Chapter 6

What can it availTo drive forth a snailOr to make a sailOf a herring's tail?To rhyme or to rail,To write or to inditeEither for delightOr else for despite?Or books to compileOf divers manner of style,Vice to revile,And sin to exile,To teach or to preachAs reason will reach?

So said Skelton three centuries ago, and for myself I say once more what Skelton would have been well pleased to have heard said by any one.

Aballiboozo!

Dear Author, says one of those Readers who deserve to be pleased, and whom therefore there is a pleasure in pleasing, dear Author! may I not ask wherefore you have twice in this Chapter Extraordinary given us part of your long mysterious word, and only part, instead of setting it before us at full length?

Dear Reader! you may; and you may also ask unblamed whether a part of the word is not as good, that is to say as significant, as the whole? You shall have a full and satisfactory answer in the next Chapter.

WHEREIN A SUBSTITUTE FOR OATHS, AND OTHER PASSIONATE INTERJECTIONS IS EXEMPLIFIED.

What have we to do with the times? We cannot cure 'em:Let them go on: when they are swoln with surfeitsThey'll burst and stink: Then all the world shall smell 'em.BEAUMONTand FLETCHER.

Once more Reader I commence with

Aballiboozobanganorribo;

Do not suppose that I am about to let thee into the mysteries of that great decasyllabon!Questo è bene uno de' piu profondi segreti ch' abbia tutto il mondo, e quasi nessuno il sa; e sia certo che ad altri nol direi giammai.1No Reader! not if I were before the High Court of Parliament, and the House of Commons should exert all its inquisitorial and tyrannical powers to extort it from me, would I let the secret pass thatἐρκος ὀδοντῶνwithin which my little trowel of speech has learnt not to be an unruly member. I would behave as magnanimously as Sir Abraham Bradley King did upon a not-altogether-dissimilar occasion. Sir Abraham might have said of his secret as Henry More says of the Epicurean Philosophy, “Truly it is a very venerable secret; and not to be uttered or communicated but by some old Silenus lying in his obscure grot or cave; nor that neither but upon due circumstances, and in a right humour, when one may find him with his veins swelled out with wine, and his garland fallen off from his head through his heedless drowsiness. Then if some young Chromis and Mnasylus, especially assisted by a fair and forward Ægle, that by way of a love-frolic will leave the tracts of their fingers in the blood of mulberries on the temples and forehead of this aged Satyr, while he sleeps dog-sleep, and will not seem to see for fear he forfeit the pleasure of his feeling,—then I say, if these young lads importune him enough,—he will utter it in a higher strain than ever.”

1BIBBIENA.

But by no such means can the knowledge of my profounder mystery be attained. I will tell thee however, good reader, that the word itself, apart from all considerations of its mystical meaning, serves me for the same purpose to which the old tune of Lilliburlero was applied by our dear Uncle Toby,—ourdear Uncle I say, for is he notyourUncle Toby, gentle Reader? yours as well as mine, if you are worthy to hold him in such relationship; and so by that relationship, you and I are Cousins.

The Doctor had learnt something from his Uncle William, which he used to the same effect, tho' not in the same way. William Dove in that capacious memory of his, into which every thing that he heard was stored, and out of which nothing was lost, had among the fragments of old songs and ballads which he had picked up, sundry burdens or chorusses, as unmeaning as those which O'Keeffe used to introduce in some of the songs of his farces, always with good farcical effect. Uncle Toby's favourite was one of them;

Lilli burlero bullen a-la;Lero lero, lilli burlero, lero lero, bullen a-la;Lero lero, lilli burlero, lero lero, bullen a-la.

Without knowing that it was designed as an insult to the French, he used to say and sing in corrupted form,

Suum, mun, hey no nonny,Dolphin, my boy, my boy,Sessa, let him trot by.

Another was that from the ballad in honour of the Earl of Essex, called Queen Elizabeth's Champion, which Johnson quoted in the Isle of Sky; and Johnson is not the only omnivorous reader in whose memory it has stuck;

Raderer too, tandaro teeRadarer, tandorer, tan do ree.

And he had treasured up the elder fragment,

Martin Swart and his men.Sodledum, sodledum,Martin Swart and his men,Sodledum bell,With hey troly loly lo, whip here Jack,Alumbeck, sodledum, syllerum ben,Martin Swart and his merry men.

He had also this relic of the same age, relating as it seems to some now forgotten hero of the strolling minstrels,

Rory-bull Joyse,Rumble down, tumble down, hey, go now now.

Here is another, for he uttered these things ‘as he had eaten ballads.’

A story strange I will you tell,But not so strange as true,Of a woman that danced upon the rope,And so did her husband too:With a dildo, dildo, dildo,With a dildo, dildo, dee.

And he had one of Irish growth, which he sometimes tacked on to this last for the rhyme's sake

Callino, callino,Callino, castore me,Era ëe, Era ëeLoo loo, loo loo lee.

All these were favourites with little Daniel; and so especially for his name's sake, was

My juggy, my puggy, my honey, my coney,My deary, my love, my dove.

There was another with which and the Dovean use thereof, it is proper that the reader should now be made acquainted, for it would otherwise require explanation, when he meets with it hereafter. This was the one which, when William Dove trotted little Daniel upon his knee, he used to sing more frequently than any other, because the child, then in the most winning stage of childhood, liked it best of all, and it went to the tune of “God save great George our King” as happily as if that noble tune had been composed for it. The words were,

Fa la la lerridan,Dan dan dan derridan,Dan dan dan derridan,Derridan dee.

To what old ditty they formed the burden I know not, nor whether it may be (as I suspect) a different reading of “Down, down, down derry down,” which the most learned of living Welshmen supposes to be a Druidical fragment: but the frequent repetition of his own abbreviated name seldom failed to excite in the child one of those hearty and happy laughs which are never enjoyed after that blessed age has past. Most of us have frequently laughed till our sides ached, and many not unfrequently it may be feared laugh till their hearts ache. But the pure, fresh, unalloyed innocent laughter of children, in those moods when they

——seem like birds, created to be glad,2—

that laughter belongs to them and to them only. We see it and understand it in them; but nothing can excite more than a faint resemblance of it in ourselves.

2GONDIBERT.

The Doctor made use of this burden when any thing was told him which excited his wonder, or his incredulity; and the degree in which either was called forth might be accurately determined by his manner of using it. He expressed mirthful surprize, or contemptuous disbelief by the first line, and the tune proceeded in proportion as the surprize was greater, or the matter of more moment. But when any thing greatly astonished him, he went thro' the whole, and gave it in a base voice when his meaning was to be most emphatic.

In imitation, no doubt, of my venerable friend in this his practice, though perhaps at first half unconscious of the imitation, I have been accustomed to use the great decasyllabon, with which this present Chapter commences, and with which it is to end. In my use of it however, I observe this caution,—that I do not suffer myself to be carried away by an undue partiality, so as to employ it in disregard of ejaculatory propriety or to the exclusion of exclamations which the occasion may render more fitting. Thus if I were to meet with Hercules,Meherculewould doubtless be the interjection which I should prefer; and when I saw the Siamese Twins, I could not but exclaimO Gemini!

Further, good Reader, if thou wouldest profit by these benevolent disclosures of Danielism and Dovery, take notice I say, and not only take notice, but take good notice,—N. B.—there was this difference between the Doctor's use of his burden, and mine of the decasyllabon, that the one was sung, and the other said, and that they are not “appointed to be said or sung,” but that the one being designed for singing must be sung, and the other not having been adapted to music must be said. And if any great Composer should attempt to set the Decasyllabon, let him bear in mind that it should be set in the hypodorian key, the proslambanomenos of which mode is, in the judgement of the Antients, the most grave sound that the human voice can utter, and that the hearing can distinctly form a judgement of.

Some such device may be recommended to those who have contracted the evil habit of using oaths as interjectional safety-valves or convenient expletives of speech. The manner may be exemplified in reference to certain recent events of public notoriety.

We see which way the stream of time doth run,And are enforced from our most quiet sphereBy the rough torrent of occasion.3

3SHAKESPEARE.

Upon hearing one morning that in the Debate of the preceding night Mr. Brougham had said no change of administration could possibly affect him, I only exclaimedA!A short-hand writer would have mistaken it for the common interjection, and have written it accordingly Ah! But it was the first syllable of my inscrutable word, and signified mere notation without wonder or belief.

When in the course of the same day there came authentic intelligence that Mr. Brougham was to be the Lord Chancellor of the New Administration, so little surprize was excited by the news, that I only added another syllable and exclaimedAbal!

Reading in the morning papers that Sir James Graham was to be first Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord Althorpe to lead the House of Commons, the exclamation proceeded one step farther and becameAballi!

This was uttered in a tone that implied disbelief; for verily I gave the Cabinet Makers credit for a grain of sense more than they possessed, (agrainmark you, because they had nothing to do withscruples;) I supposed there was a mistake as to the persons,—that Sir James Graham whose chief knowledge was supposed to lie in finance and his best qualification in his tongue, was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that Lord Althorpe who had no other claim to consideration whatever than as being Earl Spencer's eldest son, (except that as Hodge said of Diccon the Bedlam, he is ‘even as good a fellow as ever kissed a cow,’) was intended for the Admiralty where Spencer is a popular name. But when it proved that there was no mistake in the Newspapers, and that each of these ministers had been deliberately appointed to the office for which the other was fit, then I saidAballiboo!

The accession of Mr. Charles Grant and his brother to such an Administration, brought me toAballiboozo!with a shake of the head and in a mournful tone; for I could not but think how such a falling off would astonish the Soul of Canning, if in the intermediate state there be any knowledge of the events which are passing on earth.

When the Ministry blundered into their Budget, I exclaimedAballiboozobang!with a strong emphasis upon the final syllable, and when they backed out of it, I came toAballiboozobanga!

The Reform Bill upon a first glance at its contents, called forthAballiboozobanganor—I would have hurried on two steps farther, to the end of the decasyllabon, if I had not prudently checked myself and stopt there,—foreseeing that new cause for astonishment must now arise daily.

When Sir Robert Peel did not upon the first reading kick out this mass of crudities, and throw out the Cabinet after it, neck and shoulders, hip and thigh, I said in bitternessAballiboozobanganorri!

And when that Cabinet waxing insolent because they had raised the mob to back them, declared that they would have the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill, then I expressed my contempt, amazement, and indignation, by uttering in its omnisignificant totality the great word

ABALLIBOOZOBANGANORRIBO.

A PARLOUS QUESTION ARISING OUT OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER. MR. IRVING AND THE UNKNOWN TONGUES. TAYLOR THE WATER POET. POSSIBLE SCHEME OF INTERPRETATION PROPOSED. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE GIFT OF TONGUES AS EXHIBITED IN MADMEN.

Speak what terrible language you will, though you understand it not yourselves, no matter! Chough's language, gabble enough and good enough.

SHAKESPEARE.

But here, gentle reader, occurs what Bishop Latimer would call a parlous question, if he had lived in these portentous times. There is no apparent meaning in Lilli burlero bullen a-la, nor in Raderer too, tandaro tee, nor in Dan dan dan derridan, any more than there is in Farra diddle dyno,—Hayley gayly gamborayly, higgledy piggledy, galloping draggle-tail dreary dun, and other burthens of a similar kind, which are to be found in the dramas of poor old blind O'Keeffe, and in Tom D'Urfey's songs. There is I say no apparent meaning in them; but we must not too confidently apply the legal maxim in this case, and conclude thatde non apparente et non existente eadem est ratio;for although these choruses are not in any known tongue, they may by possibility be in an unknown one: and if Mr. Irving has not a cast in his intellect as well as in his eye, there is mystery in an unknown tongue; and they who speak it, and consequently they who write it, may be inspired for the nonce—though they may be as little conscious of their inspiration as they are of their meaning. There may be an unknown inspiration as well as an unknown tongue. If so what mighty revelations may lie unrevealed in the gibberish of Taylor the Water Poet! Now if Mr. Irving would but read one of the wine-drinking Water Poet's effusions of this kind, in his chapel, on a day appointed for that purpose, some of his inspired speakers male or female might peradventure be moved to expound it in their kindred language; and as two negatives make an affirmative, it might be found that two unintelligibles make a meaning, and the whole affair would thus become intelligible to every one.

Two specimens therefore of the Taylorian tongues I shall here set before the public, in the hope that this important experiment may be tried with them. They were both intended as epitaphs for Thomas Coriat the famous Odcombian traveller; the first was supposed by the inspired Water Poet to be in the Bermuda tongue.

Hough gruntough wough Thomough Coriatough, Adcough robunquoghWarawogh bogh Comitogh sogh wogh termonatogrogh,Callimogh gogh whobogh Ragamogh demagorgogh palemogh,Lomerogh nogh Tottertogh illemortogh eagh AllaquemquoghToracominogh Jagogh Jamerogh mogh Carnogh pelepsogh,Animogh trogh deradrogh maramogh hogh Flondrogh calepsogh.

This, Taylor says, must be pronounced with the accent of the grunting of a hog. He gives no directions for pronouncing the second specimen, which is in the Utopian tongue.

Nortumblum callimumquash omystoliton quashte burashteScribuke woshtay solusbay perambulatushte;Grekay sous Turkay Paphay zums Jerusalushte.Neptus esht Ealors Interrimoy diz dolorushte,Confabuloy Odcumbay Prozeugmolliton tymorumynoy,Omulus oratushte paralescus tolliton umbroy.

The Water Poet gave notice as Professor of these tongues that he was willing to instruct any gentlemen or others who might be desirous of learning them.

But with regard to a gift of tongues either known or unknown there are more things than are dreamt of in the Irvingite philosophy or in the Lerry-cum-twang school. It was a received opinion in the seventeenth century that maniacs, and other persons afflicted with morbid melancholy, spoke in strange languages, and foretold things that were to come, by virtue,—that is to say—in consequence of their mental malady. But some philosophers who in the march of intellect were in advance of their age, denied the fact, and accounted for the persuasion by supposing that such patients, when in a state of great agitation, uttered unmeaning words or sounds which ignorant people took to be Greek, Latin or Hebrew, merely because they could not understand them. Two questions therefore arose; whether the received opinion were true? and if it were true, how was the fact to be accounted for?

The first of these questions was easily disposed of by Sennertus, one of the most eminent Professors and practitioners of the medical science in that age. Facts he said, which were attested by trust-worthy authors, were not to be disputed. Many were the impudent falsehoods which this great and in other respects wise man, received implicitly as facts conformably to the maxim which he thus laid down; and many were the perilous consequences which he deduced in good faith, and on fair reasoning from such premises. Upon this occasion he instanced the case of a countryman, who at certain periods of the moon used to compose Latin verses, though he knew not a word of Latin at any other time. And of a man who spoke languages which he had never learnt, and became unable to speak any one of them as soon as he was restored to health by the effect of some powerful worm-medicines. And of a sailor's son, who being wounded in the head and becoming delirious in consequence, made perfect syllogisms in German, but as soon as his wound was healed, lost all the logic which had been beaten into his head in so extraordinary a way.

Antonius Guainerius, who vouched for one of these cases as having witnessed the fact and all its circumstances, accounted for it by a brave hypothesis. The soul, he said, before its infusion into the body, possesses a knowledge of all things, and that knowledge is, in a certain manner, obliterated, or offuscated by its union with the body; but it is restored either by the ordinary means of instruction or by the influence of the star which presided at the time of its union. The body, and the bodily senses resist this influence, but when these are as it were bound, or suspended,quod fiat in melancholia, the stars can then impart their influences to the soul without obstruction, and the soul may thus be endowed with the power of effecting what the stars themselves effect, and thus an illiterate person may become learned, and may also predict events that are to come. Sennertus is far from assenting to this theory. He says “Magna petita sunt quæ præsupponit et sibi concedi postulat Guainerius.”

A theory quite as extraordinary was advanced by Juan Huarte in hisExamen de Ingenios, a book which obtained at one time far more reputation than it deserved. Take the passage, curious Reader, from the English version, entitled “The Examination of Men's Wits,” in which by discovering the variety of natures is shewed for what profession each one is apt, and how far he shall profit therein. Translated out of the Spanish tongue by M. Camillo Camilli. Englished out of his Italian by R. C. Esquire, 1594. “The frantic persons speaking of Latin, without that he ever learned the same in his health-time, shews the consonance which the Latin tongue holds with the reasonable soul; and (as we will prove hereafter,) there is to be found a particular wit applicable to the invention of languages, and Latin words; and the phrases of speech in that tongue are so fitting with the ear, that the reasonable soul, possessing the necessary temperature for the invention of some delicate language, suddenly encounters with this. And that two devisers of languages may shape the like words, (having the like wit and hability) it is very manifest; pre-supposing, that when God created Adam, and set all things before him, to the end he might bestow on each its several name whereby it should be called, he had likewise at that instant molded another man with the same perfection and supernatural grace; now I demand if God had placed the same things before this other man, that he might also set them names whereby they should be called, of what manner those names should have been? For mine own part I make no doubt but he would have given these things those very names which Adam did: and the reason is very apparent, for both carried one self-same eye to the nature of each thing, which of itself was no more but one. After this manner might the frantic person light upon the Latin tongue; and speak the same without ever having learned it in his health; for the natural temperature of his brain conceiving alteration through the infirmity, it might for a space become like his who first invented the Latin tongue, and feign the like words, but yet not with that concert and continued fineness, for this would give token that the Devil moved that tongue, as the Church teacheth her Exorcists.”

This theory found as little favour with Sennertus as that of Guainerius, because he says, Huarte assumes more than can be granted; and moreover because he supposes that the Latin language has a peculiar consonance with the rational soul, and that there are certain natures which are peculiarly constituted for inventing languages. And therefore if by disease that temperament be excited in the brain which is necessary for the invention of any most elegant language the patient would fall into the Latin tongue; and Latin words would occur to him, without any deliberation, or act of will on his part. This opinion Sennertus argued cannot be maintained as probable, being indeed disproved by the very cases upon which the question had been raised, for Greek and Hebrew had been spoken by some of the patients, as well as Latin. The facts he admits as not to be doubted, because they are related by veracious authors; and his way of accounting for them is by the agency of evil spirits, who take advantage of bodily diseases and act upon them, especially such as arise from melancholy; for that humour or passion has such attractions for evil spirits that it has been calledBalneum Diaboli, the Devil's Bath. When therefore a patient speaks in tongues which he has never learnt,eo ipso Dæmon se manifeste prodit.

This opinion than which one of greater weight could not have been produced in the 17th century, is recommended to the serious consideration of the Irvingites.

The Doctor would have sung Fa-la-la-lerridan to all this reasoning, and I say Aballiboo!

THE WEDDING PEAL AT ST. GEORGE'S, AND THE BRIDE'S APPEARANCE AT CHURCH.

See how I have strayed! and you'll not wonder when you reflect on the whence and the whither.

ALEXANDERKNOX.

Well dear Reader, I have answered your question concerning the great Decasyllabon. I have answered it fairly and explicitly, not like those Jesuitical casuists

That palter with us in a double sense,That keep the word of promise to our earAnd break it to our hope.

You have received an answer as full and satisfactory as you could expect or desire, and yet the more than cabalistic mysteries of the word are still concealed with Eleusinean secresy. Enough of this. For the present also we will drop the subject which was broken off by the extraordinary circumstances that called forth our Chapter Extraordinary.

τὸ δε και τετελεσμένον ἔσται,1

for awhile, however, it will be convenient to leave it unfinished, and putting an end to the parenthesis in the most important part of the Doctor's life, tell thee that the Interim is past, that in the month of April 1761, he brought home his bride, and the bells of St. George rang that peal,—that memorable peal which was anticipatively mentioned in the 32d chapter. Many such peals have they rung since on similar occasions, but they have rung their last from St. George's Tower, for in 1836, it was thought necessary to remove them, lest they should bring that fine old fabric down.

1HOMER.

Webster libelled the most exhilarating and the most affecting of all measured sounds when he said

those flattering bells have allOne sound at weddings and at funerals.

Es cierta experiencia que la musica crece la pena donde la halla, y acrecieuta el plazer en el corazon contento;this is more true of bell ringing than of any other music; but so far are church bells from having one sound on all occasions, that they carry a different import on the same to different ears and different minds. The bells of St. George's told a different tale to Daniel Dove, and to Deborah, on their wedding day. To her, they said, as in articulate words, varying, but melancholy alike in import as in cadence,

Descending tune

Deborah Bacon hath changed her name;Deborah Bacon hath left her home;Deborah Bacon is now no more.

Yet she had made what in every one's opinion was considered a good match, and indeed was far better than what is commonly called good; it promised in all human likelihood to be a happy one, and such it proved. In the beautiful words of Mrs. Hutchinson, neither she nor her husband, “ever had occasion to number their marriage among their infelicities.”

Many eyes were turned on the Doctor's bride when she made her appearance at St. George's Church. The novelty of the place made her less regardful of this than she might otherwise have been. Hollis Pigot who held the vicarage of Doncaster thirty years, and was then in the last year of his incumbency and his life, performed the service that day. I know not among what description of preachers he was to be classed; whether with those who obtain attention, and command respect, and win confidence, and strengthen belief, and inspire hope, or with the far more numerous race of Spintexts and of Martexts. But if he had preached that morning with the tongue of an angel, the bride would have had no ears for him. Her thoughts were neither upon those who on their way from church would talk over her instead of the sermon, nor of the service, nor of her husband, nor of herself in her new character, but of her father,—and with a feeling which might almost be called funereal, that she had passed from under his pastoral as well as his paternal care.

SOMETHING SERIOUS.

If thou hast read all this Book, and art never the better, yet catch this flower before thou go out of the garden, and peradventure the scent thereof will bring thee back to smell the rest.

HENRYSMITH.

Deborah found no one in Doncaster to supply the place of Betsy Allison in the daily intercourse of familiar and perfect friendship. That indeed was impossible; no after-math has the fragrance and the sweetness of the first crop. But why do I call her Deborah? She had never been known by that name to her new neighbours; and to her very Father she was now spoken of as Mrs. Dove. Even the Allisons called her so in courteous and customary usage, but not without a melancholy reflection that when Deborah Bacon became Mrs. Dove, she was in a great measure lost to them.

“Friendship, although it cease notIn marriage, is yet at less commandThan when a single freedom can dispose it.”1

1FORD.

Doncaster has less of theRus in Urbenow than it had in those days, and than Bath had when those words were placed over the door of a Lodging House, on the North Parade. And the house to which the Doctor brought home his bride, had less of it than when Peter Hopkins set up the gilt pestle and mortar there as the cognizance of his vocation. It had no longer that air of quiet respectability which belongs to such a dwelling in the best street of a small country town. The Mansion House by which it was dwarfed and inconvenienced in many ways, occasioned a stir and bustle about it, unlike the cheerful business of a market day. The back windows, however, still looked to the fields, and there was still a garden. But neither fields nor garden could prevail over the odour of the shop, in which, like

hot, cold, moist and dry, four champions fierce,

in Milton's Chaos, rhubarb and peppermint, and valerian, and assafetida, “strove for mastery” and to battle brought their atoms. Happy was the day when peppermint predominated; though it always reminded Mrs. Dove of Thaxted Grange, and the delight with which she used to assist Miss Allison in her distillations. There is an Arabian proverb which says, “the remembrance of youth is a sigh;” Southey has taken it for the text of one of those juvenile poems in which he dwells with thoughtful forefeeling upon the condition of declining life.

Miss Allison had been to her, not indeed as a mother, but as what a step-mother is, who is led by natural benevolence and a religious sense of duty, to perform as far as possible a mother's part to her husband's children. There are more such step-mothers than the world is willing to believe, and they have their reward here as well as hereafter. It was impossible that any new friend could fill up her place in Mrs. Dove's affections,—impossible that she could ever feel for another woman the respect and reverence, and gratitude, which blended with her love for this excellent person. Though she was born within four miles of Doncaster, and had lived till her marriage in the humble vicarage in which she was born, she had never passed four-and-twenty hours in that town before she went to reside there; nor had she the slightest acquaintance with any of its inhabitants, except the few shop-keepers with whom her little dealings had lain, and the occasional visitants whom she had met at the Grange.

An Irish officer in the army, happening to be passenger in an armed vessel during the last war, used frequently to wish that they might fall in with an enemy's ship, because he said, he had been in many land battles, and there was nothing in the world which he desired more than to see what sort of a thing a sea fight was. He had his wish, and when after a smart action, in which he bore his part bravely, an enemy of superior force had been beaten off, he declared with the customary emphasis of an Hibernian adjuration, that a sea-fight was a mightysairioussort of thing.

The Doctor and Deborah, as soon as they were betrothed had come to just the same conclusion upon a very different subject. Till the day of their engagement, nay till the hour of proposal on his part, and the very instant of acceptance on hers, each had looked upon marriage, when the thought of it occurred, as a distant possibility, more or less desirable, according to the circumstances which introduced the thought, and the mood in which it was entertained. And when it was spoken of sportively, as might happen, in relation to either the one or the other, it was lightly treated as a subject in which they had no concern. But from the time of their engagement, it seemed to both, the most serious event of their lives.

In the Dutch village of Broek, concerning which singular as the habits of the inhabitants are, travellers have related more peculiarities than ever prevailed there, one remarkable custom shows with how serious a mind some of the Hollanders regard marriage. The great house door is never opened but when the Master of the House brings home his Bride from the altar, and when Husband and Wife are borne out to the grave. Dr. Dove had seen that village of great Baby-houses, but though much attached to Holland, and to the Dutch as a people, and disposed to think that we might learn many useful lessons from our prudent and thrifty neighbours, he thought this to be as preposterous, if not as shocking a custom, as it would be to have the bell toll at a marriage, and to wear a winding sheet for a wedding garment.

We look with wonder at the transformations that take place in insects, and yet their physical metamorphoses are not greater than the changes which we ourselves undergo morally and intellectually, both in our relations to others and in our individual nature. “Chaque individu, considéré separément, differe encore de lui même par l'effet du tems; il devient un autre, en quelque maniere, aux diverses epoques de sa vie. L'enfant, l'homme fait, le viellard, sont comme autant d'etrangers unis dans une seule personne par le lien mysterieux du souvenir.”2Of all changes in life marriage is certainly the greatest, and though less change in every respect can very rarely be produced by it in any persons than in the Doctor and his wife, it was very great to both. On his part it was altogether an increase of happiness; or rather from having been contented in his station he became happy in it, so happy as to be experimentally convinced that there can be no “single blessedness” for man. There were some drawbacks on her part,—in the removal from a quiet vicarage to a busy street; in the obstacle which four miles opposed to that daily and intimate intercourse with her friends at the Grange which had been the chief delight of her maiden life; and above all in the separation from her father, for even at a distance which may appear so inconsiderable, such it was; but there was the consolatory reflection that those dear friends and that dear father concurred in approving her marriage, and in rejoicing in it for her sake; and the experience of every day and every year made her more and more thankful for her lot. In the full liturgic sense of the word, he worshipped her, that is, he loved, and cherished, and respected, and honoured her; and she would have obeyed him cheerfully as well as dutifully, if obedience could have been shown where there was ever but one will.

2NECKER.

ODD OPINIONS CONCERNING BIOGRAPHY AND EDUCATION. THE AUTHOR MAKES A SECOND HIATUS AS UNWILLINGLY AS HE MADE THE FIRST, AND FOR THE SAME COGENT REASON.

Ya sabes—pero es forzosoRepetirlo, aunque lo sepas.CALDERON.

Unwillingly, as the Reader may remember, though he cannot possibly know with how much unwillingness, I passed over fourteen years of Daniel Dove's youth, being the whole term of his adolescence, and a fifth part of that appointed sum, beyond which the prolongation of human life is but labour and sorrow. Mr. Coleridge has said that “the history of a man for the nine months preceding his birth would probably be far more interesting, and contain events of greater moment than all the threescore and ten years that follow it.” Mr. Coleridge was a philosopher, in many points, of the first order, and it has been truly said by one of the antients that there is nothing so absurd but that some philosopher has advanced it. Mr. Coleridge however was not always in earnest when he said startling things; and they who suppose that the opinions of such a man are to be collected from what he says playfully in the freedom of social intercourse to amuse himself, and perhaps to astonish others, may as well expect to hold an eel by the tail.

There were certain French legislators in the days of Liberty and Equality, who held that education ought to begin before birth, and therefore they proposed to enact laws for the benefit of the homunculus during that portion of its existence to which Mr. Coleridge is said to have attached such metaphysical, or in his own language such psychological importance. But even these Ultra-philosophers would not have maintained that a biographer ought to begin before the birth of his subject. All antecedent matter belongs to genealogical writers; astrologers themselves are content to commence their calculations from the hour and minute of the nativity. The fourteen years over which I formerly passed for the reasons stated in the 25th Chapter of this Opus, would have supplied more materials than any equal portion of his life, if the Doctor had been his own historian; for in those years his removal from home took place, his establishment at Doncaster, and his course of studies at Leyden, the most momentous events in his uneventful history, except the great one of marriage,—which either makes or mars the happiness of both parties.

From the time of that “crowning event” I must pass over another but longer interval, and represent the Doctor in his married state, such as he was when it was my fortune in early life to be blessed with his paternal friendship, for such it might be called. Age like his, and Youth might well live together, for there was no crabbedness in his age. Youth therefore was made the better and the happier by such society. It was full of pleasure instead of care; not like winter, but like a fine summer evening, or a mild autumn, or like the light of a harvest moon,

“Which sheds o'er all the sleeping sceneA soft nocturnal day.”1

1JAMESMONTGOMERY.

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