A TRUCE WITH MELANCHOLY. GENTLEMEN SUCH AS THEY WERE IN THE YEAR OF
OUR LORD 1747. A HINT TO YOUNG LADIES CONCERNING THEIR GREAT
GRANDMOTHERS.
Fashions that are now called new,
Have been worn by more than you;
Elder times have used the same,
Though these new ones get the name.
MIDDLETON.
Well might Ben Jonson call bell-ringing “the poetry of steeples!” It
is a poetry which in some heart or other is always sure to move an
accordant key; and there is not much of the poetry, so called by
courtesy because it bears the appearance of verse, of which this can
be said with equal truth. Doncaster since I was one of its inhabitants
had been so greatly changed,—(improved I ought to say, for its outward
changes had really been improvements,—) that there was nothing but my
own recollections to carry me back into the past, till the clock of
St. George's struck nine, on the evening of our arrival, and its
chimes began to measure out the same time in the same tones, which I
used to hear as regularly as the hours came round, forty long years
ago.
Enough of this! My visit to Doncaster was incidentally introduced by
the comparison which I could not chuse but make between such a return,
and that of the Student from Leyden. We must now revert to the point
from whence I strayed and go farther back than the forty years over
which the chimes as if with magic had transported me. We must go back
to the year 1747, when gentlemen wore sky-blue coats, with silver
button holes and huge cuffs extending more than half way from the
middle of the hand to the elbow, short breeches just reaching to the
silver garters at the knee, and embroidered waistcoats with long flaps
which came almost as low. Were I to describe Daniel Dove in the wig
which he then wore, and which observed a modest mean between the bush
of the Apothecary and the consequential foretop of the Physician with
its depending knots, fore and aft; were I to describe him in a sober
suit of brown or snuff-coloured dittos such as beseemed his
profession, but with cuffs of the dimensions, waistcoat-flaps of the
length, and breeches of the brevity before mentioned; Amorosa and
Amatura and Amoretta would exclaim that love ought never to be named
in connection with such a figure,—Amabilis, sweet girl in the very
bloom of innocence and opening youth, would declare she never could
love such a creature, and Amanda herself would smile, not
contemptuously, nor at her idea of the man, but at the mutability of
fashion. Smile if you will, young Ladies! your great grandmothers wore
large hoops, peaked stomachers, and modesty-bits; their riding-habits
and waistcoats were trimmed with silver, and they had very
gentleman-like perukes for riding in, as well as gentleman-like cocked
hats. Yet, young Ladies, they were as gay and giddy in their time as
you are now, they were as attractive and as lovely; they were not less
ready than you are to laugh at the fashions of those who had gone
before them; they were wooed and won by gentlemen in short breeches,
long flapped waistcoats, large cuffs and tie wigs; and the wooing and
winning proceeded much in the same manner as it had done in the
generations before them, as the same agreeable part of this world's
business proceeds among yourselves, and as it will proceed when you
will be as little thought of by your great-grand-daughters as your
great-grand-mothers are at this time by you. What care you for your
great-grand-mothers!
The law of entails sufficiently proves that our care for our posterity
is carried far, sometimes indeed beyond what is reasonable and just.
On the other hand it is certain that the sense of relationship in the
ascending line produces in general little other feeling than that of
pride in the haughty and high-born. That it should be so to a certain
degree, is in the order of nature and for the general good: but that
in our selfish state of society this indifference for our ancestors is
greater than the order of nature would of itself produce, may be
concluded from the very different feeling which prevailed among some
of the ancients, and still prevails in other parts of the world.
He who said that he did not see why he should be expected to do any
thing for Posterity, when Posterity had done nothing for him, might be
deemed to have shown as much worthlessness as wit in this saying, if
it were any thing more than the sportive sally of a light-hearted man.
Yet one who “keeps his heart with all diligence,” knowing that “out of
it are the issues of life,” will take heed never lightly to entertain
a thought that seems to make light of a duty,—still less will he give
it utterance. We owe much to Posterity, nothing less than all that we
have received from our Forefathers. And for myself I should be
unwilling to believe that nothing is due from us to our ancestors. If
I did not acquire this feeling from the person who is the subject of
these volumes, it was at least confirmed by him. He used to say that
one of the gratifications which he promised himself after death, was
that of becoming acquainted with all his progenitors, in order, degree
above degree, up to Noah, and from him up to our first parents. “But,”
said he, “though I mean to proceed regularly step by step, curiosity
will make me in one instance trespass upon this proper arrangement,
and I shall take the earliest opportunity of paying my respects to
Adam and Eve.”