CONCERNING THE PORTRAIT OF DR. DANIEL DOVE.
The sure traveller
Though he alight sometimes still goeth on.
HERBERT.
There is no portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove.
And there Horrebow, the Natural Historian of Iceland,—if Horrebow had
been his biographer—would have ended this chapter.
“Here perchance,”—(observe, Reader, I am speaking now in the words of
the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon,)—“here perchance a question would
be asked,—(and yet I do marvel to hear a question made of so plain a
matter,)—what should be the cause of this? If it were asked,” (still
the Lord Keeper speaketh) “thus I mean to answer: That I think no man
so blind but seeeth it, no man so deaf but heareth it, nor no man so
ignorant but understandeth it.” “_Il y a des demandes si sottes qu'on
ne les sçauroit resoudre par autre moyen que par la moquerie et les
absurdities; afin qu'une sottise pousse l'autre._”[1]
[Footnote 1: GARASSE.]
But some reader may ask what have I answered here, or rather what have
I brought forward the great authority of the Lord Keeper Sir Nicholas
Bacon and the arch-vituperator P. Garasse, to answer for me? Do I take
it for granted that the cause wherefore there is no portrait of Dr.
Daniel Dove, should be thus apparent? or the reason why, there being
no such portrait, Horrebow should simply have said so, and having so
said, end therewith the chapter which he had commenced upon the
subject.
O gentle reader you who ask this pertinent question,—I entirely agree
with you! there is nothing more desirable in composition than
perspicuity; and in perspicuity precision is implied. Of the Author
who has attained it in his style, it may indeed be said, _omne tulit
punctum_, so far as relates to style; for all other graces, those only
excepted which only genius can impart, will necessarily follow.
Nothing is so desirable, and yet it should seem that nothing is so
difficult. He who thinks least about it when he is engaged in
composition will be most likely to attain it, for no man ever attained
it by labouring for it. Read all the treatises upon composition that
ever were composed, and you will find nothing which conveys so much
useful instruction as the account given by John Wesley of his own way
of writing. “I never think of my style,” says he; “but just set down
the words that come first. Only when I transcribe any thing for the
press, then I think it my duty to see that every phrase be clear, pure
and proper: conciseness which is now as it were natural to me, brings
_quantum sufficit_ of strength. If after all I observe any stiff
expression, I throw it out neck and shoulders.” Let your words take
their course freely; they will then dispose themselves in their
natural order, and make your meaning plain;—that is, Mr. Author,
supposing you have a meaning; and that it is not an insidious, and for
that reason, a covert one. With all the head-work that there is in
these volumes, and all the heart-work too, I have not bitten my nails
over a single sentence which they contain. I do not say that my hand
has not sometimes been passed across my brow; nor that the fingers of
my left hand have not played with the hair upon my forehead,—like
Thalaba's with the grass that grew beside Oneiza's tomb.
No people have pretended to so much precision in their language as the
Turks. They have not only verbs active, passive, transitive, and
reciprocal, but also verbs co-operative, verbs meditative, verbs
frequentative, verbs negative, and verbs impossible; and moreover they
have what are called verbs of opinion, and verbs of knowledge. The
latter are used when the speaker means it to be understood that he
speaks of his own sure knowledge, and is absolutely certain of what he
asserts; the former when he advances it only as what he thinks likely,
or believes upon the testimony of others.
Now in the Turkish language the word whereon both the meaning and the
construction of the sentence depend, is placed at the end of a
sentence which extends not unfrequently to ten, fifteen or twenty
lines. What therefore they might gain in accuracy by this nice
distinction of verbs must be more than counterbalanced by the
ambiguity consequent upon long-windedness. And notwithstanding their
conscientious moods, they are not more remarkable for veracity than
their neighbours who in ancient times made so much use of the
indefinite tenses, and were said to be always liars.
We have a sect in our own country who profess to use a strict and
sincere plainness of speech; they call their dialect _the plain
language_, and yet they are notorious for making a studied precision
in their words, answer all the purposes of equivocation.