THE AUTHOR'S LAST VISIT TO DONCASTER.
_Fuere quondam hæc sed fuere;
Nunc ubi sint, rogitas? Id annos
Scire hos oportet scilicet. O bonæ
Musæ, O Lepôres—O Charites meræ!
O gaudia offuscata nullis
Litibus! O sine nube soles!_
JANUS DOUZA.
I have more to say, dear Ladies, upon that which to you is, and ought
to be, the most interesting of all worldly subjects, matrimony, and
the various ways by which it is brought about; but this is not the
place for saying it. The Doctor is not at this time thinking of a
wife: his heart can no more be taken so long as it retains the lively
image of the Burgemeester's Daughter, than Troy-town while the
Palladium was safe.
Imagine him, therefore, in the year of our Lord 1747, and in the
twenty-sixth year of his age, returned to Doncaster, with the
Burgemeester's Daughter, seated like the Lady in the Lobster, in his
inmost breast; with physic in his head and at his fingers' ends; and
with an appetite for knowledge which had long been feeding
voraciously, digesting well, and increasing in its growth by what it
fed on. Imagine him returned to Doncaster, and welcomed once more as a
son by the worthy old Peter Hopkins and his good wife, in that
comfortable habitation which I have heretofore described, and of which
(as was at the same time stated) you may see a faithful representation
in Miller's History of that good town; a faithful representation, I
say, of what it was in 1804; the drawing was by Frederic Nash; and
Edward Shirt made a shift to engrave it; the house had then undergone
some alterations since the days when I frequented it; and now!—
Of all things in this our mortal pilgrimage one of the most joyful is
the returning home after an absence which has been long enough to make
the heart yearn with hope, and not sicken with it, and then to find
when you arrive there that all is well. But the most purely painful of
all painful things is to visit after a long long interval of time the
place which was once our home;—the most purely painful, because it is
unmixed with fear, anxiety, disappointment, or any other emotion but
what belongs to the sense of time and change, then pressing upon us
with its whole unalleviated weight.
It was my fortune to leave Doncaster early in life, and, having passed
_per varios casus_, and through as large a proportion of good and evil
in my humble sphere, as the pious Æneas, though not exactly _per tot
discrimina rerum_, not to see it again till after an absence of more
than forty years, when my way happened to lie through that town. I
should never have had heart purposely to visit it, for that would have
been seeking sorrow; but to have made a circuit for the sake of
avoiding the place would have been an act of weakness; and no man who
has a proper degree of self-respect will do any thing of which he
might justly feel ashamed. It was evening, and late in autumn when I
entered Doncaster, and alighted at the Old Angel Inn. “The _Old_
Angel!” said I to my fellow-traveller; “you see that even Angels on
earth grow old!”
My companion knew how deeply I had been indebted to Dr. Dove, and with
what affection I cherished his memory. We presently sallied forth to
look at his former habitation. Totally unknown as I now am in
Doncaster, (where there is probably not one living soul who remembers
either me, or my very name,) I had determined to knock at the door, at
a suitable hour on the morrow, and ask permission to enter the house
in which I had passed so many happy and memorable hours, long ago. My
age and appearance I thought might justify this liberty; and I
intended also to go into the garden and see if any of the fruit trees
were remaining, which my venerable friend had planted, and from which
I had so often plucked and ate.
When we came there, there was nothing by which I could have recognized
the spot, had it not been for the Mansion House that immediately
adjoined it. Half of its site had been levelled to make room for a
street or road which had been recently opened. Not a vestige remained
of the garden behind. The remaining part of the house had been
re-built; and when I read the name of R. DENNISON on the door, it was
something consolatory to see that the door itself was not the same
which had so often opened to admit me.
Upon returning to the spot on the following morning I perceived that
the part which had been re-built is employed as some sort of official
appendage to the Mansion House; and on the naked side-wall now open to
the new street, or road, I observed most distinctly where the old tall
chimney had stood, and the outline of the old pointed roof. These were
the only vestiges that remained; they could have no possible interest
in any eyes but mine, which were likely never to behold them again;
and indeed it was evident that they would soon be effaced as a
deformity, and the naked side-wall smoothed over with plaster. But
they will not be effaced from my memory, for they were the last traces
of that dwelling which is the _Kebla_ of my retrospective day-dreams,
the _Sanctum Sanctorum_ of my dearest recollections; and like an
apparition from the dead, once seen, they were never to be forgotten.