Chapter 7

A TRUCE WITH MELANCHOLY. GENTLEMEN SUCH AS THEY WERE IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1747. A HINT TO YOUNG LADIES CONCERNING THEIR GREAT GRANDMOTHERS.

Fashions that are now called new,Have been worn by more than you;Elder times have used the same,Though these new ones get the name.MIDDLETON.

Well might Ben Jonson call bell-ringing “the poetry of steeples!” It is a poetry which in some heart or other is always sure to move an accordant key; and there is not much of the poetry, so called by courtesy because it bears the appearance of verse, of which this can be said with equal truth. Doncaster since I was one of its inhabitants had been so greatly changed,—(improved I ought to say, for its outward changes had really been improvements,—) that there was nothing but my own recollections to carry me back into the past, till the clock of St. George's struck nine, on the evening of our arrival, and its chimes began to measure out the same time in the same tones, which I used to hear as regularly as the hours came round, forty long years ago.

Enough of this! My visit to Doncaster was incidentally introduced by the comparison which I could not chuse but make between such a return, and that of the Student from Leyden. We must now revert to the point from whence I strayed and go farther back than the forty years over which the chimes as if with magic had transported me. We must go back to the year 1747, when gentlemen wore sky-blue coats, with silver button holes and huge cuffs extending more than half way from the middle of the hand to the elbow, short breeches just reaching to the silver garters at the knee, and embroidered waistcoats with long flaps which came almost as low. Were I to describe Daniel Dove in the wig which he then wore, and which observed a modest mean between the bush of the Apothecary and the consequential foretop of the Physician with its depending knots, fore and aft; were I to describe him in a sober suit of brown or snuff-coloured dittos such as beseemed his profession, but with cuffs of the dimensions, waistcoat-flaps of the length, and breeches of the brevity before mentioned; Amorosa and Amatura and Amoretta would exclaim that love ought never to be named in connection with such a figure,—Amabilis, sweet girl in the very bloom of innocence and opening youth, would declare she never could love such a creature, and Amanda herself would smile, not contemptuously, nor at her idea of the man, but at the mutability of fashion. Smile if you will, young Ladies! your great grandmothers wore large hoops, peaked stomachers, and modesty-bits; their riding-habits and waistcoats were trimmed with silver, and they had very gentleman-like perukes for riding in, as well as gentleman-like cocked hats. Yet, young Ladies, they were as gay and giddy in their time as you are now, they were as attractive and as lovely; they were not less ready than you are to laugh at the fashions of those who had gone before them; they were wooed and won by gentlemen in short breeches, long flapped waistcoats, large cuffs and tie wigs; and the wooing and winning proceeded much in the same manner as it had done in the generations before them, as the same agreeable part of this world's business proceeds among yourselves, and as it will proceed when you will be as little thought of by your great-grand-daughters as your great-grand-mothers are at this time by you. What care you for your great-grand-mothers!

The law of entails sufficiently proves that our care for our posterity is carried far, sometimes indeed beyond what is reasonable and just. On the other hand it is certain that the sense of relationship in the ascending line produces in general little other feeling than that of pride in the haughty and high-born. That it should be so to a certain degree, is in the order of nature and for the general good: but that in our selfish state of society this indifference for our ancestors is greater than the order of nature would of itself produce, may be concluded from the very different feeling which prevailed among some of the ancients, and still prevails in other parts of the world.

He who said that he did not see why he should be expected to do any thing for Posterity, when Posterity had done nothing for him, might be deemed to have shown as much worthlessness as wit in this saying, if it were any thing more than the sportive sally of a light-hearted man. Yet one who “keeps his heart with all diligence,” knowing that “out of it are the issues of life,” will take heed never lightly to entertain a thought that seems to make light of a duty,—still less will he give it utterance. We owe much to Posterity, nothing less than all that we have received from our Forefathers. And for myself I should be unwilling to believe that nothing is due from us to our ancestors. If I did not acquire this feeling from the person who is the subject of these volumes, it was at least confirmed by him. He used to say that one of the gratifications which he promised himself after death, was that of becoming acquainted with all his progenitors, in order, degree above degree, up to Noah, and from him up to our first parents. “But,” said he, “though I mean to proceed regularly step by step, curiosity will make me in one instance trespass upon this proper arrangement, and I shall take the earliest opportunity of paying my respects to Adam and Eve.”

AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO REMOVE THE UNPLEASANT IMPRESSION PRODUCED UPON THE LADIES BY THE DOCTOR'S TYE-WIG AND HIS SUIT OF SNUFF-COLOURED DITTOS.

So full of shapes is fancyThat it alone is high fantastical.TWELFTHNIGHT.

I must not allow the feminine part of my readers to suppose that the Doctor when in his prime of life, was not a very likeable person in appearance, as well as in every thing else, although he wore what in the middle of the last century, was the costume of a respectable country practitioner in medicine. Though at Leyden he could only look at a Burgemeester's daughter as a cat may look at a King, there was not a Mayor or Alderman's daughter in Doncaster who would have thought herself disparaged if he had fixed his eyes upon her, and made her a proffer of his hand.

Yet as in the opinion of many dress “makes the man,” and any thing which departs widely from the standard of dress, “the fellow,” I must endeavour to give those young Ladies who are influenced more than they ought to be, and perhaps more than they are aware, by such an opinion, a more favourable notion of the Doctor's appearance, than they are likely to have if they bring him before their eyes in the fashion of his times. It will not assist this intention on my part, if I request you to look at him as you would look at a friend who was dressed in such a costume for a masquerade or a fancy ball; for your friend would expect and wish to be laughed at, having assumed the dress for that benevolent purpose. Well then, let us take off the aforesaid sad snuff-colour coat with broad deep cuffs; still the waistcoat with its long flaps, and the breeches that barely reach to the knee will provoke your merriment. We must not proceed farther in undressing him; and if I conceal these under a loose morning gown of green damask, the insuperable perriwig would still remain.

Let me then present him to your imagination, setting forth on horseback in that sort of weather which no man encounters voluntarily, but which men of his profession who practise in the Country are called upon to face at all seasons and all hours. Look at him in a great coat of the closest texture that the looms of Leeds could furnish,—one of those dreadnoughts the utility of which sets fashion at defiance. You will not observe his boot-stockings coming high above the knees; the coat covers them; and if it did not, you would be far from despising them now. His tie-wig is all but hidden under a hat, the brim of which is broad enough to answer in some degree the use of an umbrella. Look at him now, about to set off on some case of emergency; with haste in his expressive eyes, and a cast of thoughtful anxiety over one of the most benignant countenances that Nature ever impressed with the characters of good humour and good sense!

Was he then so handsome? you say. Nay, Ladies, I know not whether you would have called him so: for among the things which were too wonderful for him, yea, which he knew not, I suspect that Solomon might have included a woman's notion of handsomeness in man.

CONCERNING THE PORTRAIT OF DR. DANIEL DOVE.

The sure travellerThough he alight sometimes still goeth on.HERBERT.

There is no portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove.

And there Horrebow, the Natural Historian of Iceland,—if Horrebow had been his biographer—would have ended this chapter.

“Here perchance,”—(observe, Reader, I am speaking now in the words of the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon,)—“here perchance a question would be asked,—(and yet I do marvel to hear a question made of so plain a matter,)—what should be the cause of this? If it were asked,” (still the Lord Keeper speaketh) “thus I mean to answer: That I think no man so blind but seeeth it, no man so deaf but heareth it, nor no man so ignorant but understandeth it.” “Il y a des demandes si sottes qu'on ne les sçauroit resoudre par autre moyen que par la moquerie et les absurdities; afin qu'une sottise pousse l'autre.”1

1GARASSE.

But some reader may ask what have I answered here, or rather what have I brought forward the great authority of the Lord Keeper Sir Nicholas Bacon and the arch-vituperator P. Garasse, to answer for me? Do I take it for granted that the cause wherefore there is no portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove, should be thus apparent? or the reason why, there being no such portrait, Horrebow should simply have said so, and having so said, end therewith the chapter which he had commenced upon the subject.

O gentle reader you who ask this pertinent question,—I entirely agree with you! there is nothing more desirable in composition than perspicuity; and in perspicuity precision is implied. Of the Author who has attained it in his style, it may indeed be said,omne tulit punctum, so far as relates to style; for all other graces, those only excepted which only genius can impart, will necessarily follow. Nothing is so desirable, and yet it should seem that nothing is so difficult. He who thinks least about it when he is engaged in composition will be most likely to attain it, for no man ever attained it by labouring for it. Read all the treatises upon composition that ever were composed, and you will find nothing which conveys so much useful instruction as the account given by John Wesley of his own way of writing. “I never think of my style,” says he; “but just set down the words that come first. Only when I transcribe any thing for the press, then I think it my duty to see that every phrase be clear, pure and proper: conciseness which is now as it were natural to me, bringsquantum sufficitof strength. If after all I observe any stiff expression, I throw it out neck and shoulders.” Let your words take their course freely; they will then dispose themselves in their natural order, and make your meaning plain;—that is, Mr. Author, supposing you have a meaning; and that it is not an insidious, and for that reason, a covert one. With all the head-work that there is in these volumes, and all the heart-work too, I have not bitten my nails over a single sentence which they contain. I do not say that my hand has not sometimes been passed across my brow; nor that the fingers of my left hand have not played with the hair upon my forehead,—like Thalaba's with the grass that grew beside Oneiza's tomb.

No people have pretended to so much precision in their language as the Turks. They have not only verbs active, passive, transitive, and reciprocal, but also verbs co-operative, verbs meditative, verbs frequentative, verbs negative, and verbs impossible; and moreover they have what are called verbs of opinion, and verbs of knowledge. The latter are used when the speaker means it to be understood that he speaks of his own sure knowledge, and is absolutely certain of what he asserts; the former when he advances it only as what he thinks likely, or believes upon the testimony of others.

Now in the Turkish language the word whereon both the meaning and the construction of the sentence depend, is placed at the end of a sentence which extends not unfrequently to ten, fifteen or twenty lines. What therefore they might gain in accuracy by this nice distinction of verbs must be more than counterbalanced by the ambiguity consequent upon long-windedness. And notwithstanding their conscientious moods, they are not more remarkable for veracity than their neighbours who in ancient times made so much use of the indefinite tenses, and were said to be always liars.

We have a sect in our own country who profess to use a strict and sincere plainness of speech; they call their dialectthe plain language, and yet they are notorious for making a studied precision in their words, answer all the purposes of equivocation.

SHOWING WHAT THAT QUESTION WAS, WHICH WAS ANSWERED BEFORE IT WAS ASKED.

Chacun a son stile; le mien, comme vouz voyez, n'est pas laconique.

ME. DESEVIGNEˊ.

In reporting progress upon the subject of the preceding chapter, it appears that the question asked concerning the question that was answered, was not itself answered in that chapter; so that it still remains to be explained what it was that was so obvious as to require no other answer than the answer that was there given; whether it was the reason why there is no portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove? or the reason why Horrebow, if he had been the author of this book, would simply have said that there was none, and have said nothing more about it?

The question which was answered related to Horrebow. He would have said nothing more about the matter, because he would have thought there was nothing more to say; or because he agreed with Britain's old rhyming Remembrancer, that although

More might be said hereof to make a proof,Yet more to say were more than is enough.

But if there be readers who admire a style of such barren brevity, I must tell them in the words of Estienne Pasquier thatje fais grande conscience d'alambiquer mon esprit en telle espece d'escrite pour leur complaire. Do they take me for a Bottle-Conjurer that I am to compress myself into a quart, wine-merchants' measure, and be corked down? I must have “ample room and verge enough,”—a large canvas such as Haydon requires, and as Rubens required before him. When I pour out nectar for my guests it must be into

a bowlLarge as my capacious soul.

It is true I might have contented myself with merely saying there is no portrait of my venerable friend; and the benevolent reader would have been satisfied with the information, while at the same time he wished there had been one, and perhaps involuntarily sighed at thinking there was not. But I have duties to perform; first to the memory of my most dear philosopher and friend; secondly, to myself; thirdly, to posterity, which in this matter I cannot conscientiously prefer either to myself or my friend; fourthly, to the benevolent reader who delighteth in this book, and consequently loveth me therefore, and whom therefore I love, though, notwithstanding here is love for love between us, we know not each other now, and never shall! fourthly, I say to the benevolent reader, or rather readers,utriusque generis, and fifthly to the Public for the time being. “England expects every man to do his duty;” and England's expectation would not be disappointed if every Englishman were to perform his as faithfully and fully as I will do mine. Mark me, Reader, it is only of my duties to England, and to the parties above-mentioned that I speak; other duties I am accountable for elsewhere. God forbid that I should ever speak of them in this strain, or ever think of them otherwise than in humility and fear!

SHOWING CAUSE WHY THE QUESTION WHICH WAS NOT ASKED OUGHT TO BE ANSWERED.

Nay in troth I talk but coarsely,But I hold it comfortable for the understanding.BEAUMONTand FLETCHER.

“What, more buffoonery!” says the Honorable Fastidious Feeble-wit who condescends to act occasionally as Small Critic to the Court Journal:— “what, still more of this buffoonery!”

“Yes, Sir,—vous ne recevrez de moy, sur le commencement et milieu de celuy-cy mien chapitre que bouffonnerie; et toutesfois bouffonnerie qui porte quant à soy une philosophie et contemplation generale de la vanité de ce monde.”1

1PASQUIER.

“More absurdities still!” says Lord Make-motion Ganderman, “more and more absurdities!”

“Aye, my Lord!” as the Gracioso says in one of Calderon's Plays,

¿sino digo lo que quiero,de que me sirve ser loco?

“Aye, my Lord!” as the old Spaniard says in his national poesy, “mas, y mas, y mas, y mas,” more and more and more and more. You may live to learn what vaunted maxims of your political philosophy are nothing else than absurdities in masquerade; what old and exploded follies there are, which with a little vamping and varnishing pass for new and wonderful discoveries;

What a world of businessesWhich by interpretation are mere nothings!2

This you may live to learn. As for my absurdities, they may seem very much beneath your sapience; but when I sayhæ nugæ seria ducunt, (for a trite quotation when well-set is as good as one that will be new to every body) let me add, my Lord, that it will be well both for you and your country, if your practical absurdities do not draw after them consequences of a very different dye!

2BEAUMONTand FLETCHER.

No, my Lord, as well as Aye, my Lord!

Never made man of woman bornOf a bullock's tail, a blowing-horn;Nor can an ass's hide disguiseA lion, if he ramp and rise.3

3PEELE.

“More fooling,” exclaims Dr. Dense: he takes off his spectacles, lays them on the table beside him, with a look of despair, and applies to the snuff-box for consolation. It is a capacious box, and the Doctor's servant takes care that his master shall never find in it a deficiency of the best rappee. “More fooling!” says that worthy Doctor.

Fooling, say you, my learned Dr. Dense? Chiabrera will tell you

——che non è riaUna gentil follia,—

my erudite and good Doctor;

But do you know what fooling is? true fooling,—The circumstances that belong unto it?For every idle knave that shews his teeth,Wants, and would live, can juggle, tumble, fiddle,Make a dog-face, or can abuse his fellow,Is not a fool at first dash.4

4BEAUMONTand FLETCHER.

It is easy to talk of fooling and of folly,mais d'en savoir les ordres, les rangs, les distinctions; de connoître ces differences delicates qu'il y a de Folie à Folie; les affinités et les alliances qui se trouvent entrè la Sagesse et cette meme Folie, as Saint Evremond says; to know this is not under every one's nightcap; and perhaps my learned Doctor, may not be under your wig, orthodox and in full buckle as it is.

The Doctor is all astonishment, and almost begins to doubt whether I am fooling in earnest. Aye, Doctor! you meet in this world with false mirth as often as with false gravity; the grinning hypocrite is not a more uncommon character than the groaning one. As much light discourse comes from a heavy heart, as from a hollow one; and from a full mind as from an empty head. “Levity,” says Mr. Danby, “is sometimes a refuge from the gloom of seriousness. A man may whistle ‘for want of thought,’ or from having too much of it.”

“Poor creature!” says the Reverend Philocalvin Frybabe. “Poor creature! little does he think what an account he must one day render for every idle word!”

And what account, odious man, if thou art a hypocrite, and hardly less odious if thou art sincere in thine abominable creed,—what account wilt thou render for thine extempore prayers and thy set discourses! My words, idle as thou mayest deem them, will never stupify the intellect, nor harden the heart, nor besot the conscience like an opiate drug!

“Such facetiousness,” saith Barrow, “is not unreasonable or unlawful which ministereth harmless divertisement and delight to conversation; harmless, I say, that is, not entrenching upon piety, not infringing charity or justice, not disturbing peace. For Christianity is not so tetrical, so harsh, so envious as to bar us continually from innocent, much less from wholesome and useful pleasure, such as human life doth need or require. And if jocular discourse may serve to good purposes of this kind; if it may be apt to raise our drooping spirits, to allay our irksome cares, to whet our blunted industry, to recreate our minds, being tired and cloyed with graver occupations; if it may breed alacrity, or maintain good humour among us; if it may conduce to sweeten conversation and endear society, then is it not inconvenient, or unprofitable. If for those ends we may use other recreations, employing on them our ears and eyes, our hands and feet, our other instruments of sense and motion; why may we not as well to them accommodate our organs of speech and interior sense? Why should those games which excite our wit and fancies be less reasonable than those whereby our grosser parts and faculties are exercised? yea, why are not those more reasonable, since they are performed in a manly way, and have in them a smack of reason; seeing also they may be so managed, as not only to divert and please, but to improve and profit the mind, rousing and quickening it, yea, sometimes enlightening and instructing it, by good sense conveyed in jocular expression.”

But think not that in thus producing the authority of one of the wisest and best of men, I offer any apology for my levities to your Gravityships! they need it not and you deserve it not.

Questi—Son fatti per dar pasto a gl' ignoranti;Ma voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani,Mirate la dottrina che s'ascondeSotto queste coperte alte e profonde.Le cose belle, e preziose, e care,Saporite, soavi e dilicate,Scoperte in man non si debbon portarePerchè da' porci non sieno imbrattate.5

5ORLANDOINNAMORATO.

Gentlemen, you have made me break the word of promise both to the eye and ear. I began this chapter with the intention of showing to the reader's entire satisfaction, why the question which was not asked, ought to be answered; and now another chapter must be appropriated to that matter! Many things happen between the cup and the lip, and between the beginning of a chapter and the conclusion thereof.

WHEREIN THE QUESTION IS ANSWERED WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN ASKED.

Ajutami, tu penna, et calamaio,Ch' io hò tra mano una materia asciutta.MATTIOFRANZESI.

Wherefore there is no portrait of my excellent friend, is a question which ought to be answered, because the solution will exhibit something of what in the words of the old drinking song he used to call his “poor way of thinking.” And it is a question which may well be asked, seeing that in the circle wherein he moved, there were some persons of liberal habits and feelings as well as liberal fortune, who enjoyed his peculiarities, placed the fullest reliance upon his professional skill, appreciated most highly his moral and intellectual character, and were indeed personally attached to him in no ordinary degree.

For another reason also ought this question to be resolved; a reason which whatever the reader may think, has the more weight with me, because it nearly concerns myself. “There is indeed,” says the Philosopher of Bemerton, “a near relation between seriousness and wisdom, and one is a most excellent friend to the other. A man of a serious, sedate and considerate temper, as he is always in a ready disposition for meditation, (the best improvement both of knowledge and manners,) so he thinks without disturbance, enters not upon another notion till he is master of the first, and so makes clean work with it:—whereas a man of a loose, volatile and shattered humour, thinks only by fits and starts, now and then in a morning interval, when the serious mood comes upon him; and even then too, let but the least trifle cross his way, and his desultorious fancy presently takes the scent, leaves the unfinished and half-mangled notion, and skips away in pursuit of the new game.” Reader, it must be my care not to come under this condemnation; and therefore I must follow to the end the subject which is before me:quare autem nobis—dicendum videtur, ne temere secuti putemur; et breviter dicendum, ne in hujusmodi rebus diutius, quam ratio præcipiendi postulet commoremur.1

1CICERO.

Mr. Copley of Netherhall was particularly desirous of possessing this so-much-by-us-now-desiderated likeness, and would have invited an Artist from London, if the Doctor could have been prevailed upon to sit for it; but to this no persuasions could induce him. He never assigned a reason for this determination, and indeed always evaded the subject when it was introduced, letting it at the same time plainly be perceived that he was averse to it, and wished not to be so pressed as to draw from him a direct refusal. But once when the desire had been urged with some seriousness, he replied that he was the last of his race, and if he were to be the first who had his portrait taken, well might they who looked at it, exclaim with Solomon, “Vanity of vanities!”

In that thought indeed it was that the root of his objection lay. “Pauli in domo, præter se nemo superest,” is one of the most melancholy reflections to which Paulus Æmilius gave utterance in that speech of his which is recorded by Livy. The speedy extinction of his family in his own person was often in the Doctor's mind; and he would sometimes touch upon it when, in his moods of autumnal feeling, he was conversing with those persons whom he had received into his heart of hearts. Unworthy as I was, it was my privilege and happiness to be one of them; and at such times his deepest feelings could not have been expressed more unreservedly, if he had given them utterance in poetry or in prayer.

Blest as he had been in all other things to the extent of his wishes, it would be unreasonable in him, he said, to look upon this as a misfortune; so to repine would indicate little sense of gratitude to that bountiful Providence which had so eminently favored him; little also of religious acquiescence in its will. It was not by any sore calamity nor series of afflictions that the extinction of his family had been brought on; the diminution had been gradual, as if to show that their uses upon earth were done. His grandfather had only had two children; his parents but one, and that one was nowultimus suorum. They had ever been a family in good repute, walking inoffensively towards all men, uprightly with their neighbours, and humbly with their God; and perhaps this extinction was their reward. For what Solon said of individuals, that no one could truly be called happy till his life had terminated in a happy death, holds equally true of families.

Perhaps too this timely extinction was ordained in mercy, to avert consequences which might else so probably have arisen from his forsaking the station in which he was born; a lowly, but safe station, exposed to fewer dangers, trials or temptations, than any other in this age or country, with which he was enabled to compare it. The sentiment with which Sanazzaro concludes his Arcadia was often in his mind, not as derived from that famous author, but self-originated:per cosa vera ed indubitata tener ti puoi, che chi più di nascoso e più lontano dalla moltitudine vive, miglior vive; e colui trà mortali si può con più verità chiamar beato, che senza invidia delle altrui grandezze, con modesto animo della sua fortuna si contenta.His father had removed him from that station; he would not say unwisely, for his father was a wise and good man, if ever man deserved to be so called; and he could not say unhappily; for assuredly he knew that all the blessings which had earnestly been prayed for, had attended the determination. Through that blessing he had obtained the whole benefit which his father desired for him, and had escaped evils which perhaps had not been fully apprehended. His intellectual part had received all the improvement of which it was capable, and his moral nature had sustained no injury in the process; nor had his faith been shaken, but stood firm, resting upon a sure foundation. But the entail of humble safety had been, as it were, cut off; the birth-right—so to speak—had been renounced. His children, if God had given him children, must have mingled in the world, there to shape for themselves their lot of good or evil; and he knew enough of the world to know how manifold and how insidious are the dangers, which, in all its paths, beset us. He never could have been to them what his father had been to him;—that was impossible. They could have had none of those hallowing influences both of society and solitude to act upon them, which had imbued his heart betimes, and impressed upon his youthful mind a character that no after circumstances could corrupt. They must inevitably have been exposed to more danger, and could not have been so well armed against it. That consideration reconciled him to being childless. God, who knew what was best for him, had ordained that it should be so; and he did not, and ought not to regret, that having been the most cultivated of his race, and so far the happiest, it was decreed that he should be the last. God's will is best.

Ὣς ἔφατ ἔυχὸμενος; for with some aspiration of piety he usually concluded his more serious discourse, either giving it utterance, or with a silent motion of the lips, which the expression of his countenance, as well as the tenour of what had gone before, rendered intelligible to those who knew him as I did.

IN WHICH IS RELATED THE DISCOVERY OF A CERTAIN PORTRAIT AT DONCASTER.

Call in the Barber! If the tale be longHe'll cut it short, I trust.MIDDLETON.

Here I must relate a circumstance which occurred during the few hours of my last, and by me ever-to-be-remembered visit to Doncaster. As we were on the way from the Old Angel Inn to the Mansion House, adjoining which stood, or to speak more accurately had stood, the Kebla to which the steps of my pilgrimage were bent, we were attracted by a small but picturesque groupe in a shaving-shop, exhibited in strong relief by the light of a blazing fire, and of some glaring lamps. It was late in autumn and on a Saturday evening, at which time those persons in humble life, who cannot shave themselves, and whose sense of religion leads them to think that what may be done on the Saturday night ought not to be put off till the Sunday morning, settle their weekly account with their beards. There was not story enough in the scene to have supplied Wilkie with a subject for his admirable genius to work upon, but he would certainly have sketched the groupe if he had seen it as we did. Stopping for a minute, at civil distance from the door, we observed a picture over the fire-place, and it seemed so remarkable that we asked permission to go in and look at it more nearly. It was an unfinished portrait, evidently of no common person, and by no common hand; and as evidently it had been painted many years ago. The head was so nearly finished that nothing seemed wanting to complete the likeness; the breast and shoulders were faintly sketched in a sort of whitewash which gave them the appearance of being covered with a cloth. Upon asking the master of the shop if he could tell us whose portrait it was, Mambrino, who seemed to be a good-natured fellow, and was pleased at our making the enquiry, replied that it had been in his possession many years, before he knew himself. A friend of his had made him a present of it, because, he said, the gentleman looked by his dress as if he was just ready to be shaved, and had an apron under his chin; and therefore his shop was the properest place for it. One day however the picture attracted the notice of a passing stranger, as it had done ours, and he recognized it for a portrait of Garrick. It certainly was so; and any one who knows Garrick's face may satisfy himself of this when he happens to be in Doncaster. Mambrino's shop is not far from the Old Angel, and on the same side of the street.

My companion told me that when we entered the shop he had begun to hope it might prove to be a portrait of my old friend: he seemed even to be disappointed that we had not fallen upon such a discovery, supposing that it would have gratified me beyond measure. But upon considering in my own mind if this would have been the case, two questions presented themselves. The first was, whether knowing as I did that the Doctor never sate for his portrait, and knowing also confidentially the reason why he never could be persuaded to do so, or rather the feeling which possessed him on that subject,—knowing these things, I say, the first question was, whether if a stolen likeness had been discovered, I ought to have rejoiced in the discovery. For as I certainly should have endeavoured to purchase the picture, I should then have had to decide whether or not it was my duty to destroy it; for which,—or on the other hand for preserving it,—so many strong reasons and so many refined ones, might have been produced,proandcon, that I could not have done either one or the other, without distrusting the justice of my own determination; if I preserved it, I should continually be self-accused for doing wrong; if I destroyed it, self-reproaches would pursue me for having done what was irretrievable; so that while I lived I should never have been out of my own Court of Conscience. And let me tell you, Reader, that to be impleaded in that Court is even worse than being brought into the Court of Chancery.

Secondly, the more curious question occurred, whether if there had been a portrait of Dr. Dove, it would have been like him.

“That” says Mr. Everydayman, “is as it might happen.”

“Pardon me, Sir; my question does not regard happening. Chance has nothing to do with the matter. The thing queried is whether it could, or could not have been.”

And before I proceed to consider that question, I shall take the counsel which Catwg the Wise, gave to his pupil Taliesin; and which by these presents I recommend to every reader who may be disposed to consider himself for the time being as mine:

“Think before thou speakest;First, what thou shalt speak;Secondly, why thou shouldest speak;Thirdly, to whom thou mayest have to speak;Fourthly, about whom (or what) thou art to speak;Fifthly, what will come from what thou mayest speak;Sixthly, what may be the benefit from what thou shalt speak;Seventhly, who may be listening to what thou shalt speak.

“Put thy word on thy fingers' ends before thou speakest it, and turn it these seven ways before thou speakest it; and there will never come any harm from what thou shalt say!

“Catwg the Wise delivered this counsel to Taliesin, Chief of Bards, in giving him his blessing.”

A DISCUSSION CONCERNING THE QUESTION LAST PROPOSED.

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