_Ecco appare il cavallo, e i calci tira,

E fa saltando in ciel ben mille rote;

Delle narici il foco accolto spira,

Muove l'orecchie, e l'empie membra scuote;

A sassi, a sterpi, a piante ei non rimira,

Ma fracassando il tutto, urta e percote;

Col nitrito i nemici a fiera guerra

Sfida, e cò piè fa rimbombar la tierra._[7]

[Footnote 7: TASSO.]

Among the Romans he might have been in danger of being selected for a

victim to Mars, on the Ides of December. The Massagetæ would have

sacrificed him to the Sun, to whom horses seem to have been offered

wherever he was worshipped. He might have escaped in those countries

where white horses were preferred on such occasions;—a preference for

which a commentator upon Horace accounts by the unlucky conjecture

that it was because they were swifter than any others.

No better horse was ever produced from that celebrated breed which

Dionysius the Tyrant imported into Sicily from the Veneti. No better

could have been found among all the progeny of the fifty thousand

Mares belonging to the Great King, upon the Great Plain which the

Greeks called Hippobotus because the Median herb which was the best

pasture for horses abounded there. Whether the Nisæan horses which

were used by kings, were brought from thence or from Armenia, antient

Authors have not determined.

There was a tomb not far from the gates at Athens, ascending from the

Piræus, on which a soldier was represented standing beside a Horse.

All that was known of this monument in the age of Adrian was that it

was the work of Praxiteles; the name of the person whose memory it was

intended to preserve had perished. If Nobs and his Master had

flourished at the same time with Praxiteles, that great sculptor would

have thought himself worthily employed in preserving likenesses for

posterity of the one and the other. He was worthy to have been

modelled by Phidias or Lysippus. I will not wish that Chantrey had

been what he now is, the greatest of living sculptors, fourscore years

ago: but I may wish that Nobs and the Doctor had lived at the time

when Chantrey could have made a bust of the one and a model of the

other, or an equestrian statue to the joint honour of both.

Poppæa would have had such a horse shod with shoes of gold. Caligula

would have made him Consul. William Rufus would have created him by a

new and appropriate title Lord Horse of London Town.

When the French had a settlement in the Island of Madagascar, their

Commander who took the title of Viceroy, assembled a force of 3000

natives against one of the most powerful native Chiefs, and sent with

them 140 French under the Sieur de Chamargou. This Officer had just

then imported from India the first horse which had ever been seen in

Madagascar, and though oxmanship was practised by this people, as by

some of the tribes on the adjacent coast of Africa, those oxriders

were astonished at the horse; _ils luy rendoient même des respects si

profonds, que tous ceux qui envoyoient quelque deputation vers le

General de cette armée, ne manquoient point de faire des presens et

des complimens a Monsieur le Cheval._ If Nobs had been that Horse, he

would have deserved all the compliments that could have been paid him.

He would have deserved too, as far as Horse could have deserved, the

more extraordinary honours which fell to the lot of a coal black

steed, belonging to a kinsman of Cortes by name Palacios Rubios. In

that expedition which Cortes made against his old friend and comrade

Christoval de Olid, who in defiance of him had usurped a government

for himself, the Spaniards after suffering such privations and

hardships of every kind, as none but Spaniards could with the same

patience have endured, came to some Indian settlements called the

Mazotecas, being the name of a species of deer in the form of one of

which the Demon whom the natives worshipped had once, they said,

appeared to them, and enjoined them never to kill or molest in any way

an animal of that kind. They had become so tame in consequence, that

they manifested no fear at the appearance of the Spaniards, nor took

flight till they were attacked. The day was exceedingly hot, and as

the hungry hunters followed the chase with great ardour, Rubios's

horse was overheated, and as the phrase was, melted his grease. Cortes

therefore charged the Indians of the Province of Itza to take care of

him while he proceeded on his way to the Coast of Honduras, saying

that as soon as he fell in with the Spaniards of whom he was in quest,

he would send for him; horses were of great value at that time, and

this was a very good one. The Itzaex were equally in fear of Cortes

and the Horse; they did not indeed suppose horse and rider to be one

animal, but they believed both to be reasonable creatures, and

concluded that what was acceptable to the one would be so to the

other. So they offered him fowls to eat, presented nosegays to him of

their most beautiful and fragrant flowers, and treated him as they

would have treated a sick Chief, till to their utter dismay, he was

starved to death. What was to be done when Cortes should send for him?

The Cacique with the advice of his principal men gave orders that an

Image of the Horse should be set up in the temple of his town, and

that it should be worshipped there by the name of Tziminchac, as the

God of Thunder and Lightning, which it seemed to them were used as

weapons by the Spanish Horsemen. The honour thus paid to the Horse

would they thought obtain credit for the account which they must give

to the Spaniards, and prove that they had not wilfully caused his

death.

The Itzaex however heard nothing of the Spaniards, nor the Spaniards

of Rubios's black horse, till nearly an hundred years afterwards two

Franciscans of the province of Yucatan, went as Missionaries among

these Indians, being well versed in the Maya tongue, which is spoken

in that country; their names were Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Juan de

Orbita. The chief settlement was upon an Island in the Lake of Itza;

there they landed, not with the good will either of the Cacique or the

people, and entering the place of worship, upon one of their great Cus

or Pyramids they beheld the Horse-Idol, which was then more venerated

than all the other Deities. Indignant at the sight, Father Orbita took

a great stone and broke to pieces the clay statue, in defiance of the

cries and threats with which he was assailed. “Kill him who has killed

our God,” they exclaimed; “kill him! kill him!” The Spaniards say the

serene triumph and the unwonted beauty which beamed in Orbita's

countenance at that moment, made it evident that he was acting under a

divine impulse. His companion Fuensalida, acting in the same spirit,

held up the Crucifix, and addressed so passionate and powerful an

appeal to the Itzaex in their own language upon the folly and

wickedness of their Idolatry and the benefits of the Gospel which he

preached, that they listened to him with astonishment and admiration

and awe, and followed the Friars respectfully from the place of

worship, and allowed them to depart in safety.

These Franciscan Missionaries zealous and intrepid as they were, did

but half their work. Many years afterwards when D. Martin de Ursua

defeated the Itzaex in an action on the Lake, and took the Petén or

Great Island, he found, in what appears to have been the same

Adoratory, a decayed shin bone, suspended from the roof by three

strings of different coloured cotton, a little bag beneath containing

smaller pieces of bone in the same state of decay, under both there

were three censers of the Indian fashion with storax and other

perfumes burning, and a supply of storax near wrapt in dry leaves of

maize, and over the larger bone an Indian coronet. These he was told

upon enquiry, were the bones of the Horse which the Great Captain had

committed to the care of their Cacique long ago.

If it had been the fate of Nobs thus to be idolified, and the Iztaex

had been acquainted with his character, they would have compounded a

name for him, not from Thunder and Lightning, but from all the good

qualities which can exist in horse-nature, and for which words could

be found in the Maya tongue.

CHAPTER CXLV.

WILLIAM OSMER. INNATE QUALITIES. MARCH OF ANIMAL INTELLECT. FARTHER

REVEALMENT OF THE COLUMBIAN PHILOSOPHY.

There is a word, and it is a great word in this Book,[1] _ἐπι το

αὐτο,_—_In id ipsum_, that is, to look to the thing itself, the very

point, the principal matter of all; to have our eye on that, and not

off it, upon _alia omnia_, any thing but it.—To go to the point, drive

all to that, as also to go to the matter real, without declining from

it this way or that, to the right hand or to the left.

BP. ANDREWS.

[Footnote 1: The New Testament which the Preacher had before him.]

A certain William Osmer once wrote a dissertation upon the Horse,

wherein he affirmeth, it is demonstrated by matters of fact, as well

as from the principles of philosophy, that innate qualities do not

exist, and that the excellence of this animal is altogether mechanical

and not in the blood. In affirming this of the Horse the said William

Osmer hath gone far toward demonstrating himself an Ass; for he might

as well have averred that the blood hath nothing to do with the

qualities of a black pudding.—When Hurdis said

Give me the steed

Whose noble efforts bore the prize away,

I care not for his grandsire or his dam,

it was well said but not wisely.

The opinion which is as old as anything known concerning this animal,

that the good qualities of a horse are likely to bear some resemblance

to those of its sire or dam, Mr. Osmer endeavoured to invalidate by

arguing that his strength and swiftness depend upon the exactness of

his make, and that where this was defective these qualities would be

deficient also,—a foolish argument, for the proposition rests upon

just the same ground as that against which he was reasoning. But what

better reasoning could be looked for from a man who affirmed that if

horses were not shod they might travel upon the turnpike roads without

injury to their feet, because, in his own language, “when time was

young, when the earth was in a state of nature, and turnpike roads as

yet were not, the Divine Artist had taken care to give their feet such

defence as it pleased him.”

If the Doctor had known that Nobs was of Tartarian extraction, this

fact would sufficiently have accounted for the excellences of that

incomparable roadster. He explained them quite as satisfactorily to

himself by the fancy which he amused himself with supporting on this

occasion, that this marvellous horse was a son of the Wind. And hence

he inferred that Nobs possessed the innate qualities of his kind in

greater perfection than any other horse, as approaching nearer to the

original perfection in which the species was created. For although

animals are each in their kind less degenerate than man, whom so many

circumstances have tended to injure in his physical nature, still, he

argued, all which like the horse have been made subservient to the

uses of man, were in some degree deteriorated by that subjection.

Innate qualities, however, he admitted were more apparent in the brute

creation than in the human creature, because even in those which

suffer most by domestication, the course of nature is not so violently

overruled.

I except the Duck, he would say. That bird, which Nature hath made

free of earth, air and water, loses by servitude the use of one

element, the enjoyment of two, and the freedom of all three.

Look at the Pig also, said the Doctor. In his wild state no animal is

cleaner, happier, or better able to make himself respected. Look at

him when tamed,—I will not say in a brawn-case, for I am not speaking

now of those cruelties which the Devil and Man between them have

devised,—but look at him prowling at large about the purlieus of his

sty. What a loathsome poor despised creature hath man made him!

_Animal propter convivia natum._[2]

Every cur thinks itself privileged to take him by the ear; whereas if

he were once more free in the woods, the stoutest mastiff or wolf-dog

would not dare look him in the face.

[Footnote 2: JUVENAL.]

Yet he was fond of maintaining that the lower creation are capable of

intellectual improvement. In Holland indeed he had seen the school for

dogs, where poodles go through a regular course of education, and

where by this time perhaps the Lancasterian inventions have been

introduced. But this was not what the Doctor contemplated. Making

bears and elephants dance, teaching dogs to enact ballets, and horses

to exhibit tricks at a fair, he considered as the freaks of man's

capricious cruelty, and instances of that abuse of power which he so

frequently exercises over his inferior creatures, and for which he

must one day render an account, together with all those whose

countenance of such spectacles affords the temptation to exhibit them.

In truth the power which animals as well as men possess, of conforming

themselves to new situations and forming new habits adapted to new

circumstances is proof of a capability of improvement. The wild dogs

in the plains of La Plata, burrow, because there is no security for

them above ground against stronger beasts of prey. In the same country

owls make their nests in the ground, because there are neither trees

nor buildings to afford them concealment. A clergyman in Iceland by

sowing angelica upon a Lake-island some miles from the sea, not only

attracted gulls and wild ducks to breed there, but brought about an

alliance between those birds, who are not upon neighbourly terms

elsewhere. Both perceived that the new plants afforded better shelter

from wind and rain, than any thing which they had seen before; there

was room enough for both; and neighbourhood produced so much good

will, that the gulls protected the weaker birds not only against the

ravens who are common enemies, but against another species of gull

also which attacks the duck's nest.

A change more remarkable than either of these, is that which the

common hearth-cricket has undergone in its very constitution as well

as in all its ways of life, since men built houses and inhabited cold

climates.

The field-cricket in North America, which buries itself during the

winter ten inches deep and there lies torpid, began about an hundred

years ago to avail itself of the work of man and take up its abode in

the chimnies. This insect even likes man for a bed-fellow, not with

any such felonious intentions as are put in execution by smaller and

viler vermin, but for the sake of warmth. The Swedish traveller, Kalm,

says that when he and his companions were forced to sleep in

uninhabited places, the crickets got into the folds of their garments,

so that they were obliged to make some tarriance every morning, and

search carefully before they could get rid of them.

Two species of Swallows have domesticated themselves with man. We have

only that which builds under the eaves in England, but in North

America they have both the house swallow and the chimney swallow; the

chimnies not being made use of in summer, they take possession, and

keep it sometimes in spite of the smoke if the fire is not very great.

Each feather in this bird's tail ends in a stiff point, like the end

of an awl; they apply the tail to the side of the wall, and it assists

in keeping them up, while they hold on with their feet. “They make a

great thundering noise all day long by flying up and down in the

chimnies;” now as the Indians had not so much as a hearth made of

masonry, it is an obvious question, says Kalm, where did these

swallows build before the Europeans came, and erected houses with

chimnies? Probably, it is supposed, in hollow trees, but certainly

where they could; and it is thus shown that they took the first

opportunity of improving their own condition.

But the Doctor dwelt with most pleasure on the intellectual

capabilities of Dogs. There had been Dogs, he said, who from the mere

desire of following their master's example had regularly frequented

either the Church or the Meeting House;—others who attended the Host

whenever they heard the bell which announced that it was carried

abroad; one who so modulated his voice as to accompany instrumental

music through all the notes of a song; and Leibnitz had actually

succeeded in teaching one to speak. A dog may be made an epicure as

well as his master. He acquires notions of rank and respectability;

understands that the aristocracy are his friends, regards the beggar

as his rival for bones, and knows that whoever approaches in darkness

is to be suspected for his intentions. A dog's physiognomical

discernment never deceives him; and this the Doctor was fond of

observing, because wherever he was known the dogs came to return the

greeting they expected. He has a sense of right and wrong as far as he

has been taught; a sense of honour and of duty, from which his master

might sometimes take a lesson; and not unfrequently a depth and

heroism of affection, which the Doctor verily believed would have its

reward in a better world. John Wesley held the same opinion, which has

been maintained also by his enemy Augustus Toplady, and by his

biographer the laureated L. L. D. or the El-el-deed Laureate. The

Materialist, Dr. Dove would argue, must allow upon his own principles

that a dog has as much soul as himself; and the Immaterialist, if he

would be consistent, must perceive that the life and affections and

actions of an animal are as little to be explained as the mysteries of

his own nature by mere materiality. The all-doubting and therefore

always half-believing Bayle has said that _les actions des bêtes sont

peut-être un des plus profonds abîmes sur quoi notre raison se puisse

exercer_.

But here the Doctor acknowledged himself to be in doubt. That another

state of existence there must be for every creature wherein there is

the breath of life, he was verily persuaded. To that conclusion the

whole tenour of his philosophy led him, and what he entertained as a

philosophical opinion, acquired from a religious feeling something

like the strength of faith. For if the whole of a brute animal's

existence ended in this world, then it would follow that there are

creatures born into it, for whom it had been better never to have

been, than to endure the privations, pains and wrongs and cruelties,

inflicted upon them by human wickedness; and he would not, could not,

dared not believe that any, even the meanest of God's creatures, has

been created to undergo more of evil than of good (where no power of

choice was given)—much less to suffer unmingled evil, during its

allotted term of existence. Yet this must be, if there were no state

for animals after death.

A French speculator upon such things (I think it was P. Bougeant) felt

this so strongly as to propose the strange hypothesis that fallen

Angels underwent their punishment in the bodies of brutes, wherein

they were incarnate and incarcerate as sentient, suffering and

conscious spirits. The Doctor's theory of progressive life was liable

to no such objections. It reconciled all seeming evil in the lower

creation to the great system of benevolence. But still there remained

a difficulty. Men being what they are, there were cases in which it

seemed that the animal soul would be degraded instead of advanced by

entering into the human form. For example, the Doctor considered the

beast to be very often a much worthier animal than the butcher; the

horse than the horse-jockey or the rider; the cock, than the

cock-fighter; the young whale than the man who harpoons the reasonable

and dutiful creature when it suffers itself to be struck rather than

forsake its wounded mother.

In all these cases indeed, a migration into some better variety of the

civilized biped might be presumed, Archeus bringing good

predispositions and an aptitude for improvement. But when he looked at

a good dog (in the best acceptation of the epithet),—a dog who has

been humanized by human society,—who obeys and loves his master, pines

during his illness, and dies upon his grave, (the fact has frequently

occurred,) the Doctor declared his belief, and with a voice and look

which told that he was speaking from his heart, that such a creature

was ripe for a better world than this, and that in passing through the

condition of humanity it might lose more than it could gain.

The price of a dog might not, among the Jews, be brought into the

House of the Lord, “for any vow,” for it was an abomination to the

Lord. This inhibition occurs in the same part of the Levitical law

which enjoins the Israelites not to deliver up to his master the

servant who had escaped from him; and it is in the spirit of that

injunction, and of those other parts of the Law which are so

beautifully and feelingly humane, that their very tenderness may be

received in proof of their divine origin. It looks upon the dog as

standing to his master in far other relation than his horse or his ox

or his ass,—as a creature connected with him by the moral ties of

companionship and fidelity and friendship.

CHAPTER CXLVI.

DANIEL DOVE VERSUS SENECA AND BEN JONSON. ORLANDO AND HIS HORSE AT

RONCESVALLES. MR. BURCHELL. THE PRINCE OP ORANGE. THE LORD KEEPER

GUILDFORD. REV. MR. HAWTAYN. DR. THOMAS JACKSON. THE ELDER SCALIGER.

EVELYN. AN ANONYMOUS AMERICAN. WALTER LANDOR, AND CAROLINE BOWLES.

——Contented with an humble theme

I pour my stream of panegyric down

The vale of Nature, where it creeps and winds

Among her lovely works with a secure

And unambitious course, reflecting clear,

If not the virtues, yet the worth of brutes.

COWPER.

The Doctor liked not Seneca when that philosopher deduced as a

consequence from his definition of a benefit, that no gratitude can be

due to beasts or senseless things; “_nam, qui beneficium mihi daturus

est_,” he says, “_debet non tantum prodesse, sed velle. Ideo nec mutis

animalibus quidquam debetur; et quam multos è periculo velocitas equi

rapuit! Nec arboribus; et quam multos æstu laborantes ramorum opacitas

texit!_” that is,—“for he who is about to render me a good service,

not only ought to render it, but to intend it. Nothing therefore can

be owed to dumb animals, and yet how many have the speed of a horse

saved from danger! Nor to trees, and yet how many when suffering under

the summer sun, have the thick boughs shaded!” To the same tenour Ben

Jonson speaks. “Nothing is a courtesy,” he says, “unless it be meant

us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that

they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring, and fill our

sails; or meats that they be nourishing; for these are what they are

necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not.”

What! our friend would say, do I owe thee nothing Nobs, for the many

times that thou hast carried me carefully and safely, through bad

ways, in stormy weather, and in dark nights? Do I owe thee nothing for

thy painful services, thy unhesitating obedience, thy patient

fidelity? Do I owe thee nothing for so often breaking thy rest, when

thou couldest not know for what urgent cause mine had been broken, nor

wherefore I was compelled by duty to put thee to thy speed? Nobs,

Nobs, if I did not acknowledge a debt of gratitude to thee, and

discharge it as far as kind usage can tend to prolong thy days in

comfort, I should deserve to be dropt as a colt in my next stage of

existence, to be broken in by a rough rider, and broken down at last

by hard usage in a hackney coach.

There is not a more touching passage in Italian poetry than that in

which Pulci relates the death of Orlando's famous horse, (his Nobs) in

the fatal battle of Roncesvalles:

_Vegliantin come Orlando in terra scese,

A piè del suo signor caduto è morto,

E inginocchiossi e licenzia gli chiese,

Quasi dicesse, io t'ho condotto a porto.

Orlando presto le braccia distese

A l'acqua, e cerca di dargli conforto,

Ma poi che pure il caval non si sente,

Si condolea molto pietosamente._

_O Vegliantin, tu m'hai servito tanto:

O Vegliantin, dov'è la tua prodezza?

O Vegliantin, nessun si dia piu vanto;

O Vegliantin, venuta è l'ora sezza:

O Vegliantin, tu m'hai cresciuto il pianto;

O Vegliantin, tu non vuoi piu cavezza:

O Vegliantin, s'io ti feci mai torto,

Perdonami, ti priego, cosi morto._

_Dice Turpin, che mi par maraviglia,

Che come Orlando perdonami disse,

Quel caval parve ch'aprisse le ciglia,

E col capo e co gesti acconsentisse._[1]

[Footnote 1: MORGANTE MAGGIORE.]

A traveller in South Africa, Mr. Burchell, who was not less

adventurous and persevering than considerate and benevolent, says that

“nothing but the safety of the whole party, or the urgency of peculiar

and inevitable circumstances could ever, during his whole journey,

induce him to forget the consideration due to his cattle, always

regarded as faithful friends whose assistance was indispensable. There

may be in the world,” he says, “men who possess a nature so hard, as

to think these sentiments misapplied; but I leave them to find, if

they can, in the coldness of their own hearts, a satisfaction equal to

that which I have enjoyed in paying a grateful attention to animals by

whose services I have been so much benefitted.”

The Prince of Orange would once have been surprised and taken in his

tent by the Spaniards if his dog had not been more vigilant than his

guards. Julian Romero planned and led this night attack upon the

Prince's camp; the camisado was given so suddenly, as well as with

such resolution, “that the place of arms took no alarm, until their

fellows,” says Sir Roger Williams, “were running in with the enemy in

their tails; whereupon this dog hearing a great noise, fell to

scratching and crying, and withal leapt on the Prince's face, awaking

him, being asleep, before any of his men.” Two of his secretaries were

killed hard by the tent, and “albeit the Prince lay in his arms, with

a lacquey always holding one of his horses ready bridled, yet at the

going out of his tent, with much ado he recovered his horse before the

enemy arrived. One of his squires was slain taking horse presently

after him, and divers of his servants which could not recover theirs,

were forced to escape amongst the guards of foot. Ever after until the

Prince's dying day, he kept one of that dog's race;—so did many of his

friends and followers. The most or all of these dogs were white little

hounds, with crooked noses, called camuses.”

The Lord Keeper Guilford “bred all his horses, which came to the

husbandry first colts, and from thence, as they were fit, were taken

into his equipage; and as by age or accident they grew unfit for that

service, they were returned to the place from whence they came, and

there expired.” This is one of the best traits which Roger North has

related of his brother.

“A person,” says Mr. Hawtayn, who was a good kind-hearted clergyman of

the Church of England, “that can be insensible to the fidelity and

love which dumb animals often express, must be lower in nature than

they.”

_Grata e Natura in noi; fin dalla cuna

Gratitudine è impressa in uman core;

Ma d'un instinto tal questo è lo stile,

Che lo seconda più, chi è piu gentile._[2]

[Footnote 2: CARLO MARIA MAGGI.]

The gentlest natures indeed are the best, and the best will be at the

same time the most grateful and the most tender. “Even to behold a

flourishing tree, first bereft of bark,” says Dr. Jackson, “then of

all the naked branches, yet standing, lastly the green trunk cut down

and cast full of sap into the fire, would be an unpleasant spectacle

to such as delighted in setting, pruning, or nourishing plants.”

The elder Scaliger as Evelyn tells us, never could convince Erasmus

but that trees feel the first stroke of the axe; and Evelyn himself

seems to have thought there was more probability in that opinion than

he liked to allow. The fall of a very aged oak, he says, giving a

crack like thunder, has been often heard at many miles distance; nor

do I at any time hear the groans without some emotion and pity,

constrained, as I too often am, to fell them with much reluctancy. Mr.

Downes in his Letters from the Continent says, “There is at this time

a forest near Bolsena so highly venerated for its antiquity that none

of the trees are ever cut.”

One who, we are told, has since been honourably distinguished for

metaphysical speculation, says in a juvenile letter to the late

American Bishop Hobart, “I sometimes converse a considerable time with

a tree that in my infancy invited me to play under its cool and

refreshing shade; and the old dwelling in which I have spent the

greater part of my life, though at present unoccupied and falling into

ruin, raises within me such a musing train of ideas, that I know not

whether it be pleasing or painful. Now whether it arise from an

intimate association of ideas, or from some qualities in the

insensible objects themselves to create an affection, I shall not

pretend to determine; but certain it is that the love we bear for

objects incapable of making a return, seems always more disinterested,

and frequently affords us more lasting happiness, than even that which

we feel toward rational creatures.”

But never by any author, ancient or modern, in verse or prose, has the

feeling which ascribes sentience as well as life to the vegetable

world, been more deliciously described than by Walter Landor, when

speaking of sweet scents, he says,

They bring me tales of youth, and tones of love;

And 'tis and ever was my wish and way

To let all flowers live freely and all die,

Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart,

Among their kindred in their native place.

I never pluck the rose; the violet's head

Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank

And not reproach'd me; the ever sacred cup

Of the pure lily hath between my hands

Felt safe, unsoil'd, nor lost one grain of gold.

These verses are indeed worthy of their author when he is most worthy

of himself. And yet Caroline Bowles's sweet lines will lose nothing by

being read after them.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

How happily, how happily the flowers die away!

Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they;

Just live a life of sunshine, of innocence and bloom,

Then drop without decrepitude or pain into the tomb.

The gay and glorious creatures! “they neither toil nor spin,”

Yet lo! what goodly raiment they're all apparelled in;

No tears are on their beauty, but dewy gems more bright

Than ever brow of Eastern Queen endiademed with light.

The young rejoicing creatures! their pleasures never pall,

Nor lose in sweet contentment, because so free to all;

The dew, the shower, the sunshine; the balmy blessed air,

Spend nothing of their freshness, though all may freely share.

The happy careless creatures! of time they take no heed;

Nor weary of his creeping, nor tremble at his speed;

Nor sigh with sick impatience, and wish the light away;

Nor when 'tis gone, cry dolefully, “Would God that it were day.”

And when their lives are over, they drop away to rest,

Unconscious of the penal doom, on holy Nature's breast;

No pain have they in dying, no shrinking from decay.

Oh! could we but return to earth as easily as they!

CHAPTER CXLVII.

OLD TREES. SHIPS. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. LIFE AND PASSIONS ASCRIBED TO

INANIMATE OBJECTS. FETISH WORSHIP. A LORD CHANCELLOR AND HIS GOOSE.

_Ce que j'en ay escrit, c'est pour une curiosité, qui plaira possible

à aucuns: et non possible aux autres._

BRANTOME.

“Consider,” says Plutarch in that precious volume of Philemon

Holland's translating, which was one of the elder Daniel's treasures,

and which the Doctor valued accordingly as a relic, “consider whether

our forefathers have not permitted excessive ceremonies and

observations in these cases, even for an exercise and studious

meditation of thankfulness; as namely, when they reverenced so highly

the Oaks bearing acorns as they did. Certes the Athenians had one

Fig-tree which they honoured by the name of the holy and sacred

Fig-Tree; and they expressly forbade to cut down the Mulberry-tree.

For these ceremonies, I assure you, do not make men inclined to

superstition as some think, but frame and train us to gratitude and

sociable humanity one toward another, whenas we are thus reverently

affected to such things as these that have no soul nor sense.” But

Plutarch knew that there were certain Trees to which something more

than sense or soul was attributed by his countrymen.

There was a tradition at Corinth which gave a different account of the

death of Pentheus from that in the Metamorphoses, where it is said

that he was beholding the rites of the Bacchanals, from an open

eminence surrounded by the woods, when his mother espied him, and in

her madness led on the frantic women by whom he was torn to pieces.

But the tradition at Corinth was that he climbed a tree for the

purpose of seeing their mysteries, and was discovered amid its

branches; and that the Pythian Oracle afterwards enjoined the

Corinthians to find out this Tree, and pay divine honours to it, as to

a God. The special motive here was to impress the people with an

aweful respect for the Mysteries, none being felt for any part of the

popular religion.

Old Trees, without the aid of an Oracle to consecrate them, seem to

have been some of the most natural objects of that contemplative and

melancholy regard, which easily passes into superstitious veneration.

No longer ago than during the peace of Amiens a Frenchman[1]

describing the woods on the banks of the Senegal, says _On éprouve un

doux ravissement en contemplant ces nobles productions d'une nature

tranquille, libre et presque vierge; car là elle est encore respectée,

et la vieillesse des beaux arbres y est pour ainsi dire l'objet d'un

culte. Mon ame reconnoissante des émotions qu'elle ressentait,

remerciait le Créateur d'avoir fait naître ces magnifiques végétables

sur un sol òu elles avaient pu croitre indépendantes et paisibles, et

conserver ces formes originales et naïves que l'art sait alterer, mais

qu'il ne saura jamais imiter._—

_Quelques-uns des sites qu'on rencontre etalent les attraits et les

grâces d'une nature virginale; dans d'autres, on admire ce que l'âge,

de sa plus grande force, peut avoir de plus imposant et de plus

auguste; et d'antiques forêts, dont les arbres ont une grosseur et une

élévation qui attestent leur grand âge, excitent une admiration mêlée

de respect; et ces prodigieux végétaux encore verts, encore beaux,

après une vie de tant de siecles, semblent vouloir nous apprendre, que

dans ces contrées solitaires et fertiles, la nature vit toujours, et

ne vieillit jamais._

[Footnote 1: GOLBERRY.]

There are Tribes among the various races in the Philippines who are

persuaded that the souls of their ancestors use old trees as their

habitations, and therefore it is deemed a sacrilege to cut one down.

The Lezgis used to erect pillars under the boughs of decayed Oaks to

support them as long as possible; _Murlooz_ is the name which they

give to such spurs, or stay-pillars.

The Rector of Manafon, Mr. Walter Davies, in his View of the

Agriculture and Domestic Economy of North Wales, says, “Strangers have

oftentimes listened with attention to Gentlemen of the County of

Montgomery enquiring anxiously into the conduct and fate of the

Windsor Castle, the Impregnable, the Brunswick and other men of war,

in some particular naval engagements; and were led to imagine that

they had some near and dear relations holding important commissions on

board; but upon farther enquiry, found the ground of this curiosity to

be no other than that such ships had been partly built of timber that

had grown upon their estates; as if the inanimate material contained

some magic virtue.” The good Rector might have perceived in what he

censures, one indication of that attachment to our native soil, on

which much of the security of states depends, much of the happiness of

individuals, and not a little of their moral and intellectual

character.

But indeed the same cause which renders personification a common

figure not only with poets and orators, but in all empassioned and

even in ordinary speech, leads men frequently both to speak and act as

if they ascribed life and consciousness to inanimate things.

When the Cid Campeador recovered from the Infantes of Carrion, his two

swords Colada and Tizona, “his whole frame,” says the Chronicler,

“rejoiced, and he smiled from his heart. And he laid them upon his lap

and said, ‘Ah my swords, Colada and Tizona, truly may I say of you

that you are the best swords in Spain; and I won you, for I did not

get you either by buying or by barter. I gave ye in keeping to the

Infantes of Carrion that they might do honour to my daughters with ye.

But ye were not for them! They kept ye hungry, and did not feed ye

with flesh as ye were wont to be fed. Well is it for you that ye have

escaped that thraldom and are come again to my hands.’”

The same strong figure occurs in the Macaronea,

_Gaude, Baldus ait, mi brande! cibaberis; ecce

Carnis et sanguis tibi præsententur abunde._

The Greek Captain who purchases a vessel which he is to command

himself, takes possession of it by a ceremony which is called

espousing the ship; on this occasion he suspends in it a laurel crown

as a symbol of the marriage, and a bag of garlic as a preservative

against tempests.—In the year 1793, the ship Darius belonging to a

Hindoo, or more probably, as may be inferred from the name, a Parsee

owner, was run ashore off Malacca by its Commander Captain Laughton to

save it from falling into the hands of a French Privateer. The Captain

and his Officers when they had thus disappointed the enemy, succeeded

afterwards by great exertion and great skill, in getting the vessel

off, and brought it safely home to Bombay; where the grateful owner,

thinking the Ship itself was entitled to some signal mark of

acknowledgement, treated it with a compleat ablution, which was

performed not with water, but with sugar and milk.

Our own sailors sometimes ascribe consciousness and sympathy to their

ship. It is a common expression with them that “she behaves well;” and

they persuade themselves that an English Man of War, by reason of its

own good will, sails faster in pursuit of a Frenchman than at any

other time. Poor old Captain Atkins was firmly possessed with this

belief. On such occasions he would talk to his ship, as an Arabian to

his horse, urge and intreat her to exert herself and put forth all her

speed, and promise to reward her with a new coat of paint as soon as

they should get into harbour.—“Who,” says Fuller, “can without pity or

pleasure behold that trusty vessel which carried Sir Francis Drake

about the World?”—So naturally are men led to impute something like

vitality to so great a work of human formation, that persons connected

with the shipping trade talk of the average _life_ of a ship, which in

the present state of our naval affairs is stated to be twenty-two

years.

At one of the Philosophers' Yearly-Meetings it was said that every

Engine-man had more or less pride in his engine, just as a sailor had

in his ship. We heard then of the _duty_ of an engine, and of how much

_virtue_ resides in a given quantity of coals. This is the language of

the Mines, so easily does a figurative expression pass into common

speech. The _duty_ of an engine has been taken at raising 50 millions

of cubic-feet of water one foot in an hour; some say 100 millions,

some 120; but the highest duty which the reporter had ascertained was

90 millions, the lowest seventy. And the _virtue_ in a bushel of coals

is sufficient to raise 125 millions of cubic-feet of water one foot,

being from 800 to 1070 at the cost of one farthing. No one will think

this hard duty for the Engine, but all must allow it to be cheap

virtue in the coals.

This however is merely an example of the change which words undergo in

the currency of speech as their original stamp is gradually effaced:

what was metaphorical becomes trivial; and this is one of the causes

by which our language has been corrupted, more perhaps than any other,

recourse being had both in prose and verse to forced and fantastic

expressions as substitutes for the freshness and strength that have

been lost. Strong feelings and strong fancy are liable to a more

serious perversion.

M. de Custine, writing from Mont Anvert, in the rhapsodical part of

his travels, exclaims, _Qu'on ne me parle plus de nature morte; on

sent ici que la Divinité est partout, et que les pierres sont

pénêtrées comme nous-mêmes d'une puissance créatricé! Quand on me dit

que les rochers sont insensibles, je crois entendre un enfant soutenir

que l'aiguille d'une montre ne marche pas, parce qu'il ne la voit pas

se mouvoir._

It is easy to perceive that feelings of this kind may imperceptibly

have led to the worship of any remarkable natural objects, such as

Trees, Forests, Mountains, Springs, and Rivers, as kindred feelings

have led to the adoration of Images and of Relics. Court de Gebelin

has even endeavoured to show that Fetish worship was not without some

reasonable cause in its origin. The author of a treatise _Du Culte des

Dieux Fétiches, ou Parallèle de l'ancienne Religion de l'Egypte avec

la Religion actuelle de la Nigritie_, had asserted that this absurd

superstition originated in fear. But Court de Gebelin asks, “why not

from gratitude and admiration as well? Are not these passions as

capable of making Gods as Fear? Is not experience itself in accord

with us here? Do not all savage nations admit of Two Principles, the

one Good who ought not to be feared, the other Evil to whom sacrifices

must be offered in order to avert the mischief in which he delights?

If fear makes them address their homage to the one, it has no part in

the feeling which produces it toward the other. Which then of these

sentiments has led to Fetish-worship? Not fear, considered as the

sentiment which moves us to do nothing that might displease a Being

whom we regard as our superior, and as the source of our happiness;

for Fétishes cannot be regarded in this light. Will it then be fear

considered as the sentiment of our own weakness, filling us with

terror, and forcing us to seek the protection of a being more powerful

than ourselves and capable of protecting us? But how could any such

fear have led to the worship of Fetishes? How could a Savage, seized

with terror, ever have believed that an onion, a stone, a flower,

water, a tree, a mouse, a cat, &. could be his protector and secure

him against all that he apprehended? I know that fear does not reason,

but it is not to be understood in this sense; we frequently fear

something without knowing why; but when we address ourselves to a

Protector we always know why, it is in the persuasion that he can

defend us, a persuasion which has always a foundation,—a basis. But in

Fetish worship where is the motive? What is there to afford confidence

against alarm? Who has said that the Fetish is superior to man?—It is

impossible to conceive any one so blockish, so stupid, so terrified as

to imagine that inanimate things like these are infinitely above him,

much more powerful than himself, in a state to understand his wants,

his evils, his fears, his sufferings, and to deliver him from all in

acknowledgement of the offering which he makes to them.

“Moreover the Fetish is not used till it has been consecrated by the

Priest: this proves an opinion in the savage, that the Fetish of

itself cannot protect him; but that he may be made by other influence

to do so, and that influence is exercised by the Priest in the act of

consecration.” Court de Gebelin argues therefore that this

superstition arose from the primary belief in a Supreme Being on whom

we are altogether dependent, who was to be honoured by certain

ceremonies directed by the Priest, and who was to be propitiated by

revering these things whereby it had pleased him to benefit mankind;

and by consecrating some of them as pledges of future benefits to be

received from him, and of his presence among his Creatures who serve

him and implore his protection. But in process of time it was

forgotten that this was only a symbolic allegory of the Divine

Presence, and ignorant nations who could no longer give a reason for

their belief, continued the practice from imitation and habit.

This is ascribing too much to system, too little to superstition and

priestcraft. The name Fetish though used by the Negroes themselves is

known to be a corrupt application of the Portugueze word for

Witchcraft, _feitiço_; the vernacular name is _Bossum_ or _Bossifoe_.

Upon the Gold Coast every nation has its own, every village, every

family and every individual. A great hill, a rock anyway remarkable

for its size or shape, or a large Tree, is generally the national

Fetish. The king's is usually the largest tree in his country. They

who chuse or change one take the first thing they happen to see

however worthless. A stick, a stone, the bone of a beast, bird or

fish, unless the worshipper takes a fancy for something of better

appearance and chuses a horn or the tooth of some large animal. The

ceremony of consecration he performs himself, assembling his family,

washing the new object of his devotion, and sprinkling them with the

water. He has thus a household or personal God in which he has as much

faith as the Papist in his relics, and with as much reason. Barbot

says that some of the Europeans on that coast not only encouraged

their slaves in this superstition, but believed in it, and practised

it themselves.

Thus low has man sunk in his fall. The debasement began with the

worship of the Heavenly Bodies. When he had once departed from that of

his Creator, his religious instinct became more and more corrupted,

till at length no object was too vile for his adoration; as in a

certain state of disease the appetite turns from wholesome food, and

longs for what would at other times be loathsome.

The Negro Fetishes are just such objects as, according to the French

Jesuits, the Devil used to present to the Canadian Indians, to bring

them good luck in fishing, hunting, gaming, and such traffic as they

carried on. This may probably mean that they dreamt of such things;

for in dreams many superstitions have originated, and great use has

been made of them in Priestcraft.

The same kind of superstition has appeared in different ages and in

different parts of the World, among the most civilized nations and the

rudest savages, and among the educated as well as the ignorant. The

belief in Omens prevails among us still, and will long continue to

prevail, notwithstanding national schools, cheap literature and

Societies for promoting knowledge.

A late Lord Chancellor used to travel with a Goose in his carriage,

and consult it on all occasions; whether according to the rules of

Roman augury I know not, nor whether he decided causes by it; but the

causes might have been as well decided if he did. The Goose was his

Fetish. It was not Lord Brougham,—Lord Brougham was his own Goose

while he held the Seals; but it was the only Lord Chancellor in our

times who resembled him in extraordinary genius, and as extraordinary

an unfitness for his office. One of the most distinguished men of the

age, who has left a reputation which will be as lasting as it is

great, was when a boy in constant fear of a very able but unmerciful

schoolmaster; and in the state of mind which that constant fear

produced he fixed upon a great Spider for his Fetish, and used every

day to pray to it that he might not be flogged.

CHAPTER EXTRAORDINARY.

PROCEEDINGS AT A BOOK CLUB. THE AUTHOR ACCUSED OF ‘LESE DELICATESSE,’

OR WHAT IS CALLED AT COURT ‘TUM-TI-TEE.’ HE UTTERS A MYSTERIOUS

EXCLAMATION, AND INDIGNANTLY VINDICATES HIMSELF.

_Rem profecto mirabilem, longeque stupendam, rebusque veris veriorem

describo._

HIERONYMUS RADIOLENSIS.

A circumstance has come to my knowledge so remarkable in itself and

affecting me so deeply, that on both accounts I feel it necessary to

publish a Chapter Extraordinary on the occasion.

There is a certain Book-Club, or Society, (no matter where) in which

the Volumes of this Opus have been regularly ordered as they appeared,

and regularly perused, to the edification of many Readers, the

admiration of more, and the amusement of all. But I am credibly

informed that an alarm was excited in that select literary Circle by a

Chapter in the fourth volume, and that the said volume was not allowed

to circulate by the Managing Directors or Committee, of the said Book

Club, till the said Chapter had been exscinded, that is to say, cut

out.

Aballiboozo!

When a poor wretch fell into the hands of that hellish Tribunal which

called itself the Holy Office, the Inquisitors always began by

requiring him to tell them what he was accused of; and they persisted

in this course of examination time after time, till by promises and

threats, long suspense and solitary confinement, with the occasional

aid of the rack, they had extorted from him matter of accusation

against himself and as many of his friends, relations and

acquaintances as they could induce, or compel, or entrap him to name.

Even under such a judicial process I should never have been able to

discover what Chapter in this Opus could have been thought to require

an operation, which, having the fear of the expurgatorial scissars

before my eyes I must not venture to mention here, by its appropriate

name, tho' it is a Dictionary word and the use of it is in this sense

strictly technical. My ignorance however has been enlightened, and I

have been made acquainted with what in the simplicity of my heart I

never could have surmised.

The Chapter condemned to that operation, the chapter which has been

not bisked, but semiramised, is the hundred and thirty-sixth Chapter,

concerning the Pedigree and Birth of Nobs; but whether the passage

which called forth this severe sentence from the Censors were that in

which Moses and Miss Jenny, the Sire and Dam of Nobs, are described as

meeting in a field near Knavesmire Heath, like _Dido dux et Trojanus_;

or whether it were the part where the consequences of that meeting are

related as coming unexpectedly to light in a barn between Doncaster

and Adwick-in-the-Street, my informant was not certain.

From another quarter I have been assured, that the main count in the

indictment was upon the story of _Le Cheval de Pierre, et les

Officiers Municipaux_. This I am told it was which alarmed the

Literary Sensitives. The sound of the foot-steps of the Marble Statue

in Don Juan upon the boards of the stage never produced a more aweful

sense of astonishment in that part of the audience who were fixed all

eyes and ears upon its entrance, than this _Cheval de Pierre_ produced

among the Board of Expurgators. After this I ought not to be surprized

if the Publishers were to be served with a notice that the Lord Mayors

of London and York, and the simple Mayors of every corporate town in

England, reformed or unreformed, having a Magistrate so called,

whether gentle or simple, had instituted proceedings against them for

_Scandalum Magnatum_. This however I have the satisfaction of knowing,

that Miss Graveairs smiled in good humour when she heard the Chapter

read; the only serious look put on was at the quotation from Pindar,

as if suspecting there might be something in the Greek which was not

perfectly consistent with English notions of propriety. Nothing

however could be more innocent than that Greek. And even after what

has passed, she would agree with me that this Chapter which made the

Elders blush, is one which Susanna would have read as innocently as it

was written.

Nevertheless I say, _O tempora! O mores!_ uttering the words

exultantly, not in exprobration. I congratulate the age and the

British Public. I congratulate my Country-men, my Country-women, and

my Country-children. I congratulate Young England upon the March of

Modesty! How delightful that it should thus keep pace with the March

of Intellect! _Redeunt Saturnia regna._ In these days Liberality and

Morality appear hand-in-hand upon the stage like the Two Kings of

Brentford; and Piety and Profit have kissed each other at religious

Meetings.

We have already a Family Shakespeare; and it cannot be supposed that

the hint will always be disregarded which Mr. Matthew Gregory Lewis

introduced so properly some forty years ago into his then celebrated

novel called the Monk, for a Family Bible, upon the new plan of

removing all passages that could be thought objectionable on the score

of indelicacy. We may look to see Mr. Thomas Moore's Poems adapted to

the use of Families; and Mr. Murray cannot do less than provide the

Public with a Family Byron.

It may therefore be matter of grave consideration for me whether under

all circumstances it would not be highly expedient to prepare a

semiramised edition of this Opus, under the Title of the Family

Doctor. It may be matter for consultation with my Publishers, to whose

opinion as founded on experience and a knowledge of the public taste,

an author will generally find it prudent to defer. Neither by them or

me would it be regarded as an objection that the title might mislead

many persons, who supposing that the “Family Doctor” and the “Family

Physician” meant the same kind of Book, would order the Opus under a

mistaken notion that it was a new and consequently improved work,

similar to Dr. Buchan's, formerly well known as a stock-book. This

would be no objection I say, but on the contrary an advantage to all

parties. For a book which directs people how to physic themselves

ought to be entitled Every Man his own Poisoner, because it cannot

possibly teach them how to discriminate between the resemblant

symptoms of different diseases. Twice fortunate therefore would that

person have reason to think him or herself, who under such a

misapprehension of its title should purchase the Family Doctor!

Ludicrous mistakes of this kind have sometimes happened. Mr.

Haslewood's elaborate and expensive edition of the Mirror for

Magistrates was ordered by a gentleman in the Commission of the Peace,

not an hundred miles from the Metropolis; he paid for it the full

price, and his unfortunate Worship was fain to take what little he

could get for it from his Bookseller under such circumstances, rather

than endure the mortification of seeing it in his bookcase. A lady who

had a true taste as well as a great liking for poetry, ordered an

Essay on Burns for the Reading Society of which she was a member. She

opened the book expecting to derive much pleasure from a critical

disquisition on the genius of one of her favourite Poets; and behold

it proved to be an Essay on Burns and Scalds by a Surgeon!

But in this case it would prove an Agreeable Surprize instead of a

disappointment; and if the intention had been to mislead, and thereby

entrap the purchaser, the end might be pleaded, according to the

convenient morality of the age, as justifying the means. Lucky indeed

were the patient who sending for Morrison's Pills should be supplied

with Tom D'Urfey's in their stead; happy man would be his dole who

when he had made up his mind in dismal resolution to a dreadful course

of drastics, should find that gelastics had been substituted, not of

the Sardonian kind, but composed of the most innocent and salutiferous

ingredients, gently and genially alterative, mild in their operation,

and safe and sure in their effects.

On that score therefore there could be no objection to the publication

of a Family Doctor. But believing as I believe, or rather, knowing as

I know, that the Book is free from any such offence,

_mal cupiera alli

tal aspid en tales flores;_[1]

maintaining that it is in this point immaculate, which I will maintain

as confidently because as justly, and as publicly were it needful,

(only that my bever must be closed) as Mr. Dymock at the approaching

Coronation will maintain Queen Victoria's right to the Crown of these

Kingdoms (God save the Queen!),—it is impossible that I should consent

to a measure which must seem like acknowledging the justice of a

charge at once ridiculous and wrongful.

I must not disesteem

My rightful cause for being accused, nor must

Forsake myself, tho I were left of all.

Fear cannot make my innocence unjust

Unto itself, to give my Truth the fall.[2]

[Footnote 1: LOPE DE VEGA.]

[Footnote 2: DANIEL.]

The most axiomatic of English Poets has said

Do not forsake yourself; for they that do,

Offend and teach the world to leave them too.

Of the Book itself,—(the Opus) I can say truly, as South said of the

Sermon which he preached in 1662 before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of

the City of London, “the subject is inoffensive, harmless, and

innocent as the state of innocence itself;” and of the particular

chapter, that it is “suitable to the immediate design, and to the

genius of the book.” And in saying this I call to mind the words of

Nicolas Perez, el Setabiense;—_el amor propio es nuestro enemigo mas

perjudicial; es dificil acabar con el, por lo mismo un sabio le

compara à la camisa, que es el ultimo de los vestidos que nos

quitamos._

Bear witness _incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas!_ that I seek not to

cover myself with what the Spaniard calls Self-Love's last Shirt; for

I am no more guilty of _Lese Modestie_ than of _Lese Majesté_. If

there were a Court of Delicacy as there has been a Court of Honour, a

Court Modest as there is a Court Martial, I would demand a trial, and

in my turn arraign my arraigners,

“_Porque en este limpio trigo

Siembren zizaña y estrago._”[3]

[Footnote 3: LOPE DE VEGA.]

It is said in the very interesting and affecting Memoir of Mr.

Smedley's Life that he had projected with Mr. Murray “a castigated

edition of the Faery Queen.” He was surprized, says the biographer “to

find how many passages there were in this the most favourite poem of

his youth, which a father's acuter vision and more sensitive delicacy

discovered to be unfit for the eyes of his daughters.” It appears too

that he had actually performed the task; but that “Mr. Murray altered

his opinion as to the expediency of the publication, and he found to

his annoyance that his time had been employed to no purpose.”

Poor Smedley speaks thus of the project in one of his letters. “I am

making the Faery Queen a poem which may be admitted into _family_

reading, by certain omissions, by modernizing the spelling and by

appending, where necessary, brief glossarial foot-notes. I read

Spenser so very early and made him so much a part of the furniture of

my mind, that until I had my attention drawn to him afresh, I had

utterly forgotten how much he required the pruning-knife, how utterly

impossible it is that he should be read aloud: and I cannot but think

that when fitted for general perusal, he will become more attractive

by a new coat and waistcoat. If we were to print Shakespeare, and

Beaumont and Fletcher, or even Milton, _literatim_ from the first

editions, the spelling would deter many readers. Strange to say, when

Southey was asked some time ago whether he would undertake the task,

he said, ‘No, I shall print every word of him!’ and he has done so, in

a single volume. Can he have daughters? Or any who, like my Mary,

delight in such portions as they are permitted to open?”

Did Southey say so?—Why then, well said Southey! And it is very like

him; for he is not given to speak, as his friends the Portugueze say,

_enfarinhadamente_—which is being interpreted, mealy-mouthedly. Indeed

his moral and intellectual constitution must be much feebler than I

suppose it to be, if his daughters are not ‘permitted to open’ any

book in his library. He must have been as much astonished to hear that

the Faery Queen was unfit for their perusal as he could have been when

he saw it gravely asserted by an American Professor, Critic and Doctor

of Divinity, that his Life of Wesley was composed in imitation of the

Iliad!

Scott felt like Southey upon this subject, and declared that he would

never deal with Dryden as Saturn dealt with his father Uranus. Upon

such publications as the Family Shakespeare he says,—“I do not say but

that it may be very proper to select correct passages for the use of

Boarding-Schools and Colleges, being sensible no improper ideas can be

suggested in these seminaries unless they are introduced or smuggled

under the beards and ruffs of our old dramatists. But in making an

edition of a Man of Genius's Works for libraries and collections, (and

such I conceive a compleat edition of Dryden to be,) I must give my

author as I find him, and will not tear out the page even to get rid

of the blot, little as I like it. Are not the pages of Swift, and even

of Pope, larded with indecency and often of the most disgusting kind,

and do we not see them upon all shelves, and dressing-tables and in

all boudoirs? Is not Prior the most indecent of tale-tellers, not even

excepting La Fontaine, and how often do we see his works in female

hands. In fact it is not passages of ludicrous indelicacy that corrupt

the manners of a people; it is the sonnets which a prurient genius

like Master Little sings _virginibus puerisque_,—it is the sentimental

slang, half lewd, half methodistic, that debauches the understanding,

inflames the sleeping passions, and prepares the reader to give way as

soon as a tempter appears.”

How could Mr. Smedley have allowed himself to be persuaded that a poem

like the Faery Queen which he had made from early youth ‘a part of the

furniture of his own mind,’ should be more injurious to others than it

had proved to himself? It is one of the books which Wesley in the plan

which he drew up for those young Methodists who designed to go through

a course of academical learning, recommended to students of the second

year. Mr. Todd has noticed this in support of his own just estimate of

this admirable poet. “If,” says he, “our conceptions of Spenser's mind

may be taken from his poetry, I shall not hesitate to pronounce him

entitled to our warmest approbation and regard for his gentle

disposition, for his friendly and grateful conduct, for his humility,

for his exquisite tenderness, and above all for his piety and

morality. To these amiable points a fastidious reader may perhaps

object some petty inadvertencies; yet can he never be so ungrateful as

to deny the efficacy which Spenser's general character gives to his

writings,—as to deny that Truth and Virtue are graceful and

attractive, when the road to them is pointed out by such a guide. Let

it always be remembered that this excellent Poet inculcates those

impressive lessons, by attending to which the gay and the thoughtless

may be timely induced to treat with scorn and indignation the

allurements of intemperance and illicit pleasure.”

When Izaak Walton published ‘Thealma and Clearchus,’ a pastoral

history written long since in smooth and easy verse by John Chalkhill,

Esq., he described him in the Title page as “An Acquaintant and Friend

of Edmund Spenser.” He says of him “that he was in his time a man

generally known and as well beloved, for he was humble and obliging in

his behaviour, a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent, and

indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.” Yet to have

been the friend of Edmund Spenser was considered by the biographer of

Hooker and Donne and Bishop Sanderson and George Herbert, as an

honourable designation for this good man, a testimonial of his worth

to posterity, long after both Chalkhill and Spenser had been called to

their reward.

It was well that Mr. Murray gave up the project of a Family Faery

Queen. Mr. Smedley when employed upon such a task ought to have felt

that he was drawing upon himself something like Ham's malediction.

With regard to another part of these projected emendations there is a

fatal objection. There is no good reason why the capricious spelling

of the early editions should be scrupulously and pedantically observed

in Shakespeare, Milton, or any author of their respective times;—no

reason why words which retain the same acceptation, and are still

pronounced in the same manner should not now be spelt according to the

received orthography. Spenser is the only author for whom an exception

must be made from this obvious rule. Malone was wrong when he asserted

that the language of the Faery Queen was that of the age in which

Spenser lived; and Ben Jonson was not right when, saying that Spenser

writ no language, he assigned as the cause for this, his ‘affecting

the Ancients.’ The diction or rather dialect which Spenser

constructed, was neither like that of his predecessors, nor of his

contemporaries. Camoens also wrote a language of his own and thereby

did for the Portugueze tongue the same service which was rendered to

ours by the translators of the Bible. But the Portugueze Poet, who

more than any other of his countrymen refined a language which was

then in the process of refining, attempted to introduce nothing but

what entirely accorded with its character, and with the spirit of that

improvement which was gradually taking place: whereas both the

innovations and renovations which Spenser introduced were against the

grain. Yet such is the magic of his verse, that the Faery Queen if

modernized, even though the structure of its stanza—(the best which

has ever been constructed) were preserved, would lose as much as Homer

loses in the best translation.

Mr. Wordsworth has modernized one of Chaucer's Poems with “no farther

deviation from the original than was necessary for the fluent reading

and instant understanding of the author, supplying the place of

whatever he removed as obsolete with as little incongruity as

possible.” This he has done very skilfully. But the same skill could

not be exercised upon the Faery Queen with the same success. The

peculiarities of language there are systematic; to modernize the

spelling as Mr. Smedley proposed would in very many cases interfere

with the rhyme and thus dislocate the stanza. The task therefore would

have been extremely difficult; it would have been useless, because no

one who is capable of enjoying that delightful Poem ever found any

difficulty in understanding its dialect, and it would have been

mischievous because it would have destroyed the character of the Poem.

And this in the expectation of rendering Spenser more attractive by a

new coat and waistcoat! Spenser of whom it has been truly said that

more poets have sprung from him than from all other English writers;

Spenser by whom Cowley tells us he was made a Poet; of whom Milton

acknowledged to Dryden that he was his original; and in whom Pope says

“there is something that pleases one as strongly in ones old age as it

did in ones youth. I read the Faery Queen,” he proceeds, “when I was

about twelve with a vast deal of delight, and I think it gave me as

much when I read it over about a year or two ago.”

No, a new suit of clothes would not render Spenser more attractive,

not even if to a coat and waistcoat of Stultz's fabric, white satin

pantaloons were added, such as the handsomest and best dressed of

modern patriots, novelists and poets was known by on the public walk

of a fashionable watering place.

Save us from the Ultradelicates and the Extrasuperfines! for if these

are to prevail—

What can it avail

To drive forth a snail

Or to make a sail

Of a herring's tail?

To rhyme or to rail,

To write or to indite

Either for delight

Or else for despite?

Or books to compile

Of divers manner of style,

Vice to revile,

And sin to exile,

To teach or to preach

As reason will reach?

So said Skelton three centuries ago, and for myself I say once more

what Skelton would have been well pleased to have heard said by any

one.

Aballiboozo!

Dear Author, says one of those Readers who deserve to be pleased, and

whom therefore there is a pleasure in pleasing, dear Author! may I not

ask wherefore you have twice in this Chapter Extraordinary given us

part of your long mysterious word, and only part, instead of setting

it before us at full length?

Dear Reader! you may; and you may also ask unblamed whether a part of

the word is not as good, that is to say as significant, as the whole?

You shall have a full and satisfactory answer in the next Chapter.

CHAPTER CXLVIII.

WHEREIN A SUBSTITUTE FOR OATHS, AND OTHER PASSIONATE INTERJECTIONS IS

EXEMPLIFIED.

What have we to do with the times? We cannot cure 'em:

Let them go on: when they are swoln with surfeits

They'll burst and stink: Then all the world shall smell 'em.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Once more Reader I commence with

Aballiboozobanganorribo;

Do not suppose that I am about to let thee into the mysteries of that

great decasyllabon! _Questo è bene uno de' piu profondi segreti ch'

abbia tutto il mondo, e quasi nessuno il sa; e sia certo che ad altri

nol direi giammai._[1] No Reader! not if I were before the High Court

of Parliament, and the House of Commons should exert all its

inquisitorial and tyrannical powers to extort it from me, would I let

the secret pass that _ἐρκος ὀδοντῶν_ within which my little trowel of

speech has learnt not to be an unruly member. I would behave as

magnanimously as Sir Abraham Bradley King did upon a

not-altogether-dissimilar occasion. Sir Abraham might have said of his

secret as Henry More says of the Epicurean Philosophy, “Truly it is a

very venerable secret; and not to be uttered or communicated but by

some old Silenus lying in his obscure grot or cave; nor that neither

but upon due circumstances, and in a right humour, when one may find

him with his veins swelled out with wine, and his garland fallen off

from his head through his heedless drowsiness. Then if some young

Chromis and Mnasylus, especially assisted by a fair and forward Ægle,

that by way of a love-frolic will leave the tracts of their fingers in

the blood of mulberries on the temples and forehead of this aged

Satyr, while he sleeps dog-sleep, and will not seem to see for fear he

forfeit the pleasure of his feeling,—then I say, if these young lads

importune him enough,—he will utter it in a higher strain than ever.”

[Footnote 1: BIBBIENA.]

But by no such means can the knowledge of my profounder mystery be

attained. I will tell thee however, good reader, that the word itself,

apart from all considerations of its mystical meaning, serves me for

the same purpose to which the old tune of Lilliburlero was applied by

our dear Uncle Toby,—_our_ dear Uncle I say, for is he not _your_

Uncle Toby, gentle Reader? yours as well as mine, if you are worthy to

hold him in such relationship; and so by that relationship, you and I

are Cousins.

The Doctor had learnt something from his Uncle William, which he used

to the same effect, tho' not in the same way. William Dove in that

capacious memory of his, into which every thing that he heard was

stored, and out of which nothing was lost, had among the fragments of

old songs and ballads which he had picked up, sundry burdens or

chorusses, as unmeaning as those which O'Keeffe used to introduce in

some of the songs of his farces, always with good farcical effect.

Uncle Toby's favourite was one of them;

Lilli burlero bullen a-la;

Lero lero, lilli burlero, lero lero, bullen a-la;

Lero lero, lilli burlero, lero lero, bullen a-la.

Without knowing that it was designed as an insult to the French, he

used to say and sing in corrupted form,

Suum, mun, hey no nonny,

Dolphin, my boy, my boy,

Sessa, let him trot by.

Another was that from the ballad in honour of the Earl of Essex,

called Queen Elizabeth's Champion, which Johnson quoted in the Isle of

Sky; and Johnson is not the only omnivorous reader in whose memory it

has stuck;

Raderer too, tandaro tee

Radarer, tandorer, tan do ree.

And he had treasured up the elder fragment,

Martin Swart and his men.

Sodledum, sodledum,

Martin Swart and his men,

Sodledum bell,

With hey troly loly lo, whip here Jack,

Alumbeck, sodledum, syllerum ben,

Martin Swart and his merry men.

He had also this relic of the same age, relating as it seems to some

now forgotten hero of the strolling minstrels,

Rory-bull Joyse,

Rumble down, tumble down, hey, go now now.

Here is another, for he uttered these things ‘as he had eaten

ballads.’

A story strange I will you tell,

But not so strange as true,

Of a woman that danced upon the rope,

And so did her husband too:

With a dildo, dildo, dildo,

With a dildo, dildo, dee.

And he had one of Irish growth, which he sometimes tacked on to this

last for the rhyme's sake

Callino, callino,

Callino, castore me,

Era ëe, Era ëe

Loo loo, loo loo lee.

All these were favourites with little Daniel; and so especially for

his name's sake, was

My juggy, my puggy, my honey, my coney,

My deary, my love, my dove.

There was another with which and the Dovean use thereof, it is proper

that the reader should now be made acquainted, for it would otherwise

require explanation, when he meets with it hereafter. This was the one

which, when William Dove trotted little Daniel upon his knee, he used

to sing more frequently than any other, because the child, then in the

most winning stage of childhood, liked it best of all, and it went to

the tune of “God save great George our King” as happily as if that

noble tune had been composed for it. The words were,

Fa la la lerridan,

Dan dan dan derridan,

Dan dan dan derridan,

Derridan dee.

To what old ditty they formed the burden I know not, nor whether it

may be (as I suspect) a different reading of “Down, down, down derry

down,” which the most learned of living Welshmen supposes to be a

Druidical fragment: but the frequent repetition of his own abbreviated

name seldom failed to excite in the child one of those hearty and

happy laughs which are never enjoyed after that blessed age has past.

Most of us have frequently laughed till our sides ached, and many not

unfrequently it may be feared laugh till their hearts ache. But the

pure, fresh, unalloyed innocent laughter of children, in those moods

when they

——seem like birds, created to be glad,[2]—

that laughter belongs to them and to them only. We see it and

understand it in them; but nothing can excite more than a faint

resemblance of it in ourselves.

[Footnote 2: GONDIBERT.]

The Doctor made use of this burden when any thing was told him which

excited his wonder, or his incredulity; and the degree in which either

was called forth might be accurately determined by his manner of using

it. He expressed mirthful surprize, or contemptuous disbelief by the

first line, and the tune proceeded in proportion as the surprize was

greater, or the matter of more moment. But when any thing greatly

astonished him, he went thro' the whole, and gave it in a base voice

when his meaning was to be most emphatic.

In imitation, no doubt, of my venerable friend in this his practice,

though perhaps at first half unconscious of the imitation, I have been

accustomed to use the great decasyllabon, with which this present

Chapter commences, and with which it is to end. In my use of it

however, I observe this caution,—that I do not suffer myself to be

carried away by an undue partiality, so as to employ it in disregard

of ejaculatory propriety or to the exclusion of exclamations which the

occasion may render more fitting. Thus if I were to meet with

Hercules, _Mehercule_ would doubtless be the interjection which I

should prefer; and when I saw the Siamese Twins, I could not but

exclaim _O Gemini!_

Further, good Reader, if thou wouldest profit by these benevolent

disclosures of Danielism and Dovery, take notice I say, and not only

take notice, but take good notice,—N. B.—there was this difference

between the Doctor's use of his burden, and mine of the decasyllabon,

that the one was sung, and the other said, and that they are not

“appointed to be said or sung,” but that the one being designed for

singing must be sung, and the other not having been adapted to music

must be said. And if any great Composer should attempt to set the

Decasyllabon, let him bear in mind that it should be set in the

hypodorian key, the proslambanomenos of which mode is, in the

judgement of the Antients, the most grave sound that the human voice

can utter, and that the hearing can distinctly form a judgement of.

Some such device may be recommended to those who have contracted the

evil habit of using oaths as interjectional safety-valves or

convenient expletives of speech. The manner may be exemplified in

reference to certain recent events of public notoriety.

We see which way the stream of time doth run,

And are enforced from our most quiet sphere

By the rough torrent of occasion.[3]

[Footnote 3: SHAKESPEARE.]

Upon hearing one morning that in the Debate of the preceding night Mr.

Brougham had said no change of administration could possibly affect

him, I only exclaimed _A!_ A short-hand writer would have mistaken it

for the common interjection, and have written it accordingly Ah! But

it was the first syllable of my inscrutable word, and signified mere

notation without wonder or belief.

When in the course of the same day there came authentic intelligence

that Mr. Brougham was to be the Lord Chancellor of the New

Administration, so little surprize was excited by the news, that I

only added another syllable and exclaimed _Abal!_

Reading in the morning papers that Sir James Graham was to be first

Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord Althorpe to lead the House of Commons,

the exclamation proceeded one step farther and became _Aballi!_

This was uttered in a tone that implied disbelief; for verily I gave

the Cabinet Makers credit for a grain of sense more than they

possessed, (a _grain_ mark you, because they had nothing to do with

_scruples_;) I supposed there was a mistake as to the persons,—that

Sir James Graham whose chief knowledge was supposed to lie in finance

and his best qualification in his tongue, was to be Chancellor of the

Exchequer, and that Lord Althorpe who had no other claim to

consideration whatever than as being Earl Spencer's eldest son,

(except that as Hodge said of Diccon the Bedlam, he is ‘even as good a

fellow as ever kissed a cow,’) was intended for the Admiralty where

Spencer is a popular name. But when it proved that there was no

mistake in the Newspapers, and that each of these ministers had been

deliberately appointed to the office for which the other was fit, then

I said _Aballiboo!_

The accession of Mr. Charles Grant and his brother to such an

Administration, brought me to _Aballiboozo!_ with a shake of the head

and in a mournful tone; for I could not but think how such a falling

off would astonish the Soul of Canning, if in the intermediate state

there be any knowledge of the events which are passing on earth.

When the Ministry blundered into their Budget, I exclaimed

_Aballiboozobang!_ with a strong emphasis upon the final syllable, and

when they backed out of it, I came to _Aballiboozobanga!_

The Reform Bill upon a first glance at its contents, called forth

_Aballiboozobanganor_—I would have hurried on two steps farther, to

the end of the decasyllabon, if I had not prudently checked myself and

stopt there,—foreseeing that new cause for astonishment must now arise

daily.

When Sir Robert Peel did not upon the first reading kick out this mass

of crudities, and throw out the Cabinet after it, neck and shoulders,

hip and thigh, I said in bitterness _Aballiboozobanganorri!_

And when that Cabinet waxing insolent because they had raised the mob

to back them, declared that they would have the Bill, the whole Bill,

and nothing but the Bill, then I expressed my contempt, amazement, and

indignation, by uttering in its omnisignificant totality the great

word

ABALLIBOOZOBANGANORRIBO.

CHAPTER CXLIX.

A PARLOUS QUESTION ARISING OUT OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER. MR. IRVING

AND THE UNKNOWN TONGUES. TAYLOR THE WATER POET. POSSIBLE SCHEME OF

INTERPRETATION PROPOSED. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE GIFT OF TONGUES AS

EXHIBITED IN MADMEN.

Speak what terrible language you will, though you understand it not

yourselves, no matter! Chough's language, gabble enough and good

enough.

SHAKESPEARE.

But here, gentle reader, occurs what Bishop Latimer would call a

parlous question, if he had lived in these portentous times. There is

no apparent meaning in Lilli burlero bullen a-la, nor in Raderer too,

tandaro tee, nor in Dan dan dan derridan, any more than there is in

Farra diddle dyno,—Hayley gayly gamborayly, higgledy piggledy,

galloping draggle-tail dreary dun, and other burthens of a similar

kind, which are to be found in the dramas of poor old blind O'Keeffe,

and in Tom D'Urfey's songs. There is I say no apparent meaning in

them; but we must not too confidently apply the legal maxim in this

case, and conclude that _de non apparente et non existente eadem est

ratio_; for although these choruses are not in any known tongue, they

may by possibility be in an unknown one: and if Mr. Irving has not a

cast in his intellect as well as in his eye, there is mystery in an

unknown tongue; and they who speak it, and consequently they who write

it, may be inspired for the nonce—though they may be as little

conscious of their inspiration as they are of their meaning. There may

be an unknown inspiration as well as an unknown tongue. If so what

mighty revelations may lie unrevealed in the gibberish of Taylor the

Water Poet! Now if Mr. Irving would but read one of the wine-drinking

Water Poet's effusions of this kind, in his chapel, on a day appointed

for that purpose, some of his inspired speakers male or female might

peradventure be moved to expound it in their kindred language; and as

two negatives make an affirmative, it might be found that two

unintelligibles make a meaning, and the whole affair would thus become

intelligible to every one.

Two specimens therefore of the Taylorian tongues I shall here set

before the public, in the hope that this important experiment may be

tried with them. They were both intended as epitaphs for Thomas Coriat

the famous Odcombian traveller; the first was supposed by the inspired

Water Poet to be in the Bermuda tongue.

Hough gruntough wough Thomough Coriatough, Adcough robunquogh

Warawogh bogh Comitogh sogh wogh termonatogrogh,

Callimogh gogh whobogh Ragamogh demagorgogh palemogh,

Lomerogh nogh Tottertogh illemortogh eagh Allaquemquogh

Toracominogh Jagogh Jamerogh mogh Carnogh pelepsogh,

Animogh trogh deradrogh maramogh hogh Flondrogh calepsogh.

This, Taylor says, must be pronounced with the accent of the grunting

of a hog. He gives no directions for pronouncing the second specimen,

which is in the Utopian tongue.

Nortumblum callimumquash omystoliton quashte burashte

Scribuke woshtay solusbay perambulatushte;

Grekay sous Turkay Paphay zums Jerusalushte.

Neptus esht Ealors Interrimoy diz dolorushte,

Confabuloy Odcumbay Prozeugmolliton tymorumynoy,

Omulus oratushte paralescus tolliton umbroy.

The Water Poet gave notice as Professor of these tongues that he was

willing to instruct any gentlemen or others who might be desirous of

learning them.

But with regard to a gift of tongues either known or unknown there are

more things than are dreamt of in the Irvingite philosophy or in the

Lerry-cum-twang school. It was a received opinion in the seventeenth

century that maniacs, and other persons afflicted with morbid

melancholy, spoke in strange languages, and foretold things that were

to come, by virtue,—that is to say—in consequence of their mental

malady. But some philosophers who in the march of intellect were in

advance of their age, denied the fact, and accounted for the

persuasion by supposing that such patients, when in a state of great

agitation, uttered unmeaning words or sounds which ignorant people

took to be Greek, Latin or Hebrew, merely because they could not

understand them. Two questions therefore arose; whether the received

opinion were true? and if it were true, how was the fact to be

accounted for?

The first of these questions was easily disposed of by Sennertus, one

of the most eminent Professors and practitioners of the medical

science in that age. Facts he said, which were attested by

trust-worthy authors, were not to be disputed. Many were the impudent

falsehoods which this great and in other respects wise man, received

implicitly as facts conformably to the maxim which he thus laid down;

and many were the perilous consequences which he deduced in good

faith, and on fair reasoning from such premises. Upon this occasion he

instanced the case of a countryman, who at certain periods of the moon

used to compose Latin verses, though he knew not a word of Latin at

any other time. And of a man who spoke languages which he had never

learnt, and became unable to speak any one of them as soon as he was

restored to health by the effect of some powerful worm-medicines. And

of a sailor's son, who being wounded in the head and becoming

delirious in consequence, made perfect syllogisms in German, but as

soon as his wound was healed, lost all the logic which had been beaten

into his head in so extraordinary a way.

Antonius Guainerius, who vouched for one of these cases as having

witnessed the fact and all its circumstances, accounted for it by a

brave hypothesis. The soul, he said, before its infusion into the

body, possesses a knowledge of all things, and that knowledge is, in a

certain manner, obliterated, or offuscated by its union with the body;

but it is restored either by the ordinary means of instruction or by

the influence of the star which presided at the time of its union. The

body, and the bodily senses resist this influence, but when these are

as it were bound, or suspended, _quod fiat in melancholia_, the stars

can then impart their influences to the soul without obstruction, and

the soul may thus be endowed with the power of effecting what the

stars themselves effect, and thus an illiterate person may become

learned, and may also predict events that are to come. Sennertus is

far from assenting to this theory. He says “_Magna petita sunt quæ

præsupponit et sibi concedi postulat Guainerius._”

A theory quite as extraordinary was advanced by Juan Huarte in his

_Examen de Ingenios_, a book which obtained at one time far more

reputation than it deserved. Take the passage, curious Reader, from

the English version, entitled “The Examination of Men's Wits,” in

which by discovering the variety of natures is shewed for what

profession each one is apt, and how far he shall profit therein.

Translated out of the Spanish tongue by M. Camillo Camilli. Englished

out of his Italian by R. C. Esquire, 1594. “The frantic persons

speaking of Latin, without that he ever learned the same in his

health-time, shews the consonance which the Latin tongue holds with

the reasonable soul; and (as we will prove hereafter,) there is to be

found a particular wit applicable to the invention of languages, and

Latin words; and the phrases of speech in that tongue are so fitting

with the ear, that the reasonable soul, possessing the necessary

temperature for the invention of some delicate language, suddenly

encounters with this. And that two devisers of languages may shape the

like words, (having the like wit and hability) it is very manifest;

pre-supposing, that when God created Adam, and set all things before

him, to the end he might bestow on each its several name whereby it

should be called, he had likewise at that instant molded another man

with the same perfection and supernatural grace; now I demand if God

had placed the same things before this other man, that he might also

set them names whereby they should be called, of what manner those

names should have been? For mine own part I make no doubt but he would

have given these things those very names which Adam did: and the

reason is very apparent, for both carried one self-same eye to the

nature of each thing, which of itself was no more but one. After this

manner might the frantic person light upon the Latin tongue; and speak

the same without ever having learned it in his health; for the natural

temperature of his brain conceiving alteration through the infirmity,

it might for a space become like his who first invented the Latin

tongue, and feign the like words, but yet not with that concert and

continued fineness, for this would give token that the Devil moved

that tongue, as the Church teacheth her Exorcists.”

This theory found as little favour with Sennertus as that of

Guainerius, because he says, Huarte assumes more than can be granted;

and moreover because he supposes that the Latin language has a

peculiar consonance with the rational soul, and that there are certain

natures which are peculiarly constituted for inventing languages. And

therefore if by disease that temperament be excited in the brain which

is necessary for the invention of any most elegant language the

patient would fall into the Latin tongue; and Latin words would occur

to him, without any deliberation, or act of will on his part. This

opinion Sennertus argued cannot be maintained as probable, being

indeed disproved by the very cases upon which the question had been

raised, for Greek and Hebrew had been spoken by some of the patients,

as well as Latin. The facts he admits as not to be doubted, because

they are related by veracious authors; and his way of accounting for

them is by the agency of evil spirits, who take advantage of bodily

diseases and act upon them, especially such as arise from melancholy;

for that humour or passion has such attractions for evil spirits that

it has been called _Balneum Diaboli_, the Devil's Bath. When therefore

a patient speaks in tongues which he has never learnt, _eo ipso Dæmon

se manifeste prodit_.

This opinion than which one of greater weight could not have been

produced in the 17th century, is recommended to the serious

consideration of the Irvingites.

The Doctor would have sung Fa-la-la-lerridan to all this reasoning,

and I say Aballiboo!

CHAPTER CL.

THE WEDDING PEAL AT ST. GEORGE'S, AND THE BRIDE'S APPEARANCE AT

CHURCH.

See how I have strayed! and you'll not wonder when you reflect on the

whence and the whither.

ALEXANDER KNOX.

Well dear Reader, I have answered your question concerning the great

Decasyllabon. I have answered it fairly and explicitly, not like those

Jesuitical casuists

That palter with us in a double sense,

That keep the word of promise to our ear

And break it to our hope.

You have received an answer as full and satisfactory as you could

expect or desire, and yet the more than cabalistic mysteries of the

word are still concealed with Eleusinean secresy. Enough of this. For

the present also we will drop the subject which was broken off by the

extraordinary circumstances that called forth our Chapter

Extraordinary.

_τὸ δε και τετελεσμένον ἔσται_,[1]

for awhile, however, it will be convenient to leave it unfinished, and

putting an end to the parenthesis in the most important part of the

Doctor's life, tell thee that the Interim is past, that in the month

of April 1761, he brought home his bride, and the bells of St. George

rang that peal,—that memorable peal which was anticipatively mentioned

in the 32d chapter. Many such peals have they rung since on similar

occasions, but they have rung their last from St. George's Tower, for

in 1836, it was thought necessary to remove them, lest they should

bring that fine old fabric down.

[Footnote 1: HOMER.]

Webster libelled the most exhilarating and the most affecting of all

measured sounds when he said

those flattering bells have all

One sound at weddings and at funerals.

_Es cierta experiencia que la musica crece la pena donde la halla, y

acrecieuta el plazer en el corazon contento;_ this is more true of

bell ringing than of any other music; but so far are church bells from

having one sound on all occasions, that they carry a different import

on the same to different ears and different minds. The bells of St.

George's told a different tale to Daniel Dove, and to Deborah, on

their wedding day. To her, they said, as in articulate words, varying,

but melancholy alike in import as in cadence,

[Illustration: descending musical tune.]

Deborah Bacon hath changed her name;

Deborah Bacon hath left her home;

Deborah Bacon is now no more.

Yet she had made what in every one's opinion was considered a good

match, and indeed was far better than what is commonly called good; it

promised in all human likelihood to be a happy one, and such it

proved. In the beautiful words of Mrs. Hutchinson, neither she nor her

husband, “ever had occasion to number their marriage among their

infelicities.”

Many eyes were turned on the Doctor's bride when she made her

appearance at St. George's Church. The novelty of the place made her

less regardful of this than she might otherwise have been. Hollis

Pigot who held the vicarage of Doncaster thirty years, and was then in

the last year of his incumbency and his life, performed the service

that day. I know not among what description of preachers he was to be

classed; whether with those who obtain attention, and command respect,

and win confidence, and strengthen belief, and inspire hope, or with

the far more numerous race of Spintexts and of Martexts. But if he had

preached that morning with the tongue of an angel, the bride would

have had no ears for him. Her thoughts were neither upon those who on

their way from church would talk over her instead of the sermon, nor

of the service, nor of her husband, nor of herself in her new

character, but of her father,—and with a feeling which might almost be

called funereal, that she had passed from under his pastoral as well

as his paternal care.

CHAPTER CLI.

SOMETHING SERIOUS.

If thou hast read all this Book, and art never the better, yet catch

this flower before thou go out of the garden, and peradventure the

scent thereof will bring thee back to smell the rest.

HENRY SMITH.

Deborah found no one in Doncaster to supply the place of Betsy Allison

in the daily intercourse of familiar and perfect friendship. That

indeed was impossible; no after-math has the fragrance and the

sweetness of the first crop. But why do I call her Deborah? She had

never been known by that name to her new neighbours; and to her very

Father she was now spoken of as Mrs. Dove. Even the Allisons called

her so in courteous and customary usage, but not without a melancholy

reflection that when Deborah Bacon became Mrs. Dove, she was in a

great measure lost to them.

“Friendship, although it cease not

In marriage, is yet at less command

Than when a single freedom can dispose it.”[1]

[Footnote 1: FORD.]