A COLLECTION OF BOOKS NONE OF WHICH ARE INCLUDED AMONGST THE
PUBLICATIONS OF ANY SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF KNOWLEDGE RELIGIOUS
OR PROFANE.—HAPPINESS IN HUMBLE LIFE.
_Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis,
Quem non mordaci resplendens gloria fuco
Solicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus,
Sed tacitos sinit ire dies, et paupere cultu
Exigit innocuæ tranquilla silentia vitæ._
POLITIAN.
Happily for Daniel, he lived before the age of Magazines, Reviews,
Cyclopædias, Elegant Extracts and Literary Newspapers, so that he
gathered the fruit of knowledge for himself, instead of receiving it
from the dirty fingers of a retail vender. His books were few in
number, but they were all weighty either in matter or in size. They
consisted of the Morte d'Arthur in the fine black-letter edition of
Copland; Plutarch's Morals and Pliny's Natural History, two goodly
folios, full as an egg of meat, and both translated by that old worthy
Philemon, who for the service which he rendered to his contemporaries
and to his countrymen deserves to be called the best of the Hollands,
without disparaging either the Lord or the Doctor of that appellation.
The whole works of Joshua Sylvester (whose name, let me tell thee
reader in passing, was accented upon the first syllable by his
contemporaries, not as now upon the second);—Jean Petit's History of
the Netherlands, translated and continued by Edward Grimeston, another
worthy of the Philemon order; Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourses; Stowe's
Chronicle; Joshua Barnes's Life of Edward III.; “Ripley Revived by
Eirenæus Philalethes, an Englishman styling himself Citizen of the
World,” with its mysterious frontispiece representing the _Domus
Naturæ_, to which, _Nil deest, nisi clavis_: the Pilgrim's Progress:
two volumes of Ozell's translation of Rabelais; Latimer's Sermons; and
the last volume of Fox's Martyrs, which latter book had been brought
him by his wife. The Pilgrim's Progress was a godmother's present to
his son: the odd volumes of Rabelais he had picked up at Kendal, at a
sale, in a lot with Ripley Revived and Plutarch's Morals: the others
he had inherited.
Daniel had looked into all these books, read most of them, and
believed all that he read, except Rabelais, which he could not tell
what to make of. He was not however one of those persons who
complacently suppose every thing to be nonsense, which they do not
perfectly comprehend, or flatter themselves that they do. His simple
heart judged of books by what they ought to be, little knowing what
they are. It never occurred to him that any thing would be printed
which was not worth printing, any thing which did not convey either
reasonable delight or useful instruction: and he was no more disposed
to doubt the truth of what he read, than to question the veracity of
his neighbour, or any one who had no interest in deceiving him. A book
carried with it to him authority in its very aspect. The Morte
d'Arthur therefore he received for authentic history, just as he did
the painful chronicle of honest John Stowe, and the Barnesian labours
of Joshua the self-satisfied: there was nothing in it indeed which
stirred his English blood like the battles of Cressy and Poictiers and
Najara; yet on the whole he preferred it to Barnes's story, believed
in Sir Tor, Sir Tristram, Sir Lancelot and Sir Lamorack as entirely as
in Sir John Chandos, the Captal de Buche and the Black Prince, and
liked them better.
Latimer and Du Bartas he used sometimes to read aloud on Sundays; and
if the departed take cognizance of what passes on earth, and poets
derive any satisfaction from that posthumous applause which is
generally the only reward of those who deserve it, Sylvester might
have found some compensation for the undeserved neglect into which his
works had sunk, by the full and devout delight which his rattling
rhymes and quaint collocations afforded to this reader. The
silver-tongued Sylvester however was reserved for a Sabbath book; as a
week-day author Daniel preferred Pliny, for the same reason that bread
and cheese, or a rasher of hung mutton contented his palate better
than a syllabub. He frequently regretted that so knowing a writer had
never seen or heard of Wethercote and Yordas caves; the ebbing and
flowing spring at Giggleswick, Malham Cove, and Gordale Scar, that he
might have described them among the wonders of the world. _Omne
ignotum pro magnifico_ is a maxim which will not in all cases hold
good. There are things which we do not undervalue because we are
familiar with them, but which are admired the more the more thoroughly
they are known and understood; it is thus with the grand objects of
nature and the finest works of art,—with whatsoever is truly great and
excellent. Daniel was not deficient in imagination; but no description
of places which he had never seen, however exaggerated (as such things
always are) impressed him so strongly as these objects in his own
neighbourhood, which he had known from childhood. Three or four times
in his life it had happened that strangers with a curiosity as
uncommon in that age as it is general in this, came from afar to visit
these wonders of the West Riding, and Daniel accompanied them with a
delight such as he never experienced on any other occasion.
But the Author in whom he delighted most was Plutarch, of whose works
he was lucky enough to possess the worthier half: if the other had
perished Plutarch would not have been a popular writer, but he would
have held a higher place in the estimation of the judicious. Daniel
could have posed a candidate for university honors, and perhaps the
examiner too, with some of the odd learning which he had stored up in
his memory from these great repositories of ancient knowledge.
Refusing all reward for such services, the strangers to whom he
officiated as a guide, though they perceived that he was an
extraordinary person, were little aware how much information he had
acquired, and of how strange a kind. His talk with them did not go
beyond the subjects which the scenes they came to visit naturally
suggested, and they wondered more at the questions he asked, than at
any thing which he advanced himself. For his disposition was naturally
shy, and that which had been bashfulness in youth assumed the
appearance of reserve as he advanced in life; for having none to
communicate with upon his favorite studies he lived in an intellectual
world of his own, a mental solitude as complete as that of Alexander
Selkirk or Robinson Crusoe. Even to the Curate his conversation, if he
had touched upon his books, would have been heathen Greek; and to
speak the truth plainly, without knowing a letter of that language, he
knew more about the Greeks, than nine-tenths of the clergy at that
time, including all the dissenters, and than nine-tenths of the
schoolmasters also.
Our good Daniel had none of that confidence which so usually and so
unpleasantly characterizes self-taught men. In fact he was by no means
aware of the extent of his acquirements, all that he knew in this kind
having been acquired for amusement not for use. He had never attempted
to teach himself any thing. These books had lain in his way in
boyhood, or fallen in it afterwards, and the perusal of them intently
as it was followed, was always accounted by him to be nothing more
than recreation. None of his daily business had ever been neglected
for it; he cultivated his fields and his garden, repaired his walls,
looked to the stable, tended his cows and salved his sheep, as
diligently and as contentedly as if he had possessed neither capacity
nor inclination for any higher employments. Yet Daniel was one of
those men, who, if disposition and aptitude were not overruled by
circumstances, would have grown pale with study, instead of being
bronzed and hardened by sun and wind and rain. There were in him
undeveloped talents which might have raised him to distinction as an
antiquary, a virtuoso of the Royal Society, a poet, or a theologian,
to which ever course the bias in his ball of fortune had inclined. But
he had not a particle of envy in his composition. He thought indeed
that if he had had grammar learning in his youth like the curate, he
would have made more use of it; but there was nothing either of the
sourness or bitterness (call it which you please) of repining in this
natural reflection.
Never indeed was any man more contented with doing his duty in that
state of life to which it had pleased God to call him. And well he
might be so, for no man ever passed through the world with less to
disquiet or to sour him. Bred up in habits which secured the
continuance of that humble but sure independance to which he was born,
he had never known what it was to be anxious for the future. At the
age of twenty-five he had brought home a wife, the daughter of a
little landholder like himself, with fifteen pounds for her portion:
and the true-love of his youth proved to him a faithful helpmate in
those years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its
realities. If at any time there had been some alloy in his happiness
it was when there appeared reason to suppose that in him his family
would be extinct; for though no man knows what parental feelings are
till he has experienced them, and Daniel therefore knew not the whole
value of that which he had never enjoyed, the desire of progeny is
natural to the heart of man; and though Daniel had neither large
estates, nor an illustrious name to transmit, it was an unwelcome
thought that the little portion of the earth which had belonged to his
fathers time out of mind, should pass into the possession of some
stranger, who would tread on their graves and his own without any
regard to the dust that lay beneath. That uneasy apprehension was
removed after he had been married fifteen years, when to the great joy
of both parents, because they had long ceased to entertain any hope of
such an event, their wishes were fulfilled in the birth of a son. This
their only child was healthy, apt and docile, to all appearance as
happily disposed in mind and body as a father's heart could wish. If
they had fine weather for winning their hay or shearing their corn,
they thanked God for it; if the season proved unfavourable, the labour
was only a little the more and the crop a little the worse. Their
stations secured them from want, and they had no wish beyond it. What
more had Daniel to desire?
The following passage in the divine Du Bartas he used to read with
peculiar satisfaction, applying it to himself:—
O thrice, thrice happy he, who shuns the cares
Of city troubles, and of state-affairs;
And, serving Ceres, tills with his own team,
His own _free land_, left by his friends to him!
Never pale Envy's poisony heads do hiss
To gnaw his heart: nor Vulture Avarice:
His fields' bounds, bound his thoughts: he never sups,
For nectar, poison mixed in silver cups;
Neither in golden platters doth he lick
For sweet ambrosia deadly arsenic:
His hand's his bowl (better than plate or glass)
The silver brook his sweetest hippocrass:
Milk cheese and fruit, (fruits of his own endeavour)
Drest without dressing, hath he ready ever.
False counsellors (concealers of the law)
Turncoat attorneys that with both hands draw;
Sly pettifoggers, wranglers at the bar,
Proud purse-leeches, harpies of Westminster,
With feigned-chiding, and foul jarring noise,
Break not his brain, nor interrupt his joys;
But cheerful birds chirping him sweet good-morrows
With nature's music do beguile his sorrows;
Teaching the fragrant forests day by day
The diapason of their heavenly lay.
His wandering vessel, reeling to and fro
On th' ireful ocean (as the winds do blow)
With sudden tempest is not overwhurled,
To seek his sad death in another world:
But leading all his life at home in peace,
Always in sight of his own smoke, no seas
No other seas he knows, no other torrent,
Than that which waters with its silver current
His native meadows: and that very earth
Shall give him burial which first gave him birth.
To summon timely sleep, he doth not need
Æthiop's cold rush, nor drowsy poppy-seed;
Nor keep in consort (as Mecænas did)
Luxurious Villains—(Viols I should have said);
But on green carpets thrum'd with mossy bever,
Fringing the round skirts of his winding river,
The streams mild murmur, as it gently gushes,
His healthy limbs in quiet slumber hushes.
Drum fife and trumpet, with their loud alarms,
Make him not start out of his sleep, to arms;
Nor dear respect of some great General,
Him from his bed unto the block doth call.
The crested cock sings “_Hunt-is-up_” to him,
Limits his rest, and makes him stir betime,
To walk the mountains and the flow'ry meads
Impearl'd with tears which great Aurora sheds.
Never gross air poisoned in stinking streets,
To choke his spirit, his tender nostril meets;
But th'open sky where at full breath he lives,
Still keeps him sound, and still new stomach gives.
And Death, dread Serjeant of the Eternal Judge,
Comes very late to his sole-seated lodge.