WHEREIN CERTAIN QUESTIONS ARE PROPOSED CONCERNING TIME, PLACE AND
PERSONS.
_Quis? quid? ubi? quibus auxiliis? cur? quomodo? quando?_
TECHNICAL VERSE.
Thus have I begun according to the most approved forms; not like those
who begin the Trojan War from Leda's egg, or the History of Great
Britain from Adam, or the Life of General Washington from the
Discovery of the New World; but in conformity to the Horatian precept,
rushing into the middle of things. Yet the Giant Moulineau's appeal to
his friend the story-telling Ram may well be remembered here; _Belier
mon ami, si tu voulois commencer par le commencement tu me ferois
grand plaisir_. For in the few lines of the preceding chapter how much
is there that requires explanation?—Who was Nobs?—Who was Barnaby?—Who
was the Doctor?—Who was Mrs. Dove?—The place, where?—The time,
when?—The persons, who?—
I maie not tell you all at once;
But as I maie and can, I shall
By order tellen you it all.
So saith Chaucer; and in the same mind, _facilius discimus quæ congruo
dicuntur ordine quam quæ sparsim et confusim_, saith Erasmus. Think a
moment I beseech thee, Reader, what order is! Not the mere word which
is so often vociferated in the House of Commons or uttered by the
Speaker _ore rotundo_, when it is necessary for him to assume the tone
of Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης; but order in its essence and truth, in itself and
in its derivatives.
Waiving the Orders in Council, and the Order of the Day, a phrase so
familiar in the disorderly days of the French National Convention,
think gentle Reader of the order of Knighthood, of holy orders, of the
orders of architecture, the Linnæan orders, the orderly Serjeant, the
ordinal numbers, the Ordinary of Newgate, the Ordinary on Sundays at 2
o'clock in the environs of the Metropolis, the ordinary faces of those
who partake of what is ordinarily provided for them there; and under
the auspices of Government itself, and _par excellence_ the
Extraordinary Gazette. And as the value of health is never truly and
feelingly understood except in sickness, contemplate for a moment what
the want of order is. Think of disorder in things remote, and then as
it approaches thee. In the country wherein thou livest, bad; in the
town whereof thou art an inhabitant, worse; in thine own street,
worser; in thine own house, worst of all. Think of it in thy family,
in thy fortune, in thine intestines. In thy affairs, distressing; in
thy members, painful; in thy conduct, ruinous. Order is the sanity of
the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security
of the state. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm
of man, so is order to all things. Abstract it from a Dictionary, and
thou mayest imagine the inextricable confusion which would ensue.
Reject it from the Alphabet, and Zerah Colburne himself could not go
through the chriscross row. How then should I do without it in this
history?
A Quaker by name Benjamin Lay (who was a little cracked in the head
though sound at heart) took one of his compositions once to Benjamin
Franklin that it might be printed and published. Franklin having
looked over the manuscript observed that it was deficient in
arrangement; it is no matter, replied the author, print any part thou
pleasest first. Many are the speeches and the sermons and the
treatises and the poems and the volumes which are like Benjamin Lay's
book; the head might serve for the tail, and the tail for the body,
and the body for the head,—either end for the middle, and the middle
for either end;—nay if you could turn them inside out like a polypus,
or a glove, they would be no worse for the operation.
When the excellent Hooker was on his death-bed, he expressed his joy
at the prospect of entering a World of Order.