Chapter 3

MORE CONCERNING ASGILL. HIS DEFENCE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, HIS EXPULSION, FARTHER SPECULATIONS AND DEATH.

Let not that ugly Skeleton appear!Sure Destiny mistakes; this Death's not mine!DRYDEN.

The substance of Asgill's argument has been given in his own words, but by thus abstracting and condensing it his peculiar manner is lost. This though it consisted more perhaps in appearance than in reality, is characteristic of the author, and may be well exemplified in the concluding passage of one of his political pamphlets:

“But I shall raise more choler by this way of writing,For writing and reading are in themselves commendable things,But 'tis the way of writing at which offence is taken,And this is the misfortune of an Author,That unless some are angry with him, none are pleased.Which puts him under this dilemma,That he must either ruin himself or his Printer.

“But to prevent either, as far as I can, I would rather turn Trimmer and compound too. And to end all quarrels with my readers (if they please to accept the proposal,

And to shew withal that I am no dogmatical Author,)

I now say to them all, in print, what I once did to one of them, by word of mouth. Whoever meets with any thing in what I publish, which they don't like,

Let 'em strike it out.But to take off part of the Odium from me,They say others write like me,In short paragraphs:(An easy part of a mimick,)But with all my heart!I don't care who writes like me,So I do'nt write like them.”

Many a book has originated in the misfortunes of its Author. Want, imprisonment, and disablement by bodily infirmity from active occupation, have produced almost as many works in prose or rhyme, as leisure, voluntary exertion, and strong desire. Asgill's harmless heresy began in an involuntary confinement to which he was reduced in consequence of an unsuccessful speculation; he had engaged in this adventure (by which better word our forefathers designated what the Americans call aspec,) with the hope of increasing his fortune, instead of which he incurred so great a loss that he found it necessary to keep his chamber in the Temple for some years. There he fell to examining that “Book of Law and Gospel,” both which we call the Bible; and examining it as he would have perused an old deed with the hope of discovering in it some clause upon which to ground a claim at law, this thought, he says, first came into his head; but it was a great while coming out. He was afraid of his own thoughts, lest they were his own only, and as such a delusion. And when he had tried them with pen, ink and paper, and they seemed to him plainer and plainer every time he went over them, and he had formed them into an Argument, “to see how they would bear upon the proof,” even then he had no intention of making them public.

“But writing an ill hand,” says he, “I resolved to see how it would look in print. On this I gave the Printer my Copy, with money for his own labour, to print off some few for myself, and keep the press secret. But I remember before he got half way through, he told me his men fancied I was a little crazed, in which I also fancied he spoke one word for them and two for himself. However I bid him go on; and at last it had so raised his fancy that he desired my leave to print off one edition at the risque of his own charge, saying he thought some of the Anabaptists would believe it first. I being just then going for Ireland, admitted him, with this injunction, he should not publish them 'till I was got clear out of Middlesex; which I believe he might observe; though by what I heard afterwards, they were all about town by that time I got to St. Albans: and the book was in Ireland almost as soon as I was, (for a man's works will follow him,) with a noise after me that I was gone away mad.”

Asgill was told in Ireland that the cry which followed him would prevent his practice; it had a contrary effect, for “people went into Court to see him as a Monster and heard him talk like a man.” In the course of two years he gained enough by his profession to purchase Lord Kenmure's forfeited estate, and to procure a seat in the Irish House of Commons. The purchase made him enemies; as he was on the way to Dublin he met the news that his book had been burnt by Order of the House. He proceeded however, took the oaths and his seat, and the Book having been condemned and executed without hearing the author in its defence, nothing more was necessary than to prove him the Author and expel him forthwith, and this was done in the course of four days. After this he returned to England and obtained a seat for Bramber, apparently for the mere sake of securing himself against his creditors. This borough he represented for two years; but in the first Parliament after the Union some of the Scotch Members are said to have looked upon it as a disgrace to the House of Commons that a man who enjoyed his liberty only under privilege should sit there, and instead of attempting to remedy a scandal by straight forward means, they took the easier course of moving for a Committee to examine his book. Their report was that it was profane and blasphemous, highly reflecting upon the Christian Religion. He was allowed however to make his defence, which he thus began.

“Mr. Speaker, this day calls me to something I am both unapt and averse to—Preaching. For though, as you see, I have vented some of my thoughts in religion, yet I appeal to my conversation, whether I use to make that the subject of my discourse. However that I may not let this accusation go against me by aNihil dicit, I stand up to make my defence. I have heard it from without doors that I intended to withdraw myself from this day's test and be gone; which would have given them that said it an opportunity to boast that they had once spoken truth. Butquo me fata trahunt, I'll give no man occasion to writefugam fecitupon my grave-stone.”

He then gave the history of his book and of his expulsion in Ireland, and thanked the House for admitting him to a defence before they proceeded to judgement. “I find,” said he, “the Report of the Committee is not levelled at the argument itself which I have advanced, nor yet against the treatise I have published to prove it, but against some expressions in that proof, and which I intend to give particular answers to. But there is something else laid to my charge as my design in publishing that argument, of higher concern to me than any expressions in the treatise, or any censure that can fall on me for it; as if I had wrote it with a malicious intention to expose the scriptures as false, because they seemed to contain what I asserted; and that therefore if that assertion did not hold true, the Scripture must be false. Now whether this was my intention or no, there is but one Witness in Heaven or Earth can prove, and that is He that made me, and in whose presence I now stand, and Who is able to strike me dead in my place; and to Him I now appeal for the truth of what I protest against: that I never did write or publish that argument with any intention to expose the Scriptures; but on the contrary, (though I was aware that I might be liable to that censure, which I knew not how to avoid) I did both write and publish it, under a firm belief of the truth of the Scriptures: and with a belief, (under that) that what I have asserted in that argument is within that truth. And if it be not, then I am mistaken in my argument and the Scripture remains true. Let God be true and every man a lyar. And having made this protestation, I am not much concerned whether I am believed in it or not; I had rather tell a truth than be believed in a lie at any time.”

He then justified the particular passage which had been selected for condemnation, resting his defence upon this ground, that he had used familiar expressions with the intent of being sooner read and more readily understood. There was indeed but a single word which savoured of irreverence, and certainly no irreverence was intended in its use: no one who fairly perused his argument but must have perceived that the levity of his manner in no degree detracted from the seriousness of his belief. “Yet,” said he, “if by any of those expressions I have really given offence to any well-meaning Christian, I am sorry for it, though I had no ill intention in it: but if any man be captious to take exceptions for exception sake, I am not concerned. I esteem my own case plain and short. I was expelled one House for having too much land; and I am going to be expelled another for having too little money. But if I may yet ask one question more; pray what is this blasphemous crime I here stand charged with? A belief of what we all profess, or at least what no one can deny. If the death of the body be included in the Fall, why is not the life of the body included in the Resurrection? And what if I have a firmer belief of this than some others have? Am I therefore a blasphemer? Or would they that believe less take it well of me to call them so. Our Saviour in his day took notice of some of little faith and some of great faith, without stigmatizing either of them with blasphemy for it. But I do not know how 'tis, we are fallen into such a sort of uniformity that we would fain have Religion into a Tyrant's bed, torturing one another into our own size of it only. But it grows late, and I ask but one saying more to take leave of my friends with. I do believe that had I turned this Defence into a Recantation, I had prevented my Expulsion: but I have reserved my last words as my ultimate reason against that Recantation. He that durst write that book, dares not deny it!”

“And what then?” said this eccentric writer, when five years afterwards he published his Defence. “Why then they called for candles; and I went away by the light of 'em: and after the previous question and other usual ceremonies, (as I suppose) I was expelled the House. And from thence I retired to a Chamber I once had in the Temple; and from thence I afterwards surrendered myself in discharge of my bail, and have since continued under confinement. And under that confinement God hath been pleased to take away, ‘the Desire of mine Eyes with a stroke,’ which hath however drowned all my other troubles at once; for the less are merged in the greater;

Qui venit hic fluctus, fluctus supereminet omnes.

And since I have mentioned her, I'll relate this of her. She having been educated a Protestant of the Church of England, by a Lady her Grandmother, her immediate parents and other relations being Roman Catholics, an honest Gentleman of the Romish persuasion, who knew her family, presented her, while she was my fellow-prisoner, with a large folio volume, being the history of the Saints canonized in that Church, for her reading; with intention, as I found, to incline her that way. With which, delighting in reading, she entertained herself 'till she shad gone through it; and some time after that she told me that she had before some thoughts towards that religion, but that the reading that history had confirmed her against it.

“And yet she would never read the book I was expelled for 'till after my last expulsion; but then reading it through, told me she was reconciled to the reasons of it, though she could not say she believed it. However she said something of her own thoughts with it, that hath given me the satisfaction that she is ‘dead in Christ,’ and thereby sure of her part in the first Resurrection: the Dead in Christ shall arise first. And thispars decessa meileaving me half dead while she remains in the grave, hath since drawn me, in diving after her, into a nearer view and more familiar though more unusual thoughts of that first Resurrection than ever I had before. From whence I now find that nothing less than thisfluctus decumanuswould have cast me upon, or qualified me for, this theme, if yet I am so qualified. And from hence I am advancing that common Article in our Creed, the Resurrection of the Dead, into a professed study; from the result of which study I have already advanced an assertion, which (should I vent alone) perhaps would find no better quarter in the world than what I have advanced already. And yet, though I say it that perhaps should not, it hath one quality we are all fond of,—it is News; and another we all should be fond of, it is good News: or at least, good to them that are so, ‘for to the froward all things are froward.’

“Having made this Discovery, or rather collected it from the Word of Life; I am advancing it into a Treatise whereby to prove it in special form, not by arguments of wit or sophistry, but from the evidence and demonstration of the truth as it is in Jesus: which should I accomplish I would not be prevented from publishing that edition to gain more than I lost by my former; nor for more than Balak ever intended to give, or than Balaam could expect to receive, for cursing the people of Israel, if God had not spoilt that bargain. I find it as old as the New Testament, ‘if by any means I may attain the Resurrection of the Dead.’ And though Paul did not then so attain, (not as if I had already attained,) yet he died in his calling, and will stand so much nearer that mark at his Resurrection. But if Paul, with that effusion of the Spirit upon him in common with the other Apostles, and that superabundant revelation given him above them all, by that rapture unto things unutterable, did not so attain in that his day; whence should I a mere Lay, (and that none of the best neither) without any function upon me, expect to perfect what he left so undone?—In pursuit of this study I have found, (what I had not before observed) that there are some means since left us towards this attainment, which Paul had not in his day; for there now remain extant unto the world, bound up with that now one entire record of the Bible, two famous Records of the Resurrection that never came to Paul's hands; and for want whereof, perhaps, he might not then so attain. But having now this intelligence of them, and fearing that in the day of Account I may have a special surcharge made upon me for these additional Talents and further Revelations; and bearing in mind the dreadful fate of that cautious insuring servant who took so much care to redeliver what he had receivedin statu quoas he had it that it might not be said to be the worse for his keeping, I have rather adventured to defile those Sacred Records with my own study and thoughts upon them, than to think of returning them wrapt up in a napkin clean and untouched.

“Whether ever I shall accomplish to my own satisfaction what I am now so engaged in, I do not yet know; but 'till I do, I'll please myself to be laughed at by this cautious insuring world, as tainted with a frenzy of dealing in Reversions of Contingencies. However in the mean time I would not be thought to be spending this interval of my days by myself in beating the air, under a dry expectancy only of a thing so seemingly remote as the Resurrection of the Dead: like Courtiers-Extraordinary fretting out their soles with attendances in ante-rooms for things or places no more intended to be given them than perhaps they are fit to have them. For though I should fall short of the attainment I am attempting, the attempt itself hath translated my Prison into a Paradise; treating me with food and enamouring me with pleasures that man knows not of: from whence, I hope, I may without vanity say,

Deus nobis hæc otia fecit.”

What the farther reversion might be to which Asgill fancied he had discovered a title in the Gospels, is not known. Perhaps he failed in satisfying himself when he attempted to arrange his notions in logical and legal form, and possibly that failure may have weakened his persuasion of the former heresy: for though he lived twenty years after the publication of his Defence and the announcement of this second discovery in the Scriptures, the promised argument never appeared. His subsequent writings consist of a few pamphlets in favour of the Hanoverian succession. They were too inconsiderable to contribute much towards eking out his means of support, for which he was probably chiefly indebted to his professional knowledge. The remainder of his life was past within the Rules of the King's Bench Prison, where he died in 1738 at a very advanced age, retaining his vivacity and his remarkable powers of conversation to the last. If it be true that he nearly attained the age of an hundred (as one statement represents) and with these happy faculties unimpaired, he may have been tempted to imagine that he was giving the best and only convincing proof of his own argument. Death undeceived him, and Time has done him justice at last. For though it stands recorded that he was expelled the House of Commons as being the Author of a Book in which are contained many profane and blasphemous expressions, highly reflecting upon the Christian Religion! nothing can be more certain than that this censure was undeserved, and that his expulsion upon that ground was as indefensible as it would have been becoming, if, in pursuance of the real motives by which the House was actuated, an Act had been past disqualifying from that time forward any person in a state of insolvency from taking or retaining a seat there.

In the year 1760 I find him mentioned as “the celebrated gentleman commonly called ‘translated Asgill.’” His name is now seen only in catalogues, and his history known only to the curious:—“Mais, c'est assez parlé de luy, et encore trop, ce diront aucuns, qui pourront m'en blasmer, et dire que j'estois bien de loisir quand j'escrivis cecy; mais ils seront bien plus de loisir de la lire, pour me reprendre.”1

1BRANTOME.

THE DOCTOR INDULGES IN THE WAY OF FANTASTIC AND TYPICAL SPECULATION ON HIS OWN NAME, AND ON THE POWERS OF THE LETTER D., WHETHER AS REGARDS DEGREES AND DISTINCTIONS, GODS AND DEMIGODS, PRINCES AND KINGS, PHILOSOPHERS, GENERALS OR TRAVELLERS.

My mouth's no dictionary; it only serves as the needful interpreter of my heart.

QUARLES.

There were few things in the way of fantastic and typical speculation which delighted the Doctor so much as the contemplation of his own name:

DANIELDOVE.

D. D. it was upon his linen and his seal. D. D. he used to say, designated the highest degree in the highest of the sciences, and he was D. D. not by the forms of a University, but by Nature or Destiny.

Besides, he maintained, that the letter D was the richest, the most powerful, the most fortunate letter in the alphabet, and contained in its form and origin more mysteries than any other.

It was a potential letter under which all powerful things were arranged; Dictators, Despots, Dynasties, Diplomas, Doctors, Dominations; Deeds and Donations and Decrees; Dioptrics and Dynamics; Dialectics and Demonstrations.

Diaphragm, Diathesis, Diet, Digestion, Disorder, Disease, Diagnosis; Diabrosis, Diaphragmatis, Diaphthora, Desudation, Defluxions, Dejection, Delirium, Delivery, Dyspepsy, Dysmenorrhœa, Dysorœxia, Dyspnœa, Dysuria, Dentition, Dropsy, Diabetes, Diarrhœa, Dysentery; then passing almost in unconscious but beautiful order from diseases to remedies and their consequences, he proceeded with Dispensation, Diluents, Discutients, Deobstruents, Demulcents, Detergents, Desiccatives, Depurantia, Diaphoretics, Dietetics, Diachylon, Diacodium, Diagrydium, Deligations, Decoctions, Doses, Draughts, Drops, Dressings, Drastics, Dissolution, Dissection. What indeed he would say, should we do in our profession without the Ds?

Or what would the Divines do without it—Danger, Despair, Death, Devil, Doomsday, Damnation; look to the brighter side, there is the Doxology, and you ascend toΔιὸς, and Deus and Deity.

What would become of the farmer without Dung, or of the Musician without the Diapason? Think also of Duets in music and Doublets at Backgammon. And the soldier's toast in the old Play, “the two Ds Drink and your Duty.”1

1Shirley, Honoria and Mammon.

Look at the moral evils which are ranged under its banners, Dissentions, Discord, Duels, Dissimulation, Deceit, Dissipation, Demands, Debts, Damages, Divorce, Distress, Drunkenness, Dram-drinking, Distraction, Destruction.

When the Poet would describe things mournful and calamitous, whither doth he go for epithets of alliterative significance? where but to the letter D? there he hath Dim, Dusky, Drear, Dark, Damp, Dank, Dismal, Doleful, Dolorous, Disastrous, Dreadful, Desperate, Deplorable.

Would we sum up the virtues and praise of a perfect Woman, how should we do it but by saying that she was devout in religion, decorous in conduct, domestic in habits, dextrous in business, dutiful as a wife, diligent as a mother, discreet as a mistress, in manner debonnaire, in mind delicate, in person delicious, in disposition docile, in all things delightful. Then he would smile at Mrs. Dove and say, I love my love with a D. and her name is Deborah.

For degrees and distinctions, omitting those which have before been incidentally enumerated, are there not Dauphin and Dey, Dux, Duke, Doge. Dominus, with its derivatives Don, the Dom of the French and Portugueze, and the Dan of our own early language; Dame, Damsel, and Damoisel in the untranslated masculine. Deacons and Deans, those of the Christian Church, and of Madagascar whose title the French write Dian, and we should write Deen not to confound them with the dignitaries of our Establishment. Druids and Dervises, Dryads, Demigods and Divinities.

Regard the Mappa Mundi. You have Denmark and Dalecarlia, Dalmatia and the fertile Delta, Damascus, Delos, Delphi and Dodona, the Isles of Domingo and Dominica, Dublin and Durham and Dorchester and Dumfries, the shires of Devon, Dorset and Derby and the adjoining Bishoprick. Dantzic and Drontheim, the Dutchy of Deux Ponts; Delhi the seat of the Great Mogul, and that great city yet unspoiled, which

Geryon's sonsCall El Dorado,—

the Lakes Dembea and Derwentwater, the rivers Dwina, Danube and Delawar, Duero or Douro call it which you will, the Doubs and all the Dons, and our own wizard Dee,—which may be said to belong wholly to this letter, the vowels being rather for appearance than use.

Think also, he would say of the worthies, heroes and sages in D. David, and his namesake of Wales. Diogenes, Dædalus, Diomede, and Queen Dido, Decebalus the Dacian King, Deucalion, Datames the Carian whom Nepos hath immortalized, and Marshal Daun who so often kept the King of Prussia in check, and sometimes defeated him. Nay if I speak of men eminent for the rank which they held, or for their exploits in war, might I not name the Kings of Persia who bore the name of Darius, Demaratus of Sparta, whom the author of Leonidas hath well pourtrayed as retaining in exile a reverential feeling toward the country which had wronged him: and Deodatus, a name assumed by, or given to Lewis the 14th, the greatest actor of greatness that ever existed. Dion who lives for ever in the page of Plutarch; the Demetrii, the Roman Decii, Diocletian, and Devereux Earl of Essex, he by whom Cadiz was taken, and whose execution occasioned the death of the repentant Elizabeth by whom it was decreed. If of those who have triumphed upon the ocean shall we not find Dragat the far-famed corsair, and our own more famous and more dreadful Drake. Dandolo the Doge who at the age of2triumphed over the perfidious Greeks, and was first chosen by the victorious Latins to be the Emperor of Constantinople: Doria of whom the Genoese still boast. Davis who has left his name so near the Arctic Pole. Dampier of all travellers the most observant and most faithful.3Diaz who first attained that Stormy Cape, to which from his time the happier name of Good Hope hath been given; and Van Diemen the Dutchman. If we look to the learned, are there not Duns Scotus and Descartes. Madame Dacier and her husband. Damo the not-degenerate daughter of Pythagoras, and though a woman renowned for secrecy and silence; Dante and Davila, Dugdale and Dupin; Demosthenes, Doctor Dee, (he also like the wizard stream all our own) and Bishop Duppa to whom theΕικὼν Βασιλικὴwhether truly or not, hath been ascribed: Sir Kenelm Digby by whom it hath been proved that Dogs make syllogisms; and Daniel Defoe. Here the Doctor always pronounced the christian name with peculiar emphasis, and here I think it necessary to stop, that the Reader may take breath.

2The blank is in the original MS. Quære,ninety-five?

3“One of the most faithful, as well as exact and excellent of all voyage writers.”Vindiciæ Eccl. Angl.p. 115. Unhappily Southey's wish to continue this work was not responded to. The continuation would have proved invaluable now; for who, so well as he, knew the wiles of the Romish Church, and the subtilties of the Jesuit?

THE DOCTOR FOLLOWS UP HIS MEDITATIONS ON THE LETTER D. AND EXPECTS THAT THE READER WILL BE CONVINCED THAT IT IS A DYNAMIC LETTER, AND THAT THE HEBREWS DID NOT WITHOUT REASON CALL IT DALETH—THE DOOR—AS THOUGH IT WERE THE DOOR OF SPEECH.—THE MYSTIC TRIANGLE.

More authority dear boy, name more; and sweet my child let them be men of good repute and carriage.—

LOVE'SLABOURLOST.

The Doctor as I have said in the last Chapter pronounced with peculiar emphasis the christian name of Daniel Defoe. Then taking up the auspicious word.—Is there not Daniel the prophet, in honour of whom my baptismal name was given, Daniel if not the greatest of the prophets, yet for the matter of his prophecies the most important. Daniel the French historian, and Daniel the English poet; who reminds me of other poets in D not less eminent. Donne, Dodsley, Drayton, Drummond, Douglas the Bishop of Dunkeld, Dunbar, Denham, Davenant, Dyer, Durfey, Dryden, and Stephen Duck; Democritus the wise Abderite, whom I especially honour for finding matter of jest even in the profoundest thought, extracting mirth from philosophy, and joining in delightful matrimony wit with wisdom. Is there not Dollond the Optician. Dalembert and Diderot among those Encyclopedists with whose renown

all Europe rings from side to side,

Derham the Astro-Physico—and Christo—Theologian, Dillenius the botanist, Dion who for his eloquence was called the golden-mouthed; Diagoras who boldly despising the false Gods of Greece, blindly and audaciously denied the God of Nature. Diocles who invented the cissoid, Deodati, Diodorus, and Dion Cassius. Thus rich was the letter D even before the birth of Sir Humphrey Davy, and the catastrophe of Doctor Dodd: before Daniel Mendoza triumphed over Humphreys in the ring, and before Dionysius Lardner, Professor at the St —— 'niversity of London, projected the Cabinet Cyclopædia, Daniel O'Connell fought Mr. Peel, triumphed over the Duke of Wellington, bullied the British Government, and changed the British Constitution.

If we look to the fine arts, he pursued, the names of Douw, and Durer, Dolce and Dominichino instantly occur. In my own profession, among the ancients, Dioscorides; among the moderns Dippel, whose marvellous oil is not more exquisitely curious in preparation than powerful in its use; Dover of the powder; Dalby of the Carminative; Daffy of the Elixir; Deventer by whom the important art of bringing men into the world has been so greatly improved; Douglas who has rendered lithotomy so beautiful an operation, that he asserteth in his motto it may be done speedily, safely, and pleasantly; Dessault now rising into fame among the Continental surgeons, and Dimsdale who is extending the blessings of inoculation. Of persons eminent for virtue or sanctity, who ever in friendship exceeded Damon the friend of Pythias? Is there not St. John Damascenus, Dr. Doddridge, Deborah the Nurse of Rebekah, who was buried beneath Beth-el under an Oak, which was called Allon-bachuth, the Oak of Weeping, and Deborah the wife of Lapidoth, who dwelt under her palm-trees between Ramah and Beth-el in Mount Ephraim, where the children of Israel came up to her for judgment, for she was a mother in Israel; Demas for whom St. Paul greets the Colossians, and whom he calleth his fellow labourer; and Dorcas which being interpreted is in Hebrew Tabitha and in English Doe, who was full of good works and alms-deeds, whom therefore Peter raised from the dead, and whom the Greeks might indeed truly have placed among theΔευτερόποτμοι;Daniel already named, but never to be remembered too often, and Dan the father of his tribe. Grave writers there are, the Doctor would say, who hesitate not to affirm that Dan was the first King of Denmark more properly called Danmark from his name, and that he instituted there the military order of Dannebrog. With the pretensions of these Danish Antiquaries he pursued, I meddle not. There is surer authority for the merits of this my first namesake. “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.” Daniel quoth the Doctor, is commonly abbreviated into Dan, from whence doubtless it taketh its root; and the Daniel therefore who is not wise as a serpent, falsifieth the promise of the patriarch Jacob.

That this should have been the Dan who founded the kingdom of Denmark he deemed an idle fancy. King Dans in that country however there have been, and among them was King Dan called Mykelati or the Magnificent, with whom the Bruna Olld, or age of Combustion, ended in the North, and the Hougs Olld or age of barrows began, for he it was who introduced the custom of interment. But he considered it as indeed an honour to the name, that Death should have been calledΔάνοςby the Macedonians, not as a dialectic or provincial form ofΘάνατοςbut from the Hebrew Dan, which signifies, says Jeremy Taylor, a Judge, as intimating that Judges are appointed to give sentence upon criminals in life and death.

Even if we look at the black side of the shield we still find that the D preserves its power: there is Dathan, who with Korah and Abiram went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them; Dalila by whom Sampson was betrayed; Dionysius the acoustical tyrant; Domitian who like a true vice-gerent of Beelzebub tormented flies as well as men; Decius the fiercest of the persecutors; the inhuman Dunstan, and the devilish Dominic, after whom it seems all but an anticlimax to name theipsissimusDiabolus, the Devil himself. And here let us remark through how many languages the name of the author of evil retains its characteristic initial,Διάβολος, Diabolus, Diavolo, Diablo, Diabo, Diable, in Dutch Duival, in Welsh Diawl, and though the Germans write him Teufel, it is because in their coarser articulation the D passes into the cognate sound of T, without offending their obtuser organs of hearing. Even in the appellations given him by familiar or vulgar irreverence, the same pregnant initial prevails, he is the Deuce, and Old Davy and Davy Jones. And it may be noted that in the various systems of false religion to which he hath given birth, the Delta is still a dominant inchoative. Witness Dagon of the Philistines, witness the Daggial of the Mahommedans, and the forgotten root from whence theΔιὸςof the Greeks is derived. Why should I mention the Roman Diespiter, the Syrian Dirceto, Delius with his sister Delia, known also as Dictynna and the great Diana of the Ephesians. The Sicyonian Dia, Dione of whom Venus was born, Deiphobe the Cumæan Sybil who conducted Æneas in his descent to the infernal regions. Doris the mother of the Nereids, and Dorus father of the race of Pygmies. Why should I name the Dioscuri, Dice and Dionysus, the Earth, Mother Demeter, the Demiourgos, gloomy Dis, Demogorgon dread and Daphne whom the Gods converted into a Laurel to decorate the brows of Heroes and Poets.

Truly he would say it may be called a dynamic letter; and not without mystery did the Hebrews call it Daleth, the door, as though it were the door of speech. Then its form! how full of mysteries! The wise Egyptians represented it by three stars disposed in a triangle: it was their hieroglyphic of the Deity. In Greek it is the Delta.

In this form were the stupendous Pyramids built, when the sage Egyptians are thought to have emblematised the soul of man, which the divine Plato supposed to be of this shape. This is the mysterious triangle, which the Pythagoreans called Pallas, because they said it sprang from the brain of Jupiter, and Tritogeneia, because if three right lines were drawn from its angles to meet in the centre, a triple birth of triangles was produced, each equal to the other.

tetrahedron

I pass reverently the diviner mysteries which have been illustrated from hence, and may perhaps be typified herein. Nor will I do more than touch upon the mechanical powers which we derive from a knowledge of the properties of the figures, and upon the science of Trigonometry. In its Roman and more familiar form, the Letter hath also sublime resemblances or prototypes. The Rainbow resting upon the earth describes its form. Yea, the Sky and the Earth represent a grand and immeasurable D; for when you stand upon a boundless plain, the space behind you and before in infinite longitude is the straight line, and the circle of the firmament which bends from infinite altitude to meet it, forms the bow.

For himself, he said, it was a never failing source of satisfaction when he reflected how richly his own destiny was endowed with Ds. The D was the star of his ascendant. There was in the accident of his life,—and he desired it to be understood as using the word accident in its scholastic acceptations,—a concatenation, a concentration. Yea he might venture to call it a constellation of Ds. Dove he was born; Daniel he was baptized; Daniel was the name of his father; Dinah of his mother, Deborah of his wife; Doctor was his title, Doncaster his dwelling place; in the year of his marriage, which next to that of his birth was the most important of his life, D was the Dominical letter; and in the amorous and pastoral strains wherein he had made his passion known in the magazines, he had called himself Damon and his mistress Delia.

THE DOCTOR DISCOVERS THE ANTIQUITY OF THE NAME OF DOVE FROM PERUSING JACOB BRYANT'S ANALYSIS OF ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY.—CHRISTOPHER AND FERDINAND COLUMBUS.—SOMETHING ABOUT PIGEON-PIE, AND THE REASON WHY THE DOCTOR WAS INCLINED TO THINK FAVOURABLY OF THE SAMARITANS.

An I take the humour of a thing once, I am like your tailor's needle; I go through.

BENJONSON.

Dove also was a name which abounded with mystical significations, and which derived peculiar significance from its mysterious conjunction with Daniel. Had it not been said “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as Doves?” To him the text was personally applicable in both parts. Dove he was by birth. Daniel by baptism or the second birth, and Daniel was Dan, and Dan shall be a serpent by the way.

But who can express his delight when in perusing Jacob Bryant's Analysis of ancient Mythology, he found that so many of the most illustrious personages of antiquity proved to be Doves, when their names were truly interpreted or properly understood! That erudite interpreter of hidden things taught him that the name of the Dove was Iön and Iönah, whence in immediate descent the Oän and Oannes of Berosus and Abydenus, and in longer but lineal deduction Æneas, Hannes, Hanno, Ionah,Ιοάννης, Johannes, Janus, Eanus among the elder Romans, Giovanni among the later Italians, Juan, Joam, Jean, John, Jan, Iwain, Ivan, Ewan, Owen, Evan, Hans, Ann, Hannah, Nannette, Jane, Jeannette, Jeanne, Joanna and Joan; all who had ever borne these names, or any name derived from the same radical, as doubtless many there were in those languages of which he had no knowledge, nor any means of acquiring it, being virtually Doves. Did not Bryant expressly say that the prophet Jonah was probably so named as a messenger of the Deity, the mystic Dove having been from the days of Jonah regarded as a sacred symbol among all nations where any remembrance of the destruction and renovation of mankind was preserved! It followed therefore that the prophet Jonah, Hannibal, St. John, Owen Glendower, Joan of Arc, Queen Anne, Miss Hannah More, and Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, were all of them his namesakes, to pretermit or pass over Pope Joan, Little John, and Jack the Giantkiller. And this followed, not like the derivation of King Pepin fromὍσπερ, by a jump in the process, such as that fromδιάπερto napkin; nor like the equally well known identification of a Pigeon with an Eel Pye, in the logic of which the Doctor would have detected a fallacy, but in lawful etymology, and according to the strict interpretation of words. If he looked for the names through the thinner disguise of language there was Semiramis who having been fed by Doves, was named after them. What was Zurita the greatest historian of Arragon, but a young stock Dove? What were the three Palominos so properly enumerated in the Bibliotheca of Nicolas Antonio. Pedro the Benedictine in whose sermons a more than ordinary breathing of the spirit might not unreasonably be expected from his name; Francisco who translated into Castillian the Psychomachia of the Christian poet Aurelius Prudentius, and Diego the Prior of Xodar, whoseLiber de mutatione aeris, in quo assidua, et mirabilis mutationis temporum historia, cum suis causis, enarratur, he so greatly regretted that he had never been able to procure: what were these Palominos? what but Doves?—Father Colombiere who framed the service for the Heart of Jesus which was now so fashionable in Catholic countries, was clearly of the Dove genus. St. Columba was a decided Dove; three there were certainly, the Senonian, the Cordovan and the Cornish: and there is reason to believe that there was a fourth also, a female Dove, who held a high rank in St. Ursula's great army of virgins. Columbo the Anatomist, deservedly eminent as one of those who by their researches led the way for Harvey, he also was a Dove. Lastly,—and the Doctor in fine taste always reserved the greatest glory of the Dove name, for the conclusion of his discourse—lastly, there was Christopher Columbus, whom he used to call his famous namesake. And he never failed to commend Ferdinand Columbus for the wisdom and piety with which he had commented upon the mystery of the name, to remark that his father had conveyed the grace of the Holy Ghost to the New World, shewing to the people who knew him not who was God's beloved son, as the Holy Ghost had done in the figure of a Dove at the baptism of St. John, and bearing like Noah's Dove the Olive Branch, and the Oil of Baptism over the waters of the ocean.

And what would our onomatologist have said if he had learned to read these words in that curious book of the &c. family, the Oriental fragments of Major Edward Moor: “In respect to St. Columba, or Colomb, and other superstitious names and things in close relationship, I shall have in another place something to say. I shall try to connectCol-omb, with Kal-O'm,—those infinitely mysterious words of Hindu mythology: and with these, diversMythé, converging into or diverging from O'M—A U M,—the IrishOgham,—I A M,—Amen, ΙΛω,—Il-Kolmkill, &c. &c. &c.” Surely had the onomatologist lived to read this passage, he would forthwith have opened and corresponded with the benevolent and erudite etcæterarist of Bealings.

These things were said in his deeper moods. In the days of courtship he had said in song that Venus's car was drawn by Doves, regretting at the time that an allusion which came with such peculiar felicity from him, should appear to common readers to mean nothing more than what rhymers from time immemorial had said before him. After marriage he often called Mrs. Dove his Turtle, and in his playful humours when the gracefulness of youth had gradually been superseded by a certain rotundity of form, he sometimes named herφάτταhis ring-dove. Then he would regret that she had not proved a stock-dove,—and if she frowned at him, or looked grave, she was his pouting pigeon.

One inconvenience however Mrs. Dove felt from his reverence for the name. He never suffered a pigeon-pie at his table. And when he read that the Samaritans were reproached with retaining a trace of Assyrian superstition because they held it unlawful to eat this bird, he was from that time inclined to think favourably of the schismatics of Mount Gerizim.

SOMETHING ON THE SCIENCE AND MYSTERY OF NUMBERS WHICH IS NOT ACCORDING TO COCKER.—REVERIES OF JEAN D'ESPAGNE, MINISTER OF THE FRENCH-REFORMED CHURCH IN WESTMINSTER, AND OF MR. JOHN BELLAMY.—A PITHY REMARK OF FULLER'S AND AN EXTRACT FROM HIS PISGAH SIGHT OF PALESTINE, TO RECREATE THE READER.

None are so surely caught, when they are catch'dAs wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'dHath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school,And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.LOVE'SLABOURLOST.

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