EXTENSION OF THE SCIENCE OF PHYSIOGNOMY, WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE PRACTICAL USES OF CRANIOLOGY.
Hanc ergo scientiam blande excipiamus, hilariterque amplectamur, ut vere nostram et de nobismet ipsis tractantem; quam qui non amat, quam qui non amplectitur, nec philosophiam amat, neque suæ vitæ discrimina curat.
BAPTISTAPORTA.
They who know that the word physiognomy is not derived from phiz, and infer from that knowledge that the science is not confined to the visage alone, have extended it to handwritings also, and hence it has become fashionable in this age of collectors to collect the autographs of remarkable persons. But now that Mr. Rapier has arisen, “the Reformer of illegible hands,” he and his rival Mr. Carstairs teach all their pupils to write alike. The countenance however has fairer play in our days than it had in old times, for the long heads of the sixteenth century were made by the nurses, not by nature. Elongating the nose, flattening the temples, and raising the forehead are no longer performed by manual force, and the face undergoes now no other artificial modelling than such as may be impressed upon it by the aid of the looking-glass. So far physiognomy becomes less difficult, the data upon which it has to proceed, not having been falsifiedab initio;but there arises a question in what state ought they to be examined? Dr. Gall is for shaving the head, and overhauling it as a Turk does a Circassian upon sale, that he may discover upon the outside of the skull the organs of fighting, murder, cunning, and thieving (near neighbours in hismappa cerebri,) of comparing colours, of music, of sexual instinct, of philosophical judgement &c. &c. all which, with all other qualities, have their latitudes and longitudes in the brain, and are conspicuous upon the outward skull, according to the degree in which they influence the character of the individual.
It must be admitted that if this learned German's theory of craniology be well founded, the Gods have devised a much surer, safer and more convenient means for discovering the real characters of the Lords and Ladies of the creation, than what Momus proposed, when he advised that a window should be placed in the breast. For if his advice had been followed, and there had actually been a window in the sternum,—it is I think beyond all doubt that a window-shutter would soon have been found indispensably necessary in cold climates, more especially in England where pulmonary complaints are so frequent; and, secondly, the wind would not be more injurious to the lungs in high latitudes, than the sun would be to the liver in torrid regions; indeed every where during summer it would be impossible to exist without a green curtain, or Venetian blinds to the window; and after all, take what precautions we might, the world would be ten times more bilious than it is. Another great physical inconvenience would also have arisen; for if men could peep into their insides at any time, and see the motions and the fermentations which are continually going on, and the rise and progress of every malady distinctly marked in the changes it produced, so many nervous diseases would be brought on by frequent inspection, and so many derangements from attempting to regulate the machine, that the only way to prevent it from making a full stop would be to put a lock upon the shutter, and deliver the key to the Physician.
But upon Dr. Gall's theory how many and what obvious advantages result! Nor are they merely confined to the purposes of speculative physiognomy; the uses of his theory as applied to practice offer to us hopes scarcely less delightful than those which seemed to dawn upon mankind with the discovery of the gasses, and with the commencement of the French Revolution, and in these later days with the progress of the Bible Society. In courts of Justice for instance how beautifully would this new science supply any little deficiency of evidence upon trial! If a man were arraigned for murder, and the case were doubtful, but he were found to have a decided organ for the crime, it would be of little matter whether he had committed the specific fact in the indictment, or not; for hanging if not applicable as punishment, would be proper for prevention. Think also in State Trials what infinite advantages an Attorney General might derive from the opinion of a Regius Professor of Craniology! Even these are but partial benefits. Our Generals, Ministers, and Diplomatists would then unerringly be chosen by the outside of the head, though a criterion might still be wanted to ascertain when it was too thick and when too thin. But the greatest advantages are those which this new system would afford to education; for by the joint efforts of Dr. Gall and Mr. Edgeworth we should be able to breed up men according to any pattern which Parents or Guardians might think proper to bespeak. The Doctor would design the mould, and Mr. Edgeworth by his skill in mechanics devise with characteristic ingenuity the best means of making and applying it. As soon as the child was born the professional cap, medical, military, theological, commercial or legal, would be put on, and thus he would be perfectly prepared for Mr. Edgeworth's admirable system of professional education. I will pursue this subject no farther than just to hint that the materials of the mould may operate sympathetically, and therefore that for a lawyer inrusthe cap should be made of brass, for a divine of lead, for a politician of base-metal, for a soldier of steel, and for a sailor of heart of English oak.
Dr. Gall would doubtless require the naked head to be submitted to him for judgement. Contrariwise I opine,—and all the Ladies will agree with me in this opinion,—that the head ought neither to be stript, nor even examined in undress, but that it should be taken with all its accompaniments, when the owner has made the best of it, the accompaniments being not unfrequently more indicative than the features themselves. Long ago the question whether a man is most like himself drest or undrest, was propounded to the British Apollo; and it was answered by the Oracle that a man of God Almighty's making is most like himself when undrest; but a man of a tailor's, periwig-maker's, and sempstress's making, when drest. The Oracle answered rightly; for no man can select his own eyes, nose, or mouth,—but his wig and his whiskers are of his own chusing. And to use an illustrious instance, how much of character is there in that awful wig which alway in its box accompanies Dr. Parr upon his visits of ceremony, that it may be put on in the hall, with all its feathery honours thick upon it, not a curl deranged, a hair flattened, or a particle of powder wasted on the way!
But if we would form a judgement of the interior of that portentous head which is thus formidably obumbrated, how could it be done so well as by beholding the Doctor among his books, and there seeing the food upon which his terrific intellect is fed. There we should see the accents, quantities, dialects, digammas, and other such small gear as in these days constitute the complete armour of a perfect scholar; and by thus discovering what goes into the head we might form a fair estimate of what was likely to come out of it. This is a truth which, with many others of equal importance, will be beautifully elucidated in this nonpareil history. For Daniel Dove the Father had a collection of books; they were not so numerous as those of his contemporary Harley, famous for his library, and infamous for the Peace of Utrecht; but he was perfectly conversant with all their contents, which is more than could be said of the Earl of Oxford.
Reader whether thou art man, woman or child, thou art doubtless acquainted with the doctrine of association as inculcated by the great Mr. Locke and his disciples. But never hast thou seen that doctrine so richly and so entirely exemplified as in this great history, the association of ideas being, in oriental phrase, the silken thread upon which its pearls are strung. And never wilt thou see it so clearly and delightfully illustrated, not even if the ingenious Mr. John Jones should one day give to the world the whole twelve volumes in which he has proved the authenticity of the Gospel History, by bringing the narratives of the Four Evangelists to the test of Mr. Locke's metaphysics.
“Desultoriness,” says Mr. Danby, “may often be the mark of a full head; connection must proceed from a thoughtful one.”
A COLLECTION OF BOOKS NONE OF WHICH ARE INCLUDED AMONGST THE PUBLICATIONS OF ANY SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF KNOWLEDGE RELIGIOUS OR PROFANE.—HAPPINESS IN HUMBLE LIFE.
Happily for Daniel, he lived before the age of Magazines, Reviews, Cyclopædias, Elegant Extracts and Literary Newspapers, so that he gathered the fruit of knowledge for himself, instead of receiving it from the dirty fingers of a retail vender. His books were few in number, but they were all weighty either in matter or in size. They consisted of the Morte d'Arthur in the fine black-letter edition of Copland; Plutarch's Morals and Pliny's Natural History, two goodly folios, full as an egg of meat, and both translated by that old worthy Philemon, who for the service which he rendered to his contemporaries and to his countrymen deserves to be called the best of the Hollands, without disparaging either the Lord or the Doctor of that appellation. The whole works of Joshua Sylvester (whose name, let me tell thee reader in passing, was accented upon the first syllable by his contemporaries, not as now upon the second);—Jean Petit's History of the Netherlands, translated and continued by Edward Grimeston, another worthy of the Philemon order; Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourses; Stowe's Chronicle; Joshua Barnes's Life of Edward III.; “Ripley Revived by Eirenæus Philalethes, an Englishman styling himself Citizen of the World,” with its mysterious frontispiece representing theDomus Naturæ, to which,Nil deest, nisi clavis:the Pilgrim's Progress: two volumes of Ozell's translation of Rabelais; Latimer's Sermons; and the last volume of Fox's Martyrs, which latter book had been brought him by his wife. The Pilgrim's Progress was a godmother's present to his son: the odd volumes of Rabelais he had picked up at Kendal, at a sale, in a lot with Ripley Revived and Plutarch's Morals: the others he had inherited.
Daniel had looked into all these books, read most of them, and believed all that he read, except Rabelais, which he could not tell what to make of. He was not however one of those persons who complacently suppose every thing to be nonsense, which they do not perfectly comprehend, or flatter themselves that they do. His simple heart judged of books by what they ought to be, little knowing what they are. It never occurred to him that any thing would be printed which was not worth printing, any thing which did not convey either reasonable delight or useful instruction: and he was no more disposed to doubt the truth of what he read, than to question the veracity of his neighbour, or any one who had no interest in deceiving him. A book carried with it to him authority in its very aspect. The Morte d'Arthur therefore he received for authentic history, just as he did the painful chronicle of honest John Stowe, and the Barnesian labours of Joshua the self-satisfied: there was nothing in it indeed which stirred his English blood like the battles of Cressy and Poictiers and Najara; yet on the whole he preferred it to Barnes's story, believed in Sir Tor, Sir Tristram, Sir Lancelot and Sir Lamorack as entirely as in Sir John Chandos, the Captal de Buche and the Black Prince, and liked them better.
Latimer and Du Bartas he used sometimes to read aloud on Sundays; and if the departed take cognizance of what passes on earth, and poets derive any satisfaction from that posthumous applause which is generally the only reward of those who deserve it, Sylvester might have found some compensation for the undeserved neglect into which his works had sunk, by the full and devout delight which his rattling rhymes and quaint collocations afforded to this reader. The silver-tongued Sylvester however was reserved for a Sabbath book; as a week-day author Daniel preferred Pliny, for the same reason that bread and cheese, or a rasher of hung mutton contented his palate better than a syllabub. He frequently regretted that so knowing a writer had never seen or heard of Wethercote and Yordas caves; the ebbing and flowing spring at Giggleswick, Malham Cove, and Gordale Scar, that he might have described them among the wonders of the world.Omne ignotum pro magnificois a maxim which will not in all cases hold good. There are things which we do not undervalue because we are familiar with them, but which are admired the more the more thoroughly they are known and understood; it is thus with the grand objects of nature and the finest works of art,—with whatsoever is truly great and excellent. Daniel was not deficient in imagination; but no description of places which he had never seen, however exaggerated (as such things always are) impressed him so strongly as these objects in his own neighbourhood, which he had known from childhood. Three or four times in his life it had happened that strangers with a curiosity as uncommon in that age as it is general in this, came from afar to visit these wonders of the West Riding, and Daniel accompanied them with a delight such as he never experienced on any other occasion.
But the Author in whom he delighted most was Plutarch, of whose works he was lucky enough to possess the worthier half: if the other had perished Plutarch would not have been a popular writer, but he would have held a higher place in the estimation of the judicious. Daniel could have posed a candidate for university honors, and perhaps the examiner too, with some of the odd learning which he had stored up in his memory from these great repositories of ancient knowledge. Refusing all reward for such services, the strangers to whom he officiated as a guide, though they perceived that he was an extraordinary person, were little aware how much information he had acquired, and of how strange a kind. His talk with them did not go beyond the subjects which the scenes they came to visit naturally suggested, and they wondered more at the questions he asked, than at any thing which he advanced himself. For his disposition was naturally shy, and that which had been bashfulness in youth assumed the appearance of reserve as he advanced in life; for having none to communicate with upon his favorite studies he lived in an intellectual world of his own, a mental solitude as complete as that of Alexander Selkirk or Robinson Crusoe. Even to the Curate his conversation, if he had touched upon his books, would have been heathen Greek; and to speak the truth plainly, without knowing a letter of that language, he knew more about the Greeks, than nine-tenths of the clergy at that time, including all the dissenters, and than nine-tenths of the schoolmasters also.
Our good Daniel had none of that confidence which so usually and so unpleasantly characterizes self-taught men. In fact he was by no means aware of the extent of his acquirements, all that he knew in this kind having been acquired for amusement not for use. He had never attempted to teach himself any thing. These books had lain in his way in boyhood, or fallen in it afterwards, and the perusal of them intently as it was followed, was always accounted by him to be nothing more than recreation. None of his daily business had ever been neglected for it; he cultivated his fields and his garden, repaired his walls, looked to the stable, tended his cows and salved his sheep, as diligently and as contentedly as if he had possessed neither capacity nor inclination for any higher employments. Yet Daniel was one of those men, who, if disposition and aptitude were not overruled by circumstances, would have grown pale with study, instead of being bronzed and hardened by sun and wind and rain. There were in him undeveloped talents which might have raised him to distinction as an antiquary, a virtuoso of the Royal Society, a poet, or a theologian, to which ever course the bias in his ball of fortune had inclined. But he had not a particle of envy in his composition. He thought indeed that if he had had grammar learning in his youth like the curate, he would have made more use of it; but there was nothing either of the sourness or bitterness (call it which you please) of repining in this natural reflection.
Never indeed was any man more contented with doing his duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him. And well he might be so, for no man ever passed through the world with less to disquiet or to sour him. Bred up in habits which secured the continuance of that humble but sure independance to which he was born, he had never known what it was to be anxious for the future. At the age of twenty-five he had brought home a wife, the daughter of a little landholder like himself, with fifteen pounds for her portion: and the true-love of his youth proved to him a faithful helpmate in those years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its realities. If at any time there had been some alloy in his happiness it was when there appeared reason to suppose that in him his family would be extinct; for though no man knows what parental feelings are till he has experienced them, and Daniel therefore knew not the whole value of that which he had never enjoyed, the desire of progeny is natural to the heart of man; and though Daniel had neither large estates, nor an illustrious name to transmit, it was an unwelcome thought that the little portion of the earth which had belonged to his fathers time out of mind, should pass into the possession of some stranger, who would tread on their graves and his own without any regard to the dust that lay beneath. That uneasy apprehension was removed after he had been married fifteen years, when to the great joy of both parents, because they had long ceased to entertain any hope of such an event, their wishes were fulfilled in the birth of a son. This their only child was healthy, apt and docile, to all appearance as happily disposed in mind and body as a father's heart could wish. If they had fine weather for winning their hay or shearing their corn, they thanked God for it; if the season proved unfavourable, the labour was only a little the more and the crop a little the worse. Their stations secured them from want, and they had no wish beyond it. What more had Daniel to desire?
The following passage in the divine Du Bartas he used to read with peculiar satisfaction, applying it to himself:—
RUSTIC PHILOSOPHY. AN EXPERIMENT UPON MOONSHINE.
RUSTIC PHILOSOPHY. AN EXPERIMENT UPON MOONSHINE.
It is not however for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion. Having nothing to desire for himself, Daniel's ambition had taken a natural direction and fixed upon his son. He was resolved that the boy should be made a scholar; not with the prospect of advancing him in the world, but in the hope that he might become a philosopher, and take as much delight in the books which he would inherit as his father had done before him. Riches and rank and power appeared in his judgement to be nothing when compared to philosophy; and herein he was as true a philosopher as if he had studied in the Porch, or walked the groves of Academus.
It was not however for this,—for he was as little given to talk of his opinions as to display his reading,—but for his retired habits, and general character, and some odd practices into which his books had led him, that he was commonly called Flossofer Daniel by his neighbours. The appellation was not affixed in derision, but respectfully and as his due; for he bore his faculties too meekly ever to excite an envious or an ill-natured feeling in any one. Rural Flossofers were not uncommon in those days, though in the progress of society they have disappeared like Crokers, Bowyers, Lorimers, Armourers, Running Footmen and other descriptions of men whose occupations are gone by. But they were of a different order from our Daniel. They were usually Philomaths, Students in Astrology, or the Cœlestial Science, and not unfrequently Empirics or downright Quacks. Between twenty and thirty almanacs used to be published every year by men of this description, some of them versed enough in mathematics to have done honor to Cambridge, had the fates allowed; and others such proficients in roguery, that they would have done equal honor to the whipping-post.
A man of a different stamp from either came in declining life to settle at Ingleton in the humble capacity of schoolmaster, a little before young Daniel was capable of more instruction than could be given him at home. Richard Guy was his name; he is the person to whom the lovers of old rhyme are indebted for the preservation of the old poem of Flodden Field, which he transcribed from an ancient manuscript, and which was printed from his transcript by Thomas Gent of York. In his way through the world, which had not been along the King's high Dunstable road, Guy had picked up a competent share of Latin, a little Greek, some practical knowledge of physic, and more of its theory; astrology enough to cast a nativity, and more acquaintance with alchemy than has often been possessed by one who never burnt his fingers in its processes. These acquirements were grafted on a disposition as obliging as it was easy; and he was beholden to nature for an understanding so clear and quick that it might have raised him to some distinction in the world if he had not been under the influence of an imagination at once lively and credulous. Five and fifty years had taught him none of the world's wisdom; they had sobered his mind without maturing it; but he had a wise heart, and the wisdom of the heart is worth all other wisdom.
Daniel was too far advanced in life to fall in friendship; he felt a certain degree of attractiveness in this person's company; there was however so much of what may better be called reticence than reserve in his own quiet habitual manners, that it would have been long before their acquaintance ripened into any thing like intimacy, if an accidental circumstance had not brought out the latent sympathy which on both sides had till then rather been apprehended than understood. They were walking together one day when young Daniel, who was then in his sixth year, looking up in his father's face proposed this question: “will it be any harm, Father, if I steal five beans when next I go into Jonathan Dowthwaites, if I can do it without any one's seeing me?”
“And what wouldst thou steal beans for?” was the reply, “when any body would give them to thee, and when thou knowest there are plenty at home?”
“But it wo'nt do to have them given, Father,” the boy replied. “They are to charm away my warts. Uncle William says I must steal five beans, a bean for every wart, and tie them carefully up in paper, and carry them to a place where two roads cross, and then drop them, and walk away without ever once looking behind me. And then the warts will go away from me, and come upon the hands of the person that picks up the beans.”
“Nay boy,” the Father made answer; “that charm was never taught by a white witch! If thy warts are a trouble to thee, they would be a trouble to any one else; and to get rid of an evil from ourselves Daniel, by bringing it upon another, is against our duty to our neighbour. Have nothing to do with a charm like that!”
“May I steal a piece of raw beef then,” rejoined the boy, “and rub the warts with it and bury it? For Uncle says that will do, and as the beef rots, so the warts will waste away.”
“Daniel,” said the Father, “those can be no lawful charms that begin with stealing; I could tell thee how to cure thy warts in a better manner. There is an infallible way, which is by washing the hands in moonshine, but then the moonshine must be caught in a bright silver basin. You wash and wash in the basin, and a cold moisture will be felt upon the hands, proceeding from the cold and moist rays of the moon.”
“But what shall we do for a silver basin,” said little Daniel?
The Father answered, “a pewter dish might be tried if it were made very bright; but it is not deep enough. The brass kettle perhaps might do better.”
“Nay,” said Guy, who had now begun to attend with some interest, “the shape of a kettle is not suitable. It should be a concave vessel, so as to concentrate the rays. Joshua Wilson I dare say would lend his brass basin, which he can very well spare at the hour you want it, because nobody comes to be shaved by moonlight. The moon rises early enough to serve at this time. If you come in this evening at six o'clock I will speak to Joshua in the mean time, and have the basin as bright and shining as a good scouring can make it. The experiment is curious and I should like to see it tried. Where Daniel didst thou learn it?” “I read it,” replied Daniel, “in Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourses, and he says it never fails.”
Accordingly the parties met at the appointed hour. Mambrino's helmet when new from the armourers, or when furbished for a tournament, was not brighter than Guy had rendered the inside of the barber's basin. Schoolmaster, Father and son retired to a place out of observation, by the side of the river, a wild stream tumbling among the huge stones which it had brought down from the hills. On one of these stones sate Daniel the elder, holding the basin in such an inclination toward the moon that there should be no shadow in it; Guy directed the boy where to place himself so as not to intercept the light, and stood looking complacently on, while young Daniel revolved his hands one in another within the empty basin, as if washing them. “I feel them cold and clammy Father!” said the boy. (It was the beginning of November) “Aye,” replied the father, “that's the cold moisture of the moon!” “Aye!” echoed the schoolmaster, and nodded his head in confirmation.
The operation was repeated on the two following nights; and Daniel would have kept up his son two hours later than his regular time of rest to continue it on the third if the evening had not set in with clouds and rain. In spite of the patient's belief that the warts would waste away and were wasting, (for Prince Hohenlohe could not require more entire faith than was given on this occasion) no alteration could be perceived in them at a fortnight's end. Daniel thought the experiment had failed because it had not been repeated sufficiently often, nor perhaps continued long enough. But the Schoolmaster was of opinion that the cause of failure was in the basin: for that silver being the lunar metal would by affinity assist the influential virtues of the moonlight, which finding no such affinity in a mixed metal of baser compounds, might contrariwise have its potential qualities weakened, or even destroyed when received in a brasen vessel, and reflected from it. Flossofer Daniel assented to this theory. Nevertheless as the child got rid of his troublesome excrescences in the course of three or four months, all parties disregarding the lapse of time at first, and afterwards fairly forgetting it, agreed that the remedy had been effectual, and Sir Kenelm if he had been living, might have procured the solemn attestation of men more veracious than himself that moonshine was an infallible cure for warts.
A KIND SCHOOLMASTER AND A HAPPY SCHOOL BOY.
A KIND SCHOOLMASTER AND A HAPPY SCHOOL BOY.
Though happily thou wilt say that wands be to be wrought when they are green, lest they rather break than bend when they be dry, yet know also that he that bendeth a twig because he would see if it would bow by strength may chance to have a crooked tree when he would have a straight.
EUPHUES.
From this time the two Flossofers were friends. Daniel seldom went to Ingleton without looking in upon Guy, if it were between school hours. Guy on his part would walk as far with him on the way back, as the tether of his own time allowed, and frequently on Saturdays and Sundays he strolled out and took a seat by Daniel's fire side. Even the wearying occupation of hearing one generation of urchins after another repeata-b-ab, hammering the first rules of arithmetic into leaden heads, and pacing like a horse in a mill the same dull dragging round day after day, had neither diminished Guy's good-nature, nor lessened his love for children. He had from the first conceived a liking for young Daniel, both because of the right principle which was evinced by the manner in which he proposed the question concerning stealing the beans, and of the profound gravity (worthy of a Flossofer's son) with which he behaved in the affair of the moonshine. All that he saw and heard of him tended to confirm this favourable prepossession; and the boy, who had been taught to read in the Bible and in Stowe's Chronicle, was committed to his tuition at seven years of age.
Five days in the week (for in the North of England Saturday as well as Sunday is a Sabbath to the Schoolmaster) did young Daniel after supping his porringer of oat-meal pottage, set off to school, with a little basket containing his dinner in his hand. This provision usually consisted of oat-cake and cheese, the latter in goodly proportion, but of the most frugal quality, whatever cream the milk afforded having been consigned to the butter tub. Sometimes it was a piece of cold bacon or of cold pork; and in winter there was the luxury of a shred pie, which is a coarse north country edition of the pie abhorred by puritans. The distance was in those days called two miles; but miles of such long measure that they were for him a good hour's walk at a cheerful pace. He never loitered on the way, being at all times brisk in his movements, and going to school with a spirit as light as when he returned from it, like one whose blessed lot it was never to have experienced, and therefore never to stand in fear of severity or unkindness. For he was not more a favorite with Guy for his docility, and regularity and diligence, than he was with his schoolfellows for his thorough good nature and a certain original oddity of humour.
There are some boys who take as much pleasure in exercising their intellectual faculties, as others do when putting forth the power of arms and legs in boisterous exertion. Young Daniel was from his childhood fond of books. William Dove used to say he was a chip of the old block; and this hereditary disposition was regarded with much satisfaction by both parents, Dinah having no higher ambition nor better wish for her son, than that he might prove like his father in all things. This being the bent of his nature, the boy having a kind master as well as a happy home, never tasted of what old Lily calls (and well might call) the wearisome bitterness of the scholar's learning. He was never subject to the brutal discipline of the Udals and Busbys and Bowyers, and Parrs and other less notorious tyrants who have trodden in their steps; nor was any of that inhuman injustice ever exercised upon him to break his spirit, for which it is to be hoped Dean Colet has paid in Purgatory;—to be hoped, I say, because if there be no Purgatory, the Dean may have gone farther and fared worse. Being the onlyLatinerin the school his lessons were heard with more interest and less formality. Guy observed his progress with almost as much delight and as much hope as Daniel himself. A schoolmaster who likes his vocation feels toward the boys who deserve his favour something like a thrifty and thriving father toward the children for whom he is scraping together wealth; he is contented that his humble and patient industry should produce fruit not for himself, but for them, and looks with pride to a result in which it is impossible for him to partake, and which in all likelihood he may never live to see. Even some of the old Phlebotomists have had this feeling to redeem them.
“Sir,” says the Compositor to the Corrector of the Press, “there is no heading in the Copy for this Chapter. What must I do?”
“Leave a space for it,” the Corrector replies. “It is a strange sort of book; but I dare say the Author has a reason for every thing that he says or does, and most likely you will find out his meaning as you set up.”
Right Mr. Corrector! you are a judicious person, free from the common vice of finding fault with what you do not understand. My meaning will be explained presently. And having thus prologized, we will draw a line if you please, and begin.
Ten measures of garrulity, says the Talmud, were sent down upon the earth, and the women took nine.
I have known in my time eight terrific talkers; and five of them were of the masculine gender.
But supposing that the Rabbis were right in allotting to the women a ninefold proportion of talkativeness, I confess that I have inherited my mother's share.
I am liberal of my inheritance, and the Public shall have the full benefit of it.
And here if my gentle Public will consider to what profitable uses this gift might have been applied, the disinterestedness of my disposition in having thus benevolently dedicated it to their service, will doubtless be appreciated as it deserves by their discrimination and generosity. Had I carried it to the pulpit, think now how I might have filled the seats, and raised the prices of a private chapel! Had I taken it to the bar, think how I could have mystified a judge, and bamboozled a jury! Had I displayed it in the senate, think how I could have talked against time, for the purpose of delaying a division, till the expected numbers could be brought together; or how efficient a part I could have borne in the patriotic design of impeding the business of a session, prolonging and multiplying the debates, and worrying a minister out of his senses and his life.
Diis aliter visum.—I am what I was to be,—what it is best for myself that I should be,—and for you, my Public, also. The rough-hewn plans of my destination have been better shaped for me by Providence than I could have shaped them for myself.
But to the purpose of this chapter, which is as headless as the Whigs—Observe my Public, I have not said as brainless...If it were, the book would be worth no more than a new Tragedy of Lord Byron's; or an old number of Mr. Jeffrey's Review, when its prophecies have proved false, its blunders have been exposed, and its slander stinks.
Every thing here shall be in order. The digressions into which this gift of discourse may lead me must not interrupt the arrangement of our History. Never shall it be said of the Unknown that “he draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.” We have a journey to perform from Dan to Beersheba, and we must halt occasionally by the way. Matter will arise contingent to the story, correlative to it, or excrescent from it; not necessary to its progress, and yet indispensable for your delight, my gentle Public, and for mine own ease. My Public would not have me stifle theafflatuswhen I am labouring with it, and in the condition of Elihu as described by himself in the 18th and 19th verses of the xxxii. chapter of the book of Job.
Quemadmodum cælator oculos diu intentos ac fatigatos remittit atque avocat, et, ut dici solet, pascit; sic nos animum aliquando debemus relaxare et quibusdam oblectamentis reficere. Sed ipsa oblectamenta opera sint; ex his quoque si observaveris, sumes quod possit fieri salutare.1
1SENECA, Epist. 58.
But that the beautiful structure of this history may in no wise be deranged, such matter shall be distributed into distinct chapters in the way of intercalation; a device of which as it respects the year, Adam is believed to have been the inventor; but according to the Author of the book of Jalkut, it was only transmitted by him to his descendants, being one of the things which he received by revelation.
How then shall these Chapters be annominated? Intercalary they shall not. That word will send some of my readers to Johnson's Dictionary for its meaning; and others to Sheridan, or Walker for its pronunciation. Besides, I have a dislike to all mongrel words, and an especial dislike for strange compounds into which a preposition enters. I owe them a grudge. They make one of the main difficulties in Greek and German.
From our own Calenders we cannot borrow an appellation. In the Republican one of our neighbours, when the revolutionary fever was at its height, the supplemental days were calledSansculottedes. The Spaniards would call themDias Descamisados. The holders of liberal opinions in England would term them Radical Days. A hint might be taken hence, and we might name them radical chapters, as having the root of the matter in them;—Orramal, if there were such a word, upon the analogy of the Branch Bible societies. Orramageas the king of Cockayne hath his Foliage. But they would not be truly and philosophically designated by these names. They are not branches from the tree of this history, neither are they its leaves; but rather choice garlands suspended there to adorn it on festival days. They may be likened to the waste weirs of a canal, or the safety valves of a steam engine; (my gentle Public would not have me stifle theafflatus!)—interludes;—symphonies between the acts;—voluntaries during the service;—resting places on the ascent of a church tower; angular recesses of an old bridge, into which foot passengers may retire from carriages or horsemen;—houses-of-call upon the road; seats by the way side, such as those which were provided by the Man of Ross, or the not less meritorious Woman of Chippenham, Maud Heath of Langley Burrel,—Hospices on the passages of the Alps,—Capes of Good Hope, or Isles of St. Helena,—yea Islands of Tinian or Juan Fernandez, upon the long voyage whereon we are bound.
Leap-chapters they cannot properly be called; and if we were to call them Ha Has! as being chapters which the Reader may leap if he likes, the name would appear rather strained than significant, and might be justly censured as more remarkable for affectation than for aptness. For the same reason I reject the designation of Intermeans, though it hath the sanction of great Ben's authority.
Among the requisites for an accomplished writer Steele enumerates the skill whereby common words are started into new significations. I will not presume so far upon that talent (—modesty forbids me—) as to call these intervening chapters either Interpellations or Interpositions, or Interlocations, or Intervals. Take this Reader for a general rule, that the readiest and plainest style is the most forcible (if the head be but properly stored;) and that in all ordinary cases the word which first presents itself is the best; even as in all matters of right and wrong, the first feeling is that which the heart owns and the conscience ratifies.
But for a new occasion, a new word or a new composite must be formed. Therefore I will strike one in the mint of analogy, in which alone the king's English must be coined, and call them Interchapters—and thus endeth