It may readily be inferred from what has already been said of our

Philosopher's way of thinking, that he was not likely to use the words

luck, chance, accident, fortune or misfortune, with as little

reflection as is ordinarily shown in applying them. The distinction

which that fantastic—and yet most likeable person—Margaret Duchess of

Newcastle, makes between Chance and Fortune was far from satisfying

him. “Fortune,” says her Grace, (she might have been called her Beauty

too) “is only various corporeal motions of several creatures—designed

to one creature, or more creatures; either to _that_ creature, or

_those_ creatures advantage, or disadvantage; if advantage, man names

it Good Fortune; if disadvantage, man names it Ill Fortune. As for

Chance, it is the visible effects of some hidden cause; and Fortune, a

sufficient cause to produce such effects; for the conjunction of

sufficient causes, doth produce such or such effects, which effects

could not be produced—if any of those causes were wanting: so that

Chances are but the effects of Fortune.”

The Duchess had just thought enough about this to fancy that she had a

meaning, and if she had thought a little more she might have

discovered that she had none.

The Doctor looked more accurately both to his meaning and his words;

but keeping as he did, in my poor judgement, the golden mean between

superstition and impiety, there was nothing in this that savoured of

preciseness or weakness, nor of that scrupulosity which is a compound

of both. He did not suppose that trifles and floccinaucities of which

neither the causes nor consequences are of the slightest import, were

predestined; as for example—whether he had beef or mutton for dinner,

wore a blue coat or a brown—or took off his wig with his right hand or

with his left. He knew that all things are under the direction of

almighty and omniscient Goodness; but as he never was unmindful of

that Providence in its dispensations of mercy and of justice, so he

never disparaged it.

Herein the Philosopher of Doncaster agreed with the Philosopher of

Norwich who saith, “let not fortune—which hath no name in Scripture,

have any in thy divinity. Let providence, not chance, have the honour

of thy acknowledgements, and be thy Œdipus on contingences. Mark well

the paths and winding ways thereof; but be not too wise in the

construction, or sudden in the application. The hand of Providence

writes often by abbreviatures, hieroglyphics or short characters,

which like the laconism on the wall, are not to be made out but by a

hint or key from that spirit which indicted them.”[1]

[Footnote 1: The Readers of Jeremy Taylor will not fail to remember

the passage following from his Great Exemplar.

“God's Judgments are like _the writing upon the wall_, which was a

missive of anger from God upon Belshazzar. It came upon an errand of

revenge, and yet was writ in so dark characters that none could read

it but a prophet.”—DISC. xviii. _Of the Causes and Manner of the

Divine Judgments_.]

Some ill, he thought, was produced in human affairs by applying the

term unfortunate to circumstances which were brought about by

imprudence. A man was unfortunate, if being thrown from his horse on a

journey, he broke arm or leg, but not if he broke his neck in

steeple-hunting, or when in full cry after a fox; if he were

impoverished by the misconduct of others, not if he were ruined by his

own folly and extravagance; if he suffered in any way by the villainy

of another, not if he were transported, or hanged for his own.

Neither would he allow that either man or woman could with propriety

be called, as we not unfrequently hear in common speech,

_unfortunately_ ugly. _Wickedly_ ugly, he said, they might be, and too

often were; and in such cases the greater their pretensions to beauty,

the uglier they were. But goodness has a beauty of its own, which is

not dependent upon form and features, and which makes itself felt and

acknowledged however otherwise ill-favoured the face may be in which

it is set. He might have said with Seneca, _errare mihi visus est qui

dixit_

_Gratior est pulchro veniens e corpore virtus;_

_nullo enim honestamento eget; ipsa et magnum sui decus est, et corpus

suum consecret._ None, he would say with great earnestness, appeared

so ugly to his instinctive perception as some of those persons whom

the world accounted handsome, but upon whom pride, or haughtiness or

conceit had set its stamp, or who bore in their countenances what no

countenance can conceal, the habitual expression of any reigning vice,

whether it were sensuality and selfishness, or envy, hatred, malice

and uncharitableness. Nor could he regard with any satisfaction a fine

face which had no ill expression, if it wanted a good one: he had no

pleasure in beholding mere formal and superficial beauty, that which

lies no deeper than the skin, and depends wholly upon “a set of

features and complexion.” He had more delight, he said in looking at

one of the statues in Mr. Weddel's collection, than at a beautiful

woman if he read in her face that she was as little susceptible of any

virtuous emotion as the marble. While therefore he would not allow

that any person could be unfortunately ugly, he thought that many were

unfortunately handsome, and that no wise parent would wish his

daughter to be eminently beautiful, lest what in her childhood was

naturally and allowably the pride of his eye—should when she grew up

become the grief of his heart. It requires no wide range of

observation to discover that the woman who is married for her beauty

has little better chance of happiness than she who is married for her

fortune. “I have known very few women in my life,” said Mrs. Montagu,

“whom extraordinary charms and accomplishments did not make unhappy.”

CHAPTER CLXXXI.

NO DEGREE OF UGLINESS REALLY UNFORTUNATE.—FIDUS CORNELIUS COMPARED TO

A PLUCKED OSTRICH.—WILKES' CLAIM TO UGLINESS CONSIDERED AND NEGATIVED

BY DR. JOHNSON, NOTWITHSTANDING HOGARTH'S PORTRAIT.—CAST OF THE EYE À

LA MONTMORENCY.—ST. EVREMOND AND TURENNE.—WILLIAM BLAKE THE PAINTER,

AND THE WELSH TRIADS.—CURIOUS EXTRACT FROM THAT VERY CURIOUS AND RARE

BOOK, THE DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF HIS OWN PICTURES,—AND A PAINFUL ONE

FROM HIS POETICAL SKETCHES.

“_If thou beest not so handsome as thou wouldest have been thank God

thou art not more unhandsome than thou art._ 'Tis His mercy thou art

not the mark for passenger's fingers to point at, an Heteroclite in

nature, with some member defective or redundant. Be glad that thy clay

cottage hath all the necessary forms thereto belonging, though the

outside be not so fairly plaistered as some others.”

FULLER'S HOLY STATE, B. iii. c. 15.

I asked him once if there was not a degree of ugliness which might be

deemed unfortunate, because a consciousness of it affected the

ill-favoured individual so as to excite in him discontent and envy,

and other evil feelings. He admitted that in an evil disposition it

might have this tendency; but he said a disposition which was

injuriously affected by such a cause, would have had other

propensities quite as injurious in themselves and in their direction,

evolved and brought into full action by an opposite cause. To

exemplify this he instanced the two brothers Edward IV. and Richard

III.

Fidus Cornelius burst into tears in the Roman Senate, because Corbulo

called him a plucked ostrich: _adversus alia maledicta mores et vitam

convulnerantia, frontis illi firmitas constitit; adversus hoc tam

absurdum lacrimæ prociderunt; tanta animorum imbecillitas est ubi

ratio discessit._ But instances of such weakness, the Doctor said, are

as rare as they are ridiculous. Most people see themselves in the most

favourable light. “Ugly!” a very ugly, but a very conceited fellow

exclaimed one day when he contemplated himself in a looking-glass;

“ugly! and yet there's something genteel in the face!” There are more

coxcombs in the world than there are vain women; in the one sex there

is a weakness for which time soon brings a certain cure, in the other

it deserves a harsher appellation.

As to ugliness, not only in this respect do we make large allowances

for ourselves, but our friends make large allowances for us also. Some

one praised Palisson to Madame de Sevigné for the elegance of his

manners, the magnanimity, the rectitude and other virtues which he

ought to have possessed; _hé bien_ she replied, _pour moi je ne

connois que sa laideur; qu'on me le dedouble donc._ Wilkes, who

pretended as little to beauty, as he did to public virtue, when he was

off the stage used to say, that in winning the good graces of a lady

there was not more than three days difference between himself and the

handsomest man in England. One of his female partizans praised him for

his agreeable person, and being reminded of his squinting, she replied

indignantly, that it was not more than a gentleman ought to squint. So

rightly has Madame de Villedieu observed that

_En mille occasions l'amour a sçeu prouver

Que tout devient pour luy, matiere à sympathie,

Quand il fait tant que d'en vouloir trouver._

She no doubt spoke sincerely, according to the light wherein, in the

obliquity of her intellectual eyesight she beheld him. Just as that

prince of republican and unbelieving bigots, Thomas Holles said of the

same person, “I am sorry for the irregularities of Wilkes; they are

however only as spots in the sun!” “It is the weakness of the many,”

says a once noted Journalist “that when they have taken a fancy to a

man, or to the name of a man they take a fancy even to his failings.”

But there must have been no ordinary charm in the manners of John

Wilkes, who in one interview overcame Johnson's well-founded and

vehement dislike. The good nature of his countenance, and its vivacity

and cleverness made its physical ugliness be overlooked; and probably

his cast of the eye, which was a squint of the first water, seemed

only a peculiarity which gave effect to the sallies of his wit.

Hogarth's portrait of him he treated with characteristic good humour,

and allowed it “to be an excellent compound caricature, or a

caricature of what Nature had already caricatured. I know but one

short apology said he, to be made for this gentleman, or to speak more

properly, for the _person_ of Mr. Wilkes; it is, that he did not make

himself; and that he never was solicitous about the _case_ (as

Shakespeare calls it) only so far as to keep it clean and in health. I

never heard that he ever hung over the glassy stream, like another

Narcissus admiring the image in it; nor that he ever stole an amorous

look at his counterfeit in a side mirror. His form, such as it is,

ought to give him no pain, while it is capable of giving so much

pleasure to others. I believe he finds himself tolerably happy in the

clay cottage to which he is tenant for life, because he has learned to

keep it in pretty good order. While the share of health and animal

spirits which heaven has given out, should hold out, I can scarcely

imagine he will be one moment peevish about the outside of so

precarious, so temporary a habitation; or will ever be brought to our

_Ingenium Galbæ malè habitat:—Monsieur est mal logé._” This was part

of a note for his intended edition of Churchill.

Squinting, according to a French writer, is not unpleasing, when it is

not in excess. He is probably right in this observation. A slight

obliquity of vision sometimes gives an archness of expression, and

always adds to the countenance a peculiarity, which when the

countenance has once become agreeable to the beholder, renders it more

so. But when the eye-balls recede from each other to the outer verge

of their orbits, or approach so closely that nothing but the

intervention of the nose seems to prevent their meeting, a sense of

distortion is produced, and consequently of pain. _Il y a des gens_,

says Vigneul Marville, _qui ne sauroient regarder des louches sans en

sentir quelque douleur aux yeux. Je suis des ceux-la._ This is because

the deformity is catching, which it is well known to be in children;

the tendency to imitation is easily excited in a highly sensitive

frame—as in them; and the pain felt in the eyes gives warning that

this action which is safe only while it is unconscious and unobserved,

is in danger of being deranged.

A cast of the eye _à la Montmorency_ was much admired at the Court of

Louis XIII. where the representative of that illustrious family had

rendered it fashionable by his example. Descartes is said to have

liked all persons who squinted for his nurse's sake, and the anecdote

tells equally in favour of her and of him.

St. Evremond says in writing the Eulogy of Turenne. _Je ne m'amuserai

point à depeindre tous les traits de son visage. Les caractéres des

Grands Hommes n'ont rien de commun avec les portraits des belles

femmes. Mais je puis dire en gros qu'il avoit quelque chose d'auguste

et d'agréable; quelque chose en sa physionomie qui faisoit concevoir

je ne sai quoi de grand en son ame, et en son esprit. On pouvoit juger

à le voir, que par un disposition particuliere la Nature l'avoit

préparé à faire tout ce qu'il a fait._ If Turenne had not been an

ill-looking man, the skilful eulogist would not thus have excused

himself from giving any description of his countenance; a countenance

from which indeed, if portraits belie it not, it might be inferred

that nature had prepared him to change his party during the civil

wars, as lightly as he would have changed his seat at a card-table,—to

renounce the Protestant faith, and to ravage the Palatinate. _Ne

souvenez-vous pas de la physionomie funeste de ce grand homme,_ says

Bussy Rabutin to Madame de Sevigné. An Italian bravo said _che non

teneva specchio in camera, perche quando si crucciava diveniva tanto

terribile nell' aspetto, che veggendosi haria fatto troppo gran paura

a se stesso._[1]

[Footnote 1: IL CORTEGIANO, 27.]

Queen Elizabeth could not endure the sight of deformity; when she went

into public her guards it is said removed all misshapen and hideous

persons out of her way.

Extreme ugliness has once proved as advantageous to its possessor as

extreme beauty, if there be truth in those Triads wherein the Three

Men are recorded who escaped from the battle of Camlan. They were

Morvran ab Teged, in consequence of being so ugly, that every body

thinking him to be a Demon out of Hell fled from him; Sandde

Bryd-Angel, or Angel-aspect, in consequence of being so fine of form,

so beautiful and fair, that no one raised a hand against him—for he

was thought to be an Angel from Heaven: and Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr, or

Great-grasp (King Arthur's porter) from his size and strength, so that

none stood in his way, and every body ran before him; excepting these

three, none escaped, from Camlan,—that fatal field where King Arthur

fell with all his chivalry.

That painter of great but insane genius, William Blake, of whom Allan

Cunningham has written so interesting a memoir, took this Triad for

the subject of a picture, which he called the Ancient Britons. It was

one of his worst pictures,—which is saying much; and he has

illustrated it with one of the most curious commentaries in his very

curious and very rare descriptive Catalogue of his own Pictures.

It begins with a translation from the Welsh, supplied to him no doubt

by that good simple-hearted, Welsh-headed man, William Owen, whose

memory is the great store-house of all Cymric tradition and lore of

every kind.

“In the last battle of King Arthur only Three Britons escaped; these

were the Strongest Man, the Beautifullest Man, and the Ugliest Man.

These Three marched through the field unsubdued as Gods; and the Sun

of Britain set, but shall arise again with tenfold splendour, when

Arthur shall awake from sleep, and resume his dominion over earth and

ocean.

“The three general classes of men,” says the painter, “who are

represented by the most Beautiful, the most Strong, and the most Ugly,

could not be represented by any historical facts but those of our own

countrymen, the Ancient Britons, without violating costumes. The

Britons (say historians) were naked civilised men, learned, studious,

abstruse in thought and contemplation; naked, simple, plain in their

acts and manners; wiser than after ages. They were overwhelmed by

brutal arms, all but a small remnant. Strength, Beauty and Ugliness

escaped the wreck, and remain for ever unsubdued, age after age.

“The British Antiquities are now in the Artist's hands; all his

visionary contemplations relating to his own country and its ancient

glory, when it was, as it again shall be, the source of learning and

inspiration. He has in his hands poems of the highest antiquity. Adam

was a Druid, and Noah. Also Abraham was called to succeed the

Druidical age, which began to turn allegoric and mental signification

into corporeal command; whereby human sacrifice would have depopulated

the earth. All these things are written in Eden. The artist is an

inhabitant of that happy country; and if every thing goes on as it has

begun, the work of vegetation and generation may expect to be opened

again to Heaven, through Eden, as it was in the beginning.

“The Strong Man represents the human sublime. The Beautiful Man

represents the human pathetic, which was in the ban of Eden divided

into male and female. The Ugly Man represents the human reason. They

were originally one man, who was fourfold: he was self divided and his

real humanity drawn on the stems of generation; and the form of the

fourth was like the Son of God. How he became divided is a subject of

great sublimity and pathos. The Artist has written it, under

inspiration, and will if God please, publish it. It is voluminous, and

contains the ancient history of Britain, and the world of Satan and of

Adam.

“In the mean time he has painted this picture, which supposes that in

the reign of that British Prince, who lived in the fifth century,

there were remains of those naked heroes in the Welsh mountains. They

are now. Gray saw them in the person of his Bard on Snowdon; there

they dwell in naked simplicity; happy is he who can see and converse

with them, above the shadows of generation and death. In this picture,

believing with Milton the ancient British history, Mr. Blake has done

as all the ancients did, and as all the moderns who are worthy of

fame, given the historical fact in its poetical vigour; so as it

always happens; and not in that dull way that some historians pretend,

who being weakly organised themselves, cannot see either miracle or

prodigy. All is to them a dull round of probabilities and

possibilities; but the history of all times and places is nothing else

but improbabilities and impossibilities,—what we should say was

impossible, if we did not see it always before our eyes.

“The antiquities of every nation under Heaven are no less sacred than

those of the Jews, they are the same thing, as Jacob Bryant and all

antiquaries have proved. How other antiquities came to be neglected

and disbelieved, while those of the Jews are collected and arranged is

an enquiry, worthy of both the Antiquarian and the Divine. All had

originally one language, and one religion, this was the religion of

Jesus, the everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preached the Gospel of Jesus,

the reasoning historian, turner and twister of courses and

consequences, such as Hume, Gibbon, and Voltaire, cannot with all

their artifice, turn or twist one fact, or disarrange self evident

action and reality. Reasons and opinions concerning acts are not

history. Acts themselves alone are history, and they are neither the

exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon, and Voltaire, Echard, Rapin,

Plutarch, nor Herodotus. Tell me the acts O historian, and leave me to

reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your

rubbish. All that is not action is not worth reading. Tell me the

What; I do not want you to tell me the Why, and the How; I can find

that out myself, as well as you can, and I will not be fooled by you

into opinions, that you please to impose, to disbelieve what you think

improbable, or impossible. His opinion, who does not see spiritual

agency, is not worth any man's reading; he who rejects a fact because

it is improbable, must reject all History, and retain doubts only.

“It has been said to the Artist, take the Apollo for the model of your

beautiful man, and the Hercules for your strong man, and the Dancing

Fawn for your ugly man. Now he comes to his trial. He knows that what

he does is not inferior to the grandest antiques. Superior they cannot

be, for human power cannot go beyond either what he does, or what they

have done, it is the gift of God, it is inspiration and vision. He had

resolved to emulate those precious remains of antiquity. He has done

so, and the result you behold. His ideas of strength and beauty have

not been greatly different. Poetry as it exists now on earth, in the

various remains of ancient authors, Music as it exists in old tunes or

melodies, Painting and Sculpture as it exists in the remains of

antiquity and in the works of more modern genius, is Inspiration, and

cannot be surpassed; it is perfect and eternal: Milton, Shakspeare,

Michael Angelo, Rafael, the finest specimens of ancient Sculpture and

Painting, and Architecture, Gothic, Grecian, Hindoo and Egyptian are

the extent of the human mind. The human mind cannot go beyond the gift

of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that Art can go beyond the finest

specimens of Art that are now in the world, is not knowing what Art

is; it is being blind to the gifts of the Spirit.

“It will be necessary for the Painter to say something concerning his

ideas of Beauty, Strength and Ugliness.

“The beauty that is annexed and appended to folly, is a lamentable

accident and error of the mortal and perishing life; it does but

seldom happen; but with this unnatural mixture the sublime Artist can

have nothing to do; it is fit for the burlesque. The beauty proper for

sublime Art, is lineaments, or forms and features that are capable of

being the receptacle of intellect; accordingly the Painter has given

in his beautiful man, his own idea of intellectual Beauty. The face

and limbs (?) that deviates or alters least, from infancy to old age,

is the face and limbs (?) of greatest Beauty and Perfection.

“The Ugly likewise, when accompanied and annexed to imbecillity and

disease, is a subject for burlesque and not for historical grandeur;

the artist has imagined the Ugly man; one approaching to the beast in

features and form, his forehead small, without frontals; his nose high

on the ridge, and narrow; his chest and the stamina of his make,

comparatively little, and his joints and his extremities large; his

eyes with scarce any whites, narrow and cunning, and everything

tending toward what is truly ugly; the incapability of intellect.

“The Artist has considered his strong man as a receptacle of Wisdom, a

sublime energizer; his features and limbs do not spindle out into

length, without strength, nor are they too large and unwieldy for his

brain and bosom. Strength consists in accumulation of power to the

principal seat, and from thence a regular gradation and subordination;

strength in compactness, not extent nor bulk.

“The strong man acts from conscious superiority, and marches on in

fearless dependence on the divine decrees, raging with the

inspirations of a prophetic mind. The Beautiful man acts from duty,

and anxious solicitude for the fates of those for whom he combats. The

Ugly man acts from love of carnage, and delight in the savage

barbarities of war, rushing with sportive precipitation into the very

teeth of the affrighted enemy.

“The Roman Soldiers rolled together in a heap before them: ‘like the

rolling thing before the whirlwind:’ each shew a different character,

and a different expression of fear, or revenge, or envy, or blank

horror, or amazement, or devout wonder and unresisting awe.

“The dead and the dying, Britons naked, mingled with armed Romans,

strew the field beneath. Amongst these, the last of the Bards who were

capable of attending warlike deeds, is seen falling, outstretched

among the dead and the dying; singing to his harp in the pains of

death.

“Distant among the mountains are Druid Temples, similar to Stone

Henge. The sun sets behind the mountains, bloody with the day of

battle.

“The flush of health in flesh, exposed to the open air, nourished by

the spirits of forests and floods, in that ancient happy period, which

history has recorded, cannot be like the sickly daubs of Titian or

Rubens. Where will the copier of nature, as it now is, find a

civilized man, who has been accustomed to go naked. Imagination only

can furnish us with colouring appropriate, such as is found in the

frescoes of Rafael, and Michael Angelo: the disposition of forms

always directs colouring in works of true art. As to a modern man,

stripped from his load of clothing, he is like a dead corpse. Hence

Rubens, Titian, Correggio, and all of that class, are like leather and

chalk; their men are like leather, and their women like chalk, for the

disposition of their forms will not admit of grand colouring; in Mr.

B's Britons, the blood is seen to circulate in their limbs; he defies

competition in colouring.”

My regard for thee, dear Reader, would not permit me to leave

untranscribed this very curious and original piece of composition.

Probably thou hast never seen, and art never likely to see either the

“Descriptive Catalogue” or the “Poetical Sketches” of this insane and

erratic genius, I will therefore end the chapter with the _Mad Song_

from the latter,—premising only _Dificultosa provincia es la que

emprendo, y à muchos parecerà escusada; mas para la entereza desta

historia, ha parecido no omitir aguesta parte._[2]

The wild winds weep,

And the night is a-cold;

Come hither, Sleep,

And my griefs unfold:

But lo! the morning peeps

Over the eastern steep;

And the rustling birds of dawn

The earth do scorn.

Lo! to the vault

Of paved heaven,

With sorrow fraught

My notes are driven:

They strike the ear of night

Make weep the eyes of day;

They make mad the roaring winds

And with tempests play.

Like a fiend in a cloud

With howling woe,

After night I do croud

And with night will go;

I turn my back to the east,

From whence comforts have increas'd;

For light doth seize my brain

With frantic pain.

[Footnote 2: LUIS MUÑOZ. VIDA DEL P. L. DE GRANADA.]

CHAPTER CLXXXII.

AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE FORM OF THE HUMAN LEG SUGGESTED BY A PHYSICIAN.

THE DOCTOR'S CURE OF A BROKEN SHIN AND INVENTION OF A SHIN-SHIELD.

_Res fisci est, ubicunque natat._ Whatsoever swims upon any water,

belongs to this exchequer.

JEREMY TAYLOR. _Preface to the Duct. Dub._

Some Dr. Moreton is said to have advanced this extraordinary opinion

in a treatise upon the beauty of the human structure, that had the

calf of the leg been providentially set before, instead of being

preposterously placed behind, it would have been evidently better, for

as much as the shin-bone could not then have been so easily broken.

I have no better authority for this than a magazine extract. But there

have been men of science silly enough to entertain opinions quite as

absurd, and presumptuous enough to think themselves wiser than their

Maker.

Supposing the said Dr. Moreton has not been unfairly dealt with in

this statement, it would have been a most appropriate reward for his

sagacity if some one of the thousand and one wonder-working Saints of

the Pope's Calendar had reversed his own calves for him, placed them

in front, conformably to his own notion of the fitness of things, and

then left him to regulate their motions as well as he could. The

_Gastrocnemius_ and the _Solæus_ would have found themselves in a new

and curious relation to the _Rectus femoris_ and the two _Vasti_, and

the anatomical reformer would have learnt feelingly to understand the

term of antagonizing muscles in a manner peculiar to himself.

The use to which this notable philosopher would have made the calf of

the leg serve, reminds me of a circumstance that occurred in our

friend's practice. An old man hard upon threescore and ten, broke his

shin one day by stumbling over a chair; and although a hale person who

seemed likely to attain a great age by virtue of a vigorous

constitution, which had never been impaired through ill habits or

excesses of any kind, the hurt that had been thought little of at

first became so serious in its consequences, that a mortification was

feared. Daniel Dove was not one of those practitioners who would let a

patient die under their superintendence _secundum artem_, rather than

incur the risque of being censured for trying in desperate cases any

method not in the regular course of practise: and recollecting what

he had heard when a boy, that a man whose leg and life were in danger

from just such an accident, had been saved by applying yeast to the

wound, he tried the application. The dangerous symptoms were presently

removed by it; a kindly process was induced, the wound healed, and the

man became whole again.

Dove was then a young man; and so many years have elapsed since old

Joseph Todhunter was gathered to his fathers, that it would now

require an antiquarian's patience to make out the letters of his name

upon his mouldering headstone. All remembrance of him (except among

his descendants, if any there now be) will doubtless have past away,

unless he should be recollected in Doncaster by the means which Dr.

Dove devised for securing him against another such accident.

The Doctor knew that the same remedy was not to be relied on a second

time, when there would be less ability left in the system to second

its effect. He knew that in old age the tendency of Nature is to

dissolution, and that accidents which are trifling in youth, or middle

age, become fatal at a time when Death is ready to enter at any breach

and Life to steal out through the first flaw in its poor crazy

tenement. So, having warned Todhunter of this, and told him that he

was likely to enjoy many years of life, if he kept a whole skin on his

shins, he persuaded him to wear spatterdashes, quilted in front and

protected there with whalebone, charging him to look upon them as the

most necessary part of his clothing, and to let them be the last

things which he doffed at night, and the first which he donn'd in the

morning.

The old man followed this advice; lived to the great age of

eighty-five, enjoyed his faculties to the last; and then died so

easily, that it might truly be said he fell asleep.

My friend loved to talk of this case; for Joseph Todhunter had borne

so excellent a character through life, and was so cheerful and so

happy, as well as so venerable an old man, that it was a satisfaction

for the Doctor to think he had been the means of prolonging his days.

CHAPTER CLXXXIII.

VIEWS OF OLD AGE, MONTAGNE, DANIEL CORNEILLE, LANGUET, PASQUIER, DR.

JOHNSON, LORD CHESTERFIELD, ST. EVREMOND.

What is age

But the holy place of life, the chapel of ease

For all men's wearied miseries?

MASSINGER.

Montagne takes an uncomfortable view of old age. _Il me semble_, he

says, _qu'en la vieillesse, nos ames sont subjectes à des maladies et

imperfections plus importunes qu'en la jeunesse. Je le disois estant

jeune, lors on me donnoit de mon menton par le nez; je le dis encore à

cette heure, que mon poil gris me donne le credit. Nous appellons

sagesse la difficulté de nos humeurs, le desgoust des choses

presentes: mais à la verité, nous ne quittons pas tant les vices,

comme nous les changeons; et, à mon opinion, en pis. Outre une sotte

et caduque fierté, un babil ennuyeux, ces humeures espineuses et

inassociables, et la superstition, et un soin ridicule des richesses,

lors que l'usage en est perdu, j'y trouve plus d'envie, d'injustice,

et de malignité. Elle nous attache plus de rides en l'esprit qu'au

visage: et ne se void point d'ames ou fort rares, qui en vieillissant

ne sentent l'aigre, et le moisi._

Take this extract, my worthy friends who are not skilled in French, or

know no more of it than a Governess may have taught you,—in the

English of John Florio, Reader of the Italian tongue unto the

Sovereign Majesty of Anna, Queen of England, Scotland, &c. and one of

the gentlemen of her Royal privy chamber, the same Florio whom some

commentators upon very insufficient grounds, have supposed to have

been designed by Shakespere in the Holofernes of Love's Labour's Lost.

“Methinks our souls in age are subject unto more importunate diseases

and imperfections than they are in youth. I said so being young, when

my beardless chin was upbraided me, and I say it again, now that my

gray beard gives me authority. We entitle wisdom, the frowardness of

our humours, and the distaste of present things; but in truth we

abandon not vices so much as we change them; and in mine opinion for

the worse. Besides a silly and ruinous pride, cumbersome tattle,

wayward and unsociable humours, superstition, and a ridiculous carking

for wealth, when the use of it is well nigh lost. I find the more

envy, injustice and malignity in it. It sets more wrinkles in our

minds than in our foreheads, nor are there any spirits, or very rare

ones, which in growing old taste not sourly and mustily.”

In the same spirit, recollecting perhaps this very passage of the

delightful old Gascon, one of our own poets says,

Old age doth give by too long space,

Our souls as many wrinkles as our face;

and the same thing, no doubt in imitation of Montagne has been said by

Corneille in a poem of thanks addressed to Louis XIV., when that King

had ordered some of his plays to be represented during the winter of

1685, though he had ceased to be a popular writer,

_Je vieillis, ou du moins, ils se le persuadent;

Pour bien écrire encor j'ai trop long tems écrit,

Et les rides du front passent jusqu' à l'esprit._

The opinion proceeded not in the poet Daniel from perverted

philosophy, or sourness of natural disposition, for all his affections

were kindly, and he was a tender-hearted, wise, good man. But he wrote

this in the evening of his days, when he had

out lived the date

Of former grace, acceptance and delight,

when,

those bright stars from whence

He had his light, were set for evermore;

and when he complained that years had done to him

this wrong,

To make him write too much, and live too long;

so that this comfortless opinion may be ascribed in him rather to a

dejected state of mind, than to a clear untroubled judgement. But

Hubert Languet must have written more from observation and reflection

than from feeling, when he said in one of his letters to Sir Philip

Sidney, “you are mistaken if you believe that men are made better by

age; for it is very rarely so. They become indeed more cautious, and

learn to conceal their faults and their evil inclinations; so that if

you have known any old man in whom you think some probity were still

remaining, be assured that he must have been excellently virtuous in

his youth.” _Erras si credis homines fieri ætate meliores; id nam est

rarissimum. Fiunt quidem cautiores, et vitia animi, ac pravos suos

affectus occultare discunt: quod si quem senem novisti in quo aliquid

probitatis superesse judices, crede eum in adolescentiâ fuisse

optimum._

Languet spoke of its effects upon others. Old Estienne Pasquier in

that uncomfortable portion of his _Jeux Poëtiques_ which he entitles

_Vieillesse Rechignée_ writes as a self-observer, and his picture is

not more favourable.

_Je ne nourry dans moy qu'une humeur noire,

Chagrin, fascheux, melancholic, hagard,

Grongneux, despit, presomptueux, langard,

Je fay l'amour au bon vin et au boire._

But the bottle seems not to have put him in good humour either with

others or himself.

_Tout la monde me put; je vy de telle sort,

Que je ne fay meshuy que tousser et cracher,

Que de fascher autruy, et d'autruy me fascher;

Je ne supporte nul, et nul ne me supporte.

Un mal de corps je sens, un mal d'esprit je porte;

Foible de corps je veux, mais je ne puis marcher;

Foible de esprit je n'oze à mon argent toucher,

Voilà les beaux effects que la vieillesse apporte!

O combien est heureux celuy qui, de ses ans

Jeune, ne passe point la fleur de son printans,

Ou celuy qui venu s'en retourne aussi vite!

Non: je m'abuze; ainçois ces maux ce sont appas

Qui me feront un jour trouver doux mon trespas,

Quand il plaira a Dieu que ce monde je quitte._

The miserable life I lead is such,

That now the world loathes me and I loathe it;

What do I do all day but cough and spit,

Annoying others, and annoyed as much!

My limbs no longer serve me, and the wealth

Which I have heap'd, I want the will to spend.

So mind and body both are out of health,

Behold the blessings that on age attend!

Happy whose fate is not to overlive

The joys which youth, and only youth can give,

But in his prime is taken, happy he!

Alas, that thought is of an erring heart,

These evils make me willing to depart

When it shall please the Lord to summon me.

The Rustic, in Hammerlein's curious dialogues _de Nobilitate et

Rusticitate_, describes his old age in colours as dark as Pasquier's;

_plenus dierum_, he says, _ymmo senex valde, id est, octogenarius, et

senio confractus, et heri et nudiustercius, ymmo plerisque

revolutionibus annorum temporibus, corporis statera recurvatus,

singulto, tussito, sterto, ossito, sternuto, balbutio, catharizo,

mussico, paraleso, gargariso, cretico, tremo, sudo, titillo, digitis

sæpe geliso, et insuper (quod deterius est) cor meum affligitur, et

caput excutitur, languet spiritus, fetet anhelitus, caligant oculi et

facillant_[1] _articuli, nares confluunt, crines defluunt, tremunt

tactus et deperit actus, dentes putrescunt et aures surdescunt; de

facili ad iram provocor, difficili revocor, cito credo, tarde

discedo._

[Footnote 1: _Facillant_ is here evidently the same as _vacillant_.

For the real meaning of _facillo_ the reader is referred to Du Cange

in v. or to Martinii Lexicon.]

The effects of age are described in language not less characteristic

by the Conte Baldessar Castiglione in his Cortegiano. He is explaining

wherefore the old man is always “_laudator temporis acti_;” and thus

he accounts for the universal propensity;—_gli anni fuggendo se ne

portan seco molte commodità, e tra l' altre levano dal sangue gran

parte de gli spiriti vitali; onde la complession si muta, e divengon

debili gli organi, per i quali l' anima opera le sue virtù. Però de i

cori nostri in quel tempo, come allo autunno le fogli de gli arbori,

caggiono i soavi fiori di contento; e nel loco de i sereni et chiari

pensieri, entra la nubilosa e turbida tristitia di mille calamità

compagnata, di modo che non solamente il corpo, ma l' animo anchora è

infermo; ne de i passati piaceri reserva altro che una tenace memoria,

e la imagine di quel caro tempo della tenera eta, nella quale quando

ci troviamo, ci pare che sempre il cielo, e la terra, e ogni cosa

faccia festa, e rida intorno à gli occhi nostri e nel pensiero, come

in un delitioso et vago giardino, fiorisca la dolce primavera d'

allegrezza: onde forse saria utile, quando gia nella fredda stagione

comincia il sole della nostra vita, spogliandoci de quei piaceri,

andarsene verso l' occaso, perdere insieme con essi anchor la lor

memoria, e trovar_ (_come disse Temistocle_) _un' arte, che a scordar

insegnasse; perche tanto sono fallaci i sensi del corpo nostro, che

spesso ingannano anchora il giudicio della mente. Però parmi che i

vecchi siano alla condition di quelli, che partendosi dal porto,

tengon gli occhi in terra, e par loro che la nave stia ferma, e la

riva si parta; e pur è il contrario; che il porto, e medesimamente il

tempo, e i piaceri restano nel suo stato, e noi con la nave della

mortalità fuggendo n' andiamo, l' un dopo l' altro, per quel

procelloso mare che ogni cosa assorbe et devora; ne mai piu pigliar

terra ci è concesso; anzi sempre da contrarii venti combattuti, al

fine in qualche scoglio la nave rompemo._

Take this passage, gentle reader, as Master Thomas Hoby has translated

it to my hand.

“Years wearing away carry also with them many commodities, and among

others take away from the blood a great part of the lively spirits;

that altereth the complection, and the instruments wax feeble whereby

the soul worketh his effects. Therefore the sweet flowers of delight

vade[2] away in that season out of our hearts, as the leaves fall from

the trees after harvest; and instead of open and clear thoughts, there

entereth cloudy and troublous heaviness, accompanied with a thousand

heart griefs: so that not only the blood, but the mind is also feeble,

neither of the former pleasures retaineth it any thing else but a fast

memory, and the print of the beloved time of tender age, which when we

have upon us, the heaven, the earth and each thing to our seeming

rejoiceth and laugheth always about our eyes, and in thought (as in a

savoury and pleasant garden) flourisheth the sweet spring time of

mirth: So that peradventure, it were not unprofitable when now, in the

cold season, the sun of our life, taking away from us our delights

beginneth to draw toward the West, to lose therewithall the

mindfulness of them, and to find out as Themistocles saith, an art to

teach us to forget; for the senses of our body are so deceivable, that

they beguile many times also the judgement of the mind. Therefore,

methinks, old men be like unto them that sailing in a vessel out of an

haven, behold the ground with their eyes, and the vessel to their

seeming standeth still, and the shore goeth; and yet is it clean

contrary, for the haven, and likewise the time and pleasures, continue

still in their estate, and we with the vessel of mortality flying

away, go one after another through the tempestuous sea that swalloweth

up and devoureth all things, neither is it granted us at any time to

come on shore again; but, always beaten with contrary winds, at the

end we break our vessel at some rock.”

[Footnote 2: ‘Vade’ is no doubt the true word here. The double sense

of it,—that is, to _fade_, or to _go away_,—may be seen in Todd's

Johnson and in Nares' Glossary. Neither of them quote the following

lines from the Earl of Surrey's Poems. They occur in his Ecclesiastes.

We, that live on the earth, draw toward our decay,

Our children fill our place awhile, and then they vade away.

And again,

New fancies daily spring, which vade, returning mo.]

“Why Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “a man grows better humoured as he grows

older. He improves by experience. When young he thinks himself of

great consequence, and every thing of importance. As he advances in

life, he learns to think himself of no consequence, and little things

of little importance, and so he becomes more patient and better

pleased.” This was the observation of a wise and good man, who felt in

himself as he grew old, the effect of Christian principles upon a kind

heart and a vigorous understanding. One of a very different stamp came

to the same conclusion before him; _Crescit ætate pulchritudo

animorum_, says, Antonio Perez, _quantum minuitur eorundem corporum

venustas._

One more of these dark pictures. “The heart” says Lord Chesterfield,

“never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A

young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a

greater knave as he grows older. But should a bad young heart,

accompanied with a good head, (which by the way, very seldom is the

case) really reform, in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of

its folly, as well as of its guilt; such a conversion would only be

thought prudential and political, but never sincere.”

It is remarkable that Johnson, though, as has just been seen, he felt

in himself and saw in other good men, that the natural effect of time

was to sear away asperities of character

Till the smooth temper of their age should be

Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree,

yet he expressed an opinion closely agreeing with this of Lord

Chesterfield. “A man, he said, commonly grew wicked as he grew older,

at least he but changed the vices of youth, head-strong passion and

wild temerity, for treacherous caution and desire to circumvent.”

These he can only have meant of wicked men. But what follows seems to

imply a mournful conviction that the tendency of society is to foster

our evil propensities and counteract our better ones: “I am always, he

said, on the young people's side when there is a dispute between them

and the old ones; for you have at least a charm for virtue, till age

has withered its very root.” Alas, this is true of the irreligious and

worldly-minded, and it is generally true because they composed the

majority of our corrupt contemporaries.

But Johnson knew that good men became better as they grew older,

because his philosophy was that of the Gospel. Something of a

philosopher Lord Chesterfield was, and had he lived in the days of

Trajan or Hadrian, might have done honour to the school of Epicurus.

But if he had not in the pride of his poor philosophy shut both his

understanding and his heart against the truths of revealed religion,

in how different a light would the evening of his life have closed.

_Une raison essentielle_, says the Epicurean Saint Evremond, _qui nous

oblige à nous retirer quand nous sommes vieux, c'est qu'il faut

prevenir le ridicule où l'age nous fait tomber presque toujours._ And

in another place he says, _certes le plus honnéte-homme dont personne

n'a besoin, a de la peine a s'exempter du ridicule en vieillissant._

This was the opinion of a courtier, a sensualist, and a Frenchman.

I cannot more appositely conclude this chapter than by a quotation

ascribed, whether truly or not, to St. Bernard. _Maledictum caput

canum et cor vanum, caput tremulum et cor emulum, canities in vertice

et pernicies in mente: facies rugosa et lingua nugosa, cutis sicca et

fides ficta; visus caligans et caritas claudicans; labium pendens et

dens detrahens; virtus debilis et vita flebilis; dies uberes et

fructus steriles, amici multi, et actus stulti._

CHAPTER CLXXXIV.

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING OLD AGE. BISHOP REYNOLDS. OPINION OF

THE DOCTOR CONCERNING BEASTS AND MEN. M. DE CUSTINE. THE WORLD IS TOO

MUCH WITH US. WORDSWORTH. SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

In these reflections, which are of a serious, and somewhat of a

melancholy cast, it is best to indulge; because it is always of use to

be serious, and not unprofitable sometimes to be melancholy.

FREEMAN'S SERMONS.

“As usurers,” says Bishop Reynolds, “before the whole debt is paid, do

fetch away some good parts of it for the loan, so before the debt of

death be paid by the whole body, old age doth by little and little,

take away sometimes one sense sometimes another, this year one limb,

the next another; and causeth a man as it were to die daily. No one

can dispel the clouds and sorrows of old age, but Christ who is the

sun of righteousness and the bright morning star.”

Yet our Lord and Saviour hath not left those who are in darkness and

the shadow of death, without the light of a heavenly hope at their

departure, if their ways have not wilfully been evil,—if they have

done their duty according to that law of nature which is written in

the heart of man. It is the pride of presumptuous wisdom (itself the

worst of follies) that has robbed the natural man of his consolation

in old age, and of his hope in death, and exacts the forfeit of that

hope from the infidel as the consequence and punishment of his sin.

Thus it was in heathen times, as it now is in countries that are

called christian. When Cicero speaks of those things which depend upon

opinion, he says, _hujusmodi sunt probabilia; impiis apud inferos

pœnas esse præparatas; eos, qui philosophiæ dent operam, non arbitrari

Deos esse._ Hence it appears he regarded it as equally probable that

there was an account to be rendered after death; and that those who

professed philosophy would disbelieve this as a vulgar delusion, live

therefore without religion, and die without hope, like the beasts that

perish!

“_If_ they perish,” the Doctor, used always reverently to say when he

talked upon this subject. Oh Reader, it would have done you good as it

has done me, if you had heard him speak upon it, in his own beautiful

old age! “_If_ they perish,” he would say. “That the beasts die

without hope we may conclude; death being to them like falling asleep,

an act of which the mind is not cognizant! But that they live without

religion, he would not say,—that they might not have some sense of it

according to their kind; nor that all things animate, and seemingly

inanimate did not actually praise the Lord, as they are called upon to

do by the Psalmist, and in the _Benedicite_!”

It is a pious fancy of the good old lexicographist Adam Littleton that

our Lord took up his first lodging in a stable amongst the cattle, as

if he had come to be the Saviour of them as well as of men; being by

one perfect oblation of himself, to put an end to all other

sacrifices, as well as to take away sins. This, he adds the Psalmist

fears not to affirm speaking of God's mercy. “Thou savest,” says he,

“both man and beast.”

The text may lead us further than Adam Littleton's interpretation.

“_Qu'on ne me parle plus de_ NATURE MORTE, says M. de Custine, in his

youth and enthusiasm, writing from Mont-Auvert; _on sent ici que la

Divinité est partout, et que les pierres sont pénétrées comme

nous-mêmes d'une puissance créatrice! Quand on me dit que les rochers

sont insensibles, je crois entendre un enfant soutenir que l'aiguille

d'une montre ne marche pas, parce qu'il ne la voit pas se mouvoir._”

Do not, said our Philosopher, when he threw out a thought like this,

do not ask me how this can be! I guess at every thing, and can account

for nothing. It is more comprehensible to me that stocks and stones

should have a sense of devotion, than that men should be without it. I

could much more easily persuade myself that the birds in the air, and

the beasts in the field have souls to be saved, than I can believe

that very many of my fellow bipeds have any more soul than, as some of

our divines have said, serves to keep their bodies from putrefaction.

“God forgive me, worm that I am! for the sinful thought of which I am

too often conscious,—that of the greater part of the human race, the

souls are not worth saving!”—I have not forgotten the look which

accompanied these words, and the tone in which he uttered them,

dropping his voice toward the close.

We must of necessity, said he, become better or worse as we advance in

years. Unless we endeavour to spiritualize ourselves, and supplicate

in this endeavour for that Grace which is never withheld when it is

sincerely and earnestly sought, age bodilizes us more and more, and

the older we grow the more we are embruted and debased: so manifestly

is the awful text verified which warns us that “unto every one which

hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that he hath

shall be taken away from him.” In some the soul seems gradually to be

absorbed and extinguished in its crust of clay; in others as if it

purified and sublimed the vehicle to which it was united. _Viget

animus, et gaudet non multum sibi esse cum corpore; magnam oneris

partem sui posuit._[1] Nothing therefore is more beautiful than a wise

and religious old age; nothing so pitiable as the latter stages of

mortal existence—when the World and the Flesh, and that false

philosophy which is of the Devil, have secured the victory for the

Grave!

[Footnote 1: SENECA.]

“He that hath led a holy life,” says one of our old Bishops, “is like

a man which hath travelled over a beautiful valley, and being on the

top of a hill, turneth about with delight, to take a view of it

again.” The retrospect is delightful, and perhaps it is even more

grateful if his journey has been by a rough and difficult way. But

whatever may have been his fortune on the road, the Pilgrim who has

reached the Delectable Mountains looks back with thankfulness and

forward with delight.

And wherefore is it not always thus? Wherefore, but because as

Wordsworth has said,

The World is too much with us, late and soon

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

“Though our own eyes,” says Sir Walter Raleigh, “do every where behold

the sudden and resistless assaults of Death, and Nature assureth us by

never failing experience, and Reason by infallible demonstration, that

our times upon the earth have neither certainty nor durability, that

our bodies are but the anvils of pain and diseases, and our minds the

hives of unnumbered cares, sorrows and passions; and that when we are

most glorified, we are but those painted posts against which Envy and

Fortune direct their darts; yet such is the true unhappiness of our

condition, and the dark ignorance which covereth the eyes of our

understanding, that we only prize, pamper, and exalt this vassal and

slave of death, and forget altogether, or only remember at our

cast-away leisure, the imprisoned immortal Soul, which can neither die

with the reprobate, nor perish with the mortal parts of virtuous men;

seeing God's justice in the one, and his goodness in the other, is

exercised for evermore, as the everliving subjects of his reward and

punishment. But when is it that we examine this great account? Never,

while we have one vanity left us to spend! We plead for titles till

our breath fail us; dig for riches whilst our strength enableth us;

exercise malice while we can revenge; and then when time hath beaten

from us both youth, pleasure and health, and that Nature itself hateth

the house of Old Age, we remember with Job that ‘we must go the way

from whence we shall not return, and that our bed is made ready for us

in the dark.’ And then I say, looking over-late into the bottom of our

conscience, which Pleasure and Ambition had locked up from us all our

lives, we behold therein the fearful images of our actions past, and

withal this terrible inscription that ‘God will bring every work into

judgement that man hath done under the Sun.’

“But what examples have ever moved us? what persuasions reformed us?

or what threatenings made us afraid? We behold other mens tragedies

played before us; we hear what is promised and threatened; but the

world's bright glory hath put out the eyes of our minds; and these

betraying lights, with which we only see, do neither look up towards

termless joys, nor down towards endless sorrows, till we neither know,

nor can look for anything else at the world's hands.—But let us not

flatter our immortal Souls herein! For to neglect God all our lives,

and know that we neglect Him; to offend God voluntarily, and know that

we offend Him, casting our hopes on the peace which we trust to make

at parting, is no other than a rebellious presumption, and that which

is the worst of all, even a contemptuous laughing to scorn, and

deriding of God, his laws and precepts. _Frustrà sperant qui sic de

misericordiâ Dei sibi blandiuntur;_ they hope in vain, saith Bernard,

which in this sort flatter themselves with God's mercy.”

CHAPTER CLXXXV.

EVOLVEMENTS. ANALOGIES. ANTICIPATIONS.

I have heard, how true

I know not, most physicians as they grow

Greater in skill, grow less in their religion;

Attributing so much to natural causes,

That they have little faith in that they cannot

Deliver reason for: this Doctor steers

Another course.

MASSINGER.

I forget what poet it is, who, speaking of old age, says that

The Soul's dark mansion, battered and decayed,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;

a strange conceit, imputing to the decay of our nature that which

results from its maturation.

As the ancients found in the butterfly a beautiful emblem of the

immortality of the Soul, my true philosopher and friend looked, in

like manner, upon the chrysalis as a type of old age. The gradual

impairment of the senses and of the bodily powers, and the diminution

of the whole frame as it shrinks and contracts itself in age, afforded

analogy enough for a mind like his to work on, which quickly

apprehended remote similitudes, and delighted in remarking them. The

sense of flying in our sleep, might probably, he thought, be the

anticipation or forefeeling of an unevolved power, like an aurelia's

dream of butterfly motion.

The tadpole has no intermediate state of torpor. This merriest of all

creatures, if mirth may be measured by motion, puts out legs before it

discards its tail and commences frog. It was not in our outward frame

that the Doctor could discern any resemblance to this process; but he

found it in that expansion of the intellectual faculties, those

aspirations of the spiritual part, wherein the Soul seems to feel its

wings and to imp them for future flight.

One has always something for which to look forward, some change for

the better. The boy in petticoats longs to be drest in the masculine

gender. Little boys wish to be big ones. In youth we are eager to

attain manhood, and in manhood matrimony becomes the next natural step

of our desires. “Days then should speak, and multitude of years should

teach wisdom;” and teach it they will, if man will but learn, for

nature brings the heart into a state for receiving it.

_Jucundissima est ætas devexa jam, non tamen præceps; et illam quoque

in extremâ regulâ stantem, judico habere suas voluptates; aut hoc

ipsum succedit in locum voluptatum, nullis egere. Quam dulce est,

cupiditates fatigasse ac reliquisse!_[1] This was not Dr. Dove's

philosophy: he thought the stage of senescence a happy one, not

because we outgrow the desires and enjoyments of youth and manhood,

but because wiser desires, more permanent enjoyments, and holier hopes

succeed to them,—because time in its course brings us nearer to

eternity, and as earth recedes, Heaven opens upon our prospect.

[Footnote 1: SENECA.]

“It is the will of God and nature,” says Franklin, “that these mortal

bodies be laid aside when the soul is to enter into real life. This is

rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man is not

completely born until he be dead. Why, then, should we grieve that a

new child is born among the immortals, a new member added to their

happy society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while

they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in

doing good to our fellow-creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of

God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain

instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an encumbrance, and

answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally

kind and benevolent, that a way is provided by which we may get rid of

them. Death is that way.”

“God,” says Fuller, “sends his servants to bed, when they have done

their work.”

This is a subject upon which even Sir Richard Blackmore could write

with a poet's feeling.

Thou dost, O Death, a peaceful harbour lie

Upon the margin of Eternity;

Where the rough waves of Time's impetuous tide

Their motion lose, and quietly subside:

Weary, they roll their drousy heads asleep

At the dark entrance of Duration's deep.

Hither our vessels in their turn retreat;

Here still they find a safe untroubled seat,

When worn with adverse passions, furious strife,

And the hard passage of tempestuous life.

Thou dost to man unfeigned compassion show,

Soothe all his grief, and solace all his woe.

Thy spiceries with noble drugs abound,

That every sickness cure and every wound.

That which anoints the corpse will only prove

The sovereign balm our anguish to remove.

The cooling draught administered by thee,

O Death! from all our sufferings sets us free.

Impetuous life is by thy force subdued,

Life, the most lasting fever of the blood.

The weary in thy arms lie down to rest,

No more with breath's laborious task opprest.

Hear, how the men that long life-ridden lie,

In constant pain, for thy assistance cry,

Hear how they beg and pray for leave to die.

For vagabonds that o'er the country roam,

Forlorn, unpitied and without a home,

Thy friendly care provides a lodging-room.

The comfortless, the naked, and the poor,

Much pinch'd with cold, with grievous hunger more,

Thy subterranean hospitals receive,

Assuage their anguish and their wants relieve.

Cripples with aches and with age opprest,

Crawl on their crutches to the Grave for rest.

Exhausted travellers that have undergone

The scorching heats of life's intemperate zone,

Haste for refreshment to their beds beneath

And stretch themselves in the cool shades of death.

Poor labourers who their daily task repeat,

Tired with their still returning toil and sweat,

Lie down at last; and at the wish'd for close

Of life's long day, enjoy a sweet repose.

Thy realms, indulgent Death, have still possest

Profound tranquillity and unmolested rest.

No raging tempests, which the living dread,

Beat on the silent regions of the dead:

Proud Princes ne'er excite with war's alarms

Thy subterranean colonies to arms.

They undisturbed their peaceful mansions keep,

And earthquakes only rock them in their sleep.

Much has been omitted, which may be found in the original, and one

couplet removed from its place; but the whole is Blackmore's.

CHAPTER CLXXXVI.

LEONE HEBREO'S DIALOGI DE AMORE.—THE ELIXIR OF LIFE NO OBSTACLE TO

DEATH.—PARACELSUS.—VAN HELMONT AND JAN MASS.—DR. DOVE'S OPINION OF A

BIOGRAPHER'S DUTIES.

There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors!

OLD FORTUNATUS.

In Leone Hebreo's Dialogi de Amore, one of the interlocutors says,

“_Vediamo che gli huomini naturalmente desiano di mai non morire;

lagual cosa è impossibile, manifesta, e senza speranza._” To which the

other replies, “_Coloro chel desiano, non credeno interamente che sia

impossibile, et hanno inteso per le historie legali, che Enoc, et

Elia, et ancor Santo Giovanni Evangelista sono immortali in corpo, et

anima: se ben veggono essere stato per miracolo: onde ciascuno pensa

che à loro Dio potria fare simil miracolo. E però con questa

possibilita si gionta qualche remota speranza, laquale incita un lento

desiderio, massimamente per essere la morte horribile, e la

corruttione propria odiosa à chi si vuole, et il desiderio non è d'

acquistare cosa nuova, ma di non perdere la vita, che si truova;

laquale havendosi di presente, è facil cosa ingannarsi l'huomo à

desiare che non si perda; se ben naturalmente è impossibile: chel

desiderio di ciò è talmente lento, che può essere di cosa impossibile

et imaginabile, essendo di tanta importantia al desiderante. Et ancora

ti dirò chel fondamento di questo desiderio non è vano in se, se bene

è alquanto ingannoso, però chel desiderio dell' huomo d'essere

immortale è veramente possibile; perche l'esentia dell' huomu, (come

rettamente Platon vuole) non è altro che la sua anima intellettiva,

laquale per la virtu, sapientia, cognitione, et amore divino si fa

gloriosa et immortale._”

Paracelsus used to boast that he would not die till he thought proper

so to do, thus wishing it to be understood that he had discovered the

Elixir of life. He died suddenly, and at a time when he seemed to be

in full health; and hence arose a report, that he had made a compact

with the Devil, who enabled him to perform all his cures, but came for

him as soon as the term of their agreement was up.

Wherefore indeed should he have died by any natural means who so well

understood the mysteries of life and of death. What, says he, is life?

_Nihil meherclè vita est aliud, nisi Mumia quædam Balsamita conservans

mortale corpus à mortalibus vermibus, et eschara cum impressâ liquoris

salium commisturâ._ What is Death? _Nihil certe aliud quam Balsami

dominium, Mumiæ interitus, salium ultima materia._ Do you understand

this, Reader? If you do, I do not.

But he is intelligible when he tells us that Life may be likened to

Fire, and that all we want is to discover the fuel for keeping it

up,—the true Lignum Vitæ. It is not against nature, he contends, that

we should live till the renovation of all things; it is only against

our knowledge, and beyond it. But there are medicaments for prolonging

life; and none but the foolish or the ignorant would ask why then is

it that Princes and Kings who can afford to purchase them, die

nevertheless like other people. The reason says the great Bombast von

Hohenheim is that their physicians know less about medicine than the

very boors, and moreover that Princes and Kings lead dissolute lives.

And if it be asked why no one except Hermes Trismegistus has used such

medicaments; he replies that others have used them, but have not let

it be known.

Van Helmont was once of opinion that no metallic preparation could

contain in itself the blessing of the Tree of Life, though that the

Philosopher's stone had been discovered was a fact that consisted with

his own sure knowledge. This opinion however was in part changed, in

consequence of some experiments made with an aurific powder, given him

by a stranger after a single evening's acquaintance; _(vir peregrinus,

unius vesperi amicus:)_ these experiments convinced him that the stone

partook of what he calls Zoophyte life, as distinguished both from

vegetative and sensitive. But the true secret he thought, must be

derived from the vegetable world, and he sought for it in the Cedar,

induced, as it seems, by the frequent mention of that tree in the Old

Testament. He says much concerning the cedar,—among other things, that

when all other plants were destroyed by the Deluge, and their kinds

preserved only in their seed, the Cedars of Lebanon remained uninjured

under the waters. However when he comes to the main point, he makes a

full stop, saying, _Cætera autem quæ de Cedro sunt, mecum sepelientur:

nam mundus non capax est._ It is not unlikely that if his mysticism

had been expressed in the language of intelligible speculation, it

might have been found to accord with some of Berkeley's theories in

the _Siris_. But for his reticence upon this subject, as if the world

were not worthy of his discoveries, he ought to have been deprived of

his two remaining talents. Five he tells us he had received for his

portion, but because instead of improving them, he had shown himself

unworthy of so large a trust, he by whom they were given had taken

from him three. “_Ago illi gratias, quod cum contulisset in me quinque

talenta, fecissemque me indignum, et hactenus repudium coram eo factus

essem, placuit divinæ bonitati, auferre à me tria, et relinquere adhuc

bina, ut me sic ad meliorem frugem exspectaret. Maluit, inquam, me

depauperare et tolerare, ut non essem utilis plurimis, modò me

salvaret ab hujus mundi periculis. Sit ipsi æterna sanctificatio._”

He has however informed posterity of the means by which he prolonged

the life of a man to extreme old age. This person whose name was Jan

Mass, was in the service of Martin Rythovius, the first Bishop of

Ypres, when that prelate, by desire of the illustrious sufferers,

assisted at the execution of Counts Egmond and Horn. Mass was then in

the twenty-fifth year of his age. When he was fifty-eight, being poor,

and having a large family of young children, he came to Van Helmont,

and entreated him to prolong his life if he could, for the sake of

these children, who would be left destitute in case of his death, and

must have to beg their bread from door to door. Van Helmont, then a

young man, was moved by such an application, and considering what

might be the likeliest means of sustaining life in its decay, he

called to mind the fact that wine is preserved from corruption by the

fumes of burnt brimstone; it then occurred to him that the acid liquor

of sulphur, _acidum sulfuris stagma_, (it is better so to translate

his words than to call it the sulphuric acid,) must of necessity

contain the fumes and odour of sulphur, being, according to his

chemistry, nothing but those fumes of sulphur, combined with, or

imbibed in, its mercurial salt. The next step in his reasoning was to

regard the blood as the wine of life; if this could be kept sound,

though longevity might not be the necessary consequence, life would at

least be preserved from the many maladies which arose from its

corruption, and the sanity, and immunity from such diseases, and from

the sufferings consequent thereon, must certainly tend to its

prolongation. He gave Mass therefore a stone bottle of the distilled

liquor of sulphur, and taught him also how to prepare this oil from

burnt sulphur. And he ordered him at every meal to take two drops of

it in his first draught of beer; and not lightly to exceed that; two

drops, he thought, contained enough of the fumes for a sufficient

dose. This was in the year 1600; and now, says Helmont, in 1641, the

old man still walks about the streets of Brussels. And what is still

better, _(quodque augustius est,)_ in all these forty years, he has

never been confined by any illness, except that by a fall upon the ice

he once broke his leg near the knee; and he has constantly been free

from fever, remaining a slender and lean man, and always poor.

Jan Mass had nearly reached his hundredth year when this was written,

and it is no wonder that Van Helmont, who upon a fantastic analogy had

really prescribed an efficient tonic, should have accounted by the

virtue of his prescription for the health and vigour, which a strong

constitution had retained to that extraordinary age. There is no

reason for doubting the truth of his statement; but if Van Helmont

relied upon his theory, he must have made further experiments; it is

probable therefore that he either distrusted his own hypothesis, or

found upon subsequent trials that the result disappointed him.

Van Helmont's works were collected and edited by his son Francis

Mercurius, who styles himself _Philosophus per Unum in quo Omnia

Eremita peregrinans_, and who dedicated the collection as a holocaust

to the ineffable Hebrew Name. The Vita Authoris which he prefixed to

it relates to his own life, not to his father's, and little can be

learnt from it, except that he is the more mystical and least

intelligible of the two. The most curious circumstances concerning the

father are what he has himself communicated in the treatise entitled

his Confession, into which the writer of his life in Aikin's Biography

seems not to have looked, nor indeed into any of his works, the

articles in that as in our other Biographies, being generally compiled

from compilations, so as to present the most superficial information,

with the least possible trouble to the writer and the least possible

profit to the reader,—skimming for him not the cream of knowledge, but

the scum.

Dr. Dove used to say that whoever wrote the life of an author without

carefully perusing his works acted as iniquitously as a Judge who

should pronounce sentence in a cause without hearing the evidence; nay

he maintained, the case was even worse, because there was an even

chance that the Judge might deliver a right sentence, but it was

impossible that a life so composed should be otherwise than grievously

imperfect, if not grossly erroneous. For all the ordinary business of

the medical profession he thought it sufficient that a practitioner

should thoroughly understand the practice of his art, and proceed

empirically: God help the patients, he would say, if it were not so!

and indeed without God's help they would fare badly at the best. But

he was of opinion that no one could take a lively and at the same time

a worthy interest in any art or science without as it were identifying

himself with it, and seeking to make himself well acquainted with its

history: a Physician therefore, according to his way of thinking ought

to be as curious concerning the writings of his more eminent

predecessors, and as well read in the most illustrious of them, as a

general in the wars of Hannibal, Cæsar, the Black Prince, the Prince

of Parma, Gustavus Adolphus, and Marlborough. How carefully he had

perused Van Helmont was shown by the little landmarks whereby after an

interval of—alas how many years,—I have followed him through the

volume,—_haud passibus æquis_.

CHAPTER CLXXXVII.

VAN HELMONT'S WORKS, AND CERTAIN SPECIALITIES IN HIS LIFE.

_Voilà, mon conte.—Je ne sçay s'il est vray; mais, je l'ay ainsi ouy

conter.—Possible que cela est faux, possible que non.—Je m'en rapporte

à ce qui en est. Il ne sera pas damné qui le croira, ou décroira._

BRANTÔME.

“The works of Van Helmont,” Dr. Aikin says, “are now only consulted as

curiosities; but with much error and jargon, they contain many shrewd

remarks, and curious speculations.”

How little would any reader suppose from this account of them, or

indeed from any thing which Dr. Aikin has said concerning this once

celebrated person, that Van Helmont might as fitly be classed among

enthusiasts as among physicians, and with philosophers as with either;

and that like most enthusiasts it is sometimes not easy to determine

whether he was deceived himself or intended to deceive others.

He was born at Brussels in the year 1577, and of noble family. In his

Treatise entitled _Tumulus Pestis_ (to which strange title a

stranger[1] explanation is annexed) he gives a sketch of his own

history, saying, “_imitemini, si quid forte boni in eâ occurrerit._”

He was a devourer of books, and digested into common places for his

own use, whatever he thought most remarkable in them, so that few

exceeded him in diligence, but most, he says, in judgement. At the age

of seventeen, he was appointed by the Professors Thomas Fyenus, Gerard

de Velleers, and Stornius, to read surgical lectures in the Medical

College at Louvain. _Eheu_, he exclaims, _præsumsi docere, quæ ipse

nesciebam!_ and his presumption was increased because the Professors

of their own accord appointed him to this Lectureship, attended to

hear him, and were the Censors of what he delivered. The writers from

whom he compiled his discourses were Holerius, Tagaultius, Guido,

Vigo, Ægineta, and “the whole tribe of Arabian authors.” But then he

began, and in good time, to marvel at his own temerity and

inconsiderateness in thinking that by mere reading, he could be

qualified to teach what could be learnt only by seeing, and by

operating, and by long practice, and by careful observation: and this

distrust in himself was increased when he discovered that the

Professors could give him no further light than books had done.

However at the age of twenty-two he was created Doctor of Medicine in

the same University.

[Footnote 1:

Lector, titulus quem legis, terror lugubris, foribus affixus,

intus mortem, mortis genus, et hominum

nunciat flagrum. Sta, et inquire, quid hoc?

Mirare. Quid sibi vult

Tumuli Epigraphe Pestis?

Sub anatome abii, non obii; quamdiu malesuada invidia

Momi, et hominum ignara cupido,

me fovebunt.

Ergo heic

Non funus, non cadaver, non mors, non sceleton

non luctus, non contagium.

ÆTERNO DA GLORIAM

Quod Pestis jam desiit, sub Anatomes proprio supplicio.]

Very soon he began to repent that he, who was by birth noble, should

have been the first of his family to choose the medical profession,

and this against the will of his mother, and without the knowledge of

his other relations. “I lamented, he says, with tears the sin of my

disobedience, and regretted the time and labour which had been thus

vainly expended: and often with a sorrowful heart I intreated the Lord

that he would be pleased to lead me to a vocation not of my own

choice, but in which I might best perform his will; and I made a vow

that to whatever way of life he might call me, I would follow it, and

do my utmost endeavour therein to serve him. Then, as if I had tasted

of the forbidden fruit, I discovered my own nakedness. I saw that

there was neither truth nor knowledge in my putative learning; and

thought it cruel to derive money from the sufferings of others; and

unfitting that an art founded upon charity, and conferred upon the

condition of exercising compassion, should be converted into a means

of lucre.”

These reflections were promoted if not induced by his having caught a

disorder which as it is not mentionable in polite circles, may be

described by intimating that the symptom from which it derives its

name is alleviated by what Johnson defines tearing or rubbing with the

nails. It was communicated to him by a young lady's glove, into which

in a evil minute of sportive gallantry he had insinuated his hand. The

physicians treated him, _secundum artem_, in entire ignorance of the

disease; they bled him to cool the liver, and they purged him to carry

off the torrid choler and the salt phlegm, they repeated this

clearance again and again, till from a hale strong and active man they

had reduced him to extreme leanness and debility without in the

slightest degree abating the cutaneous disease. He then persuaded

himself that the humours which the Galenists were so triumphantly

expelling from his poor carcase had not preexisted there in that state

but were produced by the action of their drugs. Some one cured him

easily by brimstone, and this is said to have made him feelingly

perceive the inefficiency of the scholastic practice which he had

hitherto pursued.

In this state of mind he made over his inheritance to a widowed

sister, who stood in need of it, gave up his profession, and left his

own country with an intention of never returning to it. The world was

all before him, and he began his travels with as little fore-knowledge

whither he was going, and as little fore-thought of what he should do,

as Adam himself when the gate of Paradise was closed upon him; but he

went with the hope that God would direct his course by His good

pleasure to some good end. It so happened that he who had renounced

the profession of medicine as founded on delusion and imposture was

thrown into the way of practising it, by falling in company with a man

who had no learning, but who understood the practical part of

chemistry, or pyrotechny, as he calls it. The new world which Columbus

discovered did not open a wider or more alluring field to ambition and

rapacity than this science presented to Van Helmont's enthusiastic and

enquiring mind. “Then” says he, “when by means of fire I beheld the

_penetrale_, the inward or secret part of certain bodies, I

comprehended the separations of many, which were not then taught in

books, and some of which are still unknown.” He pursued his

experiments with increasing ardour, and in the course of two years

acquired such reputation by the cures which he performed, that because

of his reputation he was sent for by the Elector of Cologne. Then

indeed he became more ashamed of his late and learned ignorance, and

renouncing all books because they sung only the same cuckoo note,

perceived that he profited more by fire, and by conceptions acquired

in praying. “And then,” says he, “I clearly knew that I had missed the

entrance of true philosophy, on all sides obstacles and obscurities

and difficulties appeared, which neither labour, nor time, nor vigils,

nor expenditure of money could overcome and disperse, but only the

mere goodness of God. Neither women, nor social meetings deprived me

then of even a single hour, but continual labour and watching were the

thieves of my time; for I willingly cured the poor and those of mean

estate, being more moved by human compassion, and a moral love of

giving, than by pure universal charity reflected in the Fountain of

Life.”

INTERCHAPTER XX.

ST. PANTALEON OF NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA—HIS HISTORY, AND SOME FURTHER

PARTICULARS NOT TO BE FOUND ELSEWHERE.

_Non dicea le cose senza il quia;

Che il dritto distingueva dal mancino,

E dicea pane al pane, e vino al vino._

BERTOLDO.

This Interchapter is dedicated to St. Pantaleon, of Nicomedia in

Bithynia, student in medicine and practitioner in miracles, whose

martyrdom is commemorated by the Church of Rome, on the 27th of July.

_Sancte Pantaleon, ora pro nobis!_

This I say to be on the safe side; though between ourselves reader,

Nicephorus, and Usuardus, and Vincentius and St. Antoninus

(notwithstanding his sanctity) have written so many lies concerning

him, that it is very doubtful whether there ever was such a person,

and still more doubtful whether there be such a Saint. However the

body which is venerated under his name, is just as venerable as if it

had really belonged to him, and works miracles as well.

It is a tradition in Corsica that when St. Pantaleon was beheaded, the

executioner's sword was converted into a wax taper, and the weapons of

all his attendants into snuffers, and that the head rose from the

block and sung. In honour of this miracle the Corsicans as late as the

year 1775 used to have their swords consecrated, or charmed,—by laying

them on the altar while a mass was performed to St. Pantaleon.

But what have I, who am writing in January instead of July, and who am

no papist, and who have the happiness of living in a protestant

country, and was baptized moreover by a right old English name,—what

have I to do with St. Pantaleon? Simply this, my new pantaloons are

just come home, and that they derive their name from the aforesaid

Saint is as certain,—as that it was high time I should have a new

pair.

St. Pantaleon though the tutelary Saint of Oporto (which city boasteth

of his relics) was in more especial fashion at Venice: and so many of

the grave Venetians were in consequence named after him, that the

other Italians called them generally Pantaloni in derision,—as an

Irishman is called Pat, and as Sawney is with us synonymous with

Scotchman, or Taffy for a son of Cadwallader and votary of St. David

and his leek. Now the Venetians wore long small clothes; these as

being the national dress were called Pantaloni also; and when the

trunk-hose of Elizabeth's days went out of fashion, we received them

from France, with the name of pantaloons.

Pantaloons then as of Venetian and Magnifico parentage, and under the

patronage of an eminent Saint, are doubtless an honourable garb. They

are also of honourable extraction, being clearly of the Braccæ family.

For it is this part of our dress by which we are more particularly

distinguished from the Oriental and inferior nations and also from the

abominable Romans whom our ancestors, Heaven be praised! subdued.

Under the miserable reign of Honorius and Arcadius, these Lords of the

World thought proper to expel the Braccarii, or breeches-makers, from

their capitals, and to prohibit the use of this garment, thinking it a

thing unworthy that the Romans should wear the habit of

Barbarians:—and truly it was not fit that so effeminate a race should

wear the breeches.

The Pantaloons are of this good Gothic family. The fashion having been

disused for more than a century was re-introduced some five and twenty

years ago, and still prevails so much—that I who like to go with the

stream, and am therefore content to have fashions thrust upon me, have

just received a new pair from London.

The coming of a box from the Great City is an event which is always

looked to by the juveniles of this family with some degree of

impatience. In the present case there was especial cause for such

joyful expectation, for the package was to contain no less a treasure

than the story of the Lioness and the Exeter Mail, with appropriate

engravings representing the whole of that remarkable history, and

those engravings emblazoned in appropriate colours. This adventure had

excited an extraordinary degree of interest among us when it was

related in the newspapers: and no sooner had a book upon the subject

been advertised, than the young ones one and all were in an uproar,

and tumultuously petitioned that I would send for it,—to which,

thinking the prayer of the petitioners reasonable, I graciously

assented. And moreover there was expected among other things _ejusdem

generis_, one of those very few perquisites which the all-annihilating

hand of Modern Reform has not retrenched in our public offices,—an

Almanac or Pocket-Book for the year, curiously bound and gilt, three

only being made up in this magnificent manner for three magnificent

personages, from one of whom this was a present to my lawful

Governess. Poor Mr. Bankes! the very hairs of his wig will stand

erect,

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine,

when he reads of this flagrant misapplication of public money; and Mr.

Whitbread would have founded a motion upon it, had he survived the

battle of Waterloo.

There are few things in which so many vexatious delays are continually

occurring, and so many rascally frauds are systematically practised,

as in the carriage of parcels. It is indeed much to be wished that

Government could take into its hands the conveyance of goods as well

as letters, for in this country whatever is done by Government is done

punctually and honourably;—what corruption there is lies among the

people themselves, among whom honesty is certainly less general than

it was half a century ago. Three or four days elapsed on each of which

the box ought to have arrived. Will it come to day Papa? was the

morning question: why does not it come? was the complaint at noon; and

when will it come? was the query at night. But in childhood the delay

of hope is only the prolongation of enjoyment; and through life

indeed, hope if it be of the right kind, is the best food of

happiness. “The House of Hope,” says Hafiz, “is built upon a weak

foundation.” If it be so, I say, the fault is in the builder: Build it

upon a Rock, and it will stand.

_Expectata dies_,—long looked for, at length it came. The box was

brought into the parlour, the ripping-chissel was produced, the nails

were easily forced, the cover was lifted, and the paper which lay

beneath it was removed. There's the pantaloons! was the first

exclamation. The clothes being taken out, there appeared below a paper

parcel, secured with string. As I never encourage any undue

impatience, the string was deliberately and carefully untied. Behold,

the splendid Pocket-Book, and the history of the Lioness and the

Exeter Mail,—had been forgotten!

O St. Peter! St. Peter!

“Pray, Sir,” says the Reader, “as I perceive you are a person who have

a reason for every thing you say, may I ask wherefore you call upon

St. Peter on this occasion.”

You may Sir.

A reason there is and a valid one. But what that reason is, I shall

leave the commentators to discover; observing only, for the sake of

lessening their difficulty, that the Peter upon whom I have called is

not St. Peter of Verona, he having been an Inquisitor, one of the

Devil's Saints, and therefore in no condition at this time to help any

body who invokes him.

“Well Papa, you must write about them, and they must come in the next

parcel,” said the children. Job never behaved better, who was a

scriptural Epictetus; nor Epictetus who was a heathen Job.

I kissed the little philosophers; and gave them the Bellman's verses,

which happened to come in the box, with horrific cuts of the Marriage

at Cana, the Ascension and other portions of gospel history, and the

Bellman himself,—so it was not altogether a blank. We agreed that the

disappointment should be an adjourned pleasure, and then I turned to

inspect the pantaloons.

I cannot approve the colour. It hath too much of the purple; not that

imperial die by which ranks were discriminated at Constantinople, nor

the more sober tint which Episcopacy affecteth. Nor is it the bloom of

the plum;—still less can it be said to resemble the purple light of

love. No! it is rather a hue brushed from the raven's wing, a black

purple; not Night and Aurora meeting, which would make the darkness

blush; but Erebus and Ultramarine.

Doubtless it hath been selected for me because of its alamodality,—a

good and pregnant word, on the fitness of which some German whose name

appears to be erroneously as well as uncouthly written Geamoenus, is

said to have composed a dissertation. Be pleased Mr. Todd to insert it

in the interleaved copy of your dictionary!

Thankful I am that they are not like Jean de Bart's full dress

breeches; for when that famous sailor went to court he is said to have

worn breeches of cloth of gold, most uncomfortably as well as

splendidly lined with cloth of silver.

He would never have worn them had he read Lampridius, and seen the

opinion of the Emperor Alexander Severus as by that historian

recorded: “_in lineâ autem aurum mitti etiam dementiam judicabat, cum

asperitati adderetur rigor._”

The word breeches has, I am well aware, been deemed ineffable, and

therefore not to be written—because not to be read. But I am

encouraged to use it by the high and mighty authority of the

Anti-Jacobin Review. Mr. Stephens having in his Memoirs of Horne Tooke

used the word small-clothes is thus reprehended for it by the

indignant Censor.

“His _breeches_ he calls _small-clothes_;—the first time we have seen

this bastard term, the offspring of gross ideas and disgusting

affectation in print, in any thing like a book. It is scandalous to

see men of education thus employing the most vulgar language, and

corrupting their native tongue by the introduction of illegitimate

words. But this is the age of affectation. Even our fishwomen and

milkmaids affect to blush at the only word which can express this part

of a man's dress, and lisp _small-clothes_ with as many airs as a

would-be woman of fashion is accustomed to display. That this folly is

indebted for its birth to grossness of imagination in those who evince

it, will not admit of a doubt. From the same source arises the

ridiculous and too frequent use of a French word for a part of female

dress; as if the mere change of language could operate a change either

in the thing expressed, or in the idea annexed to the expression!

Surely, surely, English women, who are justly celebrated for good

sense and decorous manners, should rise superior to such pityful, such

paltry, such low-minded affectation.”

Here I must observe that one of these redoubtable critics is thought

to have a partiality for breeches of the Dutch make. It is said also

that he likes to cut them out for himself, and to have pockets of

capacious size, wide and deep; and a large fob, and a large allowance

of lining.

The Critic who so very much dislikes the word small-clothes, and

argues so vehemently in behalf of breeches, uses no doubt that edition

of the scriptures that is known by the name of the Breeches Bible.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Bible here alluded to was the Genevan one, by Rowland

Hall, A.D. 1560. It was for many years the most popular one in

England, and the notes were great favorites with the religious public,

insomuch so that they were attached to a copy of King James'

Translation as late as 1715. From the peculiar rendering of Genesis,

iii. 7, the Editions of this translation have been commonly known by

the name of “Breeches Bibles.”—See Cotton's Various Editions of the

Bible, p. 14, and Ames and Herbert, Ed. Dibdin, vol. iv. p. 410.]

I ought to be grateful to the Anti-Jacobin Review. It assists in

teaching me my duty to my neighbour, and enabling me to live in

charity with all men. For I might perhaps think that nothing could be

so wrong-headed as Leigh Hunt, so wrong-hearted as Cobbett, so foolish

as one, so blackguard as the other, so impudently conceited as

both,—if it were not for the Anti-Jacobin. I might believe that

nothing could be so bad as the coarse, bloody and brutal spirit of the

vulgar Jacobin,—if it were not for the Anti-Jacobin.

Blessings on the man for his love of pure English! It is to be

expected that he will make great progress in it, through his

familiarity with fishwomen and milk-maids; for it implies no common

degree of familiarity with those interesting classes to talk to them

about breeches, and discover that they prefer to call them

small-clothes.

But wherefore did he not instruct us by which monosyllable he would

express the female garment, “which is indeed the sister to a

shirt,”—as an old poet says, and which he hath left unnamed,—for there

are two by which it is denominated. Such a discussion would be worthy

both of his good sense, and his decorous stile.

For my part, instead of expelling the word _chemise_ from use I would

have it fairly naturalized.

Many plans have been proposed for reducing our orthography to some

regular system, and improving our language in various ways. Mr.

Elphinstone, Mr. Pinkerton, and Mr. Spence, the founder of the

Spensean Philanthropists, have distinguished themselves in these

useful and patriotic projects, and Mr. Pytches is at present in like

manner laudably employed,—though that gentleman contents himself with

reforming what these bolder spirits would revolutionize. I also would

fain contribute to so desirable an end.

We agree that in spelling words it is proper to discard all reference

to their etymology. The political reformer would confine the attention

of the Government exclusively to what are called truly British

objects; and the philological reformers in like manner are desirous of

establishing a truly British language.

Upon this principle, I would anglicize the orthography of _chemise_;

and by improving upon the hint which the word would then offer in its

English appearance, we might introduce into our language a distinction

of genders—in which it has hitherto been defective. For example,

Hemise and Shemise.

Here without the use of an article, or any change of termination we

have the needful distinction made more perspicuously than by _ó_ and

_ń_, _hic_ and _hæc_, _le_ and _la_, or other articles serving for no

other purpose.

Again. In letter-writing, every person knows that male and female

letters have a distinct sexual character, they should therefore be

generally distinguished thus,

Hepistle and Shepistle.

And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two

sexes I would propose

Penmanship and Penwomanship.

Erroneous opinions in religion being promulgated in this country by

women as well as men, the teachers of such false doctrines may be

divided into

Heresiarchs and Sheresiarchs,

so that we should speak of

the Heresy of the Quakers

the Sheresy of Joanna Southcote's people.

The troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which every person has

experienced, is upon the same principle to be called according to the

sex of the patient

Hecups or Shecups,

which upon the principle of making our language truly British is

better than the more classical form of

Hiccups and Hæccups.

In its objective use the word becomes

Hiscups or Hercups,

and in like manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the

complaint never being masculine.

So also instead of making such words as agreeable, comfortable, &c.

adjectives of one termination, I would propose,

Masculine agreabeau, Feminine agreabelle

comfortabeau comfortabelle

miserabeau miserabelle,

&c. &c.

These things are suggested as hints to Mr. Pytches, to be by him

perpended in his improvement of our Dictionary. I beg leave also to

point out for his critical notice the remarkable difference in the

meaning of the word misfortune, as applied to man, woman, or child: a

peculiarity for which perhaps no parallel is to be found in any other

language.