CONCERNING THE WORTHIES, OR GOOD MEN, WHO WERE NATIVES OF DONCASTER OR
OTHERWISE CONNECTED WITH THAT TOWN.
_Vir bonus est quis?_
TERENCE.
Let good old Fuller answer the well-known question which is conveyed
in the motto to this chapter. “And here,” he says, “be it remembered,
that the same epithet in several places accepts sundry
interpretations. He is called a Good Man in common discourse, who is
not dignified with gentility: a Good Man upon the Exchange, who hath a
responsible estate; a Good Man in a Camp, who is a tall man of his
arms; a Good Man in the Church who is pious and devout in his
conversation. Thus whatever is fixed therein in other relations, that
person is a Good Man in history, whose character affords such matter
as may please the palate of an ingenuous reader.”
Two other significations may be added which Fuller has not
pretermitted, because he could not include them, they being relatively
to him, of posthumous birth. A Good Man upon State trials, or in
certain Committees which it might not be discreet to designate, is one
who will give his verdict without any regard to his oath in the first
case or to the evidence in both. And in the language of the Pugilists
it signifies one who can bear a great deal of beating: Hal Pierce, the
Game Chicken and unrivalled glory of the ring, pronounced this
eulogium upon Mr. Gully, the present honorable member for Pontefract,
when he was asked for a candid opinion of his professional
merits:—“Sir he was the very Best Man as ever I had.”
Among the Good Men, in Fuller's acceptation of the term, who have been
in any way connected with Doncaster, the first in renown as well as in
point of time, is Robin Hood. Many men talk of him who never shot in
his bow; but many think of him when they drink at his Well, which is
at Skelbroke by the way side, about six miles from Doncaster on the
York road. There is a small inn near with Robin Hood for its sign;
this country has produced no other hero whose popularity has endured
so long. The Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Cumberland, and the
Marquis of Granby have flourished upon sign-posts, and have faded
there; so have their compeers Prince Eugene and Prince Ferdinand.
Rodney and Nelson are fading; and the time is not far distant when
Wellington also will have had his day. But while England shall be
England Robin Hood will be a popular name.
Near Robin Hood's Well, and nearer to Doncaster, the Hermit of Hampole
resided, at the place from which he was so called, “where living he
was honored, and dead was buried and sainted.” Richard Role, however,
for that was his name, was no otherwise sainted than by common opinion
in those parts. He died in 1349, and is the oldest of our known Poets.
His writings both in verse and prose which are of considerable extent
ought to be published at the expense of some national institution.
In the next generation John Marse, who was born in a neighbouring
village of that name, flourished in the Carmelite Convent at
Doncaster, and obtained great celebrity in his time for writing
against—a far greater than himself—John Wickliffe.
It is believed that Sir Martin Frobisher was born at Doncaster, and
that his father was Mayor of that place. “I note this the rather,”
says Fuller, “because learned Mr. Carpenter, in his Geography,
recounts him among the famous men of Devonshire; but why should
Devonshire which hath a flock of Worthies of her own, take a lamb from
another country.” This brave seaman when he left his property to a
kinsman who was very likely to dissipate it, said, “it was gotten at
sea, and would never thrive long at land.”
Lord Molesworth having purchased the estate at Edlington, four miles
from Doncaster, formerly the property of Sir Edward Stanhope, resided
there occasionally in the old mansion, during the latter part of his
life. His Account of Denmark is a book which may always be read with
profit. The Danish Ambassador complained of it to King William, and
hinted that if one of his Danish Majesty's subjects had taken such
liberties with the King of England, his master would upon complaint,
have taken off the author's head. “That I cannot do,” replied William;
“but if you please I will tell him what you say, and he shall put it
into the next edition of his book.”
Other remarkable persons who were connected with Doncaster, and were
contemporaries with Dr. Dove will be noticed in due time. Here I shall
only mention two who have distinguished themselves since his days
(alas!) and since I took my leave of a place endeared to me by so many
recollections. Mr. Bingley well known for his popular works upon
Natural History, and Mr. Henry Lister Maw, the adventurous naval
officer who was the first Englishman that ever came down the great
river Amazons, are both natives of this town. I know not whether the
Doncaster Maws are of Hibernian descent; but the name of M‛Coglan is
in Ireland beautified and abbreviated into Maw; the M‛Coglan, or head
of the family was called the Maw; and a district of King's County was
known within the memory of persons now living by the appellation of
the Maws County.
For myself, I am behind a veil which is not to be withdrawn:
nevertheless I may say, without consideration of myself, that in
Doncaster both because of the principal scene and of the subject of
this work
HONOS ERIT HUIC QUOQUE TOMO.
INTERCHAPTER VI.
CONTINGENT CAUSES. PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS INDUCED BY REFLECTING ON
THEM. THE AUTHOR TREMBLES FOR THE PAST.
_Vereis que no hay lazada desasida
De nudo y de pendencia soberana;
Ni a poder trastornar la orden del cielo
Las fuerzas llegan, ni el saber del suelo._
BALBUENA.
“There is no action of man in this life,” says Thomas of Malmesbury,
“which is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences, as
that no human providence is high enough to give us a prospect to the
end.” The chain of causes however is as long as the chain of
consequences,—peradventure longer; and when I think of the causes
which have combined to procreate this book, and the consequences which
of necessity it must produce, I am lost in admiration.
How many accidents might for ever have impossibilitated the existence
of this incomparable work! If, for instance, I the Unknown, had been
born in any other part of the world than in the British dominions; or
in any other age than one so near the time in which the venerable
subject of these memoirs flourished; or in any other place than where
these localities could have been learnt, and all these personalities
were remembered; or if I had not counted it among my felicities like
the philosopher of old, and the Polish Jews of this day, (who thank
God for it in their ritual), to have been born a male instead of a
female; or if I had been born too poor to obtain the blessings of
education, or too rich to profit by them: or if I had not been born at
all. If indeed in the course of six thousand years which have elapsed
since the present race of intellectual inhabitants were placed upon
this terraqueous globe, any chance had broken off one marriage among
my innumerable married progenitors, or thwarted the courtship of those
my equally innumerable ancestors who lived before that ceremony was
instituted, or in countries where it was not known,—where, or how
would my immortal part have existed at this time, or in what shape
would these bodily elements have been compounded with which it is
invested? A single miscarriage among my millions of grandmothers might
have cut off the entail of my mortal being!
_Quid non evertit primordia frivola vitæ?
Nec mirum, vita est integra pene nihil.
Nunc perit, ah! tenui pereuntis odore lucernæ,
Et fumum hunc fumus fortior ille fugat.
Totum aquilis Cæsar rapidis circumvolet orbem,
Collegamque sibi vix ferat esse Jovem.
Quantula res quantos potuisset inepta triumphos,
Et magnum nasci vel prohibere Deum!
Exhæredasset moriente lucernula flammâ
Tot dominis mundum numinibusque novis.
Tu quoque tantilli, juvenis Pellæe, perisses,
(Quam gratus terris ille fuisset odor!)
Tu tantùm unius qui pauper regulus orbis,
Et prope privatus visus es esse tibi.
Nec tu tantùm, idem potuisset tollere casus
Teque Jovis fili, Bucephalumque tuum:
Dormitorque urbem malè delevisset agaso
Bucephalam è vestris, Indica Fata, libris._[1]
The snuff of a candle,—a fall,—a fright,—nay, even a fit of anger!
Such things are happening daily,—yea, hourly, upon this peopled earth.
One such mishap among so many millions of cases, millions ten million
times told, centillions multiplied beyond the vocabulary of
numeration, and ascending to ψαμμακοσὶα,—which word having been coined
by a certain Alexis (perhaps no otherwise remembered,) and latinized
_arenaginta_ by Erasmus, is now Anglicized _sandillions_ by me;—one
such among them all!—I tremble to think of it!
[Footnote 1: COWLEY.]
Again. How often has it depended upon political events! If the Moors
had defeated Charles Martel; if William instead of Harold had fallen
in the Battle of Hastings; if bloody Queen Mary had left a child; or
if blessed Queen Mary had not married the Prince of Orange! In the
first case the English might now have been Musselmen; in the second
they would have continued to use the Saxon tongue, and in either of
those cases the Ego could not have existed; for if Arabian blood were
put in, or Norman taken out, the whole chain of succession would have
been altered. The two latter cases perhaps might not have affected the
bodily existence of the Ego; but the first might have entailed upon
him the curse of Popery, and the second if it had not subjected him to
the same curse, would have made him the subject of a despotic
government. In neither case could he have been capable of excogitating
lucubrations, such as this high history contains: for either of these
misfortunes would have emasculated his mind, unipsefying and
unegofying the _Ipsissimus Ego_.
Another chance must be mentioned. One of my ancestors was, as the
phrase is, out in a certain rebellion. His heart led him into the
field and his heels got him out of it. Had he been less nimble,—or had
he been taken and hanged, and hanged he would have been if
taken,—there would have been no Ego at this day, no history of Dr.
Daniel Dove. The Doctor would have been like the heroes who lived
before Agamemnon, and his immortalizer would never have lived at all.