THE DOCTOR,

THE UTILITY OF POCKETS. A COMPLIMENT PROPERLY RECEIVED.

La tasca è propria cosa da Christiani.

BENEDETTOVARCHI.

My eldest daughter had finished her Latin lessons, and my son had finished his Greek; and I was sitting at my desk, pen in hand, and in mouth at the same time, (a substitute for biting the nails which I recommend to all onygophagists;) when the Bhow Begum came in with her black velvet reticule, suspended as usual from her arm by its silver chain.

Now of all the inventions of the Tailor (who is of all artists the most inventive) I hold the pocket to be the most commodious, and saving the fig leaf, the most indispensible. Birds have their craw; ruminating beasts their first or ante-stomach; the monkey has his cheek, the opossum her pouch; and, so necessary is some convenience of this kind for the human animal, that the savage who cares not for clothing makes for himself a pocket if he can. The Hindoo carries his snuff-box in his turban. Some of the inhabitants of Congo make a secret fob in their wooly toupet, of which as P. Labat says, the worst use they make is—to carry poison in it. The Matolas, a long haired race who border upon the Caffres, form their locks into a sort of hollow cylinder in which they bear about their little implements; certes a more sensible bag than such as is worn at court. The New Zealander is less ingenious; he makes a large opening in his ear, and carries his knife in it. The Ogres, who are worse than savages, and whose ignorance and brutality is in proportion to their bulk, are said, upon the authority of tradition, when they have picked up a stray traveller or two more than they require for their supper, to lodge them in a hollow tooth as a place of security till breakfast; whence it may be inferred that they are not liable to tooth ache, and that they make no use of tooth-picks. Ogres, Savages, Beasts and Birds all require something to serve the purpose of a pocket. Thus much for the necessity of the thing. Touching its antiquity much might be said; for it would not be difficult to show, with that little assistance from the auxiliariesmustandhaveandbeenwhich enabled Whitaker of Manchester to write whole quartos of hypothetical history in the potential mood, that pockets are coeval with clothing: and, as erudite men have maintained that language and even letters are of divine origin, there might with like reason be a conclusion drawn from the twenty-first verse of the third chapter of the book of Genesis, which it would not be easy to impugn. Moreover Nature herself shows us the utility, the importance, nay the indispensability, or, to take a hint from the pure language of our diplomatists, thesinequanonninessof pockets. There is but one organ which is common to all animals whatsoever: some are without eyes, many without noses; some have no heads, others no tails; some neither one nor the other; some there are who have no brains, others very pappy ones; some no hearts, others very bad ones; but all have a stomach,—and what is the stomach but a live inside pocket? Hath not Van Helmont said of it, “saccus vel pera est, ut ciborum olla?”

Dr. Towers used to have his coat pockets made of capacity to hold a quarto volume—a wise custom; but requiring stout cloth, good buckram, and strong thread well waxed. I do not so greatly commend the humour of Dr. Ingenhouz, whose coat was lined with pockets of all sizes, wherein, in his latter years, when science had become to him as a plaything, he carried about various materials for chemical experiments: among the rest so many compositions for fulminating powders in glass tubes, separated only by a cork in the middle of the tube, that, if any person had unhappily given him a blow with a stick, he might have blown up himself and the Doctor too. For myself, four coat pockets of the ordinary dimensions content me; in these a sufficiency of conveniences may be carried, and that sufficiency methodically arranged. For mark me, gentle or ungentle Reader! there is nothing like method in pockets, as well as in composition: and what orderly and methodical man would have his pocket-handkerchief, and his pocket-book, and the key of his door (if he be a batchelor living in chambers) and his knife, and his loose pence and half-pence, and the letters which peradventure he might just have received, or peradventure he may intend to drop in the post-office, two-penny or general, as he passes by, and his snuff, if he be accustomed so to regale his olfactory conduits, or his tobacco-box, if he prefer the masticable to the pulverized weed; or his box of lozenges if he should be troubled with a tickling cough; and the sugar-plumbs and the gingerbread nuts which he may be carrying home to his own children, or to any other small men and women upon whose hearts he may have a design;—who I say would like to have all this in chaos and confusion, one lying upon the other, and the thing which is wanted first fated alway to be undermost!—(Mr. Wilberforce knows the inconvenience;—) the snuff working its way out to the gingerbread, the sugar-plumbs insinuating themselves into the folds of the pocket-handkerchief, the pence grinding the lozenges to dust for the benefit of the pocket-book, and the door key busily employed in unlocking the letters?

Now, forasmuch as the commutation of female pockets for the reticule leadeth to inconveniences like this, (not to mention that the very name of commutation ought to be held in abhorrence by all who hold day-light and fresh air essential to the comfort and salubrity of dwelling-houses,) I abominate that bag of the Bhow Begum, notwithstanding the beauty of the silver chain upon the black velvet. And perceiving at this time that the clasp of its silver setting was broken, so that the mouth of the bag was gaping pitiably, like a sick or defunct oyster, I congratulated her as she came in upon this farther proof of the commodiousness of the invention; for here, in the country, there is no workman who can mend that clasp, and the bag must therefore either be laid aside, or used in that deplorable state.

When the Bhow Begum had seated herself I told her how my proffered dedication had been thrice rejected with scorn, and repeating the offer I looked for a more gracious reply. But, as if scorn had been the influenza of the female mind that morning, she answered, “No; indeed she would not have it after it had been refused by every body else.” “Nay, nay,” said I; “it is as much in your character to accept, as it was in their's to refuse.” While I was speaking she took a pinch of snuff; the nasal titillation co-operated with my speech, for when any one of the senses is pleased, the rest are not likely to continue out of humour. “Well,” she replied, “I will have it dedicated to me, because I shall delight in the book.” And she powdered the carpet with tobacco dust as she spake.

CONCERNING DEDICATIONS, PRINTERS TYPES AND IMPERIAL INK.

Il y aura des clefs, et des ouvertures de mes secrets.

LAPRETIEUSE.

Monsieur Dellon, having been in the Inquisition at Goa, dedicated an account of that tribunal, and of his own sufferings to Mademoiselle Du Cambout de Coislin, in these words:

Mademoiselle

J'aurois tort de me plaindre des rigueurs de l'Inquisition, et des mauvais traitemens que j'ay éprouvez de la part de ses ministres, puisqu'en me fournissant la matiére de cet ouvrage, ils m'ont procuré l'avantage de vous le dedier.

This is the book which that good man Claudius Buchanan with so much propriety put into the hands of the Grand Inquisitor of India, when he paid him a visit at the Inquisition, and asked him his opinion of the accuracy of the relation upon the spot!

The Frenchman's compliment may truly be said to have been far-fetched and dearly bought. Heaven forefend that I should either go so far for one, or purchase it at such a price!

A dedication has oftentimes cost the unhappy author a greater consumption of thumb and finger-nail than the whole book besides, and all varieties of matter and manner have been resorted to. Mine must be so far in character with the delectable history which it introduces that it shall be unlike all which have ever gone before it. I knew a man, (one he was who would have been an ornament to his country if methodism and madness had not combined to overthrow a bright and creative intellect) who, in one of his insaner moods, printed a sheet and a half of muddy rhapsodies with the title of the “Standard of God Displayed:” and he prefaced it by saying that the price of a perfect book, upon a perfect subject, ought to be a perfect sum in a perfect coin; that is to say one guinea. Now as Dr. Daniel Dove was a perfect Doctor, and his horse Nobs was a perfect horse, and as I humbly hope their history will be a perfect history, so ought the Dedication thereunto to be perfect in its kind. Perfect therefore it shall be, as far as kalotypography can make it. For though it would be hopeless to exceed all former Dedications in the turn of a compliment or of a sentence, in the turn of the letters it is possible to exceed them all. It was once my fortune to employ a printer who had a love for his art; and having a taste that way myself, we discussed the merits of a new font one day when I happened to call in upon him. I objected to the angular inclination of a capital italicAwhich stood upon its pins as if it were starting aghast from the next letter on the left, and was about to tumble upon that to the right; in which case down would go the rest of the word, like a row of soldiers which children make with cards. My printer was too deeply enamoured with the beauties of his font, to have either ear or eye for its defects; and hastily waiving that point he called my attention to a capitalRin the same line, which cocked up its tail just as if it had been nicked; that cock of the tail had fascinated him. “Look Sir,” said he, while his eyes glistened with all the ardour of an amateur; “look at that turn!—that's sweet, Sir!” and drawing off the hand with the forefinger of which he had indicated it, he described in the air the turn that had delighted him, in a sort of heroic flourish, his head with a diminished axis, like the inner stile of a Pentegraph, following the movement. I have never seen thatRsince without remembering him. ** *** ** **** ** *** ******** ** *** ***** ******* ** *******, *** ********* *****, ***, *** ** *** ******* ***** ** **********, *** *** *******. He who can read the stars, may read in them the secret which he seeketh.

But the turns of my Dedication to the Bhow Begum shall not be trusted to the letter founders, a set of men remarkable for involving their craft in such mystery that no one ever taught it to another, every one who has practised it having been obliged either surreptitiously to obtain the secret, or to invent a method for himself. It shall be in the old English letter, not only because that alphabet hath in its curves and angles, its frettings and redundant lines, a sort of picturesque similitude with Gothic architecture, but also because in its breadth and beauty it will display the colour of the ink to most advantage. For the Dedication shall not be printed in black after the ordinary fashion, nor in white like the Sermon upon the Excise Laws, nor in red after the mode of Mr. Dibdin's half titles, but in the colour of that imperial encaustic ink, which by the laws of the Roman Empire it was death for any but the Roman Emperor himself to use. We Britons live in a free country, wherein every man may use what coloured ink seemeth good to him, and put as much gall in it as he pleases, or any other ingredient whatsoever. Moreover this is an imperial age, in which to say nothing of M. Ingelby the Emperor of the Conjurors, we have seen no fewer than four new Emperors. He of Russia who did not think the old title of Peter the Great good enough for him: he of France, for whom any name but that of Tyrant or Murderer is too good; he of Austria who took up one imperial appellation to cover over the humiliating manner in which he laid another down; and he of Hayti, who if he be wise will order all public business to be carried on in the talkee-talkee tongue, and make it high treason for any person to speak or write French in his dominions. We also must dub our old Parliament imperial forsooth! that we may not be behindhand with the age. Then we have Imperial Dining Tables! Imperial Oil for nourishing the hair! Imperial Liquid for Boot Tops! Yea, and, by all the Cæsars deified and damnified, Imperial Blacking! For my part I love to go with the stream, so I will have an Imperial Dedication.

Behold it Reader. Therein is mystery.

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NO BOOK CAN BE COMPLETE WITHOUT A PREFACE.

Who was the Inventor of Prefaces? I shall be obliged to the immortal Mr. Urban, (immortal, because like the king in law he never dies) if he will propound this question for me in his Magazine, that great lumber-room wherein small ware of all kinds has been laid up higgledy-piggledy by half-penny-worths or farthing-worths at a time for fourscore years, till like broken glass, rags, or rubbish it has acquired value by mere accumulation. To send a book like this into the world without a Preface would be as impossible as it is to appear at Court without a bag at the head and a sword at the tail, for as the perfection of dress must be shown at Court, so in this history should the perfection of histories be exhibited. The book must beomni genere absolutum;it must prove and exemplify the perfectibility of books: yea with all imaginable respect for the “Delicate Investigation,” which I leave in undisputed possession of an appellation so exquisitely appropriate, I conceive that the title ofTHEBOOK, as a popular designation κατ᾿ εξοχην, should be transferred from the edifying report of that Inquiry, to the present unique, unrivalled and unrivalable production;—a production the like whereof hath not been, is not, and will not be. Here however let me warn my Greek and Arabian translators how they render the word, that if they offend the Mufti or the Patriarch, the offence as well as the danger may be theirs: I wash my hands of both. I write in plain English, innocently and in the simplicity of my heart: what may be made of it in heathen languages concerns not me.

I here present thee with a hive of bees, laden some with wax, and some with honey. Fear not to approach! There are no Wasps, there are no Hornets here. If some wanton Bee should chance to buzz about thine ears, stand thy ground and hold thy hands: there's none will sting thee if thou strike not first. If any do, she hath honey in her bag will cure thee too.

QUARLES.

Prefaces, said Charles Blount, Gent., who committed suicide because the law would not allow him to marry his brother's widow,—(a law, be it remarked in passing, which is not sanctioned by reason, and which instead of being in conformity with scripture, is in direct opposition to it, being in fact the mere device of a corrupt and greedy church)—“Prefaces,” said this flippant, ill-opinioned and unhappy man, “ever were, and still are but of two sorts, let other modes and fashions vary as they please. Let the profane long peruke succeed the godly cropt hair; the cravat, the ruff; presbytery, popery; and popery presbytery again, yet still the author keeps to his old and wonted method of prefacing; when at the beginning of his book he enters, either with a halter about his neck, submitting himself to his reader's mercy whether he shall be hanged, or no; or else in a huffing manner he appears with the halter in his hand, and threatens to hang his reader, if he gives him not his good word. This with the excitement of some friends to his undertaking, and some few apologies for want of time, books, and the like, are the constant and usual shams of all scribblers as well ancient as modern.”—This was not true then, nor is it now; but when he proceeds to say, “for my part I enter the lists upon another score,”—so say I with him; and my Preface shall say the rest.

Oh for a quill plucked from a Seraph's wing!

YOUNG.

So the Poet exclaimed; and his exclamation may be quoted as one example more of the vanity of human wishes; for in order to get a Seraph's quill it would be necessary, according to Mrs. Glasse's excellent item in her directions for roasting a hare, to begin by catching a Seraph. A quill from a Seraph's wing is, I confess, above my ambition; but one from a Peacock's tail was within my reach; and be it known unto all people, nations and languages, that with a Peacock's quill this Preface hath been penned—literally—truly, andbona-fidelyspeaking. And this is to write, as the learned old Pasquier says,pavonesquement, which in latin minted for the nonce may be renderedpavonicèand in English peacockically or peacockishly, whichever the reader may like best. That such a pen has verily and indeed been used upon this occasion I affirm. I affirm it upon the word of a true man; and here is a Captain of his Majesty's Navy at my elbow, who himself made the pen, and who, if evidence were required to the fact, would attest it by as round an oath as ever rolled over a right English tongue. Nor will the time easily escape his remembrance, the bells being at this moment ringing, June 4, 1814, to celebrate the King's birthday, and the public notification that peace has been concluded with France.

I have oftentimes had the happiness of seeing due commendation bestowed by gentle critics, unknown admirers and partial friends upon my pen, which has been married to all amiable epithets:—classical, fine, powerful, tender, touching, pathetic, strong, fanciful, daring, elegant, sublime, beautiful. I have read these epithets with that proper satisfaction which when thus applied they could not fail to impart, and sometimes qualified the pride which they inspired by looking at the faithful old tool of the Muses beside me, worn to the stump in their service: the one end mended up to the quick in that spirit of œconomy which becomes a son of the Lackland family, and shortened at the other by the gradual and alternate processes of burning and biting, till a scant inch only is left above the finger place. Philemon Holland was but a type of me in this respect. Indeed I may be allowed to say that I have improved upon his practice, or at least that I get more out of a pen than he did, for in the engraved title-page to his Cyrupædia, where there appears the Portrait of theInterpresmarked by a great D inclosing the Greek letter Φ (which I presume designates Doctor Philemon)ætatis suæ80. A°. 1632, it may be plainly seen that he used his pen only at one end. Peradventure he delighted not, as I do, in the mitigated ammoniac odour.

But thou, O gentle reader, who in the exercise of thy sound judgment and natural benignity wilt praise this Preface, thou mayest with perfect propriety bestow the richest epithets upon the pen wherewith its immortal words were first clothed in material forms. Beautiful, elegant, fine, splendid, fanciful, will be to the very letter of truth: versatile it is as the wildest wit; flexible as the most monkey-like talent; and shouldst thou call it tender, I will whisper in thine ear—that it is only too soft. Yet softness may be suitable; for of my numerous readers one half will probably be soft by sex, and of the other half a very considerable proportion soft by nature. Soft therefore be the Pen and soft the strain.

I have drawn up the window-blinds (though sunshine at this time acts like snuff upon the mucous membrane of my nose) in order that the light may fall upon this excellent Poet's wand as I wave it to and fro, making cuts five and six of the broad-sword exercise. Every feather of its fringe is now lit up by the sun; the hues of green and gold and amethyst are all brought forth; and that predominant lustre which can only be likened to some rich metallic oxyd; and that spot of deepest purple, the pupil of an eye for whose glorious hue neither metals nor flowers nor precious stones afford a resemblance: its likeness is only to be found in animated life, in birds and insects whom nature seems to have formed when she was most prodigal of beauty: I have seen it indeed upon the sea, but it has been in some quiet bay when the reflection of the land combined with the sky and the ocean to produce it.

And what can be more emblematic of the work which I am beginning than the splendid instrument wherewith the Preface is traced? What could more happily typify the combination of parts each perfect in itself when separately considered, yet all connected into one harmonious whole; the story running through like the stem or back-bone, which the episodes and digressions fringe like so many featherlets, leading up to that catastrophe, the gem or eye-star, for which the whole was formed, and in which all terminate.

They who are versed in the doctrine of sympathies and the arcana of correspondences as revealed to the Swedish Emanuel, will doubtless admire the instinct or inspiration which directed my choice to the pavonian Pen. The example should be followed by all consumers of ink and quill. Then would the lover borrow a feather from the turtle dove. The lawyer would have a large assortment of kite, hawk, buzzard and vulture: his clients may use pigeon or gull. Poets according to their varieties. Mr. —— the Tom Tit. Mr. —— the Water-wagtail. Mr. —— the Crow. Mr. —— the Mocking-bird. Mr. —— the Magpie. Mr. —— the Sky-lark. Mr. —— the Eagle. Mr. —— the Swan. Lord —— the Black Swan. Critics some the Owl, others the Butcher Bird. Your challenger must indite with one from the wing of a game cock: he who takes advantage of a privileged situation to offer the wrong and shrink from the atonement will find a white feather. Your dealers in public and private scandal, whether Jacobins or Anti-Jacobins, the pimps and pandars of a profligate press should use none but duck feathers, and those of the dirtiest that can be found in the purlieus of Pimlico or St. George's Fields. But for the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, whether he dictates in morals or in taste, or displays his peculiar talent in political prophecy, he must continue to use goose quills. Stick to the goose Mr. Jeffrey, while you live stick to the Goose!

᾿Εξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα.

HOMER.

They who remember the year 1800 will remember also the great controversy whether it was the beginning of a century, or the end of one; a controversy in which all Magazines, all Newspapers, and all persons took part. Now as it has been deemed expedient to divide this work, or to speak more emphatically this Opus, or more emphatically still this Ergon, into Chapters Ante-Initial and Post-Initial, a dispute of the same nature might arise among the commentators in after ages, if especial care were not now taken to mark distinctly the beginning. This therefore is the Initial Chapter, neither Ante nor Post, but standing between both; the point of initiation, the goal of theAntes, the starting place of thePosts;the mark at which the former end their career, and from whence the latter take their departure.

THE SUBJECT OF THIS HISTORY AT HOME AND AT TEA.

If thou be a severe sour complexioned man then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.

IZAAKWALTON.

The clock of St. George's had struck five. Mrs. Dove had just poured out the Doctor's seventh cup of tea. The Doctor was sitting in his arm-chair. Sir Thomas was purring upon his knees; and Pompey stood looking up to his mistress, wagging his tail, sometimes whining with a short note of impatience, and sometimes gently putting his paw against her apron to remind her that he wished for another bit of bread and butter. Barnaby was gone to the farm: and Nobs was in the stable.

WHEREIN CERTAIN QUESTIONS ARE PROPOSED CONCERNING TIME, PLACE AND PERSONS.

Quis? quid? ubi? quibus auxiliis? cur? quomodo? quando?

TECHNICALVERSE.

Thus have I begun according to the most approved forms; not like those who begin the Trojan War from Leda's egg, or the History of Great Britain from Adam, or the Life of General Washington from the Discovery of the New World; but in conformity to the Horatian precept, rushing into the middle of things. Yet the Giant Moulineau's appeal to his friend the story-telling Ram may well be remembered here;Belier mon ami, si tu voulois commencer par le commencement tu me ferois grand plaisir. For in the few lines of the preceding chapter how much is there that requires explanation?—Who was Nobs?—Who was Barnaby?—Who was the Doctor?—Who was Mrs. Dove?—The place, where?—The time, when?—The persons, who?—

So saith Chaucer; and in the same mind,facilius discimus quæ congruo dicuntur ordine quam quæ sparsim et confusim, saith Erasmus. Think a moment I beseech thee, Reader, what order is! Not the mere word which is so often vociferated in the House of Commons or uttered by the Speakerore rotundo, when it is necessary for him to assume the tone of Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης; but order in its essence and truth, in itself and in its derivatives.

Waiving the Orders in Council, and the Order of the Day, a phrase so familiar in the disorderly days of the French National Convention, think gentle Reader of the order of Knighthood, of holy orders, of the orders of architecture, the Linnæan orders, the orderly Serjeant, the ordinal numbers, the Ordinary of Newgate, the Ordinary on Sundays at 2 o'clock in the environs of the Metropolis, the ordinary faces of those who partake of what is ordinarily provided for them there; and under the auspices of Government itself, andpar excellencethe Extraordinary Gazette. And as the value of health is never truly and feelingly understood except in sickness, contemplate for a moment what the want of order is. Think of disorder in things remote, and then as it approaches thee. In the country wherein thou livest, bad; in the town whereof thou art an inhabitant, worse; in thine own street, worser; in thine own house, worst of all. Think of it in thy family, in thy fortune, in thine intestines. In thy affairs, distressing; in thy members, painful; in thy conduct, ruinous. Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things. Abstract it from a Dictionary, and thou mayest imagine the inextricable confusion which would ensue. Reject it from the Alphabet, and Zerah Colburne himself could not go through the chriscross row. How then should I do without it in this history?

A Quaker by name Benjamin Lay (who was a little cracked in the head though sound at heart) took one of his compositions once to Benjamin Franklin that it might be printed and published. Franklin having looked over the manuscript observed that it was deficient in arrangement; it is no matter, replied the author, print any part thou pleasest first. Many are the speeches and the sermons and the treatises and the poems and the volumes which are like Benjamin Lay's book; the head might serve for the tail, and the tail for the body, and the body for the head,—either end for the middle, and the middle for either end;—nay if you could turn them inside out like a polypus, or a glove, they would be no worse for the operation.

When the excellent Hooker was on his death-bed, he expressed his joy at the prospect of entering a World of Order.

WHOLESOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE VANITY OF FAME.

Whosoever shall address himself to write of matters of instruction, or of any other argument of importance, it behoveth that before he enter thereinto, he should resolutely determine with himself in what order he will handle the same; so shall he best accomplish that he hath undertaken, and inform the understanding, and help the memory of the Reader.

GWILLIM'SDISPLAY OFHERALDRY.

Who was the Doctor?

We will begin with the persons for sundry reasons, general and specific. Doth not the Latin grammar teach us so to do, wherein the personal verbs come before the impersonal, and thePropria quæ maribusprecede all other nouns? Moreover by replying to this question all needful explanation as to time and place will naturally and of necessity follow in due sequence.

1G. PEELE.

Who was the Doctor?

Can it then be necessary to ask?—Alas the vanity of human fame! Vanity of vanities, all is Vanity! “How few,” says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, “have heard of the name of Veneatapadino Ragium! He imagined that there was no man in the world that knew him not: how many men can tell me, that he was the King of Narsinga?” When I mention Arba, who but the practised textualist can call to mind that he was “a great man among the Anakim,” that he was the father of Anak, and that from him Kirjath-Arba took its name? A great man among the Giants of the earth, the founder of a city, the father of Anak!—and now there remaineth nothing more of him or his race than the bare mention of them in one of the verses of one of the chapters of the Book of Joshua: except for that only record it would not now be known that Arba had ever lived, or that Hebron was originally called after his name.Vanitas Vanitatum! Omnia Vanitas .An old woman in a village in the West of England was told one day that the King of Prussia was dead, such a report having arrived when the great Frederic was in the noon-day of his glory. Old Mary lifted up her great slow eyes at the news, and fixing them in the fullness of vacancy upon her informant, replied, “is a! is a!—The Lord ha' marcy!—Well, well! The King of Prussia! And who's he?”—The “Who's he” of this old woman might serve as text for a notable sermon upon ambition. “Who's he” may now be asked of men greater as soldiers in their day than Frederic, or Wellington; greater as discoverers than Sir Isaac, or Sir Humphrey. Who built the Pyramids? Who ate the first Oyster?Vanitas Vanitatum! Omnia Vanitas.

2SPENSER.

Who was the Doctor?

Oh that thou hadst known him, Reader! Then should I have answered the question—if orally, by an emphasis upon the article,—theDoctor; or if in written words, THE DOCTOR—thus giving the word that capital designation to which, as the head of his profession within his own orbit, he was so justly entitled. But I am not writing to those only who knew him, nor merely to the inhabitants of the West Riding, nor to the present generation alone;—No! to all Yorkshire,—all England; all the British Empire; all the countries wherein the English tongue is, or shall be, spoken or understood; Yea to all places, and all times to come.Para todos, as saith the famous Doctor Juan Perez de MontalvanNatural de Madrid, which is, being interpreted, a Spanish Cockney—para todos; porque es un aparato de varias materias, donde el Filosofo, el Cortesano, el Humanista, el Poeta, el Predicador, el Teologo, el Soldado, el Devoto, el Jurisconsulto, el Matematico, el Medico, el Soltero, el Casado, el Religioso, el Ministro, el Plebeyo, el Señor, el Oficial, y el Entretenido, hallaran juntamente utilidad y gusto, erudicion y divertimiento, doctrina y desahogo, recreo y enseñanza, moralidad y alivio, ciencia y descanso, provecho y passatiempo, alabanzas y reprehensiones, y ultimamente exemplos y donaires, que sin ofender las costumbres delecten el animo, y sazonen el entendimiento.

Who was the Doctor?

The Doctor was Doctor Daniel Dove.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE OF DR. DOVE, WITH THE DESCRIPTION OF A YEOMAN'S HOUSE IN THE WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Daniel, the son of Daniel Dove and of Dinah his wife, was born near Ingleton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on Monday the twenty second of April, old style, 1723, nine minutes and three seconds after three in the afternoon; on which day Marriage came in and Mercury was with the Moon; and the aspects were □ ♄ ♀: a week earlier, it would have been a most glorious Trine of the Sun and Jupiter;—circumstances which were all duly noted in the blank leaf of the family Bible.

Daniel the father was one of a race of men who unhappily are now almost extinct. He lived upon an estate of six and twenty acres which his fathers had possessed before him, all Doves and Daniels, in uninterrupted succession from time immemorial, farther than registers or title deeds could ascend. The little church called Chapel le Dale, stands about a bow shot from the family house. There they had all been carried to the font; there they had each led his bride to the altar; and thither they had, each in his turn, been borne upon the shoulders of their friends and neighbours. Earth to earth they had been consigned there for so many generations, that half of the soil of the churchyard consisted of their remains. A hermit who might wish his grave to be as quiet as his cell, could imagine no fitter resting place. On three sides there was an irregular low stone wall, rather to mark the limits of the sacred ground, than to inclose it; on the fourth it was bounded by the brook whose waters proceed by a subterraneous channel from Wethercote cave. Two or three alders and rowan trees hung over the brook, and shed their leaves and seeds into the stream. Some bushy hazels grew at intervals along the lines of the wall; and a few ash trees, as the winds had sown them. To the East and West some fields adjoined it, in that state of half cultivation which gives a human character to solitude: to the South, on the other side the brook, the common with its limestone rocks peering every where above ground, extended to the foot of Ingleborough. A craggy hill, feathered with birch, sheltered it from the North.

The turf was as soft and fine as that of the adjoining hills; it was seldom broken, so scanty was the population to which it was appropriated; scarcely a thistle or a nettle deformed it, and the few tomb-stones which had been placed there were now themselves half buried. The sheep came over the wall when they listed, and sometimes took shelter in the porch from the storm. Their voices, and the cry of the kite wheeling above, were the only sounds which were heard there, except when the single bell which hung in its niche over the entrance tinkled for service on the Sabbath day, or with a slower tongue gave notice that one of the children of the soil was returning to the earth from which he sprung.

The house of the Doves was to the East of the Church, under the same hill, and with the same brook in front; and the intervening fields belonged to the family. It was a low house, having before it a little garden of that size and character which shewed that the inhabitants could afford to bestow a thought upon something more than mere bodily wants. You entered between two yew trees clipt to the fashion of two pawns. There were hollyhocks and sunflowers displaying themselves above the wall; roses and sweet peas under the windows, and the everlasting pea climbing the porch. Over the door was a stone with these letters.

The A. was in the Saxon character. The rest of the garden lay behind the house, partly on the slope of the hill. It had a hedge of gooseberry-bushes, a few apple-trees, pot-herbs in abundance, onions, cabbages, turnips and carrots; potatoes had hardly yet found their way into these remote parts: and in a sheltered spot under the crag, open to the south, were six bee-hives which made the family perfectly independent of West India produce. Tea was in those days as little known as potatoes, and for all other things honey supplied the place of sugar.

The house consisted of seven rooms, the dairy and cellar included which were both upon the ground floor. As you entered the kitchen there was on the right one of those open chimneys which afford more comfort in a winter's evening than the finest register stove; in front of the chimney stood a wooden bee-hive chair, and on each side was a long oak seat with a back to it, the seats serving as chests in which the oaten bread was kept. They were of the darkest brown, and well polished by constant use. On the back of each were the same initials as those over the door, with the date 1610. The great oak table, and the chest in the best kitchen which held the house-linen, bore the same date. The chimney was well hung with bacon, the rack which covered half the ceiling bore equal marks of plenty; mutton hams were suspended from other parts of the ceiling; and there was an odour of cheese from the adjoining dairy, which the turf fire, tho' perpetual as that of the Magi, or of the Vestal Virgins, did not overpower. A few pewter dishes were ranged above the trenchers, opposite the door on a conspicuous shelf. The other treasures of the family were in an open triangular cupboard, fixed in one of the corners of the best kitchen, half way from the floor, and touching the ceiling. They consisted of a silver saucepan, a silver goblet, and four apostle spoons. Here also King Charles's Golden Rules were pasted against the wall, and a large print of Daniel in the Lion's Den. The Lions were bedaubed with yellow, and the Prophet was bedaubed with blue, with a red patch upon each of his cheeks: if he had been like his picture he might have frightened the Lions; but happily there were no “judges” in the family, and it had been bought for its name's sake. The other print which ornamented the room had been purchased from a like feeling, though the cause was not so immediately apparent. It represented a Ship in full sail, with Joseph and the Virgin Mary, and the Infant on board, and a Dove flying behind as if to fill the sails with the motion of its wings. Six black chairs were ranged along the wall, where they were seldom disturbed from their array. They had been purchased by Daniel the grandfather upon his marriage, and were the most costly purchase that had ever been made in the family; for the goblet was a legacy. The backs were higher than the head of the tallest man when seated; the seats flat and shallow, set in a round frame, unaccommodating in their material, more unaccommodating in shape; the backs also were of wood rising straight up, and ornamented with balls and lozenges and embossments; and the legs and cross bars were adorned in the same taste. Over the chimney were two Peacocks' feathers, some of the dry silky pods of the honesty flower, and one of those large “sinuous shells” so finely thus described by Landor;

There was also a head of Indian corn there, and a back scratcher, of which the hand was ivory and the handle black. This had been a present of Daniel the grandfather to his wife. The three apartments above served equally for store-rooms and bed-chambers. William Dove the brother slept in one, and Agatha the maid, or Haggy as she was called, in another.

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