Doncaster has less of the _Rus in Urbe_ now than it had in those days,

and than Bath had when those words were placed over the door of a

Lodging House, on the North Parade. And the house to which the Doctor

brought home his bride, had less of it than when Peter Hopkins set up

the gilt pestle and mortar there as the cognizance of his vocation. It

had no longer that air of quiet respectability which belongs to such a

dwelling in the best street of a small country town. The Mansion House

by which it was dwarfed and inconvenienced in many ways, occasioned a

stir and bustle about it, unlike the cheerful business of a market

day. The back windows, however, still looked to the fields, and there

was still a garden. But neither fields nor garden could prevail over

the odour of the shop, in which, like

hot, cold, moist and dry, four champions fierce,

in Milton's Chaos, rhubarb and peppermint, and valerian, and

assafetida, “strove for mastery” and to battle brought their atoms.

Happy was the day when peppermint predominated; though it always

reminded Mrs. Dove of Thaxted Grange, and the delight with which she

used to assist Miss Allison in her distillations. There is an Arabian

proverb which says, “the remembrance of youth is a sigh;” Southey has

taken it for the text of one of those juvenile poems in which he

dwells with thoughtful forefeeling upon the condition of declining

life.

Miss Allison had been to her, not indeed as a mother, but as what a

step-mother is, who is led by natural benevolence and a religious

sense of duty, to perform as far as possible a mother's part to her

husband's children. There are more such step-mothers than the world is

willing to believe, and they have their reward here as well as

hereafter. It was impossible that any new friend could fill up her

place in Mrs. Dove's affections,—impossible that she could ever feel

for another woman the respect and reverence, and gratitude, which

blended with her love for this excellent person. Though she was born

within four miles of Doncaster, and had lived till her marriage in the

humble vicarage in which she was born, she had never passed

four-and-twenty hours in that town before she went to reside there;

nor had she the slightest acquaintance with any of its inhabitants,

except the few shop-keepers with whom her little dealings had lain,

and the occasional visitants whom she had met at the Grange.

An Irish officer in the army, happening to be passenger in an armed

vessel during the last war, used frequently to wish that they might

fall in with an enemy's ship, because he said, he had been in many

land battles, and there was nothing in the world which he desired more

than to see what sort of a thing a sea fight was. He had his wish, and

when after a smart action, in which he bore his part bravely, an enemy

of superior force had been beaten off, he declared with the customary

emphasis of an Hibernian adjuration, that a sea-fight was a mighty

_sairious_ sort of thing.

The Doctor and Deborah, as soon as they were betrothed had come to

just the same conclusion upon a very different subject. Till the day

of their engagement, nay till the hour of proposal on his part, and

the very instant of acceptance on hers, each had looked upon marriage,

when the thought of it occurred, as a distant possibility, more or

less desirable, according to the circumstances which introduced the

thought, and the mood in which it was entertained. And when it was

spoken of sportively, as might happen, in relation to either the one

or the other, it was lightly treated as a subject in which they had no

concern. But from the time of their engagement, it seemed to both, the

most serious event of their lives.

In the Dutch village of Broek, concerning which singular as the habits

of the inhabitants are, travellers have related more peculiarities

than ever prevailed there, one remarkable custom shows with how

serious a mind some of the Hollanders regard marriage. The great house

door is never opened but when the Master of the House brings home his

Bride from the altar, and when Husband and Wife are borne out to the

grave. Dr. Dove had seen that village of great Baby-houses, but though

much attached to Holland, and to the Dutch as a people, and disposed

to think that we might learn many useful lessons from our prudent and

thrifty neighbours, he thought this to be as preposterous, if not as

shocking a custom, as it would be to have the bell toll at a marriage,

and to wear a winding sheet for a wedding garment.

We look with wonder at the transformations that take place in insects,

and yet their physical metamorphoses are not greater than the changes

which we ourselves undergo morally and intellectually, both in our

relations to others and in our individual nature. “_Chaque individu,

considéré separément, differe encore de lui même par l'effet du tems;

il devient un autre, en quelque maniere, aux diverses epoques de sa

vie. L'enfant, l'homme fait, le viellard, sont comme autant

d'etrangers unis dans une seule personne par le lien mysterieux du

souvenir._”[2] Of all changes in life marriage is certainly the

greatest, and though less change in every respect can very rarely be

produced by it in any persons than in the Doctor and his wife, it was

very great to both. On his part it was altogether an increase of

happiness; or rather from having been contented in his station he

became happy in it, so happy as to be experimentally convinced that

there can be no “single blessedness” for man. There were some

drawbacks on her part,—in the removal from a quiet vicarage to a busy

street; in the obstacle which four miles opposed to that daily and

intimate intercourse with her friends at the Grange which had been the

chief delight of her maiden life; and above all in the separation from

her father, for even at a distance which may appear so inconsiderable,

such it was; but there was the consolatory reflection that those dear

friends and that dear father concurred in approving her marriage, and

in rejoicing in it for her sake; and the experience of every day and

every year made her more and more thankful for her lot. In the full

liturgic sense of the word, he worshipped her, that is, he loved, and

cherished, and respected, and honoured her; and she would have obeyed

him cheerfully as well as dutifully, if obedience could have been

shown where there was ever but one will.

[Footnote 2: NECKER.]

CHAPTER CLII.

ODD OPINIONS CONCERNING BIOGRAPHY AND EDUCATION. THE AUTHOR MAKES A

SECOND HIATUS AS UNWILLINGLY AS HE MADE THE FIRST, AND FOR THE SAME

COGENT REASON.

_Ya sabes—pero es forzoso

Repetirlo, aunque lo sepas._

CALDERON.

Unwillingly, as the Reader may remember, though he cannot possibly

know with how much unwillingness, I passed over fourteen years of

Daniel Dove's youth, being the whole term of his adolescence, and a

fifth part of that appointed sum, beyond which the prolongation of

human life is but labour and sorrow. Mr. Coleridge has said that “the

history of a man for the nine months preceding his birth would

probably be far more interesting, and contain events of greater moment

than all the threescore and ten years that follow it.” Mr. Coleridge

was a philosopher, in many points, of the first order, and it has been

truly said by one of the antients that there is nothing so absurd but

that some philosopher has advanced it. Mr. Coleridge however was not

always in earnest when he said startling things; and they who suppose

that the opinions of such a man are to be collected from what he says

playfully in the freedom of social intercourse to amuse himself, and

perhaps to astonish others, may as well expect to hold an eel by the

tail.

There were certain French legislators in the days of Liberty and

Equality, who held that education ought to begin before birth, and

therefore they proposed to enact laws for the benefit of the

homunculus during that portion of its existence to which Mr. Coleridge

is said to have attached such metaphysical, or in his own language

such psychological importance. But even these Ultra-philosophers would

not have maintained that a biographer ought to begin before the birth

of his subject. All antecedent matter belongs to genealogical writers;

astrologers themselves are content to commence their calculations from

the hour and minute of the nativity. The fourteen years over which I

formerly passed for the reasons stated in the 25th Chapter of this

Opus, would have supplied more materials than any equal portion of his

life, if the Doctor had been his own historian; for in those years his

removal from home took place, his establishment at Doncaster, and his

course of studies at Leyden, the most momentous events in his

uneventful history, except the great one of marriage,—which either

makes or mars the happiness of both parties.

From the time of that “crowning event” I must pass over another but

longer interval, and represent the Doctor in his married state, such

as he was when it was my fortune in early life to be blessed with his

paternal friendship, for such it might be called. Age like his, and

Youth might well live together, for there was no crabbedness in his

age. Youth therefore was made the better and the happier by such

society. It was full of pleasure instead of care; not like winter, but

like a fine summer evening, or a mild autumn, or like the light of a

harvest moon,

“Which sheds o'er all the sleeping scene

A soft nocturnal day.”[1]

[Footnote 1: JAMES MONTGOMERY.]

CHAPTER CLIII.

MATRIMONY AND RAZORS. LIGHT SAYINGS LEADING TO GRAVE THOUGHTS. USES OF

SHAVING.

I wonder whence that tear came, when I smiled

In the production on't! Sorrow's a thief

That can when joy looks on, steal forth a grief.

MASSINGER.

Oh pitiable condition of human kind! One colour is born to slavery

abroad, and one sex to shavery at home!—A woman to secure her comfort

and well-being in this country stands in need of one thing only, which

is a good husband; but a man hath to provide himself with two things,

a good wife, and a good razor, and it is more difficult to find the

latter than the former. The Doctor made these remarks one day, when

his chin was smarting after an uncomfortable operation; and Mrs. Dove

retorted by saying that women had still the less favourable lot, for

scarce as good razors might be, good husbands were still scarcer.

Aye, said the Doctor, Deborah is right, and it is even so; for the

goodness of wife, husband, and razor depends upon their temper, and

taking in all circumstances and causes natural and adventitious, we

might reasonably conclude that steel would more often be tempered

precisely to the just degree, than that the elements of which humanity

is composed should be all nicely proportioned and amalgamated happily.

Rarely indeed could Nature stand up, and pointing out a sample of its

workmanship in this line say to all the world this is a Man! meaning

thereby what man, rational, civilized, well educated, redeemed,

immortal man, may and ought to be. Where this could be said in one

instance, in a thousand or ten thousand others she might say this is

what Man has by his own devices made himself, a sinful and miserable

creature, weak or wicked, selfish, sensual, earthly-minded, busy in

producing temporal evil for others,—and everlasting evil for himself!

But as it was his delight to find good, or to look for it, in every

thing, and especially when he could discover the good which may be

educed from evil, he used to say that more good than evil resulted

from shaving, preposterous as he knew the practice to be, irrational

as he admitted it was, and troublesome as to his cost, he felt it. The

inconvenience and the discomfort of the operation no doubt were

great,—very great, especially in frosty weather, and during March

winds, and when the beard is a strong beard. He did not extenuate the

greatness of this evil which was moreover of daily recurrence. Nay, he

said, it was so great, that had it been necessary for physical

reasons, that is to say, were it a law of nature, instead of a

practice enjoined by the custom of the country, it would undoubtedly

have been mentioned in the third chapter of the book of Genesis, as

the peculiar penalty inflicted upon the sons of Adam, because of his

separate share in the primal offence. The daughters of Eve, as is well

known, suffer expressly for their mother's sin; and the final, though

not apparent cause why the practice of shaving which is apparently so

contrary to reason, should universally prevail in all civilized

christian countries, the Doctor surmised might be, that by this means

the sexes were placed in this respect upon an equality, each having

its own penalty to bear, and those penalties being—perhaps—on the

whole equal; or if man had the heavier for his portion, it was no more

than he deserved, for having yielded to the weaker vessel. These

indeed are things which can neither be weighed nor measured; but it

must be considered that shaving comes every day to all men of what may

be called the clean classes, and to the poorest labourer or handicraft

once a week; and that if the daily shavings of one year, or even the

weekly ones could be put into one shave, the operation would be

fatal,—it would be more than flesh and blood could bear.

In the case of man this penalty brought with it no after compensation,

and here the female had the advantage. Some good nevertheless resulted

from it, both to the community, and to the individual shaver, unless

he missed it by his own fault.

To the community because it gives employment to Barbers, a lively and

loquacious race, who are everywhere the great receivers and

distributors of all news, private or public in their neighbourhood.

To the individual, whether he were, like the Doctor himself, and as

Zebedee is familiarly said to have been, an autokureus, which is being

interpreted a self-shaver, or shaver of himself; or merely a shavee,

as the laboring classes almost always are, the operation in either

case brings the patient into a frame of mind favorable to his moral

improvement. He must be quiet and composed when under the operator's

hands, and not less so if under his own. In whatever temper or state

of feeling he may take his seat in the barber's chair, or his stand at

the looking-glass, he must at once become calm. There must be no

haste, no impatience, no irritability; so surely as he gives way to

either, he will smart for it. And however prone to wander his thoughts

may be, at other and perhaps more serious times, he must be as

attentive to what he is about in the act of shaving, as if he were

working a problem in mathematics.

As a lion's heart and a lady's hand are among the requisites for a

surgeon, so are they for the Zebedeean shaver. He must have a steady

hand, and a mind steadied for the occasion; a hand confident in its

skill, and a mind assured that the hand is competent to the service

upon which it is ordered. Fear brings with it its immediate punishment

as surely as in a field of battle; if he but think of cutting himself,

cut himself he will.

I hope I shall not do so to-morrow; but if what I have just written

should come into my mind, and doubt come over me in consequence, too

surely then I shall! Let me forget myself therefore as quickly as I

can and fall again into the train of the Doctor's thoughts.

Did not the Duc de Brissac perform the operation himself for a moral

and dignified sentiment, instead of letting himself be shaved by his

valet-de-chambre? Often was he heard to say unto himself in grave

soliloquy, while holding the razor open, and adjusting the blade to

the proper angle, in readiness for the first stroke “Timoleon de

Cossé, God hath made thee a Gentleman, and the King hath made thee a

Duke. It is nevertheless right and fit that thou shouldst have

something to do; therefore thou shalt shave thyself!”—In this spirit

of humility did that great Peer “mundify his muzzel.”

_De sçavoir les raisons pourquoy son pere luy donna ce nom de

Timoleon, encore que ce ne fut nom Chretien, mais payen, il ne se peut

dire; toutesfois, à l'imitation des Italiens et des Grecs, qui ont

emprunté la plus part des noms payens, et n'en sont corrigez pour

cela, et n'en font aucun scruple,—il avoit cette opinion, que son pere

luy avoit donné ce nom par humeur, et venant à lire la vie de Timoleon

elle luy pleut, et pour ce en imposa le nom à son fils, présageant

qu'un jour il luy seroit semblable. Et certes pour si peu qu'il a

vesçu, il luy a ressemblé quelque peu; mais, s'il eust vesçu il ne

l'eust resemblé quelque peu en sa retraite si longue, et en son

temporisement si tardif qu'il fit, et si longue abstinence de guerre;

ainsi que luy-mesme le disoit souvent, qu'il ne demeureroit pour tous

les biens du monde retiré si longuement que fit ce Timoleon._[1] This

in a parenthesis: I return to our philosopher's discourse.

[Footnote 1: BRANTOME.]

And what lectures, I have heard the Doctor say, does the

looking-glass, at such times, read to those men who look in it at such

times only! The glass is no flatterer, the person in no disposition to

flatter himself, the plight in which he presents himself, assuredly no

flattering one. It would be superfluous to have _γνωθι σεαυτον_

inscribed upon the frame of the mirror; he cannot fail to know

himself, who contemplates his own face there, long and steadily, every

day. Nor can he as he waxes old need a death's head for a memento in

his closet or his chamber; for day by day he traces the defeatures

which the hand of Time is making,—that hand which never suspends its

work.

Thus his good melancholy oft began

On the catastrophe and heel of pastime.[2]

[Footnote 2: SHAKESPEARE.]

“When I was a round-faced, red-faced, smooth-faced boy,” said he to me

one day, following the vein upon which he had thus fallen, “I used to

smile if people said they thought me like my father, or my mother, or

my uncle. I now discern the resemblance to each and all of them

myself, as age brings out the primary and natural character of the

countenance, and wears away all that accidental circumstances had

superinduced upon it. The recognitions,—the glimpses which at such

times I get of the departed, carry my thoughts into the past;—and

bitter,—bitter indeed would those thoughts be, if my

anticipations—(wishes I might almost call them, were it lawful as

wishes to indulge in them)—did not also lead me into the future, when

I shall be gathered to my fathers in spirit, though these mortal

_exuviæ_ should not be laid to moulder with them under the same turf.”

There were very few to whom he talked thus. If he had not entirely

loved me, he would never have spoken to me in this strain.

CHAPTER CLIV.

A POET'S CALCULATION CONCERNING THE TIME EMPLOYED IN SHAVING, AND THE

USE THAT MIGHT BE MADE OF IT. THE LAKE POETS LAKE SHAVERS ALSO. A

PROTEST AGAINST LAKE SHAVING.

Intellect and industry are never incompatible. There is more wisdom,

and will be more benefit, in combining them than scholars like to

believe, or than the common world imagine. Life has time enough for

both, and its happiness will be increased by the union.

SHARON TURNER.

The poet Campbell is said to have calculated that a man who shaves

himself every day, and lives to the age of threescore and ten, expends

during his life as much time in the act of shaving, as would have

sufficed for learning seven languages.

The poet Southey is said to carry shaving to its _ne plus ultra_ of

independency, for he shaves _sans_ looking-glass, _sans_

shaving-brush, _sans_ soap, or substitute for soap, _sans_ hot-water,

_sans_ cold-water, _sans_ every thing except a razor. And yet among

all the characters which he bears in the world, no one has ever given

him credit for being a cunning shaver!

(Be it here observed in a parenthesis that I suppose the word _shaver_

in this so common expression to have been corrupted from shaveling;

the old contemptuous word for a Priest.)

But upon reflection, I am not certain whether it is of the poet

Southey that this is said, or of the poet Wordsworth. I may easily

have confounded one with the other in my recollections, just as what

was said of Romulus might have been repeated of Remus while they were

both living and flourishing together; or as a mistake in memory might

have been made between the two Kings of Brentford when they both

quitted the stage, each smelling to his nosegay, which it was who made

his exit P. S. and which O. P.

Indeed we should never repeat what is said of public characters (a

denomination under which all are to be included who figure in public

life, from the high, mighty and most illustrious Duke of Wellington at

this time, down to little Waddington) without qualifying it as common

report, or as newspaper, or magazine authority. It is very possible

that the Lake poets may, both of them, shave after the manner of other

men. The most attached friends of Mr. Rogers can hardly believe that

he has actually said all the good things which are ascribed to him in

a certain weekly journal; and Mr. Campbell may not have made the

remark which I have repeated, concerning the time employed in mowing

the chin, and the use to which the minutes that are so spent might be

applied. Indeed so far am I from wishing to impute to this gentleman

upon common report, anything which might not be to his credit, or

which he might not like to have the credit of, that it is with the

greatest difficulty I can persuade myself to believe in the

authenticity of his letter to Mr. Moore upon the subject of Lord and

Lady Byron, though he has published it himself, and in his own name.

Some one else may have made the calculation concerning shaving and

languages, some other poet, or proser, or one who never attempted

either prose, or rhyme. Was he not the first person who proposed the

establishment of the London University, and if this calculation were

his, is it possible that he should not have proposed a plan for it

founded thereon, which might have entitled the new institution to

assume the title of the Polyglot College?

Be this as it may, I will not try the _sans_-every-thing way of

shaving let who will have invented it: never will I try it, unless

thereto by dire necessity enforced! I will neither shave dry, nor be

dry-shaved, while any of those things are to be obtained which either

mitigate or abbreviate the operation. I will have a brush, I will have

Naples soap, or some substitute for it, which may enable me always to

keep a dry and clean apparatus. I will have hot-water for the sake of

the razor, and I will have a looking-glass for the sake of my chin and

my upper lip. No never will I try Lake shaving, unless thereto by dire

necessity enforced.

Nor would I be enforced to it by any necessity less dire than that

with which King Arthur was threatened by a messager from Kynge Ryons

of North-walys; and Kynge he was of all Ireland and of many Iles. And

this was his message, gretynge wel Kynge Arthur in this manere wyse,

sayenge, “that Kynge Ryons had discomfyte and overcome eleaven Kynges,

and everyche of hem did hym homage, and that was this; they gaf hym

their beardys clene flayne off, as moche as ther was; wherfor the

messager came for King Arthurs beard. For King Ryons had purfyled a

mantel with Kynges berdes, and there lacked one place of the mantel,

wherfor he sent for his berd, or els he wold entre in to his landes,

and brenne and slee, and never leve tyl he have thi hede and thi

berd.” If the King of the Lakes should require me to do him homage by

shaving without soap, I should answer with as much spirit as was shown

in the answer which King Arthur returned to the Messenger from King

Ryons. “Wel, sayd Arthur, thow hast said thy message, the whiche is

the most vylanous and lewdest message that ever man herd sente unto a

Kynge. Also thow mayst see, my berd is ful yong yet to make a purfyl

of hit. But telle thow thy Kynge this; I owe hym none homage, ne none

of mine elders; but or it be longe to, he shall do me homage on bothe

his kneys, or els he shall lese his hede by the feithe of my body, for

this is the most shamefullest message that ever I herd speke of. I

have aspyed, thy King met never yet with worshipful man; but telle

hym, I wyll have his hede without he doo me homage: Then the messager

departed.”

CHAPTER CLV.

THE POET'S CALCULATION TESTED AND PROVED.

Fiddle-faddle, dont tell of this and that, and every thing in the

world, but give me mathematical demonstration.

CONGREVE.

But I will _test_ (as an American would say,—though let it be observed

in passing that I do not _advocate_ the use of Americanisms.) I will

_test_ Mr. Campbell's assertion. And as the Lord President of the New

Monthly Magazine has not favored the world with the calculations upon

which his assertion, if his it be, is founded, I will investigate it,

step by step, with which intent I have this morning, Saturday, May the

fifteenth, 1830, minuted myself during the act of shaving.

The time employed was, within a second or two more or less, nine

minutes.

I neither hurried the operation, nor lingered about it. Every thing

was done in my ordinary orderly way, steadily, and without waste of

time.

Now as to my beard, it is not such a beard as that of Domenico

d'Ancona, which was _delle barbe la corona_, that is to say the crown

of beards, or rather in English idiom the king.

_Una barba la più singulare

Che mai fosse discritta in verso o'n prosa,_

A beard the most unparallell'd

That ever was yet described in prose or rhyme,

and of which Berni says that the Barber ought to have felt less

reluctance in cutting the said Domenico's throat, than in cutting off

so incomparable a beard. Neither do I think that mine ever by

possibility could vie with that of Futteh Ali Shah, King of Persia at

this day: nay, I doubt whether Macassar Oil, Bear's grease, Elephant's

marrow, or the approved recipe of sour milk with which the Persians

cultivate their beards, could ever bring mine to the far inferior

growth of his son's, Prince Abbas Mirza. Indeed no Mussulmen would

ever look upon it, as they did upon Mungo Park's, with envious eyes,

and think that it was too good a beard for a Christian. But for a

Christian and moreover an Englishman, it is a sufficient beard; and

for the individual a desirable one: _nihil me pœnitet hujus barbæ_;

desirable I say, inasmuch as it is in thickness and rate of growth

rather below the average standard of beards. Nine minutes therefore

will be about the average time required for shaving, by a

Zebedeean,—one who shaves himself. A professional operator makes

quicker work; but he cannot be always exactly to the time, and at the

year's end as much may have been lost in waiting for the barber, as is

gained by his celerity of hand.

Assuming then the moderate average of nine minutes, nine minutes per

day amount to an hour and three minutes per week; an hour and three

minutes per week are fifty-four hours thirty-six minutes per year. We

will suppose that our shaver begins to operate every day when he has

completed his twentieth year; many, if not most men, begin earlier;

they will do so if they are ambitious of obtaining whiskers; they must

do so if their beards are black, or carroty, or of strong growth.

There are then fifty years of daily shaving to be computed; and in

that time he will have consumed two thousand, seven hundred and thirty

hours in the act of shaving himself. I have stated the numbers

throughout in words, to guard against the mistakes which always creep

into the after editions of any book, when figures are introduced.

Now let us see whether a man could in that time acquire a competent

knowledge of seven languages.

I do not of course mean such a knowledge as Professor Porson and Dr.

Elmsley had attained of Greek, or as is possessed by Bishop Blomfield

and Bishop Monk,—but a passable knowledge of living languages, such as

would enable a man to read them with facility and pleasure, if not

critically, and to travel without needing either an interpreter—or the

use of French in the countries where they are spoken.

Dividing therefore two thousand seven hundred and thirty, being the

number of hours which might be appropriated to learning languages,—by

seven,—the number of languages to be learnt, we have three hundred and

ninety hours for each language; three hundred and ninety lessons of an

hour long,—wherein it is evident that any person of common capacity

might with common diligence learn to read, speak and

write—sufficiently well for all ordinary purposes, any European

language. The assertion therefore, though it might seem extravagant at

first, is true as far as it goes, and is only inaccurate because it is

far short of the truth.

For take notice that I did not strop the razor this morning, but only

passed it, after the operation, ten or twelve times over the palm of

the hand, according to my every day practice. One minute more at least

would have been required for stropping. There are many men whose

beards render it necessary for them to apply to the strop every day,

and for a longer time,—and who are obliged to try first one razor and

then another. But let us allow only a minute for this—one minute a day

amounts to six hours five minutes in the year; and in fifty years to

three hundred and four hours ten minutes,—time enough for an eighth

language.

Observe also that some languages are so easy, and others so nearly

related to each other, that very much less than half the number of

hours allowed in this computation would suffice for learning them. It

is strictly true that in the time specified a man of good capacity

might add seven more languages to the seven for which that computation

was formed; and that a person who has any remarkable aptitude for such

studies might in that time acquire every language in which there are

books to be procured.

_Hé bien, me suis je enfin rendu croyable? Est-on content?_[1]

[Footnote 1: PIRON.]

See Reader, what the value of time is, when put out at simple

interest. But there is no simple interest in knowledge. Whatever funds

you have in that Bank go on encreasing by interest upon interest,—till

the Bank fails.

CHAPTER CLVI.

AN ANECDOTE OF WESLEY, AND AN ARGUMENT ARISING OUT OF IT, TO SHOW THAT

THE TIME EMPLOYED IN SHAVING IS NOT SO MUCH LOST TIME; AND YET THAT

THE POET'S CALCULATION REMAINS OF PRACTICAL USE.

_Questo medesimo anchora con una altra gagliardissima ragione vi

confermo._

LODOVICO DOMINICHI.

There was a poor fellow among John Wesley's followers, who suffered no

razor to approach his chin, and thought it impossible that any one

could be saved who did: shaving was in his opinion a sin for which

there could be no redemption. If it had been convenient for their

interests to put him out of the way, his next of kin would have had no

difficulty in obtaining a _lettre de cachet_ against him from a

mad-doctor, and he might have been imprisoned for life, for this

harmless madness. This person came one day to Mr. Wesley, after

sermon, and said to him in a manner which manifested great concern,

Sir, you can have no place in Heaven without a beard! therefore, I

entreat you, let your's grow immediately!

Had he put the matter to Wesley as a case of conscience, and asked

that great economist of time how he could allow himself every day of

his life to bestow nine precious minutes upon a needless operation,

the Patriarch of the Methodists might have been struck by the appeal,

but he would soon have perceived that it could not be supported by any

just reasoning.

For in the first place, in a life of such incessant activity as his,

the time which Wesley employed in shaving himself, was so much time

for reflection. However busy he might be, as he always was,—however

hurried he might be on that particular day, here was a portion of

time, small indeed, but still a distinct and apprehensible portion, in

which he could call his thoughts to council. Like our excellent

friend, he was a person who knew this, and he profited by it, as well

knowing what such minutes of reflection are worth. For although

thought cometh, like the wind, when it listeth, yet it listeth to come

at regular appointed times, when the mind is in a state of preparation

for it, and the mind will be brought into that state, unconsciously,

by habit. We may be as ready for meditation at a certain hour, as we

are for dinner, or for sleep; and there will be just as little need

for an effort of volition on our part.

Secondly, Mr. Wesley would have considered that if beards were to be

worn, some care and consequently some time must be bestowed upon them.

The beard must be trimmed occasionally, if you would not have it as

ragged as an old Jew Clothes-man's: it must also be kept clean, if you

would not have it inhabited like the Emperor Julian's; and if you

desired to have it like Aaron's, you would oil it. Therefore it is

probable that a Zebedeean who is cleanly in his habits would not save

any time by letting his beard grow.

But it is certain that the practise of shaving must save time for

fashionable men, though it must be admitted that these are persons

whose time is not worth saving, who are not likely to make any better

use of it, and who are always glad when any plea can be invented for

throwing away a portion of what hangs so heavily upon their hands.

Alas, Sir, what is a Gentleman's time!

——————————there are some brains

Can never lose their time, whate'er they do.[1]

For in former times as much pains were bestowed on dressing the beard,

as in latter ones upon dressing the hair. Sometimes it was braided

with threads of gold. It was dyed to all colours, according to the

mode, and cut to all shapes, as you may here learn from John Taylor's

_Superbiæ Flagellum_.

Now a few lines to paper I will put,

Of men's beards strange and variable cut:

In which there's some do take as vain a pride,

As almost in all other things beside.

Some are reap'd most substantial like a brush,

Which make a natural wit known by the bush:

(And in my time of some men I have heard,

Whose wisdom hath been only wealth and beard)

Many of these the proverb well doth fit,

Which says Bush natural, more hair than wit.

Some seem as they were starched stiff and fine,

Like to the bristles of some angry swine:

And some (to set their Love's desire on edge)

Are cut and pruned like to a quickset hedge.

Some like a spade, some like a fork, some square,

Some round, some mowed like stubble, some stark bare,

Some sharp stiletto fashion, dagger like,

That may with whispering a man's eyes out pike:

Some with the hammer cut or Roman T,

Their beards extravagant reformed must be,

Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion,

Some circular, some oval in translation,

Some perpendicular in longitude,

Some like a thicket for their crassitude,

That heights, depths, breadths, triform, square, oval, round,

And rules geometrical in beards are found;

Beside the upper lips strange variation,

Corrected from mutation to mutation;

As't were from tithing unto tithing sent,

_Pride_ gives to _Pride_ continual punishment.

Some (_spite their teeth_) like thatched eaves downward grows,

And some grow upwards in despite their nose.

Some their mustachios of such length do keep,

That very well they may a manger sweep?

Which in Beer, Ale, or Wine, they drinking plunge,

And suck the liquor up as't were a sponge;

But 'tis a Sloven's beastly _Pride_ I think

To wash his beard where other men must drink.

And some (because they will not rob the cup)

Their upper chaps like pot hooks are turned up,

The Barbers thus (like Tailors) still must be,

Acquainted with each cut's variety.[2]

[Footnote 1: MAY.]

[Footnote 2: TAYLOR _the Water Poet_.]

In comparison with such fashions, clean shaving is clear gain of time.

And to what follies and what extravagances would the whiskerandoed

macaronies of Bond Street and St. James's proceed, if the beard once

more were, instead of the neckcloth, to “make the man!”—They who have

put on the whole armour of Dandeyism, having their loins girt

with—stays, and having put on the breast-plate of—buckram, and having

their feet shod—by Hoby!

I myself, if I wore a beard, should cherish it, as the Cid Campeador

did his, for my pleasure. I should regale it on a summer's day with

rose water; and, without making it an Idol, I should sometimes offer

incense to it, with a pastille, or with lavender and sugar. My

children when they were young enough for such blandishments would have

delighted to stroke and comb and curl it, and my grand-children in

their turn would have succeeded to the same course of mutual

endearment.

Methinks then I have shown that although the Campbellian, or

Pseudo-Campbellian assertion concerning the languages which might be

acquired in the same length of time that is consumed in shaving, is no

otherwise incorrect than as being short of the truth, it is not a

legitimate consequence from that proposition that the time employed in

shaving is lost time, because the care and culture of a beard would in

all cases require as much, and in many would exact much more. But the

practical utility of the proposition, and of the demonstration with

which it has here been accompanied, is not a whit diminished by this

admission. For, what man is there, who, let his business, private or

public be as much as it will, cannot appropriate nine minutes a-day to

any object that he likes?

CHAPTER CLVII.

WHICH THE READER WILL FIND LIKE A ROASTED MAGGOT, SHORT AND SWEET.

_Malum quod minimum est, id minimum est malum._

PLAUTUS.

But here one of those persons who acting upon the proverbial precept

which bids us look before we leap, look so long that they never leap

at all, offers a demurrer.

It may be perfectly true, he observes, that a language may be learnt

in three hundred and ninety lessons of an hour each. But in your

proposition the hour is broken into several small parts; we will throw

in an additional minute, and say six such portions. What I pray you

can a lesson of ten minutes be worth?

To this I reply that short lessons are best, and are specifically

enjoined in the new System of Education. Dr. Bell says in his Manual

of Instructions for conducting Schools, “in the beginning never

prescribe a lesson or task, which the Scholar can require more than

ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, to learn.”

On this authority, and on the authority of experience also, I

recommend short lessons. For the same reasons, or for reasons nearly

or remotely related to them, I like short stages, short accounts,

short speeches, and short sermons; I do not like short measure or

short commons; and, like Mr. Shandy, I dislike short noses. I know

nothing about the relative merit of short-horned cattle. I doubt

concerning the propriety of short meals. I disapprove of short

parliaments and short petticoats; I prefer puff-paste to short

pie-crust; and I cut this chapter short for the sake of those readers

who may like short chapters.

CHAPTER CLVIII.

DR. DOVE'S PRECEPTORIAL PRESCRIPTION, TO BE TAKEN BY THOSE WHO NEED

IT.

Some strange devise, I know, each youthful wight

Would here expect, or lofty brave assay:

But I'll the simple truth in simple wise convey.

HENRY MORE.

Now comes the question of a youth after my own heart, so quick in his

conclusions that his leap seems rather to keep pace with his look than

to follow it. He will begin to-morrow, and only asks my advice upon

the method of proceeding.

Take the Grammar of any modern language, and read the dialogues in it,

till you are acquainted with the common connecting words, and know the

principal parts of speech by sight. Then look at the declensions and

the verbs—you will already have learnt something of their inflections,

and may now commit them to memory, or write them down. Read those

lessons, which you ought to read daily—in a bible of this language,

having the English bible open beside it. Your daily task will soon be

either to learn the vocabulary, or to write exercises, or simply to

read, according to the use which you mean to make of your new

acquirement. You must learn _memoriter_, and exercise yourself in

writing if you wish to educate your ear and your tongue for foreign

service; but all that is necessary for your own instruction and

delight at home may be acquired by the eye alone.

_Qui mihi Discipulus es—cupis atque doceri,_

try this method for ten minutes a day, perseveringly, and you will

soon be surprised at your own progress.

_Quod tibi deest, à te ipso mutuare,_—

it is Cato's advice.

Ten minutes you can bestow upon a modern language, however closely you

may be engaged in pursuits of immediate necessity; even tho' you

should be in a public office from which Joseph Hume, or some of his

worthy compeers, has moved for voluminous returns. (Never work at

extra hours upon such returns, unless extra pay is allowed for the

additional labor and confinement to the desk, as in justice it ought

to be. But if you are required to do so by the superiors who ought to

protect you from such injustice, send petition after petition to

Parliament, praying that when the abolition or mitigation of slavery

shall be taken into consideration, your case may be considered also.)

Any man who will, may command ten minutes. _Exercet philosophia regnum

suum_, says Seneca; _dat tempus, non accipit. Non est res subcisiva,

ordinaria est, domina est; adest, et jubet._ Ten minutes the Under

Graduate who reads this may bestow upon German even though he should

be in training for the University races. Ten minutes he can bestow

upon German, which I recommend because it is a master-key for many

doors both of language and of knowledge. His mind will be refreshed

even by this brief change of scene and atmosphere. In a few weeks (I

repeat) he will wonder at his own progress: and in a few years, if he

is good for anything—if the seed has not been sown upon a stony place,

nor among thorns, he will bless me his unknown benefactor, for showing

him by what small savings of time, a man may become rich in mind. “And

so I end my counsel, beseeching thee to begin to follow it.”[1]

[Footnote 1: EUPHUES, A. M.]

But not unto me be the praise! O Doctor, O my guide, philosopher and

friend!

Like to the bee thou everywhere didst roam

Spending thy spirits in laborious care,

And nightly brought'st thy gathered honey home,

As a true workman in so great affair;

First of thine own deserving take the fame,

Next of thy friend's; his due he gives to thee,

That love of learning may renown thy name,

And leave it richly to posterity.[2]

I have but given freely what freely I have received. This knowledge I

owe,—and what indeed is there in my intellectual progress which I do

not owe to my ever-beloved friend and teacher, my moral physician?

———his plausive words

He scattered not in ears, but grafted them

To grow there and to bear.[3]

To his alteratives and tonics I am chiefly (under Providence) indebted

for that sanity of mind which I enjoy, and that strength,—whatever may

be its measure, which I possess. It was his method,—his _way_, he

called it; in these days when we dignify every thing, it might be

called the Dovean system, or the Columbian, which he would have

preferred.

[Footnote 2: RESTITUTA.]

[Footnote 3: SHAKSPEARE.]

CHAPTER CLIX.

THE AUTHOR COMPARES HIMSELF AND THE DOCTOR TO CARDINAL WOLSEY AND KING

HENRY VIII. AND SUGGESTS SUNDRY SIMILES FOR THE STYLE OF HIS BOOK.

I doubt not but some will liken me to the Lover in a modern Comedy,

who was combing his peruke and setting his cravat before his mistress;

and being asked by her when he intended to begin his court? replied,

he had been doing it all this while.

DRYDEN.

It cannot be necessary for me to remind the benevolent reader, that at

those times when a half or a quarter-witted critic might censure me

for proceeding egotistically, I am nevertheless carrying on the

primary intention with which this work was undertaken, as directly as

if the Doctor were the immediate and sole theme of every chapter;—

_Non enim excursus hic—sed opus ipsum est._[1]

For whatever does not absolutely relate to him is derived directly or

indirectly from him; it is directly derivative when I am treating upon

subjects which it has been my good fortune to hear him discuss; and

indirectly when I am led to consider the topics that incidentally

arise, according to the way of thinking in which he trained me to go.

[Footnote 1: PLINY.]

As Wolsey inscribed upon one of his magnificent buildings the words

_Ego et Rex Meus_, so might I place upon the portal of this Edifice

_Ego et Doctor Meus_, for I am as much his creature as Wolsey was the

creature of bluff King Harry,—as confessedly so, and as gratefully.

Without the King's favor Wolsey could not have founded Christ Church;

without the Doctor's friendship I could not have edified this monument

to his memory. Without the King's favor Wolsey would never have

obtained the Cardinal's hat; and had it not been for the favor and

friendship and example of the Doctor, never should I have been

entitled to wear that cap, my reasons for not wearing which have

heretofore been stated, that cap which to one who knows how to wear it

becomingly, is worth more than a coronet or a mitre; and confers upon

the wearer a more lasting distinction.

His happy mind, like the not less happy, and not more active intellect

of Humboldt King of Travellers, was excursive in its habits. To such

discursive—or excursiveness I also was prone, and he who observed in

me this propensity encouraged it, tempering however that encouragement

with his wonted discretion. Let your imagination, he said, fly like

the lady bird

north, south and east and west,

but take care that it always comes home to rest.

Perhaps it may be said therefore of his unknown friend and biographer

as Passovier said of Michel de Montaigne, _il estoit personnage hardy,

qui se croyoit, et comme tel se laissoit aisement emporter a la beauté

de son esprit; tellement que par ses ecrits il prenoit plaisir de

desplaire plaisamment._

Perhaps also some one who for his own happiness is conversant with the

literature of that affluent age, may apply to the said unknown what

Balzac said of the same great Michael, Michael the second, (Michael

Angelo was Michael the first,) _Montaigne sçait bien ce qui il dit;

mais, sans violer le respect qui luy est deu, je pense aussi, qu'il ne

sçait pas toujours ce qu'il va dire._

Dear Reader you may not only say this of the unknown _sans violer le

respect qui luy est deu_, but you will pay him what he will consider

both a great and a just compliment, in saying so.

For I have truly endeavoured to observe the precepts of my revered

Mentor, and to follow his example, which I venture to hope, the

judicious reader will think I have done with some success. He may have

likened me for the manner in which I have conducted this great

argument, to a gentle falcon, which however high it may soar to

command a wider region with its glance, and however far it may fly in

pursuit of its quarry, returns always to the falconer's hand.

Learned and discreet reader, if you should not always discern the

track of associations over which I have passed as fleetly as Camilla

over the standing corn;—if the story which I am relating to thee

should seem in its course sometimes to double like a hare in her

flight, or in her sport,—sometimes to bound forward like a jerboa, or

kangaroo, and with such a bound that like Milton's Satan it overleaps

all bounds; or even to skip like a flea, so as to be here, there and

every where, taking any direction rather than that which will bring it

within your catch;—learned and discreet reader if any of these

similitudes should have occurred to you, think of Pindar, read

Landor's Gebir, and remember what Mr. Coleridge has said for himself

formerly, and prophetically for me, _intelligenda non intellectum

adfero_. Would you have me plod forward like a tortoise in my

narration, foot after foot in minute steps, dragging his slow tail

along? Or with such deliberate preparation for progressive motion that

like a snail the slime of my way should be discernible?

A bye-stander at chess who is ignorant of the game, presently

understands the straight and lateral movement of the rooks, the

diagonal one of the bishops, and the power which the Queen possesses

of using both. But the knight perplexes him, till he discovers that

the knight's leap, eccentric as at first it seems, is nevertheless

strictly regulated.

We speak of erratic motions among the heavenly bodies; but it is

because the course they hold is far beyond our finite comprehension.

Therefore I entreat thee, dear reader, thou who hast the eye of a hawk

or of a sea gull, and the intellectual speed of a greyhound, do not

content thyself with glancing over this book as an Italian Poet says

_Precipitevolissimevolmente_.

But I need not exhort thee thus, who art quick to apprehend and quick

to feel, and sure to like at first sight whatever upon better

acquaintance deserves to be loved.

CHAPTER CLX.

MENTION OF ONE FOR WHOM THE GERMANS WOULD COIN A DESIGNATION WHICH

MIGHT BE TRANSLATED A ONCE-READER. MANY MINDS IN THE SAME MAN. A

POET'S UNREASONABLE REQUEST. THE AUTHOR OFFERS GOOD ADVICE TO HIS

READERS, AND ENFORCES IT BY AN EPISCOPAL OPINION.

Judge not before

Thou know mine intent;

But read me throughout,

And then say thy fill;

As thou in opinion

Art minded and bent,

Whether it be

Either good or ill.

E. P.

I have heard of a man who made it a law for himself never to read any

book again which had greatly pleased him on a first perusal; lest a

second reading should in some degree disturb the pleasurable

impression which he wished to retain of it. This person must have read

only for his amusement, otherwise he would have known that a book is

worth little if it deserves to be perused but once: and moreover that

as the same landscape appears differently at different seasons of the

year, at morning and at evening, in bright weather and in cloudy, by

moonlight, and at noon-day, so does the same book produce a very

different effect upon the same reader at different times and under

different circumstances.

I have elsewhere said that the man of one book is proverbially

formidable; but the man of one reading, though he should read through

an ample library would never become so.

The studious man who at forty re-peruses books which he has read in

his youth or early manhood, vivid as his recollections of them may be,

finds them new, because he brings another mind to the perusal.

Worthless ones with which he may formerly have been delighted appear

flat and unprofitable to his maturer judgement; and on the other hand

sterling merit which he was before unable to appreciate, he can now

understand and value, having in his acquired knowledge, and habits of

reflection the means of assaying it.

Sometimes a Poet, when he publishes what in America would be called a

lengthy poem, with lengthy annotations, advises the reader in his

preface, not to read the notes in their places, as they occur, lest

they should interrupt his clear perception and enjoyment of the piece,

but to read the poem by itself at first; and then, for his more full

contentment, to begin again, and peruse the notes in their order,

whereby he will be introduced to the more minute and recondite merits

of the work.

If the poets who calculate upon many such readers are not wise in

their generation, they are happy in it.

What I request of my dear readers is far more reasonable, and yet

perhaps not much more likely to be granted; I request them, that in

justice to themselves,—for that they may not lose any part of the

pleasure which I have designed for them; and in justice to me,—that I

may not be defrauded of any portion of that grateful applause, which

after a due perusal they will undoubtedly bestow upon the benevolent

unknown;—and in justice to the ever-honored subject of these

volumes,—lest a hasty and erroneous judgement of his character should

be formed, when it is only partially considered;—I request that they

would not dip into these volumes before they read them, nor while they

are reading them, but that they would be pleased to go through the

book regularly, in the order of the chapters, and that when they

recommend the book to their friends, (as they will do with the

friendly intention of contributing to their entertainment and

instruction,) they would particularly advise them to begin at the

beginning, or more accurately speaking at the seventh chapter before

the beginning, and so peruse it consecutively.

So doing, reader, thou wilt perceive the method and the order of the

work, developing before thee as thou readest; thou wilt then

comprehend and admire the connection of the parts, and their

dependence upon each other, and the coherence and beauty of the whole.

Whereas were you only to dip into it here and there, you would from

such a cursory and insufficient inspection come perhaps to the same

conclusion, “wherein nothing was concluded” as the man did concerning

Bailey's Dictionary, who upon returning the book to a neighbour from

whom he had borrowed it, said that he was much obliged to him for the

loan, and that he had read it through, from beginning to end, and had

often been much entertained by it, and was sure that the Author must

have been a very knowing person;—but—added he to confess the truth, I

have never been able clearly to make out what the book is about.

Now as opposite causes will sometimes produce a like effect, thou

mightest, by reading this book partially, come to the same

inconclusive conclusion concerning it, that our friend did by reading

straight forward through Bailey's Dictionary; though considering what

there is in that Dictionary, his time might have been worse employed—I

very well remember when I was some ten years old, learning from an

abridgement of it as much about Abracadabra as I know now. I exhort

thee therefore to begin _ab ovo_, with the ante-initial chapters, and

to read the whole regularly; and this advice I give, bearing in mind

what Bishop Hacket says in his life of the Lord Keeper, Archbishop

Williams, when he inserts a speech of that Chancellor-Prelate's, at

full length:

“This he delivered, thus much: and I took counsel with myself not to

abbreviate it. For it is so compact and pithy that he that likes a

little, must like it all. Plutarch gives a rule for sanity to him that

eats a tortoise, _᾿η ὅλην, ἠ μη ὃλως_, eat it up all, or not a whit.”

The reason assigned for this rule would look better in Plutarch's

Greek than in the Episcopal English; being paraphrased it imports that

a small portion of such food is apt to produce intestinal pains; but

that a hearty meal has the wholesome effect of those pills which by a

delicate and beautiful euphuism of Dr. Kitchener's are called

Peristaltic Persuaders. “So,” proceeds the Bishop, “the speech of a

great orator is instructive when it is entire: pinch it into an

epitome, you mangle the meaning and avile the eloquence.”

CHAPTER CLXI.

WESLEY AND THE DOCTOR OF THE SAME OPINION UPON THE SUBJECT OF THESE

CHAPTERS. A STUPENDOUS EXAMPLE OF CYCLOPÆDIAN STOLIDITY.

A good razor never hurts, or scratches. Neither would good wit, were

men as tractable as their chins. But instead of parting with our

intellectual bristles quietly, we set them up, and wriggle. Who can

wonder then if we are cut to the bone?

GUESSES AT TRUTH.

Both Mr. Wesley and Dr. Dove, who much as they differed concerning

Methodism, agreed remarkably well in their general method of thinking,

would have maintained the morality and propriety of shaving, against

all objections founded upon the quantity of time expended in that

practice. If the one had preached or the other descanted on the 27th

verse of the 19th Chapter of Leviticus, each would have shown that no

general application could be made of the prohibition therein

contained. But what would they have said to the following physical

argument which is gravely advanced in Dr. Abraham Rees's New

Cyclopædia?

“The practice of cutting the hair of the head and the beard is

attended with a prodigious increase of the secretion of the matter of

hair. It is ascertained that a man of fifty years of age will have cut

from his head above thirteen feet, or twice his own length of hair;

and of his beard, in the last twenty-five years of the same

period—above eight feet. The hair likewise besides this enormous

length, will be thicker than if it had been left uncut, and must lose

most of its juices by evaporation from having its tube and the ends of

its fibres always exposed.—The custom of shaving the beard, and

cutting the hair of the head, has we believe, been justly deprecated

by some physiologists. The latter has been supposed, and with much

apparent reason, to weaken the understanding, by diverting the blood

from the brain to the surface of the head. The connection which exists

between the beard and the organs of generation, and likewise between

the muscular strength of the individual, would seem to render it

improper to interfere with its natural mode of growth. Bichat

attributes the superior strength of the ancients to their custom of

wearing their beards; and those men who do not shave at present are

distinguished for vigor and hardihood.”

Thus far we have had to deal only with a grave folly, and I shall

follow the writer no farther.

What would John Wesley and Daniel Dove have said to the speculations

and assertions in this curious passage? They were both men of reading,

both speculative men and both professors, each in his way, of the art

of medicine. They would have asked what proof could be produced that

men who let their beards grow are stronger than those who shave, or

that the ancients were superior in bodily strength to the men of the

present day? Thus they would have treated his assumed facts; and for

his philosophy, they would have inferred, that if cutting the hair

weakened the understanding, and the story of Samson were a physical

allegory, the person who wrote and reasoned thus must have been

sheared at least twice a week from his childhood.

If on the other hand they had been assured that the writer had worn

his hair long, then they would have affirmed that, as in the case of

the Agonist, it was “robustious to no purpose.”

When the Russian soldiers were first compelled to part with their

beards that they might look like other European troops, they

complained that the cold struck into their jaws and gave them the

tooth-ache. The sudden deprivation of a warm covering might have

occasioned this and other local affections. But they are not said to

have complained that they had lost their wits.

They are said indeed in the days of Peter the Great to have made a

ready use of them in relation to this very subject. Other arguments

had been used in vain for persuading them to part with that

comfortable covering which nature had provided for their cheeks and

chins, when one of their Priests represented to them that their good

Czar had given orders for them to be shaved only from the most

religious motives and a special consideration of what concerned them

most nearly. They were about to march against the Turks. The Turks as

they well knew wore beards and it was of the utmost importance that

they should distinguish themselves from the misbelievers by this

visible mark, for otherwise their protector St. Nicholas in whom they

trusted would not know his own people. This was so cogent a reason

that the whole army assented to it, and a general shaving took place.

But when the campaign against the Turks was over and the same troops

were ordered to march against the Swedes, the soldiers called for the

Priest, and told him they must now let their beards grow again;—for

the Swedes shaved, and they must take care St. Nicholas might know his

friends from his foes.

CHAPTER CLXII.

AMOUNT OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL'S PERSONAL SINS ACCORDING TO THE ESTIMATE

OF MR. TOPLADY. THE DOCTOR'S OPINION THEREON. A BILL FOR CERTAIN

CHURCH REPAIRS. A ROMISH LEGEND WHICH IS LIKELY TO BE TRUE, AND PART

OF A JESUIT'S SERMON.

Mankind, tho' satirists with jobations weary us,

Has only two weak parts if fairly reckon'd;

The first of which, is trifling with things serious;

And seriousness in trifles is the second.

Remove these little rubs, whoe'er knows how,

And fools will be as scarce,—as wise men now.

BISHOP.

It is not often that a sportive or fanciful calculation like that of

Mr. Campbell, can be usefully applied, or in the dialect of the

Evangelical Magazine, improved.

I remember well the look and the voice and the manner with which my

ever-to-be-honored friend pointed out to me a memorable passage of

this kind in the works of the Reverend Augustus Toplady, of whom he

used to say that he was a strong-headed, wrong-headed man; and that in

such men you always found the stronger the head, the wronger the

opinions; and the more wrongly their opinions were taken up, the more

strongly they were persisted in.

Toplady after some whimsical calculations concerning the national

debt, proceeds to a “spiritual improvement” of the subject. He asserts

that because “we never come up to that holiness which God requires, we

commit a sin every second of our existence,” and in this view of the

matter, he says, our dreadful account stands as follows. At ten years

old each of us is chargeable with 315,036,000 sins; and summing up the

account at every intermediate stage of ten years, he makes the man of

fourscore debtor for 2,510,288,000.

In Toplady's creed there were no venial sins, any more than in Sir

George Mackenzie's, who used this impious argument for the immortality

of the soul, that it must needs be immortal because the smallest sin,

“the least peccadillo against the Almighty who is Infinite cannot be

proportionably punished in the swift glass of man's short life.”

And this man, said the Doctor, laying his finger upon Toplady's book,

thinks himself a Christian, and reads the Bible and believes it! He

prints and vouches for the authenticity of a painter's bill at

Cirencester delivered in to the Churchwarden of an adjacent parish in

these words:—Mr. Charles Ferebee, Churchwarden of Siddington to Joseph

Cook, Debtor: To mending the Commandments, altering the Belief, and

making a new Lord's Prayer £1. 1_s._

The Painter made no such alteration in the Christian creed, as he

himself did, (when he added to it) that the Almighty has predestined

the infinitely greater number of his creatures to eternal misery!

God, says good old Adam Littleton, made no man purposely to damn him.

Death was one of man's own inventions, and will be the reward of his

evil actions.

The Roman Catholics have a legend from which we may see what

proportion of the human race they suppose to be redeemed from

perdition: it relates that on the day of St. Bernard's death there

died threescore thousand persons, of whom only four souls were saved,

the Saint's being one;—the salvage therefore is one in fifteen

thousand!

But one legend may be set against another, and Felix Faber the Monk of

Ulm gives us one of better import, when he relates the story of a

lovely child who in her twelfth year was stricken with the plague,

during the great pestilence which in the middle of the fourteenth

century swept off a greater portion of the human race than is ever

known to have perished in any similar visitation. As the disease

increased upon her, she became more beautiful and more cheerful,

looking continually upward and rejoicing; for she said she saw that

Heaven was open and innumerable lights flowing upward thither, as in a

stream,—which were the souls of the elect, ascending as they were

released. When they who stood beside her bed were silent and seemed as

if they gave no credit to her words, she told them that what she saw

was no delusion, and added in token of its sure truth, that her own

death would take place that night, and her father die on the third day

following: she then pointed to seven persons foretelling to each the

day of their decease, and named some others who were not present, who

would in like manner be cut off by the plague, saying at what time

each of them would expire; and in every instance, according to the

legend, the prediction was punctually fulfilled. This is a tale which

may in all its parts be true; for such predictions at such a time,

when whole cities were almost depopulated by the pestilence, were

likely not only to be verified, but in a great degree to bring about

their own verification; and the state of her mind would lead to her

interpretation of those ocular spectra which were probably effects of

the disease, without supposing it to be a happy delirium, heightening

her expectation of that bliss which faith had assured to her, and into

which her innocent spirit was about to enter.

Had the story been fabricated it would not have been of so humane a

character. The Roman Catholics, as is well known, believe that all who

are not of what they please to call the Holy, Roman, Catholic and

Apostolic Church, are doomed to everlasting perdition; this doctrine

is part of the creed which their laity profess, and to which their

clergy swear. If any member of that Church reject an opinion so

uncharitable in itself, and in its consequences so infinitely

mischievous, he may be a Roman Catholic by his connections, by

courtesy, by policy, or by fear; but he is not so in reality, for he

refuses to believe in the infallibility of his Church which has on no

point declared itself more peremptorily than upon this. All other

Christians of every persuasion, all Jews, all Mahometans and all

Heathens are goats; only the Romanists are the Sheep of God's

pasture,—and the Inquisitors, we may suppose, his Lambs! Of this their

own flock they hold that one half are lost sheep; though a liberal

opinion, it is esteemed the most probable one upon that subject, and

the best founded, because it is written that one shall be taken and

one left, and that of the ten virgins who went with their lamps to

meet the bridegroom, five were wise, and five foolish.

An eloquent Jesuit preaching before the Court in his own country

stated this opinion, and made an application from it to his hearers

with characteristic integrity and force. “According to this doctrine,”

said he, “which is held by many Saints, (and is not the most

straitened, but a large and favorable one,) if I were this day

preaching before another auditory, I should say that half of those who

heard me belonged to the right hand, and half unto the left. Truly a

most wonderful and tremendous consideration, that of Christians and

Catholics, enlightened with the faith, bred up with the milk of the

Church, and assisted by so many sacraments and aids, half only should

be saved! That of ten men who believe in Christ, and for whom Christ

died, five should perish! That of an hundred fifty should be

condemned! That of a thousand five hundred go to burn eternally in

Hell! who is there that does not tremble at the thought? But if we

look at the little Christianity and the little fear of God with which

men live, we ought rather to give thanks to the Divine Mercy, than to

be astonished at this justice.

“This is what I should say if I were preaching before a different

audience. But because to-day is a day of undeceiving, (it was the

first Sunday in Advent,) and the present Auditory is what it is, let

not those who hear me think or persuade themselves, that this is a

general rule for all, even although they may be or call themselves

Catholics. As in this life there is a wide difference between the

great and powerful and those who are not so, so will it be in the Day

of Judgement. They are on the right hand to-day, but as the world will

then have had so great a turn, it is much to be feared that many of

them will then be on the left. Of others half are to be saved, and of

the great and powerful, how many? Will there be a third part saved?

Will there be a tenth? I shall only say (and would not venture to say

it, unless it were the expressed oracle and infallible sentence of

supreme Truth,) I shall only say that they will be very few, and those

by great wonder. Let the great and mighty listen, not to any other

than the Lord himself in the Book of Wisdom. _Præbite aurem vos qui

continetis multitudinem, quoniam data est a Domino potestas vobis._

‘Give ear ye that rule the people, for power is given you of the

Lord.’ Ye princes, ye ministers who have the people under your

command, ye to whom the Lord hath given this power to rule and govern

the commonwealth, _præbite aurem_, give ear to me! And what have they

to hear from God who give ear so ill to men? A proclamation of the Day

of Judgement far more portentous and terrible than that which has to

summon the dead! _Judicium durissimum his qui præsunt fiet; exiguo

enim conceditur misericordia; potentes autem potenter tormenta

patientur:_ A sharp judgement shall be to them that be in high places.

For mercy will pardon the mean; but mighty men shall be mightily

tormented. The Judgement with which God will judge those who rule and

govern is to be a sharp Judgement, because mercy will be granted to

the mean; but the mighty shall be mightily tormented, _potentes

potenter tormenta patientur_. See here in what that power is to end

which is so greatly desired, which is so panted after, which is so

highly esteemed, which is so much envied! The mighty fear no other

power now, because the power is in their own hands, but when the sharp

judgement comes they will then see whose Power is greater than theirs;

_potentes potenter patientur_.”

This was a discourse which might have made Felix tremble.

CHAPTER CXLIII.

AN OPINION OF EL VENERABLE PADRE MAESTRO FRAY LUIS DE GRANADA, AND A

PASSAGE QUOTED FROM HIS WORKS, BECAUSE OF THE PECULIAR BENEFIT TO

WHICH PERSONS OF A CERTAIN DENOMINATION WILL FIND THEMSELVES ENTITLED

UPON READING OR HEARING IT READ.

_Chacun tourne en réalités,

Autant qu'il peut, ses propres songes;

L'homme est de glace aux vérités,

Il est de feu pour les mensonges._

LA FONTAINE.

The translated extract in the preceding Chapter from the most eloquent

of the Portuguese preachers, _el mismissimo Vieyra, en su mesma

mesmedad_, as he is called in Fray Gerundio, brings to my mind the

most eloquent and the most popular of the Spanish divines, P. M. Luis

de Granada. He held an opinion wherein, (as will appear hereafter) the

Philosopher of Doncaster did not agree with him, that every thing

under the sky was created for man directly or indirectly, either for

his own use, or for the use of those creatures which minister to it;

for says the Spaniard if he does not eat mosquitoes he eats the birds

that eat them; if he does not eat the grass of the field, the cattle

graze there that are necessary for his use.

I have a very particular reason for giving the famous and Venerable

Dominican's opinion in his own words.

_Todo quanto ay debaxo del Cielo, ò es para el hombre, ò para cosas de

que se ha de servir el hombre; porque si el no come el mosquito que

buela por el ayre, come lo el pajaro de que el se mantiene; y si el no

pace la yerva del campo, pacela el ganado, de que el tiene

necessidad._

My reason for transcribing this sentence in its original language, is

that by so doing I might confer a great act of kindness upon every

Roman Catholick who reads the present Chapter. For be it known unto

every such reader, that by perusing it, he becomes entitled to an

indulgence of an hundred days, granted by D. Pasqual Aragon, Cardinal

by the Title of Santa Balbina, and Archbishop of Toledo; and moreover

to eighteen several indulgences of forty days each, granted by

eighteen most illustrious and most reverend Lords Archbishops and

Bishops; such indulgences having been proclaimed, _para los que

leyeren, ò oyeren leer qualquier capitulo, parrafo, ò periodo de lo

que escrivio el dicho V. P. M. Fray Luis de Granada._

It might be a question for the casuists whether a good papist reading

the paragraph here presented to him, and not assenting to the opinion

expressed therein would be entitled to this discount of eight hundred

and twenty days from his time due in Purgatory. But if he accords with

the Venerable Dominican, he can no more doubt his own right to

participate in the Episcopal and Archiepiscopal grants, than he can

call in question the validity of the grants themselves.

CHAPTER CLXIV.

AN ENQUIRY, IN THE POULTRY-YARD, INTO THE TRUTH OF AN OPINION

EXPRESSED BY ARISTOTLE.

This is some liquor poured out of his bottle;

A deadly draught for those of Aristotle.

J. C. sometime of M. H. Oxon.

Aristotle was of opinion that those animals which have been tamed, or

are capable of being so, are of a better nature, or higher grade, than

wild ones, and that it is advantageous for them that they should be

brought into subjection by man, because under his protection they are

safe.

_Τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἣμερα τῶν αγριων βελτίω την φυσιν, τούτοις δε πασι βέλτιον

αρχεσθαι ὐπ᾿ ανθρωπου, τυγχάνει γαρ σωτηρίας οὕτως._

Our Philosopher was not better disposed to agree with Aristotle upon

this point, than with the more commonly received notion of Father Luis

de Granada. He thought that unless men were more humane in the days of

Alexander the Great, than they are now, and than they have been in all

times of which we have any knowledge, the Stagyrite must have stated

what ought to be, rather than what is.

So our Philosopher thought; and so I, faithfully retaining the lessons

of my beloved Master am prepared to prove. I will go no farther than

to the Poultry Yard, and borrowing the names of the Dramatis Personæ

from a nursery story, one of his Uncle William's, which has been told

with the greatest possible success to all my children in succession,

as it was to me, and their Uncles and Aunts before them, I will

question the Poultry upon the subject, and faithfully report their

evidence.

_Voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani

Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde

Sotto queste coperte alte e profonde._[1]

[Footnote 1: ORLANDO INNAMORATO.]

“Chick-pick, Chick-pick, which is best for you; to be a wild

Chick-pick, or to live, as you are living, under the protection and

care, and regular government of Man?”

Chick-pick answers and says, “Nature provides for my support quite as

abundantly and as surely as you can do, and more wisely, you do not

make my life happier or more secure while it lasts, and you shorten

it; I have nothing to thank you for.”

“Hen-pen, Hen-pen, which is best for you; to be a wild Hen-pen, or to

live as you are living, under the protection and care, and regular

government of Man?”

Hen-pen answers and says: “Had I been bred up as my mother if she had

been a wild Hen-pen would have bred me, I should have had the free use

of my wings. I have nothing to thank you for! You take my eggs.

Sometimes you make me hatch in their stead a little unnatural brood

who run into the water, in spite of all my fears and of all that I can

do to prevent them. You afford me protection when you can from

foumarts and foxes; and you assist me in protecting my chicken from

the kite, and the hawk, but this is that you may keep them for your

own eating; you fatten them in coops, and then comes the Cook!”

“Cock-lock which is best for you; to be a wild Cock-lock, or to live

as you are living, under the protection and care, and regular

government of Man?”

Cock-lock answers and says, “Is there a man impudent enough to ask me

the question! You squail at us on Shrove Tuesday; you feed us with

Cock-bread, and arm us with steel spurs, that we may mangle and kill

each other for your sport; you build cock-pits; you make us fight

Welsh mains, and give subscription cups to the winner. And what would

that Cock-lock say, who was a Cock-lock till you made him a

Capon-lapon!”

“Duck-luck, Duck-luck, which is best for you, to be a wild Duck-luck,

or to live as you are living under the protection and care, and

regular government of Man?”

Duck-luck answers and says, “I was created to be one of the most

privileged of God's creatures, born to the free enjoyment of three

elements. My wings were to bear me whither I would thro' the sky, as

change of season required change of climate for my well being; the

waters were to afford me pastime and food, the earth repose and

shelter. No bird more joyous, more active, more clean or more

delighting in cleanliness than I should be, if the society of man had

not corrupted my instincts. Under your regular government my wings are

rendered useless to me; I waddle about the miserable precincts to

which I am confined, and dabble in the dirt and grope for garbage in

your gutters. And see there are green peas in the garden!”

“Turkey-lurkey, Turkey-lurkey, which is best for you; to be a wild

Turkey-lurkey, or to live as you are living, under the protection, and

care, and regular government of Man?”

Turkey-lurkey answers and says, “You cram us as if to show that there

may be as much cruelty exercised in giving food as in withholding it.

Look at the Norwich coaches for a week before Christmas! Can we think

of them, think you? without wishing ourselves in the woods like our

blessed ancestors, where chine, sausages and oyster-sauce are

abominations which never have been heard of!” Sir Turkey-lurkey then

shook and ruffled and reddened the collops of his neck, and gobbled

out his curses upon man.

“Goosey-loosey, Goosey-loosey, which is best for you; to be a wild

Goosey-loosey, or to live as you are living, under the protection and

care and regular government of Man?”

Goosey-loosey answers and says, “It is not for any kindness to us that

you turn us into your stubbles. You pluck us that you may lie the

softer upon our feathers. You pull our quills that you may make pens

of them. O St. Michael, what havoc is committed amongst us under the

sanction of your arch-angelic name! And O Satan! what punishment wilt

thou exact from those inhuman wretches who keep us in a state of

continual suffering in order to induce a disease by which our livers

may be enlarged for the gratification of wicked epicures! We might

curse man for all that we know of his protection and care, and regular

government; _but_,—”

BUT! said Goosey-loosey, and lifting up her wings significantly she

repeated a third time that word BUT! and with a toss of the head and a

twist of the snaky neck which at once indicated indignation and

triumph, turned away with all the dignity that Goose-nature could

express.

I understood the meaning of that But.

It was not one of those dreaded, ominous, restrictive, qualifying,

nullifying or negativing Buts of which Daniel, the tenderest of all

tender poets, says,

Ah! now comes that bitter word of _But_

Which makes all nothing that was said before!

That smoothes and wounds, that strokes and dashes more

Than flat denial, or a plain disgrace.

It was not one of those heart-withering, joy-killing, and

hope-annihilating Buts. It was a minatory But, full of meaning as ever

Brewer's Butt was full of beer.

However I will not broach that But in this Chapter.

CHAPTER CLXV.

A QUESTION ASKED AND RIGHTLY ANSWERED, WITH NOTICES OF A GREAT

IMPORTATION ANNOUNCED IN THE LEITH COMMERCIAL LIST.

“But tell me yet what followed on that But.”

DANIEL.

Great, Reader, are the mysteries of Grammarians! Dr. Johnson

considered But as only a Conjunction, whereas, says Mr. Todd, it is in

fact a Conjunction, Preposition, Adverb and Interjection, as Dr. Adam

Smith long since ingeniously proved. With Horne Tooke it is a verb to

boot, being according to him the imperative of the Saxon beon-utan,

_to be out_; but in this Mr. Todd supposes him to be out himself. And

Noah Webster says it is also a Participle and a Noun. Pity that some

one has not proved it to be a Pronoun; for then it would have belonged

to all the eight parts of speech.

Great are the mysteries of Grammarians!

O Reader, had you in your mind

Such stores as subtlety can bring

O gentle Reader, you would find

A mystery in every thing.

For once, dear Reader, I who pride myself upon lucid order of

arrangement, and perspicuity of language, instead of making, which I

have heretofore done, and shall hereafter do, the train of my

associations as visible as the tract of a hare in the dewy grass or in

the snow, will let it be as little apparent as that of a bird in the

air, or a serpent on a rock; or as Walter Landor in his poems, or his

brother Robert's, whose poetry has the true Landorean obscurity, as

well as the Landorean strength of diction and the Landorean truth and

beauty of feeling and of thought: perhaps there is no other instance

of so strongly marked an intellectual family likeness.

Thus having premised, I propound the following question: Of all the

Birds in the air, and all the beasts in the field, and all the fishes

in the sea, and all the creatures of inferior kind, who pass their

lives wholly, or in part, according to their different stages of

existence, in air, earth or water, what creature has produced directly

or indirectly, the most effect upon mankind?—_That_, which you Reader,

will deserve to be called, if you do not after a minute's reflection

answer the question rightly.

The Goose!

Now Reader you have hit the _But_.

Among the imports in the Leith Commercial List, for June 1830, is an

entry of 1,820,000 goose quills, brought by the Anne from Riga, for

Messrs. Alexander Duncan and Son of Edinburgh.

One million, eight hundred and twenty thousand goose quills! The

number will present itself more adequately to thy imagination when it

is thus expressed in words.

O Reader, consider in thy capacious mind the good and the evil in

which that million, eight hundred and twenty thousand quills will be

concerned!

Take notice that the whole quantity is of foreign growth—that they are

all imported quills, and so far from being all that were imported,

that they were brought by one ship, and for only one house. Geese

enough are not bred in Great Britain for supplying pens to schools,

counters, public offices, private families, authors, and last not

least in their consumption of this article, young ladies,—though they

call in the crow-quills to their aid. Think of the Lawyers, Reader!

and thou wilt then acknowledge that even if we were not living at this

time under a government of Newspapers, the Goose is amply revenged

upon mankind.

And now you understand Goosey-loosey's BUT.

CHAPTER CLXVI.

A WISH CONCERNING WHALES, WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THEIR PLACE IN

PHYSICAL AND MORAL CLASSIFICATION. DR. ABRAHAM REES. CAPTAIN SCORESBY.

THE WHALE FISHERY.

Your Whale he will swallow a hogshead for a pill;

But the maker of the mouse-trap is he that hath skill.

BEN JONSON.

When gas-lights came into general use, I entertained a hope that

Whales would no longer be slaughtered for the sake of their oil. The

foolishness of such a hope may be excused for its humanity.

I will excuse you Reader, if in most cases, you distrust that word

humanity. But you are not to be excused if you suspect me of its

counterfeit, that mock humanity which is one characteristic of this

dishonourable and dishonest age. I say you are not to be excused, if

being so far acquainted as by this time you must be with the

philosophy of the Doctor, you suspect me his faithful and dutiful

disciple of this pitiful affectation.

How the thought concerning Whales came just now into my mind will be

seen when its application shall in due course be made apparent. Where

I am is always well known to myself, tho' every Reader may not always

discover my whereabout. And before the thought can be applied I must

show upon what our Philosopher's opinions concerning Whales, or

fancies if you think proper so to call them, were founded; mine—upon

this and most other matters, having been as I gratefully acknowledge,

derived from him.

Linnæus in his classification, as is well known, arranges Whales with

Quadrupeds, an arrangement at which Uncle Toby, if he had been told of

it, would have whistled Lilli-bullero, and the Doctor if he had not

been a man of science himself, would have sung

Fa la la lerridan

Dan dan dan derridan

Dan dan dan derridan

Derridan dee.

But Uncle Toby never could have been told of it, because he good man

died before Linnæus dreamt of forming a system; and Doctor Dove was a

man of science, so that Lillibullero was never whistled upon this

occasion, nor Dan dan dan derridan sung.

Whistle the one Reader, or sing the other, which you will, or if you

will, do both; when you hear that in Dr. Rees's Cyclopædia it is said,

“the Whale has no other claim to a place among fishes, than from its

fish-like appearance and its living in the water.” The Whale has its

place among them whatever the Cyclopædists may think of its claim, and

will never have it any where else; and so very like a fish it is,—so

strongly in the odour of fishiness, which is a good odour if it be not

too strong,—that if the Greenlanders had been converted by the Jesuits

instead of the Moravians, the strictest disciplinarian of that order

would without doubt have allowed his converts to eat Whale upon fish

days.

But whether Whale be fish or flesh, or if makers of system should be

pleased to make it fowl, (for as it is like a Quadruped except that it

has no feet, and cannot live upon land, so it may be like a bird,

except that it has neither legs, wings, nor feathers, and cannot live

in the air,) wherever naturalists may arrange it, its local habitation

is among fishes, and fish in common language it always will be called.

This whole question matters not to our present purpose. Our

Philosopher had regard to its place in the scale of existence, a scale

which he graduated not according to size, (tho' that also must

sometimes be taken into the account,) nor by intellect which is yet of

greater consideration, but according to those affections or moral

feelings, which, little acquainted as we are with the nature of the

lower creatures, are in many instances too evident to be called in

question.

Now in this respect no other creature in the water, ranks so high as

the Whale.

The affection of the parent for its young is both in itself and its

consequences purely good, however those men seek to degrade it who

ascribe all feelings, and all virtuous emotions, whether in man or

beast, to selfishness, being themselves conscious that they have no

worthier motive for any of their own actions. Martin Luther says that

the Hebrew word which we translate by _curse_, carries not with it in

the original language so strong a meaning as is given to it in his

mother tongue,—consequently in ours. The Hebrew imprecation, he says,

imports no more than “ill betide thee!” intending by _ill_ temporal

misfortune, or punishment, the proper reward of ill deeds; not what is

implied by cursing in its dreadful acceptation. A curse then in the

Hebrew sense, be upon those who maintain this sensual, and

sensualizing opinion; an opinion of which it is the sure effect to

make bad men worse, and the folly and falsehood of which birds, and

beasts might teach them, were it not that—because their hearts are

gross, seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they

understand.

The Philosopher of Doncaster affirmed that virtue as well as reason

might be clearly perceived in the inferior creation, and that their

parental affection was proof of it. The longer the continuance of this

affection in any species, the higher he was disposed to place that

species in the scale of animated life. This continuance bears no

relation to their size in birds, and little in quadrupeds; but in the

whale it seems to be somewhat more proportionate, the young depending

upon the mother more than twelve-months certainly, how much longer has

not been ascertained. And so strong is the maternal affection that it

is a common practice among whalers to harpoon the cub as a means of

taking the mother; for this creature altho' harmless and timid at all

other times, totally disregards danger when its young is to be

defended, gives every possible indication of extreme agony for its

young's sake, and suffers itself to be killed without attempting to

escape. The mighty Ceticide Captain Scoresby describes a most

affecting instance of this; “there is something,” he observes,

“extremely painful in the destruction of a whale, when thus evincing a

degree of affectionate regard for its offspring, that would do honour

to the superior intelligence of human nature; yet, he adds, the object

of the adventure, the value of the prize, the joy of the capture,

cannot be sacrificed to feelings of compassion.” That conclusion if it

were pursued to its legitimate consequences would lead farther than

Captain Scoresby would follow it!

The whale fishery has indeed been an object of almost portentous

importance according to the statements made by this well-informed and

very able writer. That on the coast of Greenland proved, he says, in a

short time the most lucrative and the most important branch of

national commerce that had ever been offered to the industry of man.

The net profits which the Dutch derived from the Greenland fishery

during an hundred and seven years are stated at more than 20 millions

sterling.

The class of Captains and seamen, employed in the southern

whale-fishery, says a person engaged in that business himself, are

quite different from any other. Lads taken from the streets without

shoes and stockings, become many of them masters of ships and men of

very large property. “There was an instance, a short time ago of one

dying worth £60,000.: and I can point out twenty instances of persons

worth 7 or 8, or £10,000. who have risen without any patronage

whatever by their own exertions. It does not require any patronage to

get on in the fishery.” Such is the statement of one who was examined

before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1833, upon the state of

Manufactures, Commerce and Shipping.

In a pamphlet written about the middle of the last century to

recommend the prosecution of this trade, it was stated that the

whale-fishery is of the nature of a lottery, where tho' the

adventurers are certain losers on the whole, some are very great

gainers; and this, it was argued, instead of being a discouragement

was in fact the most powerful motive by which men were induced to

engage in it.

If indeed the pleasure of gambling be in proportion to the stake, as

those miserable and despicable persons who are addicted to that vice

seem to think it is; and if the pleasure which men take in field

sports, be in proportion to the excitement which the pursuit calls

forth, whaling must be in both respects the most stimulating of all

maritime adventures. One day's sport in which Captain Scoresby took

three whales, produced a return of £2,100. and several years before he

retired from this calling he had been personally concerned in the

capture of three hundred, and twenty-two. And his father in

twenty-eight voyages, in which he commanded a ship brought home 498

whales, producing 4246 tons of oil, the value of which, with that of

the whale-bone, exceeded £150,000. “all fished for under his own

direction out of the sea.”