PERCY LODGE. THAXTED GRANGE. RAPIN THE JESUIT AND SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
It seems that you take pleasure in these walks Sir.
_Cleanthes_. Contemplative content I do, my Lord.
They bring into my mind oft meditations
So sweetly precious, that in the parting
I find a shower of grace upon my cheeks,
They take their leave so feelingly.
MASSINGER.
The difference was very great between Thaxted Grange and Percy Lodge,
though somewhat less than that between Northumberland House and the
Tobacconists at No. 113 Bishopsgate Street. Yet if a landscape painter
who could have embodied the spirit of the scene had painted both, the
Grange might have made the more attractive picture, though much had
been done to embellish the Lodge by consulting picturesque effect,
while the Allisons had aimed at little beyond comfort and convenience
in their humble precincts.
From a thatched seat in the grounds of the Lodge, open on three sides
and constructed like a shepherd's hut, there was a direct view of
Windsor Castle, seen under the boughs of some old oaks and beeches.
Sweet Williams, narcissuses, rose-campions, and such other flowers as
the hares would not eat, had been sown in borders round the foot of
every tree. There was a hermitage, absurdly so called, in the wood,
with a thatched covering, and sides of straw; and there was a rosary,
which though appropriately named, might sound as oddly to the ears of
a Roman Catholic. A porter's lodge had been built at the entrance; and
after the Duke's death the long drawing room had been converted into a
chapel, in Gothic taste, with three painted windows, which, having
been bespoken for Northumberland House, but not suiting the intended
alterations in that mansion, were put up here. The Duchess and her
servant had worked cross-stitch chairs for this chapel in fine
crimson, the pattern was a Gothic mosaic, and they were in Gothic
frames.
_Se o mundo nos nao anda a' vontade
Naō he pera estranhar, pois he hum sonho
Que nunca con ninguem tratou verdade.
Se quando se nos mostra mais risonho,
Mais brande, mais amigo, o desprezemos,
He graō virtude, e á sua conta o ponho.
Mais se, (o que he mais certo) o desprezamos
Depois que nos engeita e nos despreza,
Que premio, ou que louvor disso esperamos?_[1]
All here however was as it should be: Percy Lodge was the becoming
retreat of a lady of high rank, who having in the natural course of
time and things outlived all inclination for the pomps and vanities of
the world, and all necessity for conforming to them, remembered what
was still due to her station; and doing nothing to be seen of men, had
retired thither to pass the remainder of her days in privacy and
religious peace.
[Footnote 1: DIOGO BERNARDES.]
All too was as it should be at Thaxted Grange. Picturesque was a term
which had never been heard there; and taste was as little thought of
as pretended to; but the right old English word comfort, in its good
old English meaning, was nowhere more thoroughly understood. Nor
anywhere could more evident indications of it be seen both within and
without.
A tradesman retiring from business in these days with a fortune
equivalent to what Mr. Allison had made, would begin his improvements
upon such a house as the Grange by pulling it down. Mr. Allison
contented himself with thoroughly repairing it. He had no dislike to
low rooms, and casement windows. The whole furniture of his house cost
less than would now be expended by a person of equal circumstances in
fitting up a drawing-room. Every thing was for use, and nothing for
display, unless it were two fowling pieces, which were kept in good
order over the fire place in the best kitchen, and never used but when
a kite threatened the poultry, or an owl was observed to frequent the
dove-cote in preference to the barn.
But out of doors as much regard was shown to beauty as to utility.
Miss Allison and Betsey claimed the little garden in front of the
house for themselves. It was in so neglected a state when they took
possession, that between children and poultry and stray pigs, not a
garden flower was left there to grow wild: and the gravel walk from
the gate to the porch was overgrown with weeds and grass, except a
path in the middle which had been kept bare by use. On each side of
the gate were three yew trees, at equal distances. In the old days of
the Grange they had been squared in three lessening stages, the
uppermost tapering pyramidally to a point. While the house had been
shorn of its honours, the yews remained unshorn; but when it was once
more occupied by a wealthy habitant, and a new gate had been set up
and the pillars and their stone-balls cleaned from moss and lichen and
short ferns, the unfortunate evergreens were again reduced to the
formal shape in which Mr. Allison and his sister remembered them in
their childhood. This was with them a matter of feeling, which is a
better thing than taste. And indeed the yews must either have been
trimmed, or cut down, because they intercepted sunshine from the
garden and the prospect from the upper windows. The garden would have
been better without them, for they were bad neighbours; but they
belonged to old times, and it would have seemed a sort of sacrilege to
destroy them.
Flower-beds used, like beds in the kitchen garden, to be raised a
little above the path, with nothing to divide them from it, till about
the beginning of the seventeenth century the fashion of bordering them
was introduced either by the Italians or the French. Daisies,
periwinkles, feverfew, hyssop, lavender, rosemary, rue, sage,
wormwood, camomile, thyme and box, were used for this purpose: a
German horticulturist observes that hyssop was preferred as the most
convenient; box however gradually obtained the preference. The Jesuit
Rapin claims for the French the merit of bringing this plant into use,
and embellishes his account of it by one of those school-boy fictions
which passed for poetry in his days, and may still pass for it in his
country. He describes a feast of the rural gods:
_Adfuit et Cybele, Phrygias celebrata per urbes;
Ipsaque cum reliquis Flora invitata deabus
Venit, inornatis, ut erat neglecta, capillis;
Sive fuit fastus, seu fors fiducia formæ.
Non illi pubes ridendi prompta pepercit,
Neglectam risere. Deam Berecynthia mater
Semotam à turba, casum miserata puellæ,
Exornat, certâque comam sub lege reponit,
Et viridi imprimis buxo (nam buxifer omnis
Undique campus erat) velavit tempora nymphæ.
Reddidit is speciem cultus, cœpitque videri
Formosa, et meruit: novus hinc decor additus ori._
_Ex illo, ut Floram decuit cultura, per artem
Floribus ille decor posthac quæsitus, et hortis:
Quem tamen Ausonii cultores, quemque Pelasgi
Nescivere, suos nullâ qui lege per hortos
Plantabant flores, nec eos componere norant
Areolis, tonsâque vias describere buxo.
Culta super reliquas Francis topiaria gentes,
Ingenium seu mite soli cœlique benigni
Temperies tantam per sese adjuverit artem;
Sive illam egregiæ solers industria gentis
Extuderit, seris seu venerit usus ab annis._
The fashion which this buxom Flora introduced had at one time the
effect of banishing flowers from what should have been the flower
garden: the ground was set with box in their stead disposed in
patterns more or less formal, some intricate as a labyrinth and not a
little resembling those of Turkey carpets, where mahometan laws
interdict the likeness of any living thing, and the taste of Turkish
weavers excludes any combination of graceful forms. One sense at least
was gratified when fragrant herbs were used in these “rare figures of
composures,” or knots as they were called, hyssop being mixed in them
with thyme, as aiders the one to the other, the one being dry, the
other moist. Box had the disadvantage of a disagreeable odour; but it
was greener in winter and more compact in all seasons. To lay out
these knots and tread them required the skill of a master-gardener:
much labour was thus expended without producing any beauty. The walks
between them were sometimes of different colours, some would be of
lighter or darker gravel, red or yellow sand; and when such materials
were at hand, pulverised coal and pulverised shells.
Such a garden Mr. Cradock saw at Bordeaux no longer ago than the year
1785; it belonged to Monsieur Rabi, a very rich Jew merchant, and was
surrounded by a bank of earth, on which there stood about two hundred
blue and white flower-pots; the garden itself was a scroll work cut
very narrow, and the interstices filled with sand of different colours
to imitate embroidery; it required repairing after every shower, and
if the wind rose the eyes were sure to suffer. Yet the French admired
this and exclaimed, _superbe! magnifique!_
Neither Miss Allison nor her niece, would have taken any pleasure in
gardens of this kind, which had nothing of a garden but the name. They
both delighted in flowers; the aunt because flowers to her were
“redolent of youth,” and never failed to awaken tender recollections;
Betsey for an opposite reason; having been born and bred in London, a
nosegay there had seemed always to bring her a foretaste of those
enjoyments for which she was looking forward with eager hope. They had
stocked their front garden therefore with the gayest and the sweetest
flowers that were cultivated in those days; larkspurs both of the
giant and dwarf species, and of all colours; sweet-williams of the
richest hues; monks-hood for its stately growth; Betsey called it the
dumbledore's delight, and was not aware that the plant in whose
helmet- rather than cowl-shaped flowers that busy and best-natured of
all insects appears to revel more than in any other, is the deadly
aconite of which she read in poetry: the white lily, and the
fleur-de-lis; peonies, which are still the glory of the English
garden; stocks and gilly flowers which make the air sweet as the gales
of Arabia; wall-flowers, which for a while are little less fragrant,
and not less beautiful; pinks and carnations added their spicy odours;
roses red and white peeped at the lower casements, and the jessamine
climbed to those of the chambers above. You must nurse your own
flowers if you would have them flourish, unless you happen to have a
gardener who is as fond of them as yourself. Eve was not busier with
her's in Paradise, her “pleasant task injoined,” than Betsey Allison
and her aunt, from the time that early spring invited them to their
cheerful employment, till late and monitory autumn closed it for the
year.
“Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these;” and
Solomon in all his wisdom never taught more wholesome lessons than
these silent monitors convey to a thoughtful mind and an
“understanding heart.” “There are two books,” says Sir Thomas Browne,
“from whence I collect my divinity; besides that written one of God,
another of his servant Nature, that universal and public manuscript
that lies expansed unto the eyes of all. Those that never saw him in
the one, have discovered him in the other. This was the scripture and
theology of the heathens: the natural motion of the sun made them more
admire him than its supernatural station did the children of Israel;
the ordinary effects of nature wrought more admiration in them, than
in the other all his miracles. Surely the heathens knew better how to
join and read these mystical letters, than we Christians who cast a
more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck
divinity from the flowers of nature.”
INTERCHAPTER XIV.
CONCERNING INTERCHAPTERS.
If we present a mingle-mangle, our fault is to be excused, because the
whole world is become a hodge-podge.
LYLY.
It occurs to me that some of my readers may perhaps desire to be
informed in what consists the difference between a Chapter and an
Inter Chapter; for that there is a difference no considerate person
would be disposed to deny, though he may not be able to discover it.
Gentle readers,—readers after my own heart, you for whom this _opus_
was designed long before it was an _opus_, when as Dryden has said
concerning one of his own plays, “it was only a confused mass of
thoughts, tumbling over one another in the dark; when the fancy was
yet in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things towards
the light, there to be distinguished, and then either chosen or
rejected by the judgement,”—good-natured readers, you who are willing
to be pleased, and whom therefore it is worth pleasing,—for your
sakes,
And for because you shall not think that I
Do use the same without a reason why,[1]
I will explain the distinction.
[Footnote 1: ROBERT GREEN.]
It is not like the difference between a Baptist and an Anabaptist,
which Sir John Danvers said, is much the same as that between a
Whiskey and a Tim-Whiskey, that is to say no difference at all. Nor is
it like that between Dryads and Hamadryads, which Benserade once
explained to the satisfaction of a learned lady by saying _qu'il avait
autant de difference qu'entre les Evêques et les Archevêques_. Nor is
it like the distinction taken by him who divided bread into white
bread, brown bread, and French rolls.
A panegyrical poet said of the aforesaid Benserade that he possessed
three talents which posterity would hardly be persuaded to believe;
_De plaisanter les Grands il ne fit point scrupule,
Sans qu'ils le prissent de travers;
Il fut vieux et galant sans être ridicule,
Et s'enrichit à composer des vers._
He used to say, that he was descended and derived his name from the
Abencerrages. Upon a similar presumption of etymological genealogy it
has been said that Aulus Gellius was the progenitor of all the Gells.
An Englishman may doubt this, a Welshman would disbelieve, and a Jew
might despise it. So might a Mahommedan, because it is a special
prerogative of his prophet to be perfectly acquainted with his whole
pedigree; the Mussulmen hold that no other human being ever possessed
the same knowledge, and that after the resurrection, when all other
pedigrees will be utterly destroyed, this alone will be preserved in
the archives of Eternity.
Leaving however Sir William Gell to genealogize, if he pleases, as
elaborately as he has topographized, and to maintain the authenticity
and dignity of his Roman descent against all who may impugn it,
whether Turk, Jew, or Christian, I proceed with my promised
explanation.
The Hebrews call chapters and sections and other essential or
convenient divisions, the bones of a book. The Latins called them
_nodi_, knots or links; and every philologist knows that articles,
whether grammatical, conventional, or of faith, are so denominated as
being the joints of language, covenants and creeds.
Now reader, the chapters of this book are the bones wherewith its body
is compacted; the knots or links whereby its thread or chain of
thoughts is connected; the articulations, without which it would be
stiff, lame and disjointed. Every chapter has a natural dependence
upon that which precedes, and in like manner a relation to that which
follows it. Each grows out of the other. They follow in direct
genealogy; and each could no more have been produced without relation
to its predecessor, than Isaac could have begotten Jacob unless
Abraham had begotten Isaac.
Sometimes indeed it must of necessity happen that a new chapter opens
with a new part of the subject, but this is because we are arrived at
that part in the natural prosecution of our argument. The disruption
causes no discontinuance; it is, (to pursue the former illustration,)
as when the direct line in a family is run out, and the succession is
continued by a collateral branch; or as in the mineral world, in which
one formation begins where another breaks off.
In my chapters, however, where there is no such natural division of
the subject matter, I have ever observed that “one most necessary
piece of mastership, which is ever performed by those of good skill in
music, when they end a suit of lessons in any one key, and do intend
presently to begin another in a differing key.” Upon which piece of
mastership, the worthy old “Remembrancer of the best practical music,
both divine and civil, that has ever been known to have been in the
world,” thus instructs his readers.
“They do not abruptly and suddenly begin such new lessons, without
some neat and handsome interluding-voluntary-like playing; which may
by degrees (as it were) steal into that new and intended key.
“Now that you may be able to do it handsomely, and without blemish, or
incompleteness, (for you must know it is a piece of quaintness so to
do), you must take notice, that always, when you have made an end of
playing upon any one key, (if discourse or some other occasion do not
cause a cessation of play for some pretty time, so as the remembrance
of that former key may, in a manner, be forgotten), it will be very
needful that some care be taken that you leave that key handsomely,
and come into that other you intend next to play upon without
impertinency.
“For such impertinencies will seem to be very like such a thing as
this, which I shall name—to wit—
“That when two or more persons have been soberly and very intently
discoursing upon some particular solid matter, musing and very
ponderously considering thereof; all on the sudden, some one of them
shall abruptly (without any pause) begin to talk of a thing quite of
another nature, nothing relating to the aforesaid business.
“Now those by-standers (who have judgement), will presently apprehend
that although his matter might be good, yet his manner and his wit
might have been better approved of in staying some certain convenient
time, in which he might have found out some pretty interluding
discourse, and have taken a handsome occasion to have brought in his
new matter.
“Just so is it in music, and more particularly in this
last-recited-matter; as to chop different things of different natures,
and of different keys, one upon the neck of another, impertinently.
“For I would have it taken notice of, that music is (at least) as a
language, if it will not be allowed a perfect one; because it is not
so well understood as it might be.—
“Having thus far prepared you with an apprehension of the needfulness
of the thing, I will now show you how it is to be done without
abruption and absurdness.
“First, (as abovesaid) it may be that discourse may take off the
remembrance of the last key in which you played, or some occasion of a
leaving off for some pretty time, by a string breaking or the like; or
if not, then (as commonly it happens) there may be a need of examining
the tuning of your lute, for the strings will alter a little in the
playing of one lesson, although they have been well stretched. But if
lately put on, or have been slacked down by any mischance of pegs
slipping, then they will need mending, most certainly.
“I say some such occasion may sometimes give you an opportunity of
coming handsomely to your new intended key: but if none of these shall
happen, then you ought, in a judicious and masterly way, to work from
your last key which you played upon, in some voluntary way till you
have brought your matter so to pass that your auditors may be
captivated with a new attention; yet so insinuatingly, that they may
have lost the remembrance of the foregoing key they know not how; nor
are they at all concerned for the loss of it, but rather taken with a
new content and delight at your so cunning and complete artifice.”
With strict propriety then may it be said of these my chapters as
Wordsworth has said of certain sonnets during his tour in Scotland and
on the English border, that they
Have moved in order, to each other bound
By a continuous and acknowledged tie
Tho' unapparent, like those shapes distinct
That yet survive ensculptured on the walls
Of Palace, or of Temple, 'mid the wreck
Of famed Persepolis; each following each,
As might beseem a stately embassy
In set array; these bearing in their hands
Ensign of civil power, weapon of war,
Or gift to be presented at the Throne
Of the Great King; and others as they go
In priestly vest, with holy offerings charged,
Or leading victims dressed for sacrifice.
For an ordinary book then the ordinary division into chapters might
very well have sufficed. But this is an extraordinary book. Hath not
the Quarterly Review—that Review which among all Reviews is properly
accounted _facile Princeps_,—hath not that great critical authority
referred to it _κατ᾽ εξοχην_ as “the extraordinary book called the
Doctor?” Yes reader;
All things within it
Are so digested, fitted and composed
As it shows Wit had married Order.[2]
And as the exceptions in grammar prove the rule, so the occasional
interruptions of order here are proofs of that order, and in reality
belong to it.
[Footnote 2: B. JONSON.]
Lord Bacon (then Sir Francis) said in a letter to the Bishop of Ely
upon sending him his writing intitled _Cogitata et Visa_, “I am forced
to respect as well my times, as the matter. For with me it is thus,
and I think with all men in my case; if I bind myself to an argument
it loadeth my mind; but if I rid my mind of the present cogitation it
is rather a recreation. This hath put me into these miscellanies,
which I purpose to suppress if God give me leave to write a just and
perfect volume of philosophy.”
That I am full of cogitations like Lord Bacon the judicious reader
must ere this time have perceived; though he may perhaps think me not
more worthy on that score to be associated with Bacon, than beans or
cabbage or eggs at best. Like him however in this respect I am,
however unlike in others; and it is for the reader's recreation as
well as mine, and for our mutual benefit, that my mind should be
delivered of some of its cogitations as soon as they are ripe for
birth.
I know not whence thought comes; who indeed can tell? But this we
know, that like the wind it cometh as it listeth. Happily there is no
cause for me to say with Sir Philip Sydney,
If I could think how these my thoughts to leave;
Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good end;
If rebel Sense would Reason's law receive,
Or Reason foiled would not in vain contend;
Then might I think what thoughts were best to think,
Then might I wisely swim, or gladly sink.
Nor with Des-Portes,
_O pensers trop pensez, que rebellez mon ame!
O debile raison! O lacqs! O traits!_
thanks to that kind Providence which has hitherto enabled me through
good and evil fortune to maintain an even and well-regulated mind.
Neither need I say with the pleasant authors of the “Rejected
Addresses” in their harmless imitation of a most pernicious author,
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is every thing and every thing is nought.
I have never worked in an intellectual treadmill, which as it had
nothing to act on was grinding the wind.
“He that thinks _ill_,” says Dean Young, (the poet's father,)
“_prevents_ the Tempter, and does the Devil's business for him; he
that thinks _nothing, tempts_ the Tempter, and offers him possession
of an empty room; but he that thinks _religiously, defeats_ the
Tempter, and is proof and secure against all his assaults.” I know not
whether there be any later example where the word _prevent_ is used as
in the Collect in its Latin sense.
It is a man's own fault if he excogitate vain thoughts, and still more
if he enunciate and embody them; but it is not always in his power to
prevent their influx. Even the preventative which George Tubervile
recommends in his monitory rhymes, is not infallible;
Eschew the idle life!
Flee, flee from doing nought!
For never was there idle brain
But bred an idle thought.
Into the busiest brain they will sometimes intrude; and the brain that
is over-busy breeds them. But the thoughts which are not of our own
growth or purchase, and which we receive not from books, society, or
visible objects, but from some undiscovered influence, are of all
kinds.
Who has a breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law days, and in session sit
With meditations lawful?[3]
I dare not affirm that some are suggestions of the enemy; neither dare
I deny it: from all such _tela ignea_ and _tela venenata_, whatever be
their origin, or whencesoever they come, God preserve us! But there
are holy inspirations, which philosophy may teach us to expect, and
faith to pray for.
[Footnote 3: OTHELLO.]
My present business is not with these, but it is with those
conceptions which float into the solitary mind, and which if they are
unrecorded pass away, like a dream or a rainbow, or the glories of an
evening sky. Some of them are no better than motes in the sunbeams, as
light, as fleeting, and to all apprehension as worthless. Others may
be called seminal thoughts, which if they light not upon a thorny, or
stoney, or arid field of intellect, germinate, and bring forth
flowers, and peradventure fruit. Now it is in the Interchapters that
part of this floating capital is vested; part of these waifs and
strays impounded; part of this treasure-trove lodged; part of these
chance thoughts and fancies preserved: part I say, because
_J'ay mille autres pensers, et mille et mille et mille,
Qui font qu'incessamment mon esprit se distile._[4]
[Footnote 4: DES-PORTES.]
“There are three things,” says a Welsh triad, “that ought to be
considered before some things should be spoken; the manner, the place,
and the time.” Touching the manner, I see none whereby they could more
conveniently or agreeably be conveyed; and for the place and time
these must be allowed to be at my own discretion.
And howsoever, be it well or ill
What I have done, it is mine own; I may
Do whatsoever therewithal I will.[5]
(Be it remarked in passing that these lines bear a much greater
resemblance to Italian poetry than any of those English sonnets which
have been called Petrarcal.) One place being (generally speaking) as
suitable as another, it has not been necessary for me to deliberate,
_Desta antigua preñez de pensamientos
Qual el primero hare, qual el segundo._[6]
I have interspersed them where I thought fit, and given them the
appellation which they bear, to denote that they are no more a
necessary and essential part of this _opus_, than the voluntary is of
the church service.
_Εισὶν δὲ περι του;
Περὶ Αθηνων, περι Πύλου,
Περι σοῦ, περι ἐμοῦ, περὶ απαντων πραγματων._[7]
[Footnote 5: DANIEL.]
[Footnote 6: BALBUENA.]
[Footnote 7: ARISTOPHANES.]
A Chapter is, as has been explained, both procreated and procreative:
an Interchapter is like the hebdomad, which profound philosophers have
pronounced to be not only _παρθένος_, but _αμητωρ_, a motherless as
well as a virgin number.
Here too the exception illustrates the rule. There are at the
commencement of the third volume four Interchapters in succession, and
relating to each other, the first gignitive but not generated; the
second and third both generated and gignitive, the fourth generated
but not gignitive. They stand to each other in the relation of Adam,
Seth, Enoch, Kenan. These are the exceptions. The other chapters are
all Melchizedekites.
The gentle Reader will be satisfied with this explanation; the curious
will be pleased with it. To the captious one I say in the words of
John Bunyan, “Friend, howsoever thou camest by this book, I will
assure thee thou wert least in my thoughts when I writ it. I tell
thee, I intended the book as little for thee as the goldsmith intended
his jewels and rings for the snout of a sow!”
If any be not pleased, let them please themselves with their own
displeasure. _Je n'ay pas enterpris de contenter tout le monde: mesme
Jupiter n'aggree à tous._[8]
[Footnote 8: BOUCHET.]