A WORD TO THE READER, SHEWING WHERE WE ARE, AND HOW WE CAME HERE, AND
WHEREFORE; AND WHITHER WE ARE GOING.
'Tis my venture
On your retentive wisdom.
BEN JONSON.
Reader, you have not forgotten where we are at this time: you remember
I trust, that we are neither at Dan nor Beersheba; nor any where
between those two celebrated places; nor on the way to either of them:
but that we are in the Doctor's parlour, that Mrs. Dove has just
poured out his seventh cup of tea, and that the clock of St. George's
has struck five. In what street, parade, place, square, row, terrace
or lane, and in what town, and in what county; and on what day, and in
what month, and in what year, will be explained in due time. You
cannot but remember what was said in the second chapter _post-initium_
concerning the importance and the necessity of order in an undertaking
like this. “All things,” says Sir Thomas Brown, “began in order; so
shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the
ordainer of order, and mystical mathematics of the City of Heaven:”
This awful sentence was uttered by the Philosopher of Norwich upon
occasion of a subject less momentous than that whereon we have
entered, for what are the mysteries of the _Quincunx_ compared to the
delineation of a human mind? Be pleased only at present to bear in
mind where we are. Place but as much confidence in me as you do in
your review, your newspaper, and your apothecary; give me but as much
credit as you expect from your tailor; and if your apothecary deserves
that confidence as well, it will be well for you, and if your credit
is as punctually redeemed it will be well for your tailor. It is not
without cause that I have gone back to the Doctor's childhood and his
birth place. Be thou assured, O Reader! that he never could have been
seated thus comfortably in that comfortable parlour where we are now
regarding him—never by possibility could have been at that time in
that spot, and in those circumstances;—never could have been the
Doctor that he was,—nay according to all reasonable induction, all
tangible or imaginable probabilities,—never would have been a Doctor
at all,—consequently thou never couldst have had the happiness of
reading this delectable history, nor I the happiness of writing it for
thy benefit and information and delight,—had it not been for his
father's character, his father's books, his schoolmaster Guy, and his
Uncle William, with all whom and which, it was therefore indispensable
that thou shouldst be made acquainted.
A metaphysician, or as some of my contemporaries would affect to say a
psychologist, if he were at all a master of his art bablative (for it
is as much an _ars bablativa_ as the Law, which was defined to be so
by that old traitor and time-server Serjeant Maynard)—a metaphysician
I say, would not require more than three such octavo volumes as those
of Mr. Malthus's Essay on Population, to prove that no existing
circumstance could at this time be what it is, unless all preceding
circumstances had from the beginning of time been precisely what they
were. But, my good Reader, I have too much respect for you, and too
much regard for your precious time, and too much employment, or
amusement (which is a very rational kind of employment) for my own, to
waste it in demonstrating a truism. No man knows the value of time
more feelingly, than I do!
Man's life, Sir, being
So short, and then the way that leads unto
The knowledge of ourselves, so long and tedious,
Each minute should be precious.[1]
[Footnote 1: BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.]
It is my wish and intention to make you acquainted with a person most
worthy to be known, for such the subject of this history will be
admitted to be: one whom when you once know him it will be impossible
that you should ever forget: one for whom I have the highest possible
veneration and regard; (and though it is not possible that your
feelings towards him should be what mine are) one who, the more he is
known, will and must be more and more admired. I wish to introduce
this person to you. Now, Sir, I appeal to your good sense, and to your
own standard of propriety, should I act with sufficient respect either
to yourself or him, if, without giving you any previous intimation,
any information, concerning his character and situation in life; or in
any way apprizing you who and what he was, I were to knock at your
door and simply present him to you as Doctor Dove? No, my dear Sir! it
is indispensable that you should be properly informed who it is whom I
thus introduce to your acquaintance; and if you are the judicious
person that I suppose you to be, you will be obliged to me as long as
you live. “For why,” as old Higgins hath it,—
For why, who writes such histories as these
Doth often bring the Reader's heart such ease
As when they sit and see what he doth note,
Well fare his heart, say they, this book that wrote!
Ill fare that reader's heart who of this book says otherwise! “_Tam
suavia dicam facinora, ut malè sit ei qui talibus non delectetur!_”
said a very different person from old Higgins, writing in a different
vein, I have not read his book, but so far as my own is concerned, I
heartily adopt his malediction.
Had I been disposed, as the Persians say, to let the steed of the pen
expatiate in the plains of prolixity, I should have carried thee
farther back in the generations of the Doves. But the good garrulous
son of Garcilasso my Lord (Heaven rest the soul of the Princess who
bore him,—for Peru has never produced any thing else half so precious
as his delightful books,)—the Inca-blooded historian himself, I say,
was not more anxious to avoid that failing than I am. Forgive me,
Reader, if I should have fallen into an opposite error; forgive me if
in the fear of saying too much I should have said too little. I have
my misgivings:—I may have run upon Scylla while striving to avoid
Charybdis. Much interesting matter have I omitted; much have I past by
on which I “cast a longing lingering look behind;”—much which might
worthily find a place in the History of Yorkshire;—or of the West
Riding (if that history were tripartitively distributed;)—or in the
Gentleman's Magazine;—or in John Nichols's Illustrations of the
Literary History of the Eighteenth Century: (I honor John Nichols, I
honor Mr. Urban!) much more might it have had place,—much more might
it be looked for here.
I might have told thee, Reader, of Daniel the Grandfather, and of
Abigail his second wife, who once tasted tea in the housekeeper's
apartments at Skipton Castle; and of the Great Grandfather who at the
age of twenty-eight died of the small pox, and was the last of the
family that wore a leathern jerkin; and of his father Daniel the
_atavus_, who was the first of the family that shaved, and who went
with his own horse and arms to serve in that brave troop, which during
the wreck of the King's party the heir of Lowther raised for the loyal
cause: and of that Daniel's Grandfather (the _tritavus_) who going to
Kentmere to bring home a wife was converted from the popish
superstition by falling in with Bernard Gilpin on the way. That
apostolic man was so well pleased with his convert, that he gave him
his own copy of Latimer's sermons,—that copy which was one of our
Daniel's Sunday books, and which was religiously preserved in
reverence for this ancestor, and for the Apostle of the North (as
Bernard Gilpin was called) whose autograph it contained.
The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully
related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and
progress of society better than could be done by the most elaborate
dissertation. And the History of the Doves might be rendered as
interesting and as instructive as that of the Seymours or the Howards.
Frown not, My Lord of Norfolk, frown not, your Grace of Somerset, when
I add, that it would contain less for their descendants to regret.