BIRTH AND PARENTAGE OF DR. DOVE, WITH THE DESCRIPTION OF A YEOMAN'S
HOUSE IN THE WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
_Non possidentem multa vocaveris
Recte beatum; rectius occupat
Nomen beati, qui Deorum
Muneribus sapienter uti,
Duramque callet pauperiem pati,
Pejusque letho flagitium timet._
HORACE, L. 4, Od. 9.
Daniel, the son of Daniel Dove and of Dinah his wife, was born near
Ingleton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on Monday the twenty second
of April, old style, 1723, nine minutes and three seconds after three
in the afternoon; on which day Marriage came in and Mercury was with
the Moon; and the aspects were □ ♄ ♀: a week earlier, it would have
been a most glorious Trine of the Sun and Jupiter;—circumstances which
were all duly noted in the blank leaf of the family Bible.
Daniel the father was one of a race of men who unhappily are now
almost extinct. He lived upon an estate of six and twenty acres which
his fathers had possessed before him, all Doves and Daniels, in
uninterrupted succession from time immemorial, farther than registers
or title deeds could ascend. The little church called Chapel le Dale,
stands about a bow shot from the family house. There they had all been
carried to the font; there they had each led his bride to the altar;
and thither they had, each in his turn, been borne upon the shoulders
of their friends and neighbours. Earth to earth they had been
consigned there for so many generations, that half of the soil of the
churchyard consisted of their remains. A hermit who might wish his
grave to be as quiet as his cell, could imagine no fitter resting
place. On three sides there was an irregular low stone wall, rather to
mark the limits of the sacred ground, than to inclose it; on the
fourth it was bounded by the brook whose waters proceed by a
subterraneous channel from Wethercote cave. Two or three alders and
rowan trees hung over the brook, and shed their leaves and seeds into
the stream. Some bushy hazels grew at intervals along the lines of the
wall; and a few ash trees, as the winds had sown them. To the East and
West some fields adjoined it, in that state of half cultivation which
gives a human character to solitude: to the South, on the other side
the brook, the common with its limestone rocks peering every where
above ground, extended to the foot of Ingleborough. A craggy hill,
feathered with birch, sheltered it from the North.
The turf was as soft and fine as that of the adjoining hills; it was
seldom broken, so scanty was the population to which it was
appropriated; scarcely a thistle or a nettle deformed it, and the few
tomb-stones which had been placed there were now themselves half
buried. The sheep came over the wall when they listed, and sometimes
took shelter in the porch from the storm. Their voices, and the cry of
the kite wheeling above, were the only sounds which were heard there,
except when the single bell which hung in its niche over the entrance
tinkled for service on the Sabbath day, or with a slower tongue gave
notice that one of the children of the soil was returning to the earth
from which he sprung.
The house of the Doves was to the East of the Church, under the same
hill, and with the same brook in front; and the intervening fields
belonged to the family. It was a low house, having before it a little
garden of that size and character which shewed that the inhabitants
could afford to bestow a thought upon something more than mere bodily
wants. You entered between two yew trees clipt to the fashion of two
pawns. There were hollyhocks and sunflowers displaying themselves
above the wall; roses and sweet peas under the windows, and the
everlasting pea climbing the porch. Over the door was a stone with
these letters.
D
D + M
A.D
1608.
The A. was in the Saxon character. The rest of the garden lay behind
the house, partly on the slope of the hill. It had a hedge of
gooseberry-bushes, a few apple-trees, pot-herbs in abundance, onions,
cabbages, turnips and carrots; potatoes had hardly yet found their way
into these remote parts: and in a sheltered spot under the crag, open
to the south, were six bee-hives which made the family perfectly
independent of West India produce. Tea was in those days as little
known as potatoes, and for all other things honey supplied the place
of sugar.
The house consisted of seven rooms, the dairy and cellar included
which were both upon the ground floor. As you entered the kitchen
there was on the right one of those open chimneys which afford more
comfort in a winter's evening than the finest register stove; in front
of the chimney stood a wooden bee-hive chair, and on each side was a
long oak seat with a back to it, the seats serving as chests in which
the oaten bread was kept. They were of the darkest brown, and well
polished by constant use. On the back of each were the same initials
as those over the door, with the date 1610. The great oak table, and
the chest in the best kitchen which held the house-linen, bore the
same date. The chimney was well hung with bacon, the rack which
covered half the ceiling bore equal marks of plenty; mutton hams were
suspended from other parts of the ceiling; and there was an odour of
cheese from the adjoining dairy, which the turf fire, tho' perpetual
as that of the Magi, or of the Vestal Virgins, did not overpower. A
few pewter dishes were ranged above the trenchers, opposite the door
on a conspicuous shelf. The other treasures of the family were in an
open triangular cupboard, fixed in one of the corners of the best
kitchen, half way from the floor, and touching the ceiling. They
consisted of a silver saucepan, a silver goblet, and four apostle
spoons. Here also King Charles's Golden Rules were pasted against the
wall, and a large print of Daniel in the Lion's Den. The Lions were
bedaubed with yellow, and the Prophet was bedaubed with blue, with a
red patch upon each of his cheeks: if he had been like his picture he
might have frightened the Lions; but happily there were no “judges” in
the family, and it had been bought for its name's sake. The other
print which ornamented the room had been purchased from a like
feeling, though the cause was not so immediately apparent. It
represented a Ship in full sail, with Joseph and the Virgin Mary, and
the Infant on board, and a Dove flying behind as if to fill the sails
with the motion of its wings. Six black chairs were ranged along the
wall, where they were seldom disturbed from their array. They had been
purchased by Daniel the grandfather upon his marriage, and were the
most costly purchase that had ever been made in the family; for the
goblet was a legacy. The backs were higher than the head of the
tallest man when seated; the seats flat and shallow, set in a round
frame, unaccommodating in their material, more unaccommodating in
shape; the backs also were of wood rising straight up, and ornamented
with balls and lozenges and embossments; and the legs and cross bars
were adorned in the same taste. Over the chimney were two Peacocks'
feathers, some of the dry silky pods of the honesty flower, and one of
those large “sinuous shells” so finely thus described by Landor;
Of pearly hue
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed
In the sun's palace porch; where, when unyoked,
His chariot wheel stands midway in the wave,
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply
Its polished lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
There was also a head of Indian corn there, and a back scratcher, of
which the hand was ivory and the handle black. This had been a present
of Daniel the grandfather to his wife. The three apartments above
served equally for store-rooms and bed-chambers. William Dove the
brother slept in one, and Agatha the maid, or Haggy as she was called,
in another.