WHEREIN THE QUESTION IS ANSWERED WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN ASKED.
_Ajutami, tu penna, et calamaio,
Ch' io hò tra mano una materia asciutta._
MATTIO FRANZESI.
Wherefore there is no portrait of my excellent friend, is a question
which ought to be answered, because the solution will exhibit
something of what in the words of the old drinking song he used to
call his “poor way of thinking.” And it is a question which may well
be asked, seeing that in the circle wherein he moved, there were some
persons of liberal habits and feelings as well as liberal fortune, who
enjoyed his peculiarities, placed the fullest reliance upon his
professional skill, appreciated most highly his moral and intellectual
character, and were indeed personally attached to him in no ordinary
degree.
For another reason also ought this question to be resolved; a reason
which whatever the reader may think, has the more weight with me,
because it nearly concerns myself. “There is indeed,” says the
Philosopher of Bemerton, “a near relation between seriousness and
wisdom, and one is a most excellent friend to the other. A man of a
serious, sedate and considerate temper, as he is always in a ready
disposition for meditation, (the best improvement both of knowledge
and manners,) so he thinks without disturbance, enters not upon
another notion till he is master of the first, and so makes clean work
with it:—whereas a man of a loose, volatile and shattered humour,
thinks only by fits and starts, now and then in a morning interval,
when the serious mood comes upon him; and even then too, let but the
least trifle cross his way, and his desultorious fancy presently takes
the scent, leaves the unfinished and half-mangled notion, and skips
away in pursuit of the new game.” Reader, it must be my care not to
come under this condemnation; and therefore I must follow to the end
the subject which is before me: _quare autem nobis—dicendum videtur,
ne temere secuti putemur; et breviter dicendum, ne in hujusmodi rebus
diutius, quam ratio præcipiendi postulet commoremur._[1]
[Footnote 1: CICERO.]
Mr. Copley of Netherhall was particularly desirous of possessing this
so-much-by-us-now-desiderated likeness, and would have invited an
Artist from London, if the Doctor could have been prevailed upon to
sit for it; but to this no persuasions could induce him. He never
assigned a reason for this determination, and indeed always evaded the
subject when it was introduced, letting it at the same time plainly be
perceived that he was averse to it, and wished not to be so pressed as
to draw from him a direct refusal. But once when the desire had been
urged with some seriousness, he replied that he was the last of his
race, and if he were to be the first who had his portrait taken, well
might they who looked at it, exclaim with Solomon, “Vanity of
vanities!”
In that thought indeed it was that the root of his objection lay.
“_Pauli in domo, præter se nemo superest_,” is one of the most
melancholy reflections to which Paulus Æmilius gave utterance in that
speech of his which is recorded by Livy. The speedy extinction of his
family in his own person was often in the Doctor's mind; and he would
sometimes touch upon it when, in his moods of autumnal feeling, he was
conversing with those persons whom he had received into his heart of
hearts. Unworthy as I was, it was my privilege and happiness to be one
of them; and at such times his deepest feelings could not have been
expressed more unreservedly, if he had given them utterance in poetry
or in prayer.
Blest as he had been in all other things to the extent of his wishes,
it would be unreasonable in him, he said, to look upon this as a
misfortune; so to repine would indicate little sense of gratitude to
that bountiful Providence which had so eminently favored him; little
also of religious acquiescence in its will. It was not by any sore
calamity nor series of afflictions that the extinction of his family
had been brought on; the diminution had been gradual, as if to show
that their uses upon earth were done. His grandfather had only had two
children; his parents but one, and that one was now _ultimus suorum_.
They had ever been a family in good repute, walking inoffensively
towards all men, uprightly with their neighbours, and humbly with
their God; and perhaps this extinction was their reward. For what
Solon said of individuals, that no one could truly be called happy
till his life had terminated in a happy death, holds equally true of
families.
Perhaps too this timely extinction was ordained in mercy, to avert
consequences which might else so probably have arisen from his
forsaking the station in which he was born; a lowly, but safe station,
exposed to fewer dangers, trials or temptations, than any other in
this age or country, with which he was enabled to compare it. The
sentiment with which Sanazzaro concludes his Arcadia was often in his
mind, not as derived from that famous author, but self-originated:
_per cosa vera ed indubitata tener ti puoi, che chi più di nascoso e
più lontano dalla moltitudine vive, miglior vive; e colui trà mortali
si può con più verità chiamar beato, che senza invidia delle altrui
grandezze, con modesto animo della sua fortuna si contenta._ His
father had removed him from that station; he would not say unwisely,
for his father was a wise and good man, if ever man deserved to be so
called; and he could not say unhappily; for assuredly he knew that all
the blessings which had earnestly been prayed for, had attended the
determination. Through that blessing he had obtained the whole benefit
which his father desired for him, and had escaped evils which perhaps
had not been fully apprehended. His intellectual part had received all
the improvement of which it was capable, and his moral nature had
sustained no injury in the process; nor had his faith been shaken, but
stood firm, resting upon a sure foundation. But the entail of humble
safety had been, as it were, cut off; the birth-right—so to speak—had
been renounced. His children, if God had given him children, must have
mingled in the world, there to shape for themselves their lot of good
or evil; and he knew enough of the world to know how manifold and how
insidious are the dangers, which, in all its paths, beset us. He never
could have been to them what his father had been to him;—that was
impossible. They could have had none of those hallowing influences
both of society and solitude to act upon them, which had imbued his
heart betimes, and impressed upon his youthful mind a character that
no after circumstances could corrupt. They must inevitably have been
exposed to more danger, and could not have been so well armed against
it. That consideration reconciled him to being childless. God, who
knew what was best for him, had ordained that it should be so; and he
did not, and ought not to regret, that having been the most cultivated
of his race, and so far the happiest, it was decreed that he should be
the last. God's will is best.
Ὣς ἔφατ ἔυχὸμενος; for with some aspiration of piety he usually
concluded his more serious discourse, either giving it utterance, or
with a silent motion of the lips, which the expression of his
countenance, as well as the tenour of what had gone before, rendered
intelligible to those who knew him as I did.