_.

_Δανιὲλ_

_Δ_ 4

_α_ 1

_ν_ 50

_ι_ 10

_ε_ 5

_λ_ 30

-—-

Daniel 100

_Δεβόῥα_

_Δ_ 4

_ε_ 5

_β_ 2

_ο_ 70

_ρ_ 100

_α_ 1

-—-

Deborah 182

_Δοὺε_

_Δ_ 4

_ο_ 70

_υ_ 400

_ε_ 5

-—-

Dove 479

The whole being added together gave the following product

Daniel 100

Deborah 182

Dove 479

—--

761

[Footnote 2: _Δεβόῥῥα_ Gen. xxxv. 8., _Δεββῶρα_ Judges iv. 4. The

double _ῥ_ will not affect the mystery!]

Here was the number 761 found in fair addition, without any arbitrary

change of letters, or licentious innovation in orthography. And herein

was mystery. The number 761 is a prime number; from hence the Doctor

inferred that as the number was indivisible, there could be no

division between himself and Mrs. Dove; an inference which the harmony

of their lives fully warranted. And this alone would have amply

rewarded his researches. But a richer discovery flashed upon him. The

year 1761 was the year of his marriage, and to make up the deficient

thousand there was M for marriage and matrimony. These things he would

say must never be too explicit; their mysterious character would be

lost if they lay upon the surface; like precious metals and precious

stones you must dig to find them.

He had bestowed equal attention and even more diligence in

anagrammatizing the names. His own indeed furnished him at first with

a startling and by no means agreeable result; for upon transposing the

component letters of Daniel Dove, there appeared the words _Leaden

void!_ Nor was he more fortunate in a Latin attempt, which gave him

_Dan vile Deo_. _Vel dona Dei_ as far as it bore a semblance of

meaning was better; but when after repeated dislocations and juxta

positions there came forth the words _Dead in love_, Joshua Sylvester

was not more delighted at finding that Jacobus Stuart made _justa

scrutabo_, and James Stuart _A just Master_, than the Doctor,—for it

was in the May days of his courtship. In the course of these

anagrammatical experiments he had a glimpse of success which made him

feel for a moment like a man whose lottery ticket is next in number to

the £20,000 prize. Dove failed only in one letter of being Ovid. In

old times they did not stand upon trifles in these things, and John

Bunyan was perfectly satisfied with extracting from his name the words

_Nu hony in a B_,—a sentence of which the orthography and the import

are worthy of each other. But although the Doctor was contented with a

very small sufficit of meaning, he could not depart so violently from

the letters here. The disappointment was severe though momentary: it

was, as we before observed, in the days of his courtship; and could he

thus have made out his claim to be called Ovid, he had as clear a

right to add Naso as the Poet of Sulmo himself, or any of the Nasonic

race, for he had been at the promontory, “and why indeed Naso,” as

Holofernes has said?—Why not merely for that reason ‘looking toward

Damascus’ which may be found in the second volume of this work in the

sixty-third chapter and at the two hundred and thirtieth page, but

also “for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of

invention?”[3]

[Footnote 3: Love's Labour Lost, Act iv. Sc. ii.]

Thus much for his own name. After marriage he added his wife's with

the conjunction copulative, and then came out _Dear Delia had bound

one_: nothing could be more felicitous, Delia as has already been

noticed, having been the poetical name by which he addressed the

object of his affections. Another result was _I hadden a dear

bond-love_, but having some doubts as to the syntax of the verb, and

some secret dislike to its obsolete appearance, he altered it into

_Ned, I had a dear bond-love_, as though he was addressing his friend

Dr. Miller the organist, whose name was Edward.

CLXXIX.

THE SUBJECT OF ANAGRAMS CONTINUED; A TRUE OBSERVATION WHICH MANY FOR

WANT OF OBSERVATION WILL NOT DISCOVER TO BE SUCH, VIZ., THAT THERE IS

A LATENT SUPERSTITION IN THE MOST RATIONAL OF MEN. LUCKY AND

UNLUCKY—FITTING AND UNFITTING—ANAGRAMS, AND HOW THE DOCTOR'S TASTE IN

THIS LINE WAS DERIVED FROM OUR OLD ACQUAINTANCE JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

Ha gran forza una vecchia opinione;

E bisogna grand' arte, e gran fatica,

A cavarla del capo alle persone.

BRONZINO PITTORE.

Anagrams are not likely ever again to hold so high a place among the

prevalent pursuits of literature as they did in the seventeenth

century, when Louis XIII. appointed the Provençal Thomas Billen to be

his Royal Anagrammatist, and granted him a salary of 1200 _livres_.

But no person will ever hit upon an apt one without feeling that

degree of pleasure and surprize with which any odd coincidence is

remarked. Has any one who knows Johnny the Bear heard his name thus

anagrammatized without a smile? we may be sure he smiled and growled

at the same time when he first heard it himself.

Might not Father Salvator Mile, and Father Louis Almerat, who were

both musicians, have supposed themselves as clearly predestined to be

musical, as ever seventh son of a Septimus thought himself born for

the medical professions, if they had remarked what Penrose discovered

for them, that their respective names, with the F. for Friar prefixed,

each contained the letters of the six musical notes _ut_, _re_, _mi_,

_fa_, _sol_, _la_, and not a letter more or less?

There is, and always hath been, and ever will be, a latent

superstition in the most rational of men. It belongs to the weakness

and dependence of human nature. Believing as the scriptures teach us

to believe, that signs and tokens have been vouchsafed in many cases,

is it to be wondered at that we seek for them sometimes in our moods

of fancy, or that they suggest themselves to us in our fears and our

distress? Men may cast off religion and extinguish their conscience

without ridding themselves of this innate and inherent tendency.

Proper names have all in their origin been significant in all

languages. It was easy for men who brooded over their own

imaginations, to conceive that they might contain in their elements a

more recondite, and perhaps, fatidical signification; and the same

turn or twist of mind which led the Cabbalists to their extravagant

speculations have taken this direction, when confined within the

limits of languages which have no supernatural pretensions. But no

serious importance was attached to such things, except by persons

whose intellects were in some degree deranged. They were sought for

chiefly as an acceptable form of compliment, sometimes in

self-complacency of the most offensive kind, and sometimes for the

sting which they might carry with them. Lycophron is said to have been

the inventor of this trifling.

The Rules for the true discovery of perfect anagrams, as laid down by

Mrs. Mary Fage,[1] allowed as convenient a license in orthography as

the Doctor availed himself of in Greek.

E may most—what conclude an English word,

And so a letter at a need afford.

H is an aspiration and no letter;

It may be had or left which we think better.

I may be I or Y as need require;

Q ever after doth a U desire;

Two Vs may be a double U; and then

A double U may be two Vs again.

X may divided be, and S and C

May by that letter comprehended be.

Z a double S may comprehend:

And lastly an apostrophe may ease

Sometimes a letter when it doth not please.

[Footnote 1: In her Fames Roule, or the names of King Charles, his

Queen and his most hopeful posterity; together with the names of the

Dukes, Marquisses, &c., anagrammatized, and expressed by acrostick

lines on their lives. London, 1637, R. S.]

Two of the luckiest hits which anagrammatists have made were on the

Attorney General William Noy, _I moyl in law_; and Sir Edmundbury

Godfrey _I find murdered by rogues_. Before Felton's execution it was

observed that his anagram was _No, flie not_.

A less fortunate one made the Lady Davies mad, or rather fixed the

character of her madness. She was the widow of Sir John Davies, the

statesman and poet, and having anagrammatized Eleanor Davies into

Reveal O Daniel, she was crazy enough to fancy that the spirit of the

Prophet Daniel was incorporated in her. The Doctor mentioned the case

with tenderness and a kind of sympathy. “Though the anagram says Dr.

Heylyn, had too much by an L and too little by an S, yet she found

Daniel and Reveal in it, and that served her turn.” Setting up for a

Prophetess upon this conceit, and venturing upon political predictions

in sore times, she was brought before the Court of High Commission,

where serious pains were preposterously bestowed in endeavouring to

reason her out of an opinion founded on insanity. All, as might have

been expected, and ought to have been foreseen, would not do, “till

Lamb, then Dean of the Arches, shot her through and through with an

arrow borrowed from her own quiver.” For while the Divines were

reasoning the point with her out of scripture, he took a pen into his

hand, and presently finding that the letters of her name might be

assorted to her purpose, said to her, Madam, I see that you build much

on anagrams, and I have found out one which I hope will fit you: Dame

Eleanor Davies,—_Never so mad a Ladie!_ He then put it into her hands

in writing, “which happy fancy brought that grave Court into such a

laughter, and the poor woman thereupon into such a confusion, that

afterwards she either grew wiser, or was less regarded.”—This is a

case in which it may be admitted that ridicule was a fair test of

truth.

When Henri IV. sent for Marshal Biron to court, with an assurance of

full pardon if he would reveal without reserve the whole of his

negociations and practices, that rash and guilty man resolved to go

and brave all dangers, because certain Astrologers had assured him

that his ascendant commanded that of the King, and in confirmation of

this some flattering friend discovered in his name _Henri de Bourbon_

this anagram _De Biron Bonheur_. _Comme ainsi fust_, says one of his

contemporaries, _qu'il en fist gloire, quelque Gentilhomme bien advisé

là present—dit tout bas à l'oreille d'un sien amy, s'il le pense ainsi

il n'est pas sage, et trouvera qu'il y a du_ Robin _dedans_ Biron.

_Robin_ was a name used at that time by the French as synonymous with

simpleton. But of unfitting anagrams none were ever more curiously

unfit than those which were discovered in Marguerite de Valois, the

profligate Queen of Navarre; _Salve, Virgo Mater Dei; ou, de vertu

royal image!_ The Doctor derived his taste for anagrams from the poet

with whose rhymes and fancies he had been so well embued in his

boyhood, old Joshua Sylvester, who as the translator of Du Bartas,

signed himself to the King in anagrammatical French _Voy Sire

Saluste_, and was himself addressed in anagrammatical Latin as _Vere

Os Salustii_.

“Except Eteostiques,” say Drummond of Hawthornden, “I think the

Anagram the most idle study in the world of learning. Their maker must

be _homo miserrimæ patientiæ_, and when he is done, what is it but

_magno conatu nugas magnas agere!_ you may of one and the same name

make both good and evil. So did my Uncle find in Anna Regina,

_Ingannare_, as well as of Anna Britannorum Regina, _Anna Regnantium

Arbor_: as he who in Charles de Valois, found _Chassè la dure loy_,

and after the massacre found _Chasseur desloyal_. Often they are most

false, as Henri de Bourbon, _Bonheur de Biron_. Of all the

anagrammatists and with least pain, he was the best who, out of his

own name, being Jacques de la Chamber, found _La Chamber de Jacques_,

and rested there: and next to him, here at home, a Gentleman whose

mistress's name being Anna Grame, he found it an _Anagrame_ already.”

CHAPTER CLXXX.

THE DOCTOR'S IDEAS OF LUCK, CHANCE, ACCIDENT, FORTUNE AND

MISFORTUNE.—THE DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE'S DISTINCTION BETWEEN CHANCE AND

FORTUNE WHEREIN NO-MEANING IS MISTAKEN FOR MEANING.—AGREEMENT IN

OPINION BETWEEN THE PHILOSOPHER OF DONCASTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER OF

NORWICH.—DISTINCTION BETWEEN UNFORTUNATELY UGLY, AND WICKEDLY

UGLY.—DANGER OF PERSONAL CHARMS.

_Ἔστι γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἐπίφθεγμα τὸ αὐτόματον, ἀνθρώπων ὡς ἔτυχε καὶ

ἀλογίστως φρονούντων, καὶ τὸν μὲν λόγον αὐτῶν μὴ καταλαμβανόντων, διὰ

δὲ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς καταλήψεως, αλόγως οἰομένων διατετάχθαι ταῦτα, ὧν

τὸν λόγον ἐιπεῖν ὀυκ ἔχουσιν._

CONSTANT. ORAT. AD SANCT. CÆT. C. VII.

“Deformity is either natural, voluntary, or adventitious, being either

caused by _God's unseen Providence_, (_by men nick-named, chance_,) or

by men's cruelty.”

FULLER'S HOLY STATE, B. iii. c. 15.