There was an old man in Tobago,
Who liv'd on rice gruel and sago;
Till, much to his bliss,
His physician said this:
'To a leg, sir, of mutton you may go.'
Senex aeger in Tarento
De oryxa et pulmento
Vili vixerat invento;
Donec medicus
Seni inquit valde laeto,
'Senex aeger, o gaudeto,
Crus ovinum, jam non veto
Tibi benedicus.'
Decidedly the most felicitous, though by no means the most elaborate in
the volume, is the following, which is also by the editor, Mr. Drury--
Hey diddle diddle! The cat and the fiddle!
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed to see such sport;
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Hei didulum--atque iterum didulum! Felisque fidesque!
Vacca super lunae cornua prosiluit.
Nescio qua catulus risit dulcedine ludi;
Abstulit et turpi lanx cochleare fuga.
A Latin version of Goldsmith's mad dog, by H. J. Hodgson, is very clever,
and there are some on solemn subjects, and of a higher order.
How sturdily these little ditties, the works of authors dead, buried, and
unknown, have breasted the current of time! I had rather be the author of
_Hush-a-bye baby, upon the tree top_, than of Joel Barlow's Vision of
Columbus--for, though I have always perceived the propriety of putting
babies to sleep, at proper times, I have never entirely appreciated the
wisdom of doing the very same thing to adults, at all hours of the day.
What powerful resurrectionists these nursery melodies are! Moll Pitcher of
Endor had not a greater power over the dry bones of Samuel, than has the
ring of some one of these little chimes, to bring before us, with all the
freshness of years ago, that good old soul, who sat with her knitting
beside us, and rocked our cradle, and watched our progress from petticoats
to breeches; and gave notice of the first tooth; and the earliest words;
and faithfully reported, from day to day, all our marvellous achievements,
to one, who, had she been a queen, would have given us her sceptre for a
hoop stick.
No. XCIII.
Byles is a patronymic of extraordinary rarity. It will be sought for,
without success, in the voluminous record of Alexander Chalmers. It is not
in the Biographia Britannica; though, even there, we may, occasionally,
discover names, which, according to Cowper, were not born for
immortality--
"_Oh fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!_"
Even in that conservative record of choice spirits, the Boston Directory
for 1849, this patronymic is nowhere to be found.
Henry Byles came from Sarum in England; and settled at Salisbury in this
Commonwealth, as early as 1640. I am not aware, that any individual,
particularly eminent, and bearing this uncommon name, has ever existed
among us, excepting that eccentric clergyman, who, within the bounds of
our little peninsula, at least, is still occasionally mentioned, as "_the
celebrated Mather Byles_." I am aware, that he had a son, who bore the
father's praenomen, and graduated at Harvard, in 1751; became a doctor of
divinity, in 1770; was a minister, in New London, and dismissed from his
charge, in 1769; officiated, as an Episcopal clergyman, in Boston, for
several years; went to St. Johns, N. B., at the time of the revolution;
officiated there; and died, March 12, 1814.
But my dealings, this evening, are with "_the celebrated Mather Byles_,"
who was born of worthy parents, in the town of Boston, March 26, 1706. His
father was an Englishman. Through the maternal line, he had John Cotton
and Richard Mather, for his ancestors. He graduated, at Harvard, in 1725;
was settled at the Hollis Street Church, Dec. 20, 1733; created D. D. at
Aberdeen, in 1765; was, on account of his toryism, separated from his
people, in 1776; and died of paralysis, July 5, 1788, at the age of 82. He
was twice married; a niece of Governor Belcher was his first, and the
daughter of Lieut. Governor Tailer, his second wife.
I should be faithless, indeed, were I to go forward, without one passing
word, for precious memory, in regard to those two perennial damsels, the
daughters of Dr. Byles. How many visitations, at that ancient manse in
Nassau Street! To how many of the sex--young--aye, and of no particular
age--it has occurred, at the nick of time, when there was nothing under
Heaven else to be done, to exclaim--"What an excellent occasion, for a
visit to Katy and Polly!" And the visit was paid; and the descendants of
"_the celebrated Mather Byles_" were so glad to see the visitors--and it
was so long since their last visit--and it must not be so long again--and
then the old stories, over and over, for the thousandth time--and the
concerted merriment of these amiable visitors, as if the tales were quite
as new, as the year itself, upon the first January morn--and the filial
delights, that beamed upon the features of these vestals, at the effect,
produced, by the recitation of stories, which really seemed to be made of
that very _everlasting_ of which the breeches of our ancestors were
made--and then the exhibition of those relics, and _heir looms_, or what
remained of them, after some thirty years' presentation to all comers,
which, in one way and another, were associated with the memory of "_the
celebrated Mather Byles_,"--and then the oh don't gos--and oh fly not
yets--and when will you come agains!
The question naturally arises, and, rather distrustingly, demands an
answer--what was "_the celebrated Mather Byles_"--celebrated for? In the
first place, he was _Sanctae Theologiae Doctor_. But his degree was from
Aberdeen; and the Scotch colleges, at that period, were not particularly
coy. With a cousin at court, and a little gold in hand, it was somewhat
less difficult, for a clergyman, without very great learning, or talent,
to obtain a doctorate, at Aberdeen, in 1765, than for a camel, of unusual
proportions, to go through the eye of a very small needle. Even in our
cis-atlantic colleges, these bestowments do not always serve to mark
degrees of merit, with infallible accuracy--for God's sun does not more
certainly shine, upon the just and upon the unjust, than doctorates have,
in some cases, fallen upon wise men, and upon fools. That, which, charily
and conservatively bestowed, may well be accounted an honor, necessarily
loses its value, by diffusion and prostitution. Not many years ago, the
worthy president of one of our colleges, being asked, how it happened,
that a doctorate of divinity had been given to a certain person of
ordinary talents, and very little learning; replied, with infinite
_naivete_--"_Why ---- had it; and ---- had it; and ---- had it; and we
didn't like to hurt his feelings_."
Let us not consider the claims of Mather Byles as definitely settled, by
the faculty at Aberdeen.--He corresponded with Pope, and with Lansdowne,
and with Watts. The works of the latter were sent to him, by the author,
from time to time; and, among the treasures, highly prized by the family,
was a presentation copy, in quarto, from Pope, of his translation of the
Odyssey. This correspondence, however, so far as I was ever able to gather
information from the daughters, many years ago, did not amount to much;
the letters were very few, and very far between; on the one side
complimentary, and bearing congratulations upon the occasion of some
recent literary success; and, on the other, fraught with grateful
civility; and accompanied, as is often the case, with copies of some of
the author's productions.
Let me here present a somewhat disconnected anecdote: At the sale of the
library of Dr. Byles, a large folio Bible, in French, was purchased, by a
private individual. This Bible had been presented to the French Protestant
Church, in Boston, by Queen Anne; and, at the time, when it came to the
hands of Dr. Byles, was the last relic of that church, whose visible
temple had been erected in School Street, about 1716. Whoever desires to
know more of these French Protestants, may turn to the "Memoir," by Dr.
Holmes, or to vol. xxii. p. 62, of the Massachusetts Historical
Collections.
Dr. Byles wrote, in prose and verse, and quite _respectably_ in both.
There is not more of the spirit of poetry, however, in his metrical
compositions, than in his performances in prose. His versification was
easy, and the style of his prose works was unaffected; his sentences were
usually short, and never rendered unintelligible, by the multiplication of
adjuncts, or by any affectation of sententious brevity. Yet nothing, that
I have ever met with, from the pen of Dr. Byles, is particularly
remarkable for its elegance; and it is in vain to look, among such of his
writings, as have been preserved, for the evidences of extraordinary
powers of thought. Some dozen of his published sermons are still extant.
We have also several of his essays, in the New England Weekly Journal; a
poem on the death of George I., and the accession of George II., in 1727;
a sort of monodial address to Governor Belcher, on the death of his lady;
a poem called the Conflagration; and a volume of metrical matters,
published in 1744.
If his celebrity had depended upon these and other literary labors, he
would scarcely have won the appellation of "_the celebrated Mather
Byles_."
The _correspondent_ of Byles, Isaac Watts, never imagined, that the time
would arrive, when his own voluminous lyrics and his address to "_Great
Gouge_," would be classed, in the _Materia Poetica_, as soporifics, and
scarcely find one, so poor, as to do them reverence; while millions of
lisping tongues still continued to repeat, from age to age, till the
English language should be forgotten,
"Let dogs delight
To bark and bite,
For God hath made them so;
Let bears and lions
Growl and fight,
For 'tis their nature to."
Dr. Byles himself could not have imagined, while putting the finishing
hand to "_The Conflagration_," that, if he had embarked his hopes of
reaching posterity, in that heavy bottom, they must surely have foundered,
in the gulf of oblivion--and that, after all, he would be wafted down the
stream of time, to distant ages, astride, as it were, upon a feather--and
that what he could never have accomplished, by his grave discourses, and
elaborate, poetical labors, would be so certainly and signally achieved,
by the never-to-be-forgotten quips, and cranks, and bon mots, and puns,
and funny sayings, and comical doings of the reverend pastor of the Hollis
Street Church.
The reader must not do so great injustice to Dr. Byles, as to suppose,
that he mingled together _sacra profanis_, or was in the habit of
exhibiting, in the pulpit, that frolicsome vein, which was, in him, as
congenital, as is the tendency, in a fish, to swim in water.