POINTS OF SIMILITUDE AND DISSIMILITUDE BETWEEN SIR THOMAS BROWN AND
DOCTOR DOVE.
But in these serious works designed
To mend the morals of mankind,
We must for ever be disgraced
With all the nicer sons of taste,
If once the shadow to pursue
We let the substance out of view.
Our means must uniformly tend
In due proportion to their end,
And every passage aptly join
To bring about the one design.
CHURCHILL.
Dr. Johnson says that, “perhaps there is no human being, however hid
in the crowd from the observation of his fellow mortals, who if he has
leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions,
will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself
distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations
of nature or of fortune.” This remark he makes in relation to what Sir
Thomas Brown asserts of the course of his own life, that it was “a
miracle of thirty years, which to relate were not a history, but a
piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable.” Now it
is not known that any thing extraordinary ever befell him. “The
wonders,” says Johnson, “probably were transacted in his own mind:
self-love, cooperating with an imagination vigorous and fertile as
that of Brown, will find or make objects of astonishment in every
man's life.”
What the Philosopher of Norwich considered as miraculous was probably
this, that he had escaped from “Pyrrho's maze,” and had never been
contaminated in Epicurus' sty; that he had neither striven for place
among the “wrangling crew” nor sought to make his way with the sordid
herd; that he had not sold himself to the service of Mammon; but in
mature years and with deliberate judgement had chosen a calling in
which he might continually increase his knowledge and enlarge his
views, and entertain a reasonable hope that while he endeavoured to
relieve the sufferings of his fellow creatures and discipline his own
mind, the labours wherein his life was past would neither be useless
to others nor to himself. He might well consider it a miracle of
divine mercy that grace had been given him to fulfil the promise made
for him at his baptism, and that he had verily and indeed renounced
the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. He might indeed take
comfort in his “authentic reflections how far he had performed the
great intention of his Maker;—whether he had made good the principles
of his nature and what he was made to be; what characteristic and
special mark he had left to be observable in his generation; whether
he had lived to purpose or in vain; and what he had added, acted, or
performed, that might considerably speak him a man.”
There were more resemblances between Sir Thomas Brown and the Doctor
than Fluellen discovered between Henry of Monmouth and Alexander the
Great. Both graduated in the same profession at the same university;
and each settled as a practitioner in a provincial town. (Doncaster
indeed was an inconsiderable place compared with Norwich; and Brown
merely procured his degree at Leyden, which was not in his time, as it
was in Daniel Dove's, the best school of physic in Europe.) Both too
were Philosophers as well as Physicians, and both were alike
speculative in their philosophy and devout. Both were learned men. Sir
Thomas Brown might have said of himself with Herbert,
I know the ways of learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of itself, like a good housewife, spun
In laws and policy: what the Stars conspire;
What willing Nature speaks, what forced by fire;
Both the old discoveries, and the new found seas:
The stock and surplus, cause and history:
All these stand open, or I have the keys.
The Doctor could not have said this; he would rather have said,
I am but one who do the world despise
And would my thoughts to some perfection raise,
A wisdom-lover, willing to be wise.[1]
Yet he was as justly entitled to the appellation of a learned man by
his multifarious knowledge, as he was far from pretending to it. There
were many things of which he was ignorant, and contented to be
ignorant, because the acquirement would not have been worth the cost.
Brown would have taken with just confidence a seat at the Banquet of
the Philosophers, whereas Dove would have thought himself hardly
worthy to gather up the crumbs that fell from their table.
[Footnote 1: LORD STIRLING.]
A certain melancholy predominated as much in the constitution of Sir
Thomas's mind, as in that of Charles the First, to whom his portrait
bears so remarkable a resemblance; and a certain mirth entered as
largely into the composition of the Doctor's, as it did into Charles
the Second's, to whom in all moral respects no one could be more
utterly unlike. The elements have seldom been so happily mixed as they
were in the Philosopher of Norwich; he could not have been perfectly
homogeneous if a particle of the quintelement had been
superadded;—such an ingredient would have marred the harmony of his
character: whereas the Philosopher of Doncaster would have been marred
without a large portion of it.
It was a greater dissimilarity, and altogether to be regretted, that
my Doctor left no “characteristic and special mark to be observable in
his generation;” but upon this I shall make some observations
hereafter. What led me to compare these persons, incomparable each in
his own way, was that my Doctor, though he did not look upon his own
history as miraculous, considered that the course of his life had been
directed by a singular and special Providence. How else could it have
been that being an only son,—an only child, the sole representative in
his generation of an immemorial line,—his father instead of keeping
him attached to the soil, as all his forefathers had been, should have
parted with him for the sake of his moral and intellectual
improvement, not with a view to wealth or worldly advancement, but
that he might seek wisdom and ensue it?—that with no other friend than
the poor schoolmaster of a provincial townlet, and no better
recommendation, he should have been placed with a master by whose care
the defects of his earlier education were supplied, and by whose
bounty, after he had learned the practical routine of his profession,
he was sent to study it as a science in a foreign university, which a
little before had been raised by Boerhaave to its highest
reputation;—that not only had his daily bread been given him without
any of that wearing anxiety which usually attends upon an unsettled
and precarious way of life, but in the very house which when sent
thither in boyhood he had entered as a stranger, he found himself
permanently fixed, as successively the pupil, the assistant, the
friend, and finally the successor and heir of his benefactor;—above
all, that he had not been led into temptation, and that he had been
delivered from evil.
“My life,” said an unfortunate poor man who was one of the American
Bishop Hobart's occasional correspondents, “has been a chapter of
blunders and disappointments.” John Wilkes said that “the chapter of
accidents is the longest chapter in the book;” and he, who had his
good things here, never troubled himself to consider whether the great
volume were the Book of Chance, or of Necessity, the Demogorgon of
those by whom no other deity is acknowledged. With a wiser and happier
feeling Bishop White Kennett when he was asked “where are we?”
answered the question thus,—“in a world where nothing can be depended
on but a future state; in the way to it, little comfort but prayers
and books.” White Kennett might have enjoyed more comfort if he had
been born in less contentious times, or if he had taken less part in
their contentions, or if he had been placed in a less conspicuous
station. Yet he had little cause to complain of his lot, and he has
left behind him good works and a good name.
There is scarcely any man who in thoughtfully contemplating the course
of his own life, would not find frequent reason to say,—
_in fede mia
Ho fatto bene a non fare a mio modo._[2]
The Doctor however was one of the very few who have never been put out
of their designed course, and never been disposed to stray from it.
_Spesso si perde il buono
Cercando il meglio. E a scegliere il sentiero
Chi vuol troppo esser saggio,
Del tempo abusa, e non fa mai viaggio._[3]
[Footnote 2: RICCIARDETTO.]
[Footnote 3: METASTASIO.]
INTERCHAPTER XV.
THE AUTHOR RECOMMENDS A CERTAIN WELL-KNOWN CHARACTER AS A CANDIDATE
FOR HONOURS, BOTH ON THE SCORE OF HIS FAMILY AND HIS DESERTS. HE
NOTICES ALSO OTHER PERSONS WHO HAVE SIMILAR CLAIMS.
_Thoricht, auf Bessrung der Thoren zu harren!
Kinder der klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehort._
GOETHE.
In these days when honours have been so profusely distributed by the
most liberal of Administrations and the most popular of Kings, I
cannot but think that Tom Fool ought to be knighted. And I assure the
reader that this is not said on the score of personal feeling, because
I have the honour to be one of his relations, but purely with regard
to his own claims, and the fitness of things, as well as to the
character of the Government.
It is disparaging him, and derogatory to his family, which in
undisputed and indisputable antiquity exceeds any other in these
kingdoms,—it is disparaging him, I say, to speak of him as we do of
Tom Duncombe, and Tom Cribb, and Tom Campbell; or of Tom Hood and Tom
Moore, and Tom Sheridan; and before them of Tom Browne and Tom
D'Urfey, and Tom Killigrew. Can it be supposed if he were properly
presented to his Majesty (Lord Nugent would introduce him), and knelt
to kiss the royal hand, that our most gracious and good-natured King
would for a moment hesitate to give him the accollade, and say to him
“Rise Sir Thomas!”
I do not ask for the Guelphic Order; simple Knighthood would in this
case be more appropriate.
It is perfectly certain that Sir Thomas More, if he were alive, would
not object to have him for a brother knight and namesake. It is
equally certain that Sir Thomas Lethbridge could not, and ought not.
Dryden was led into a great error by his animosity against Hunt and
Shadwell when he surmised that “dullness and clumsiness were fated to
the name of Tom.” “There are,” says Serjeant Kite, “several sorts of
Toms; Tom o'Lincoln, Tom Tit, Tom Tell-truth, Tom o'Bedlam and Tom
Fool!” With neither of these is dullness or clumsiness associated. And
in the Primitive World, according to the erudite philologist who with
so much industry and acumen collected the fragments of its language,
the word itself signified just or perfect. Therefore the first Decan
of the constellation Virgo was called Tom, and from thence Court de
Gebelin derives Themis: and thus it becomes evident that Themistocles
belongs to the Toms. Let no Thomas then or Sir Thomas, who has made
shipwreck of his fortune or his reputation or of both, consider
himself as having been destined to such disgrace by his godfathers and
godmothers when they gave him that name. The name is a good name. Any
one who has ever known Sir Thomas Acland may like it and love it for
his sake: and no wise man will think the worse of it for Tom Fool's.
No! the name Thomas is a good name, however it has been disparaged by
some of those persons who are known by it at this time. Though Bovius
chose to drop it and assume the name Zephiriel in its stead in honour
of his tutelary Angel, the change was not for the better, being indeed
only a manifestation of his own unsound state of mind. And though in
the reign of King James the First, Mr. William Shepherd of Towcester
christened his son by it for a reason savouring of disrespect, it is
not the worse for the whimsical consideration that induced him to fix
upon it. The boy was born on the never to be forgotten fifth of
November 1605, about the very hour when the Gunpowder Treason was to
have been consummated; and the father chose to have him called Thomas,
because he said this child if he lived to grow up would _hardly
believe_ that ever such wickedness could be attempted by the sons of
men.
It is recorded that a parrot which was seized by a kite and carried
into the air, escaped by exclaiming _Sancte Thoma adjuva me!_ for upon
that powerful appeal the kite relaxed his hold, and let loose the
intended victim. This may be believed, though it is among the miracles
of Thomas a Becket, to whom and not to the great schoolman of Aquino,
nor the Apostle of the East, the invocation was addressed. Has any
other human name ever wrought so remarkable a deliverance?
Has any other name made a greater noise in the world. Let Lincoln
tell, and Oxford; for although “_omnis clocha clochabilis in clocherio
clochando, clochans clochativo, clochare facit clochabiliter
clochantes,_” yet among them all, Master Janotus de Bragmardo would
have assigned pre-eminence to the mighty Toms.
The name then is sufficiently vindicated, even if any vindication were
needed, when the paramount merits of my claimant are considered.
Merry Andrew likewise should be presented to receive the same honour,
for sundry good reasons, and especially for this, that there is
already a Sir Sorry Andrew.
I should also recommend Tom Noddy, were it not for this consideration,
that the honour would probably soon be merged in an official
designation, and therefore lost upon him; for when a certain eminent
statesman shall be called from the Lower House, as needs he must ere
long, unless the party who keep moving and push him forward as their
leader, should before that time relieve him of his hereditary rights,
dignities, and privileges, no person can possibly be found so worthy
to succeed him in office and tread in his steps, as Tom Noddy.
Nor is Jack Pudding to be forgotten who is cousin-german to that merry
man Andrew! He moreover deserves it by virtue of his Puddingship; the
Puddings are of an ancient and good family: the Blacks in particular
boast of their blood.
Take reader this epigram of that cheerful and kind-hearted
schoolmaster Samuel Bishop of Merchant Taylors, written in his
vocation upon the theme _Aliusque et Idem_—
Five countries from five favorite dishes name
The popular stage buffoon's professional name.
Half fish himself, the Dutchman never erring
From native instinct, styles him _Pickle Herring_.
The German whose strong palate _haut-gouts_ fit,
Calls him _Hans Werst_, that is _John-Sausage-Wit_.
The Frenchman ever prone to _badinage_
Thinks of his soup, and shrugs, _Eh! voila Jean Potage!_
Full of ideas his sweet food supplies,
The Italian, _Ecco Macaroni!_ cries.
While English Taste, whose board with dumplin smokes,
Inspired by what it loves, applauds _Jack Pudding's_ jokes.
A charming bill of fare, you'll say, to suit
One dish, and that one dish a Fool, to boot!
“A learned man will have it,” says Fuller, “that Serapis is nothing
more than Apis with the addition of the Hebrew _Sar_, a Prince, whence
perchance our English Sir.” Odd, that the whole beast should have
obtained this title in Egypt, and a part of it in England. For we all
know that Loin of Beef has been knighted, and who is not pleased to
meet with him at dinner? and John Barleycorn has been knighted, and
who is not willing to pledge him in all companies in a glass?
But wherefore should I adduce precedents, as if in this age any regard
were paid to them in the distribution of honours, or there could be
any need of them in a case which may so well stand upon its own
merits.