Chapter 8

Questo è bene un de' più profondi passiChe noi habbiamo ancora oggi tentato;E non è mica da huomini bassi.AGNUOLOFIRENZUOLA.

Good and satisfactory likenesses may, beyond all doubt, be taken of Mr. Everydayman himself, and indeed of most persons: and were it otherwise, portrait-painting would be a worse profession than it is, though too many an unfortunate artist has reason bitterly to regret that he possessed the talents which tempted him to engage in it. There are few faces of which even a mediocre painter cannot produce what is called a staring likeness, and Sir Thomas Lawrence a handsome one; Sir Thomas is the painter who pleases every body!

But there are some few faces with which no artist can succeed so as to please himself, (if he has a true feeling for his own art,) or to content those persons who are best acquainted with the living countenance. This is the case where the character predominates over the features, and that character itself is one in which many and seemingly opposite qualities are compounded. Garrick in Abel Drugger, Garrick in Sir John Brute and Garrick in King Lear presented three faces as different as were the parts which he personated; yet the portraits which have been published of him in those parts, may be identified by the same marked features, which flexible as they were rendered by his histrionic power, still under all changes retained their strength and their peculiarity. But where the same flexibility exists and the features are not so peculiar or prominent, the character is then given by what is fleeting, not by what is fixed; and it is more difficult to hit a likeness of this kind than to paint a rainbow.

Now I cannot but think that the Doctor's countenance was of this kind. I can call it to mind as vividly as it appears to me in dreams; but I could impart no notion of it by description. Words cannot delineate a single feature of his face,—such words at least as my knowledge enables me to use. A sculptor, if he had measured it, might have given you technically the relative proportions of his face in all its parts: a painter might describe the facial angle, and how the eyes were set, and if they were well-slit, and how the lips were formed, and whether the chin was in the just mean between rueful length and spectatorial brevity; and whether he could have passed over Strasburgh Bridge without hearing any observations made upon his nose. My own opinion is that the centinel would have had something to say upon that subject; and if he had been a Protestant Soldier (which if an Alsacian, he was likely to be) and accustomed to read the Bible, he might have been reminded by it of the Tower of Lebanon, looking toward Damascus; for as an Italian Poet says,

in prospettivaNe mostra un barbacane sforacchiato.1

I might venture also to apply to the Doctor's nose that safe generality by which Alcina's is described in the Orlando Furioso.

“Quindi il naso, per mezzo il viso scende,Che non trova l'invidia ove l'emende.”

But farther than this, which amounts to no more than a doubtful opinion and a faint adumbration, I can say nothing that would assist any reader to form an idea at once definite and just of any part of the Doctor's face. I cannot even positively say what was the colour of his eyes. I only know that mirth sparkled in them, scorn flashed from them, thought beamed in them, benevolence glistened in them; that they were easily moved to smiles, easily to tears. No barometer ever indicated more faithfully the changes of the atmosphere than his countenance corresponded to the emotions of his mind; but with a mind which might truly be said to have been

so various, that it seemed to beNot one, but all mankind's epitome,

thus various not in its principles or passions or pursuits, but in its enquiries and fancies and speculations, and so alert that nothing seemed to escape its ever watchful and active apprehension,—with such a mind the countenance that was its faithful index, was perpetually varying: its likeness therefore at any one moment could but represent a fraction of the character which identified it, and which left upon you an indescribable and inimitable impression resulting from its totality, though in its totality, it never was and never could be seen.

1MATTIOFRANZESI.

Have I made myself understood?

I mean to say that the ideal face of any one to whom we are strongly and tenderly attached,—that face which is enshrined in our heart of hearts and which comes to us in dreams long after it has mouldered in the grave,—that face is not the exact mechanical countenance of the beloved person, not the countenance that we ever actually behold, but its abstract, its idealization, or rather its realization; the spirit of the countenance, its essence and its life. And the finer the character, and the more various its intellectual powers, the more must this true εἴδωλον differ from the most faithful likeness that a painter or a sculptor can produce.

Therefore I conclude that if there had been a portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove, it could not have been like him, for it was as impossible to paint the character which constituted the identity of his countenance, as to paint the flavour of an apple, or the fragrance of a rose.

DEFENCE OF PORTRAIT-PAINTING. A SYSTEM OF MORAL COSMETICS RECOMMENDED TO THE LADIES. GWILLIM. SIR T. LAWRENCE. GEORGE WITHER. APPLICATION TO THE SUBJECT OF THIS WORK.

Pingitur in tabulis formæ peritura venustas,Vivat ut in tabulis, quod perit in facie.OWEN.

The reader will mistake me greatly if he supposes that in showing why it was impossible there should be a good portrait of Dr. Daniel Dove, I meant to depreciate the art of portrait painting. I have a very high respect for that art, and no person can be more sincerely persuaded of its moral uses. The great number of portraits in the annual exhibitions of our Royal Academy is so far from displeasing me that I have always regarded it as a symptom of wholesome feeling in the nation,—an unequivocal proof that the domestic and social affections are still existing among us in their proper strength, and cherished as they ought to be. And when I have heard at any time observations of the would-be-witty kind upon the vanity of those who allow their portraits thus to be hung up for public view, I have generally perceived that the remark implied a much greater degree of conceit in the speaker. As for allowing the portrait to be exhibited, that is no more than an act of justice to the artist, who has no other means of making his abilities known so well, and of forwarding himself in his profession. If we look round the rooms at Somerset House, and observe how large a proportion of the portraits represent children, the old, and persons in middle life, we shall see that very few indeed are those which can have been painted, or exhibited for the gratification of personal vanity.

Sir Thomas Lawrence ministers largely to self-admiration: and yet a few years ripen even the most flattering of his portraits into moral pictures;

Perchè, donne mie care, la beltàHa l' ali al capo, a le spalle ed a' piè:E vola si, che non si scorge piùVestigio alcun ne' visi, dove fù.1

1RICCIARDETTO.

Helen in her old age, looking at herself in a mirror, is a subject which old sonneteers were fond of borrowing from the Greek Anthology. Young Ladies! you who have sate to Sir Thomas, or any artist of his school, I will tell you how your portraits may be rendered more useful monitors to you in your progress through life than the mirror was to Helen, and how you may derive more satisfaction from them when you are grown old. Without supposing that you actually “called up a look,” for the painter's use, I may be certain that none of you during the times of sitting permitted any feeling of ill humour to cast a shade over your countenance; and that if you were not conscious of endeavouring to put on your best looks for the occasion, the painter was desirous of catching them, and would catch the best he could. The most thoughtless of you need not be told that you cannot retain the charms of youthful beauty; but you may retain the charm of an amiable expression through life: Never allow yourselves to be seen with a worse than you wore for the painter! Whenever you feel ill-tempered, remember that you look ugly; and be assured that every emotion of fretfulness, of ill-humour, of anger, of irritability, of impatience, of pride, haughtiness, envy, or malice, any unkind, any uncharitable, any ungenerous feeling, lessens the likeness to your picture, and not only deforms you while it lasts, but leaves its trace behind; for the effect of the passions upon the face is more rapid and more certain than that of time.

“His counsel,” says Gwillim the Pursuivant, “was very behoveful, who advised all gentlewomen often to look on glasses, that so, if they saw themselves beautiful, they might be stirred up to make their minds as fair by virtue as their faces were by nature; but if deformed, they might make amends for their outward deformity, with their intern pulchritude and gracious qualities. And those that are proud of their beauty should consider that their own hue is as brittle as the glass wherein they see it; and that they carry on their shoulders nothing but a skull wrapt in skin which one day will be loathsome to be looked on.”

The conclusion of this passage accorded not with the Doctor's feelings. He thought that whatever tended to connect frightful and loathsome associations with the solemn and wholesome contemplation of mortality, ought to be avoided as injudicious and injurious. So too with regard to age: if it is dark and unlovely “the fault,” he used to say, “is generally our own; Nature may indeed make it an object of compassion, but not of dislike, unless we ourselves render it so. It is not of necessity that we grow ugly as well as old.” Donne says

No spring, nor summer's beauty hath such graceAs I have seen in one autumnal face;

he was probably speaking of his wife, for Donne was happy in his marriage, as he deserved to be. There is a beauty which, as the Duchess of Newcastle said of her mother's, is “beyond the reach of time;” that beauty depends upon the mind, upon the temper,—Young Ladies, upon yourselves!

George Wither wrote under the best of his portraits,

What IWAS, is passed by;What IAM, away doth fly;What ISHALL BE, none do see;Yet inTHATmy beauties be.

He commenced also a Meditation upon that portrait in these impressive lines;

When I behold my Picture and perceiveHow vain it is our Portraitures to leaveIn lines and shadows (which make shews to-dayOf that which will to-morrow fade away)And think what mean resemblances at bestAre by mechanic instruments exprest,I thought it better much to leave behind me,Some draught, in which my living friends might find me,The same I am, in that which will remainTill all is ruined and repaired again.

In the same poem he says,

A Picture, though with most exactness made,Is nothing but the shadow of a shade.For even our living bodies (though they seemTo others more, or more in our esteem)Are but the shadow of that Real Being,Which doth extend beyond the fleshly seeing,And cannot be discerned, until we riseImmortal objects for immortal eyes.

Like most men, George Wither, as he grew more selfish, was tolerably successful in deceiving himself as to his own motives and state of mind. If ever there was an honest enthusiast, he had been one; afterwards he feathered his nest with the spoils of the Loyalists and of the Bishops; and during this prosperous part of his turbulent life there must have been times when the remembrance of his former self brought with it more melancholy and more awful thoughts than the sight of his own youthful portrait, in its fantastic garb, or of that more sober resemblance upon which his meditation was composed.

Such a portraiture of the inner or real being as Wither in his better mind wished to leave in his works, for those who knew and loved him, such a portraiture am I endeavouring to compose of Dr. Dove, wherein the world may see what he was, and so become acquainted with his intellectual lineaments, and with those peculiarities, which forming as it were the idiosyncrasy of his moral constitution, contributed in no small degree to those ever-varying lights and shades of character, and feeling in his living countenance which, I believe, would have baffled the best painter's art.

Poi voi sapete quanto egli è dabbene,Com' ha giudizio, ingegno, e discrezione,Come conosce il vero, il bello, e 'l bene.2

2BERNI.

SOCIETY OF A COUNTRY TOWN. SUCH A TOWN A MORE FAVOURABLE HABITAT FOR SUCH A PERSON AS DR. DOVE THAN LONDON WOULD HAVE BEEN.

Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;Inn any where;And seeing the snail, which every where doth roam,Carrying his own home still, still is at home,Follow (for he is easy paced) this snail;Be thine own Palace, or the World's thy jail.DONNE.

Such then as Daniel Dove was in the twenty-sixth year of his age we are now to consider him, settled at Doncaster, and with his way of life chosen, for better for worse, in all respects; except, as my female readers will remember, that he was neither married, nor engaged, nor likely to be so.

One of the things for which he used to thank God was that the world had not been all before him where to chuse, either as to calling or place, but that both had been well chosen for him. To chuse upon such just motives as can leave no rational cause for after repentance requires riper judgement than ought to be expected at the age when the choice is to be made; it is best for us therefore at a time of life when though perhaps we might chuse well, it is impossible that we could chuse wisely, to acquiesce in the determination of others, who have knowledge and experience to direct them. Far happier are they who always know what they are to do, than they who have to determine what they will do.

Bisogna far quel che si deve fare,E non gia tutto quello che si vuole.1

Thus he was accustomed to think upon this subject.

1PANANTI.

But was he well placed at Doncaster?

It matters not where those men are placed, who, as South says, “have souls so dull and stupid as to serve for little else but to keep their bodies from putrefaction.” Ordinary people whether their lot be cast in town or country, in the metropolis or in a village, will go on in the ordinary way, conforming their habits to those of the place. It matters nothing more to those who live less in the little world about them, than in a world of their own, with the whole powers of the head and of the heart too (if they have one) intently fixed upon some favourite pursuit:—if they have a heart I say, for it sometimes happens that where there is an excellent head, the heart is nothing more than a piece of hard flesh. In this respect, the highest and the meanest intellects are, in a certain sense, alike self-sufficient; that is they are so far independent of adventitious aid, that they derive little advantage from society and suffer nothing from the want of it. But there are others for whose mental improvement, or at least mental enjoyment, collision and sympathy and external excitement seem almost indispensable. Just as large towns are the only places in which first-rate workmen in any handycraft business can find employment, so men of letters and of science generally appear to think that no where but in a metropolis can they find the opportunities which they desire of improvement or of display. These persons are wise in their generation, but they are not children of light.

Among such persons it may perhaps be thought that our friend should be classed; and it cannot be doubted that in a more conspicuous field of action, he might have distinguished himself, and obtained a splendid fortune. But for distinction he never entertained the slightest desire, and with the goods of fortune which had fallen to his share he was perfectly contented. But was he favourably situated for his intellectual advancement?—which if such an enquiry had come before him concerning any other person, is what he would have considered to be the question-issimus. I answer without the slightest hesitation, that he was.

In London he might have mounted a Physician's wig, have ridden in his carriage, have attained the honours of the College, and added F. R. S. to his professional initials. He might, if Fortune opening her eyes had chosen to favour desert, have become Sir Daniel Dove, Bart. Physician to his Majesty. But he would then have been a very different person from the Dr. Dove of Doncaster, whose memory will be transmitted to posterity in these volumes, and he would have been much less worthy of being remembered. The course of such a life would have left him no leisure for himself; and metropolitan society in rubbing off the singularities of his character, would just in the same degree have taken from its strength.

It is a pretty general opinion that no society can be so bad as that of a small country town; and certain it is that such towns offer little or no choice. You must take what they have and make the best of it. But there are not many persons to whom circumstances allow much latitude of choice any where except in those public places, as they are called, where the idle and the dissipated, like birds of a feather, flock together. In any settled place of residence men are circumscribed by station and opportunities, and just as much in the capital, as in a provincial town. No one will be disposed to regret this, if he observes where men have most power of chusing their society, how little benefit is derived from it, or in other words with how little wisdom it is used.

After all, the common varieties of human character will be found distributed in much the same proportion everywhere, and in most places there will be a sprinkling of the uncommon ones. Everywhere you may find the selfish and the sensual, the carking and the careful, the cunning and the credulous, the worldling and the reckless. But kind hearts are also every where to be found, right intentions, sober minds, and private virtues,—for the sake of which let us hope that God may continue to spare this hitherto highly-favoured nation, notwithstanding the fearful amount of our public and manifold offences.

The society then of Doncaster, in the middle of the last century, was like that of any other country town which was neither the seat of manufactures, nor of a Bishop's see; in either of which more information of a peculiar kind would have been found,—more active minds, or more cultivated ones. There was enough of those eccentricities for which the English above all other people are remarkable, those aberrations of intellect which just fail to constitute legal insanity, and which, according to their degree, excite amusement, or compassion. Nor was the town without its full share of talents; these there was little to foster and encourage, but happily there was nothing to pervert and stimulate them to a premature and mischievous activity.

In one respect it more resembled an episcopal than a trading city. The four kings and their respective suits of red and black were not upon more frequent service in the precincts of a cathedral, than in the good town of Doncaster. A stranger who had been invited to spend the evening with a family there, to which he had been introduced, was asked by the master of the house to take a card as a matter of course; upon his replying that he did not play at cards, the company looked at him with astonishment, and his host exclaimed—“What, Sir! not play at cards? the Lord help you!”

I will not say the Lord helped Daniel Dove, because there would be an air of irreverence in the expression, the case being one in which he, or any one, might help himself. He knew enough of all the games which were then in vogue to have played at them, if he had so thought good; and he would have been as willing, sometimes, in certain moods of mind, to have taken his seat at a card-table, in houses where card-playing did not form part of the regular business of life, as to have listened to a tune on the old-fashioned spinnet, or the then new-fashioned harpsichord. But that which as an occasional pastime he might have thought harmless and even wholesome, seemed to him something worse than folly when it was made a kill-time,—the serious occupation for which people were brought together,—the only one at which some of them ever appeared to give themselves the trouble of thinking. And seeing its effects upon the temper, and how nearly this habit was connected with a spirit of gambling, he thought that cards had not without reason been called the Devil's Books.

I shall not therefore introduce the reader to a Doncaster card-party, by way of shewing him the society of the place. The Mrs. Shuffles, Mrs. Cuts and Miss Dealems, the Mr. Tittles and Mrs. Tattles, the Humdrums and the Prateapaces, the Fribbles and the Feebles, the Perts and the Prims, the Littlewits and the Longtongues, the Heavyheads and the Broadbelows, are to be found everywhere.

“It is quite right,” says one of the Guessers at Truth, “that there should be a heavy duty on cards: not only on moral grounds; not only because they act on a social party like a torpedo, silencing the merry voice and numbing the play of the features; not only to still the hunger of the public purse, which reversing the qualities of Fortunatus's, is always empty, however much you may put into it; but also because every pack of cards is a malicious libel on courts, and on the world, seeing that the trumpery with number one at the head, is the best part of them; and that it gives kings and queens no other companions than knaves.”

MR. COPLEY OF NETHERHALL. SOCIETY AT HIS HOUSE. DRUMMOND. BURGH. GRAY. MASON. MILLER THE ORGANIST AND HISTORIAN OF DONCASTER. HERSCHEL.

All worldly joys go lessTo the one joy of doing kindnesses.HERBERT.

There was one house in Doncaster in which cards were never introduced; this house was Netherhall the seat of Mr. Copley; and there Dr. Dove had the advantage of such society as was at that time very rarely, and is still not often, to be enjoyed anywhere.

The Copleys are one of the most ancient families in Doncaster: Robert Grosseteste, one of the most eminent of our English churchmen before the Reformation was a branch from their stock. Robert Copley who in the middle of the last century represented the family, was brought up at Westminster School, and while there took, what is very unusual for boys at Westminster or any other school to take, lessons in music. Dr. Crofts was his master, and made him, as has been said by a very competent judge, a very good performer in thorough-bass on the harpsichord. He attempted painting also, but not with equal success; the age of painting in this country had not then arrived.

Mr. Copley's income never exceeded twelve hundred a-year; but this which is still a liberal income, was then a large one, in the hands of a wise and prudent man. Netherhall was the resort of intellectual men, in whose company he delighted; and the poor were fed daily from his table. Drummond, afterwards Archbishop of York, was his frequent guest; so was Mason; so was Mason's friend Dr. Burgh; and Gray has sometimes been entertained there. One of the “strong names” of the King of Dahomey means, when interpreted, “wherever I rub, I leave my scent.” In a better sense than belongs to this metaphorical boast of the power and the disposition to be terrible, it may be said of such men as Gray and Mason that wherever they have resided, or have been entertained as abiding guests, an odour of their memory remains. Who passes by the house at Streatham that was once Mrs. Thrale's without thinking of Dr. Johnson?

During many years Mr. Copley entertained himself and his friends with a weekly concert at Netherhall, he himself, Sir Brian Cooke and some of his family, and Dr. Miller the organist, and afterwards Historian of Doncaster, being performers. Miller, who was himself a remarkable person, had the fortune to introduce a more remarkable one to these concerts; it is an interesting anecdote in the history of that person, of Miller, and of Doncaster.

About the year 1760 as Miller was dining at Pontefract with the officers of the Durham militia, one of them, knowing his love of music, told him they had a young German in their band as a performer on the hautboy, who had only been a few months in England, and yet spoke English almost as well as a native, and who was also an excellent performer on the violin; the officer added, that if Miller would come into another room this German should entertain him with a solo. The invitation was gladly accepted, and Miller heard a solo of Giardini's executed in a manner that surprized him. He afterwards took an opportunity of having some private conversation with the young musician, and asked him whether he had engaged himself for any long period to the Durham militia? The answer was, “only from month to month.” “Leave them then,” said the organist, “and come and live with me. I am a single man, and think we shall be happy together; and doubtless your merit will soon entitle you to a more eligible situation.” The offer was accepted as frankly as it was made: and the reader may imagine with what satisfaction Dr. Miller must have remembered this act of generous feeling, when he hears that this young German was Herschel the Astronomer.

“My humble mansion,” says Miller, “consisted at that time, but of two rooms. However, poor as I was, my cottage contained a small library of well chosen books; and it must appear singular that a foreigner who had been so short a time in England should understand even the peculiarities of the language so well, as to fix upon Swift for his favourite author.” He took an early opportunity of introducing his new friend at Mr. Copley's concerts; the first violin was resigned to him: and never, says the organist, had I heard the concertos of Corelli, Geminiani and Avison, or the overtures of Handel, performed more chastely, or more according to the original intention of the composers than by Mr. Herschel. I soon lost my companion: his fame was presently spread abroad; he had the offer of pupils, and was solicited to lead the public concerts both at Wakefield and Halifax. A new organ for the parish church of Halifax was built about this time, and Herschel was one of the seven candidates for the organist's place. They drew lots how they were to perform in succession. Herschel drew the third, the second fell to Mr., afterwards Dr. Wainwright of Manchester, whose finger was so rapid that old Snetzler, the organ-builder, ran about the church, exclaiming,Te Tevel, te Tevel! he run over te keys like one cat; he will not give my piphes room for to shpeak.“During Mr. Wainwright's performance,” says Miller, “I was standing in the middle isle with Herschel; what chance have you, said I, to follow this man?” He replied, “I don't know; I am sure fingers will not do.” On which he ascended the organ loft, and produced from the organ so uncommon a fulness,—such a volume of slow solemn harmony, that I could by no means account for the effect. After this short extempore effusion, he finished with the old hundredth-psalm-tune, which he played better than his opponent.Aye, aye,cried old Snetzler,tish is very goot, very goot indeet; I vil luf tish man, for he gives my piphes room for to shpeak.Having afterwards asked Mr. Herschel by what means in the beginning of his performance, he produced so uncommon an effect, he replied, “I told you fingers would not do!” and producing two pieces of lead from his waistcoat pocket, “one of these,” said he, “I placed on the lowest key of the organ, and the other upon the octave above; thus by accommodating the harmony, I produced the effect of four hands instead of two.”

A MYTHOLOGICAL STORY MORALIZED.

Il faut mettre les fables en presse pour en tirer quelque suc de verité.

GARASSE.

It is related of the great mythological personage Baly, that Veeshnoo, when he dispossessed him of his impious power, allowed him in mitigation of his lot, to make his choice, whether he would go to the Swerga, and take five ignorant persons with him who were to be his everlasting companions there, or to Padalon and have five Pundits in his company. Baly preferred the good company with the bad quarters.

That that which is called good company has led many a man to a place which it is not considered decorous to mention before “ears polite,” is a common and, therefore, the more an awful truth. The Swerga and Padalon are the Hindoo Heaven and Hell; and if the Hindoo fable were not obviously intended to extol the merits of their Pundits, or learned men, as the missionary Ward explains the title, it might with much seeming likelihood bear this moral interpretation; that Baly retained the pride of knowledge even when convinced by the deprivation of his power that the pride of power was vanity, and in consequence drew upon himself a further punishment by his choice.

For although Baly, because of the righteousness with which he had used his power, was so far favoured by the Divinity whom he had offended, that he was not condemned to undergo any of those torments of which there was as rich an assortment and as choice a variety in Padalon, as ever monkish imagination revelled in devising, it was at the best a dreadful place of abode: and so it would appear if Turner were to paint a picture of its Diamond City from Southey's description. I say Turner, because though the subject might seem more adapted to Martin's cast of mind, Turner's colouring would well represent the fiery streams and the sulphureous atmosphere; and that colouring being transferred from earthly landscapes to its proper place his rich genius would have full scope for its appropriate display. Baly no doubt, as a state prisoner who was to be treated with the highest consideration as well as with the utmost indulgence, would have all the accommodations that Yamen could afford him. There he and the Pundits might

reason highOf Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,And find no end, in wandering mazes lost.

They might argue there of good and evil,

Of happiness and final misery,Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;

and such discourses possibly

—with a pleasing sorcery might charmPain for awhile and anguish, and exciteFallacious hope, or arm the obdured breastWith stubborn patience as with triple steel.

But it would only befor awhilethat they could be thus beguiled by it, for it is

Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!

it would be only for a while, and they were there for a time which in prospect must appear all but endless. The Pundits would not thank him for bringing them there; Baly himself must continually wish he were breathing the heavenly air of the Swerga in the company of ignorant but happy associates, and he would regret his unwise choice even more bitterly than he remembered the glorious city wherein he had reigned in his magnificence.

He made a great mistake. If he had gone with the ignorant to Heaven he would have seen them happy there, and partaken their happiness, though they might not have been able to derive any gratification from his wisdom;—which said wisdom, peradventure, he himself when he was there might have discovered to be but foolishness. It is only in the company of the good that real enjoyment is to be found; any other society is hollow and heartless. You may be excited by the play of wit, by the collision of ambitious spirits, and by the brilliant exhibition of self-confident power; but the satisfaction ends with the scene. Far unlike this is the quiet confiding intercourse of sincere minds and friendly hearts, knowing and loving and esteeming each other; and such intercourse our philosopher enjoyed in Doncaster.

Edward Miller the Organist was a person very much after Daniel Dove's own heart. He was a warm-hearted, simple-hearted, right-hearted man; an enthusiast in his profession, yet not undervaluing, much less despising, other pursuits. The one Doctor knew as little of music as the other did of medicine; but Dr. Dove listened to Miller's performance with great pleasure, and Dr. Miller when he was indisposed took Dove's physic with perfect faith.

This musician was brother to William Miller, the bookseller, well known in the early part of the present century as a publisher of splendid works, to whose flourishing business in Albemarle Street the more flourishing John Murray succeeded. In the worldly sense of the word the musician was far less fortunate than the bibliopole, a doctorate in his own science, being the height of the honours to which he attained, and the place of organist at Doncaster the height of the preferment. A higher station was once presented to his hopes. The Marquis of Rockingham applied in his behalf for the place of Master of his Majesty's band of musicians, then vacated by the death of Dr. Boyce; and the Duke of Manchester, who was at that time Lord Chamberlain, would have given it him if the King had not particularly desired him to bestow it on Mr. Stanley, the celebrated blind performer on the organ. Dr. Miller was more gratified by this proof of the Marquis's good will towards him than disappointed at its failure. Had the application succeeded he would not have written the History of Doncaster; nor would he have borne a part in a well-intended and judicious attempt at reforming our church psalmody, in which part of our church service reformation is greatly needed. This meritorious attempt was made when George Hay Drummond, whose father had been Archbishop of York, was Vicar of Doncaster, having been presented to that vicarage in 1785, on the demise of Mr. Hatfield.

At that time the Parish Clerk used there as in all other parish churches to chuse what psalm should be sung “to the praise and glory of God,” and what portions of it; and considering himself as a much more important person in this department of his office than the organist, the only communication upon the subject which he held with Dr. Miller, was to let him know what tune he must play, and how often he was to repeat it. “Strange absurdity!” says Miller. “How could the organist placed in this degrading situation, properly perform his part of the church service? Not knowing the words, it was impossible for him to accommodate his music to the various sentiments contained in different stanzas; consequently his must be a mere random performance, and frequently producing improper effects.” This however is what only a musician would feel; but it happened one Sunday that the clerk gave out some verses which were either ridiculously inapplicable to the day, or bore some accidental and ludicrous application, so that many of the congregation did not refrain from laughter. Mr. Drummond upon this, for he was zealously attentive to all the duties of his calling, said to Miller, “that in order to prevent any such occurrence in future he would make a selection of the best verses in each psalm, from the authorized version of Tate and Brady, and arrange them for every Sunday and festival throughout the year, provided he, the organist, who was perfectly qualified for such a task, would adapt them to proper music.” To such a man as Miller this was the greatest gratification that could have been afforded; and it proved also to be the greatest service that was ever rendered to him in the course of his life; for through Mr. Drummond's interest, the King and the Bishop patronized the work, and nearly five thousand copies were subscribed for, the list of subscribers being, it is believed, longer than had ever been obtained for any musical publication in this kingdom.

Strange to say, nothing of this kind had been attempted before; for the use of psalmody in our churches was originally no part of the service; but having as it were, crept in, and been at first rather suffered than encouraged, and afterwards allowed and permitted only, not enjoined, no provision seems ever to have been made for its proper, or even decent performance. And when an arrangement like this of Mr. Drummond's had been prepared, and Dr. Miller, with sound judgement, had adapted it where that could be done, to the most popular of the old and venerable melodies which had been so long in possession, it may seem more strange that it should not have been brought into general use. This I say might be thought strange, if any instance of that supine and sinful negligence which permits the continuance of old and acknowledged defects in the church establishment, and church service, could be thought so.

Mr. Drummond had probably been led to think upon this subject by Mason's conversation, and by his Essays, historical and critical, on English Church Music. Mason who had a poet's ear and eye was ambitious of becoming both a musician and a painter. According to Miller he succeeded better in his musical than in his pictorial attempts, for he performed decently on the harpsichord; but in painting he never arrived even at a degree of mediocrity, and in music it was not possible to teach him the principles of composition, Miller and others having at his own desire attempted in vain to instruct him. Nevertheless, such a man, however superficial his knowledge of the art, could not but feel and reason justly upon its use and abuse in our Church Service; and he was for restricting the organist much in the same way that Drummond and Miller were for restraining the clerk. For after observing that what is called the voluntary requires an innate inventive faculty, which is certainly not the lot of many; and that the happy few who possess it will not at all times be able to restrain it within the bounds which reason and, in this case, religion would prescribe, he said, “it was to be wished therefore that in our established church extempore playing were as much discountenanced as extempore praying; and that the organist were as closely obliged in this solo and separate part of his office to keep to set forms, as the officiating minister; or as he himself is when accompanying the choir in an anthem, or a parochial congregation in a psalm.” He would have indulged him however with a considerable quantity of these set forms, and have allowed him, if he approached in some degree to Rousseau's high character of a Preluder, “to descant on certain single grave texts which Tartini, Geminiani, Corelli or Handel would abundantly furnish, and which may be found at least of equal elegance and propriety in the Largo and Adagio movements of Haydn or Pleyel.”

Whatever Miller may have thought of this proposal, there was a passage in Mason's Essay in favour of voluntaries which was in perfect accord with Dr. Dove's notions. “Prompt and as it were casual strains,” says the Poet, “which do not fix the attention of the hearer, provided they are the produce of an original fancy, which scorns to debase itself by imitating common and trivial melodies, are of all others the best adapted to induce mental serenity. We in some sort listen to such music as we do to the pleasing murmur of a neighbouring brook, the whisper of the passing breeze, or the distant warblings of the lark and nightingale; and if agreeable natural voices have the power of soothing the contemplative mind, without interrupting its contemplations, simple musical effusions must assuredly have that power in a superior degree. All that is to be attended to by the organist is to preserve such pleasing simplicity; and this musical measures will ever have, if they are neither strongly accented, nor too regularly rhythmical. But when this is the case, they cease to soothe us, because they begin to affect us. Add to this that an air replete with short cadences and similar passages is apt to fix itself too strongly on the memory; whereas a merely melodious or harmonical movement glides, as it were, through the ear, awakens a transient pleasing sensation, but leaves behind it no lasting impression. Its effect ceases, when its impulse on the auditory nerve ceases;—an impulse strong enough to dispel from the mindall eating care(to use our great Poet's own expression) but in no sort to rouze or ruffle any of its faculties, save those only which attend truly devotional duty.”

This passage agreed with some of the Doctor's peculiar notions. He felt the power of devotional music both in such preparatory strains as Mason has here described, and in the more exciting emotions of congregational psalmody. And being thus sensible of the religious uses which may be drawn from music, he was the more easily led to entertain certain speculations concerning its application in the treatment of diseases, as will be related hereafter.

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