The father's local fame, though it has not reached to the third and fourth generation, survived him far into the second; and for many years after his retirement from practice, and even after his death every travelling mountebank in the northern counties adopted the name of Dr. Green.
At the time to which this chapter refers, Dr. Green was in his meridian career, and enjoyed the highest reputation throughout the sphere of his itinerancy. Ingleton lay in his rounds, and whenever he came there he used to send for the schoolmaster to pass the evening with him. He was always glad if he could find an opportunity also of conversing with the elder Daniel, as the Flossofer of those parts. William Dove could have communicated to him more curious things relating to his own art; but William kept out of the presence of strangers, and had happily no ailments to make him seek the Doctor's advice; his occasional indispositions were but slight, and he treated them in his own way. That way was sometimes merely superstitious, sometimes it was whimsical, and sometimes rough. If his charms failed when he tried them upon himself, it was not for want of faith. When at any time it happened that one of his eyes was blood-shot, he went forthwith in search of some urchin whose mother, either for laziness, or in the belief that it was wholesome to have it in that state, allowed his ragged head to serve as a free warren for certain “small deer.” One of these hexapeds William secured, and “using him as if he loved him,” put it into his eye; when according to William's account the insect fed upon what it found, cleared the eye, and disappearing he knew not where or how, never was seen more.
His remedy for the cholic was a pebble posset; white pebbles were preferred, and of these what was deemed a reasonable quantity was taken in some sort of milk porridge. Upon the same theory he sometimes swallowed a pebble large enough as he said to clear all before it; and for that purpose they have been administered of larger calibre than any bolus that ever came from the hands of the most merciless apothecary, as large indeed sometimes as a common sized walnut. Does the reader hesitate at believing this of an ignorant man, living in a remote part of the country? Well might William Dove be excused, for a generation later than his John Wesley prescribed in his Primitive Physic quicksilver, to be taken ounce by ounce, to the amount of one, two, or three pounds, till the desired effect was produced. And a generation earlier, Richard Baxter of happy memory and unhappy digestion, having read in Dr. Gerhard “the admirable effects of the swallowing of a gold bullet upon his father,” in a case which Baxter supposed to be like his own, got a gold bullet of between twenty and thirty shillings weight, and swallowed it. “Having taken it,” says he, “I knew not how to be delivered of it again. I took clysters and purges for about three weeks, but nothing stirred it; and a gentleman having done the like, the bullet never came from him till he died, and it was cut out. But at last my neighbours set a day apart to fast and pray for me, and I was freed from my danger in the beginning of that day!”
Hiatus valde lacrymabilis.
Hiatus valde lacrymabilis.
I must pass over fourteen years, for were I to pursue the history of our young Daniel's boyhood and adolescence into all the ramifications which a faithful biography requires, fourteen volumes would not contain it. They would be worth reading, for that costs little; they would be worth writing, though that costs much. They would deserve the best embellishments that the pencil and the graver could produce. The most poetical of artists would be worthily employed in designing the sentimental and melancholy scenes; Cruikshank for the grotesque; Wilkie and Richter for the comic and serio-comic; Turner for the actual scenery; Bewick for the head and tail pieces. They ought to be written; they ought to be read. They should be written—and then they would be read. But time is wanting:
and time is a commodity of which the value rises as long as we live. We must be contented with doing not what we wish, but what we can,—ourpossibleas the French call it.
One of our Poets—(which is it?)—speaks of aneverlasting now. If such a condition of existence were offered to us in this world, and it were put to the vote whether we should accept the offer and fix all things immutably as they are, who are they whose voices would be given in the affirmative?
Not those who are in pursuit of fortune, or of fame, or of knowledge, or of enjoyment, or of happiness; though with regard to all of these, as far as any of them are attainable, there is more pleasure in the pursuit than in the attainment.
Not those who are at sea, or travelling in a stage coach.
Not the man who is shaving himself.
Not those who have the tooth ache, or who are having a tooth drawn.
The fashionable beauty might; and the fashionable singer, and the fashionable opera dancer, and the actor who is in the height of his power and reputation. So might the alderman at a city feast. So would the heir who is squandering a large fortune faster than it was accumulated for him. And the thief who is not taken, and the convict who is not hanged, and the scoffer at religion whose heart belies his tongue.
Not the wise and the good.
Not those who are in sickness or in sorrow.
Not I.
But were I endowed with the power of suspending the effect of time upon the things around me, methinks there are some of my flowers which should neither fall nor fade: decidedly my kitten should never attain to cathood; and I am afraid my little boy would continue to “mis-speak half-uttered words;” and never, while I live, outgrow that epicene dress of French grey, half European, half Asiatic in its fashion.
DANIEL AT DONCASTER; THE REASON WHY HE WAS DESTINED FOR THE MEDICAL PROFESSION, RATHER THAN HOLY ORDERS; AND SOME REMARKS UPON SERMONS.
Je ne veux dissimuler, amy Lecteur, que je n'aye bien préveu, et me tiens pour deüement adverty, que ne puis eviter la reprehension d'aucuns, et les calomnies de plusieurs, ausquels c'est éscrit désplaira du tout.
CHRISTOFLE DEHERICOURT.
Fourteen years have elapsed since the scene took place which is related in the twenty-second chapter: and Daniel the younger at the time to which this present chapter refers was residing at Doncaster with Peter Hopkins who practised the medical art in all its branches. He had lived with him eight years, first as a pupil, latterly in the capacity of an assistant, and afterwards as an adopted successor.
How this connection between Daniel and Peter Hopkins was brought about, and the circumstances which prepared the way for it, would have appeared in some of the non-existent fourteen volumes, if it had pleased Fate that they should have been written.
Some of my readers, and especially those who pride themselves upon their knowledge of the world, or their success in it, will think it strange perhaps that the elder Daniel, when he resolved to make a scholar of his son, did not determine upon breeding him either to the Church, or the Law, in either of which professions the way was easier and more inviting. Now though this will not appear strange to those other readers who have perceived that the father had no knowledge of the world, and could have none, it is nevertheless proper to enter into some explanation upon that point.
If George Herbert's Temple, or his Remains, or his life by old Izaak Walton, had all or any of them happened to be among those few but precious books which Daniel prized so highly and used so well, it is likely that the wish of his heart would have been to train up his Son for a Priest to the Temple. But so it was that none of his reading was of a kind to give his thoughts that direction; and he had not conceived any exalted opinion of the Clergy from the specimens which had fallen in his way. A contempt which was but too general had been brought upon the Order by the ignorance or the poverty of a great proportion of its members. The person who served the humble church which Daniel dutifully attended was almost as poor as a Capuchine, and quite as ignorant. This poor man had obtained in evil hour from some easy or careless Bishop a licence to preach. It was reprehensible enough to have ordained one who was destitute of every qualification that the office requires; the fault was still greater in promoting him from the desk to the pulpit.
“A very great Scholar,” is quoted by Dr. Eachard, as saying “that such preaching as is usual is a hindrance of salvation rather than the means to it.” This was said when the fashion of conceited preaching which is satirized in Frey Gerundio, had extended to England, and though that fashion has so long been obsolete, that many persons will be surprized to hear it had ever existed among us, it may still reasonably be questioned whether sermons such as they commonly are, do not quench more devotion than they kindle.
My Lord! put not the book aside in displeasure! (I address myself to whatever Bishop may be reading it.) Unbiassed I will not call myself, for I am a true and orthodox churchman, and have the interests of the Church zealously at heart, because I believe and know them to be essentially and inseparably connected with those of the commonwealth. But I have been an attentive observer, and as such, request a hearing. Receive my remarks as coming from one whose principles are in entire accord with your Lordship's, whose wishes have the same scope and purport, and who while he offers his honest opinion, submits it with proper humility to your judgement.
The founders of the English Church did not intend that the sermon should invariably form a part of the Sunday services. It became so in condescension to the Puritans, of whom it has long been the fashion to speak with respect, instead of holding them up to the contempt and infamy and abhorrence which they have so richly merited. They have been extolled by their descendants and successors as models of patriotism and piety; and the success with which this delusion has been practised is one of the most remarkable examples of what may be effected by dint of effrontery and persevering falsehood.
That sentence I am certain will not be disapproved at Fulham or Lambeth. Dr. Southey, or Dr. Phillpots might have written it.
The general standard of the Clergy has undoubtedly been very much raised since the days when they were not allowed to preach without a licence for that purpose from the Ordinary. Nevertheless it is certain that many persons who are in other, and more material respects well, or even excellently qualified for the ministerial functions, may be wanting in the qualifications for a preacher. A man may possess great learning, sound principles and good sense, and yet be without the talent of arranging and expressing his thoughts well in a written discourse: he may want the power of fixing the attention, or reaching the hearts of his hearers; and in that case the discourse, as some old writer has said in serious jest, which was designed foredification turns totedification. The evil was less in Addison's days when he who distrusted his own abilities, availed himself of the compositions of some approved Divine, and was not disparaged in the opinion of his congregation, by taking a printed volume into the pulpit. This is no longer practised; but instead of this, which secured wholesome instruction to the people, sermons are manufactured for sale, and sold in manuscript, or printed in a cursive type imitating manuscript. The articles which are prepared for such a market, are for the most part copied from obscure books, with more or less alteration of language, and generally for the worse; and so far as they are drawn from such sources they are not likely to contain any thing exceptionable on the score of doctrine: but the best authors will not be resorted to, for fear of discovery, and therefore when these are used, the congregation lose as much in point of instruction, as he who uses them ought to lose in self-esteem.
But it is more injurious when a more scrupulous man composes his own discourses, if he be deficient either in judgement or learning. He is then more likely to entangle plain texts than to unravel knotty ones; rash positions are sometimes advanced by such preachers, unsound arguments are adduced by them in support of momentous doctrines, and though these things neither offend the ignorant and careless, nor injure the well-minded and well-informed, they carry poison with them when they enter a diseased ear. It cannot be doubted that such sermons act as corroboratives for infidelity.
Nor when they contain nothing that is actually erroneous, but are merely unimproving, are they in that case altogether harmless. They are not harmless if they are felt to be tedious. They are not harmless if they torpify the understanding: a chill that begins there may extend to the vital regions. Bishop Taylor (the great Jeremy) says of devotional books that “they are in a large degree the occasion of so great indevotion as prevails among the generality of nominal Christians, being,” he says, “represented naked in the conclusions of spiritual life, without or art or learning; and made apt for persons who can do nothing but believe and love, not for them that can consider and love.” This applies more forcibly to bad sermons than to common-place books of devotion; the book may be laid aside if it offend the reader's judgement, but the sermon is a positive infliction upon the helpless hearer.
The same Bishop,—and his name ought to carry with it authority among the wise and the good, has delivered an opinion upon this subject, in his admirable Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy. “Indeed,” he says, “if I may freely declare my opinion, I think it were not amiss, if the liberty of making sermons were something more restrained than it is; and that such persons only were intrusted with the liberty, for whom the church herself may safely be responsive,—that is men learned and pious; and that the other part, thevulgus cleri, should instruct the people out of the fountains of the church and the public stock, till by so long exercise and discipline in the schools of the Prophets they may also be intrusted to minister of their own unto the people. This I am sure was the practice of the Primitive Church.”
“I am convinced,” said Dr. Johnson, “that I ought to be at Divine Service more frequently than I am; but the provocations given by ignorant and affected preachers too often disturb the mental calm which otherwise would succeed to prayer. I am apt to whisper to myself on such occasions, ‘How can this illiterate fellow dream of fixing attention, after we have been listening to the sublimest truths, conveyed in the most chaste and exalted language, throughout a liturgy which must be regarded as the genuine offspring of piety impregnated by wisdom!’”—“Take notice, however,” he adds, “though I make this confession respecting myself, I do not mean to recommend the fastidiousness that sometimes leads me to exchange congregational for solitary worship.”
The saintly Herbert says,
This sort of patience was all that Daniel could have derived from the discourses of the poor curate; and it was a lesson of which his meek and benign temper stood in no need. Nature had endowed him with this virtue, and this Sunday's discipline exercised without strengthening it. While he was, in the phrase of the Religious Public,sitting underthe preacher, he obeyed to a certain extent George Herbert's precept,—that is he obeyed it as he did other laws with the existence of which he was unacquainted,—
Pleasure made no part of his speculations at any time. Plots he had none. For the Plough,—it was what he never followed in fancy, patiently as he plodded after the furrow in his own vocation. And then for worldly thoughts they were not likely in that place to enter a mind, which never at any time entertained them. But to that sort of thought (if thought it may be called) which cometh as it listeth, and which when the mind is at ease and the body in health, is the forerunner and usher of sleep, he certainly gave way. The curate's voice past over his ear like the sound of the brook with which it blended, and it conveyed to him as little meaning and less feeling. During the sermon therefore he retired into himself, with as much or as little edification, as a Quaker finds at a silent meeting.
It happened also that of the few clergy within the very narrow circle in which Daniel moved, some were in no good repute for their conduct, and none displayed either that zeal in the discharge of their pastoral functions, or that earnestness and ability in performing the service of the Church, which are necessary for commanding the respect and securing the affections of the parishioners. The clerical profession had never presented itself to him in its best, which is really its true light; and for that cause he would never have thought of it for the boy, even if the means of putting him forward in this path had been easier and more obvious than they were. And for the dissenting ministry, Daniel liked not the name of a Nonconformist. The Puritans had left behind them an ill savour in his part of the country, as they had done every where else; and the extravagances of the primitive Quakers, which during his childhood were fresh in remembrance, had not yet been forgotten.
It was well remembered in those parts that the Vicar of Kirkby Lonsdale through the malignity of some of his puritanical parishioners, had been taken out of his bed—from his wife who was then big with child, and hurried away to Lancaster jail, where he was imprisoned three years for no other offence than that of fidelity to his Church and his King. And that the man who was a chief instigator of this persecution, and had enriched himself by the spoil of his neighbour's goods, though he flourished for a while, bought a field and built a fine house, came to poverty at last, and died in prison, having for some time received his daily food there from the table of one of this very Vicar's sons. It was well remembered also that, in a parish of the adjoining county-palatine, the puritanical party had set fire in the night to the Rector's barns, stable, and parsonage; and that he and his wife and children had only as it were by miracle escaped from the flames.
William Dove had also among his traditional stores some stories of a stranger kind concerning the Quakers, these parts of the North having been a great scene of their vagaries in their early days. He used to relate how one of them went into the church at Brough, during the reign of the Puritans, with a white sheet about his body, and a rope about his neck, to prophesy before the people and their Whig Priest (as he called him) that the surplice which was then prohibited should again come into use, and that the Gallows should have its due! And how when their ringleader George Fox was put in prison at Carlisle, the wife of Justice Benson would eat no meat unless she partook it with him at the bars of his dungeon, declaring she was moved to do this; wherefore it was supposed he had bewitched her. And not without reason; for when this old George went, as he often did, into the Church to disturb the people, and they thrust him out, and fell upon him and beat him, sparing neither sticks nor stones if they came to hand, he was presently for all that they had done to him, as sound and as fresh as if nothing had touched him; and when they tried to kill him, they could not take away his life! And how this old George rode a great black horse, upon which he was seen in the course of the same hour at two places threescore miles distant from each other! And how some of the women who followed this old George used to strip off all their clothes, and in that plight go into the church at service time on the Sunday to bear testimony against the pomps and vanities of the world; “and to be sure,” said William, “they must have been witched, or they never would have done this.” “Lord deliver us!” said Dinah, “to be sure they must!”—“To be sure they must, Lord bless us all!” said Haggy.
A PASSAGE IN PROCOPIUS IMPROVED. A STORY CONCERNING URIM AND THUMMIM; AND THE ELDER DANIEL'S OPINION OF THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW.
Among the people who were converted to the Christian faith during the sixth century were two tribes or nations called the Lazi and the Zani. Methinks it had been better if they had been left unconverted; for they have multiplied prodigiously among us, so that between the Lazy Christians and the Zany ones, Christianity has grievously suffered.
It was one of the Zany tribe whom Guy once heard explaining to his congregation what was meant by Urim and Thummim, and in technical phraseimprovingthe text. Urim and Thummim, he said, were two precious stones, or rather stones above all price, the Hebrew names of which have been interpreted to signify Light and Perfection, or Doctrine and Judgement, (which Luther prefers in his Bible, and in which some of the northern versions, have followed him) or the Shining and the Perfect, or Manifestation and Truth, the words in the original being capable of any or all of these significations. They were set in the High Priest's breast-plate of judgement; and when he consulted them upon any special occasion to discover the will of God, they displayed an extraordinary brilliancy if the matter which was referred to this trial were pleasing to the Lord Jehovah, but they gave no lustre if it were disapproved. “My Brethren,” said the Preacher, “this is what learned Expositors, Jewish and Christian, tell me concerning these two precious stones. The stones themselves are lost. But, my Christian Brethren, we need them not, for we have a surer means of consulting and discovering the will of God; and still it is by Urim and Thummim if we alter only a single letter in one of those mysterious words. Take your Bible, my brethren;use him and thumb him—use him and thumb him well, and you will discover the will of God as surely as ever the High Priest did by the stones in his breast plate!”
What Daniel saw of the Lazi, and what he heard of the Zani, prevented him from ever forming a wish to educate his son for a North country cure, which would have been all the preferment that lay within his view. And yet if any person to whose judgement he deferred had reminded him that Bishop Latimer had risen from as humble an origin, it might have awakened in him a feeling of ambition for the boy, not inconsistent with his own philosophy.
But no suggestions could ever have induced Daniel to chuse for him the profession of the Law. The very name of Lawyer was to him a word of evil acceptation. Montaigne has a pleasant story of a little boy who when his mother had lost a lawsuit which he had always heard her speak of as a perpetual cause of trouble, ran up to him in great glee to tell him of the loss as a matter for congratulation and joy; the poor child thought it was like losing a cough, or any other bodily ailment. Daniel entertained the same sort of opinion concerning all legal proceedings. He knew that laws were necessary evils; but he thought they were much greater evils than there was any necessity that they should be; and believing this to be occasioned by those who were engaged in the trade of administering them, he looked upon lawyers as the greatest pests in the country—
He had once been in the Courts at Lancaster, having been called upon as witness in a civil suit, and the manner in which he was cross examined there by one of those “young spruce Lawyers,” whom Donne has so happily characterized as being
———“all impudence and tongue”
———“all impudence and tongue”
had confirmed him in this prejudice. What he saw of the proceedings that day induced him to agree with Beaumont and Fletcher, that
His was too simple and sincere an understanding to admire in any other sense than that of wondering at them
but far was he from wishing that a son of his should thrive by such a perversion of his intellectual powers, and such a corruption of his moral nature.
1LORDBROOKE.
2WOMANPLEASED.
3BENJONSON.
On the other hand he felt a degree of respect amounting almost to reverence for the healing art, which is connected with so many mysteries of art and nature. And therefore when an opportunity offered of placing his son with a respectable practitioner, who he had every reason for believing would behave toward him with careful and prudent kindness, his entire approbation was given to the youth's own choice.
PETER HOPKINS. EFFECTS OF TIME AND CHANGE. DESCRIPTION OF HIS DWELLING-HOUSE.
PETER HOPKINS. EFFECTS OF TIME AND CHANGE. DESCRIPTION OF HIS DWELLING-HOUSE.
Peter Hopkins was a person who might have suffered death by the laws of Solon, if that code had been established in this country; for though he lived in the reigns of George I. and George II. he was neither Whig nor Tory, Hanoverian nor Jacobite. When he drank the King's health with any of his neighbours, he never troubled himself with considering which King was intended, nor to which side of the water their good wishes were directed. Under George or Charles he would have been the same quiet subject, never busying himself with a thought about political matters, and having no other wish concerning them than that they might remain as they were,—so far he was a Hanoverian, and no farther. There was something of the same temper in his religion; he was a sincere Christian, and had he been born to attendance at the Mass or the Meeting House would have been equally sincere in his attachment to either of those extremes. For his whole mind was in his profession. He was learned in its history; fond of its theories; and skilful in its practice, in which he trusted little to theory and much to experience.
Both he and his wife were at this time well stricken in years; they had no children, and no near kindred on either side; and being both kind-hearted people, the liking which they soon entertained toward Daniel for his docility, his simplicity of heart, his obliging temper, his original cast of mind, and his never failing good-humour, ripened into a settled affection.
Hopkins lived next door to the Mansion House, which edifice was begun a few years after Daniel went to live with him. There is a view of the Mansion House in Dr. Miller's History of Doncaster, and in that print the dwelling in question is included. It had undergone no other alteration at the time this view was taken than that of having had its casements replaced by sash windows, an improvement which had been made by our Doctor, when the frame work of the casements had become incapable of repair. The gilt pestle and mortar also had been removed from its place above the door. Internally the change had been greater; for the same business not being continued there after the Doctor's decease, the shop had been converted into a sitting room, and the very odour of medicine had passed away. But I will not allow myself to dwell upon this melancholy subject. The world is full of mutations; and there is hardly any that does not bring with it some regret at the time,—and alas, more in the retrospect! I have lived to see the American Colonies separated from Great Britain, the Kingdom of Poland extinguished, the republic of Venice destroyed, its territory seized by one Usurper, delivered over in exchange to another, and the transfer sanctioned and confirmed by all the Powers of Europe in Congress assembled! I have seen Heaven knows how many little Principalities and States, proud of their independance, and happy in the privileges connected with it, swallowed up by the Austrian or the Prussian Eagle, or thrown to the Belgic Lion, as his share in the division of the spoils. I have seen constitutions spring up like mushrooms and kicked down as easily. I have seen the rise and fall of Napoleon.
wherefore then should I lament over what time and mutability have done to a private dwelling-house in Doncaster?
1HABINGTON.
It was an old house, which when it was built had been one of the best in Doncaster; and even after the great improvements which have changed the appearance of the town, had an air of antiquated respectability about it. Had it been near the church it would have been taken for the Vicarage; standing where it did, its physiognomy was such that you might have guessed it was the Doctor's house, even if the pestle and mortar had not been there as his insignia. There were eight windows and two doors in front. It consisted of two stories, and was oddly built, the middle part having, something in the Scotch manner, the form of a gable end towards the street. Behind this was a single chimney, tall, and shaped like a pillar. In windy nights the Doctor was so often consulted by Mrs. Dove concerning the stability of that chimney, that he accounted it the plague of his life. But it was one of those evils which could not be removed without bringing on a worse, the alternative being whether there should be a tall chimney, or a smoky house. And after the mansion house was erected, there was one wind which in spite of the chimney's elevation drove the smoke down,—so inconvenient is it sometimes to be fixed near a great neighbour.
This unfortunate chimney, being in the middle of the house, served for four apartments; the Doctor's study and his bedchamber on the upper floor, the kitchen and the best parlour on the lower, that parlour, yes Reader, that very parlour wherein, as thou canst not have forgotten, Mrs. Dove was making tea for the Doctor on that ever memorable afternoon with which our history begins.
A HINT OF REMINISCENCE TO THE READER. THE CLOCK OF ST. GEORGE'S. A WORD IN HONOR OF ARCHDEACON MARKHAM.
There is a ripe season for every thing, and if you slip that or anticipate it, you dim the grace of the matter be it never so good. As we say by way of Proverb that an hasty birth brings forth blind whelps, so a good tale tumbled out before the time is ripe for it, is ungrateful to the hearer.
BISHOPHACKETT.
The judicious reader will now have perceived that in the progress of this narrative,—which may be truly said to
we have arrived at that point which determines the scene and acquaints him with the local habitation of the Doctor. He will perceive also that in our method of narration nothing has been inartificially anticipated; that there have been no premature disclosures, no precipitation, no hurry, or impatience on my part; and that on the other hand there has been no unnecessary delay, but that we have regularly and naturally come to this developement. The author who undertakes a task like mine,
as an old Poet says of the professors of the rhyming art, and must moreover be careful
as I have been, O Reader! and as it is my fixed intention still to be. Thou knowest, gentle Reader, that I have never wearied thee with idle and worthless words; thou knowest that the old comic writer spake truly when he said, that the man who speaks little says too much, if he says what is not to the point; but that he who speaks well and wisely will never be accused of speaking at too great length,
1PHILEMON.
My good Readers will remember that, as was duly noticed in our first chapter P. I. the clock of St. George's had just struck five when Mrs. Dove was pouring out the seventh cup of tea for her husband, and when our history opens. I have some observations to make concerning both the tea and the tea service, which will dear the Doctor from any imputation of intemperance in his use of that most pleasant, salutiferous and domesticizing beverage: but it would disturb the method of my narration were they to be introduced in this place. Here I have something to relate about the Clock. Some forty or fifty years ago a Butcher being one of the Churchwardens of the year, and fancying himself in that capacity invested with full power to alter and improve any thing in or about the Church, thought proper to change the position of the clock, and accordingly had it removed to the highest part of the tower, immediately under the battlements. Much beautiful Gothic work was cut away to make room for the three dials, which he placed on three sides of this fine tower; and when he was asked what had induced him thus doubly to disfigure the edifice, by misplacing the dials, and destroying so much of the ornamental part, the great and greasy killcow answered that by fixing the dials so high, he could now stand at his own shop door and see what it was o'clock! That convenience this arrant churchwarden had the satisfaction of enjoying for several years, there being no authority that could call him to account for the insolent mischief he had done. But Archdeacon Markham (to his praise be it spoken) at the end of the last century prevailed on the then churchwardens to remove two of the dials, and restore the architectural ornaments which had been defaced.
This was the clock which, with few intervals, measured out by hours the life of Daniel Dove from the seventeenth year of his age, when he first set up his rest within its sound.
Perhaps of all the works of man sun-dials and church-clocks are those which have conveyed most feeling to the human heart; the clock more than the sun-dial because it speaks to the ear as well as to the eye, and by night as well as by day. Our forefathers understood this, and therefore they not only gave a Tongue to Time, but provided that he should speak often to us and remind us that the hours are passing. Their quarter-boys and their chimes were designed for this moral purpose as much as the memento which is so commonly seen upon an old clock-face,—and so seldom upon a new one. I never hear chimes that they do not remind me of those which were formerly the first sounds I heard in the morning, which used to quicken my step on my way to school, and which announced my release from it, when the same tune methought had always a merrier import. When I remember their tones, life seems to me like a dream, and a train of recollections arises, which if it were allowed to have its course would end in tears.
THE OLD BELLS RUNG TO A NEW TUNE.
THE OLD BELLS RUNG TO A NEW TUNE.
If the bell have any sides the clapper will find 'em.
If the bell have any sides the clapper will find 'em.