Chapter 6

VAN HELMONT'S WORKS, AND CERTAIN SPECIALITIES IN HIS LIFE.

Voilà mon conte.—Je ne sçay s'il est vray; mais, je l'ay ainsi ouy conter.—Possible que cela est faux, possible que non.—Je m'en rapporte à ce qui en est. Il ne sera pas damné qui le croira, ou décroira.

BRANTÔME.

“The works of Van Helmont,” Dr. Aikin says, “are now only consulted as curiosities; but with much error and jargon, they contain many shrewd remarks, and curious speculations.”

How little would any reader suppose from this account of them, or indeed from any thing which Dr. Aikin has said concerning this once celebrated person, that Van Helmont might as fitly be classed among enthusiasts as among physicians, and with philosophers as with either; and that like most enthusiasts it is sometimes not easy to determine whether he was deceived himself or intended to deceive others.

He was born at Brussels in the year 1577, and of noble family. In his Treatise entitledTumulus Pestis(to which strange title a stranger1explanation is annexed) he gives a sketch of his own history, saying, “imitemini, si quid forte boni in eâ occurrerit.” He was a devourer of books, and digested into common places for his own use, whatever he thought most remarkable in them, so that few exceeded him in diligence, but most, he says, in judgement. At the age of seventeen, he was appointed by the Professors Thomas Fyenus, Gerard de Velleers, and Stornius, to read surgical lectures in the Medical College at Louvain.Eheu, he exclaims,præsumsi docere, quæ ipse nesciebam!and his presumption was increased because the Professors of their own accord appointed him to this Lectureship, attended to hear him, and were the Censors of what he delivered. The writers from whom he compiled his discourses were Holerius, Tagaultius, Guido, Vigo, Ægineta, and “the whole tribe of Arabian authors.” But then he began, and in good time, to marvel at his own temerity and inconsiderateness in thinking that by mere reading, he could be qualified to teach what could be learnt only by seeing, and by operating, and by long practice, and by careful observation: and this distrust in himself was increased when he discovered that the Professors could give him no further light than books had done. However at the age of twenty-two he was created Doctor of Medicine in the same University.

1Lector, titulus quem legis, terror lugubris, foribus affixus,intus mortem, mortis genus, et hominumnunciat flagrum. Sta, et inquire, quid hoc?Mirare. Quid sibi vultTumuli Epigraphe Pestis?Sub anatome abii, non obii; quamdiu malesuada invidiaMomi, et hominum ignara cupido,me fovebunt.Ergo heicNon funus, non cadaver, non mors, non sceletonnon luctus, non contagium.ÆTERNO DAGLORIAMQuod Pestis jam desiit, sub Anatomes proprio supplicio.

Very soon he began to repent that he, who was by birth noble, should have been the first of his family to choose the medical profession, and this against the will of his mother, and without the knowledge of his other relations. “I lamented, he says, with tears the sin of my disobedience, and regretted the time and labour which had been thus vainly expended: and often with a sorrowful heart I intreated the Lord that he would be pleased to lead me to a vocation not of my own choice, but in which I might best perform his will; and I made a vow that to whatever way of life he might call me, I would follow it, and do my utmost endeavour therein to serve him. Then, as if I had tasted of the forbidden fruit, I discovered my own nakedness. I saw that there was neither truth nor knowledge in my putative learning; and thought it cruel to derive money from the sufferings of others; and unfitting that an art founded upon charity, and conferred upon the condition of exercising compassion, should be converted into a means of lucre.”

These reflections were promoted if not induced by his having caught a disorder which as it is not mentionable in polite circles, may be described by intimating that the symptom from which it derives its name is alleviated by what Johnson defines tearing or rubbing with the nails. It was communicated to him by a young lady's glove, into which in a evil minute of sportive gallantry he had insinuated his hand. The physicians treated him,secundum artem, in entire ignorance of the disease; they bled him to cool the liver, and they purged him to carry off the torrid choler and the salt phlegm, they repeated this clearance again and again, till from a hale strong and active man they had reduced him to extreme leanness and debility without in the slightest degree abating the cutaneous disease. He then persuaded himself that the humours which the Galenists were so triumphantly expelling from his poor carcase had not preexisted there in that state but were produced by the action of their drugs. Some one cured him easily by brimstone, and this is said to have made him feelingly perceive the inefficiency of the scholastic practice which he had hitherto pursued.

In this state of mind he made over his inheritance to a widowed sister, who stood in need of it, gave up his profession, and left his own country with an intention of never returning to it. The world was all before him, and he began his travels with as little fore-knowledge whither he was going, and as little fore-thought of what he should do, as Adam himself when the gate of Paradise was closed upon him; but he went with the hope that God would direct his course by His good pleasure to some good end. It so happened that he who had renounced the profession of medicine as founded on delusion and imposture was thrown into the way of practising it, by falling in company with a man who had no learning, but who understood the practical part of chemistry, or pyrotechny, as he calls it. The new world which Columbus discovered did not open a wider or more alluring field to ambition and rapacity than this science presented to Van Helmont's enthusiastic and enquiring mind. “Then” says he, “when by means of fire I beheld thepenetrale, the inward or secret part of certain bodies, I comprehended the separations of many, which were not then taught in books, and some of which are still unknown.” He pursued his experiments with increasing ardour, and in the course of two years acquired such reputation by the cures which he performed, that because of his reputation he was sent for by the Elector of Cologne. Then indeed he became more ashamed of his late and learned ignorance, and renouncing all books because they sung only the same cuckoo note, perceived that he profited more by fire, and by conceptions acquired in praying. “And then,” says he, “I clearly knew that I had missed the entrance of true philosophy, on all sides obstacles and obscurities and difficulties appeared, which neither labour, nor time, nor vigils, nor expenditure of money could overcome and disperse, but only the mere goodness of God. Neither women, nor social meetings deprived me then of even a single hour, but continual labour and watching were the thieves of my time; for I willingly cured the poor and those of mean estate, being more moved by human compassion, and a moral love of giving, than by pure universal charity reflected in the Fountain of Life.”

ST. PANTALEON OF NICOMEDIA IN BITHYNIA—HIS HISTORY, AND SOME FURTHER PARTICULARS NOT TO BE FOUND ELSEWHERE.

Non dicea le cose senza il quia;Che il dritto distingueva dal mancino,E dicea pane al pane, e vino al vino.BERTOLDO.

This Interchapter is dedicated to St. Pantaleon, of Nicomedia in Bithynia, student in medicine and practitioner in miracles, whose martyrdom is commemorated by the Church of Rome, on the 27th of July.

Sancte Pantaleon, ora pro nobis!

This I say to be on the safe side; though between ourselves reader, Nicephorus, and Usuardus, and Vincentius and St. Antoninus (notwithstanding his sanctity) have written so many lies concerning him, that it is very doubtful whether there ever was such a person, and still more doubtful whether there be such a Saint. However the body which is venerated under his name, is just as venerable as if it had really belonged to him, and works miracles as well.

It is a tradition in Corsica that when St. Pantaleon was beheaded, the executioner's sword was converted into a wax taper, and the weapons of all his attendants into snuffers, and that the head rose from the block and sung. In honour of this miracle the Corsicans as late as the year 1775 used to have their swords consecrated, or charmed,—by laying them on the altar while a mass was performed to St. Pantaleon.

But what have I, who am writing in January instead of July, and who am no papist, and who have the happiness of living in a protestant country, and was baptized moreover by a right old English name,—what have I to do with St. Pantaleon? Simply this, my new pantaloons are just come home, and that they derive their name from the aforesaid Saint is as certain,—as that it was high time I should have a new pair.

St. Pantaleon though the tutelary Saint of Oporto (which city boasteth of his relics) was in more especial fashion at Venice: and so many of the grave Venetians were in consequence named after him, that the other Italians called them generally Pantaloni in derision,—as an Irishman is called Pat, and as Sawney is with us synonymous with Scotchman, or Taffy for a son of Cadwallader and votary of St. David and his leek. Now the Venetians wore long small clothes; these as being the national dress were called Pantaloni also; and when the trunk-hose of Elizabeth's days went out of fashion, we received them from France, with the name of pantaloons.

Pantaloons then as of Venetian and Magnifico parentage, and under the patronage of an eminent Saint, are doubtless an honourable garb. They are also of honourable extraction, being clearly of the Braccæ family. For it is this part of our dress by which we are more particularly distinguished from the Oriental and inferior nations and also from the abominable Romans whom our ancestors, Heaven be praised! subdued. Under the miserable reign of Honorius and Arcadius, these Lords of the World thought proper to expel the Braccarii, or breeches-makers, from their capitals, and to prohibit the use of this garment, thinking it a thing unworthy that the Romans should wear the habit of Barbarians:—and truly it was not fit that so effeminate a race should wear the breeches.

The Pantaloons are of this good Gothic family. The fashion having been disused for more than a century was re-introduced some five and twenty years ago, and still prevails so much—that I who like to go with the stream, and am therefore content to have fashions thrust upon me, have just received a new pair from London.

The coming of a box from the Great City is an event which is always looked to by the juveniles of this family with some degree of impatience. In the present case there was especial cause for such joyful expectation, for the package was to contain no less a treasure than the story of the Lioness and the Exeter Mail, with appropriate engravings representing the whole of that remarkable history, and those engravings emblazoned in appropriate colours. This adventure had excited an extraordinary degree of interest among us when it was related in the newspapers: and no sooner had a book upon the subject been advertised, than the young ones one and all were in an uproar, and tumultuously petitioned that I would send for it,—to which, thinking the prayer of the petitioners reasonable, I graciously assented. And moreover there was expected among other thingsejusdem generis, one of those very few perquisites which the all-annihilating hand of Modern Reform has not retrenched in our public offices,—an Almanac or Pocket-Book for the year, curiously bound and gilt, three only being made up in this magnificent manner for three magnificent personages, from one of whom this was a present to my lawful Governess. Poor Mr. Bankes! the very hairs of his wig will stand erect,

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine,

when he reads of this flagrant misapplication of public money; and Mr. Whitbread would have founded a motion upon it, had he survived the battle of Waterloo.

There are few things in which so many vexatious delays are continually occurring, and so many rascally frauds are systematically practised, as in the carriage of parcels. It is indeed much to be wished that Government could take into its hands the conveyance of goods as well as letters, for in this country whatever is done by Government is done punctually and honourably;—what corruption there is lies among the people themselves, among whom honesty is certainly less general than it was half a century ago. Three or four days elapsed on each of which the box ought to have arrived. Will it come to day Papa? was the morning question: why does not it come? was the complaint at noon; and when will it come? was the query at night. But in childhood the delay of hope is only the prolongation of enjoyment; and through life indeed, hope if it be of the right kind, is the best food of happiness. “The House of Hope,” says Hafiz, “is built upon a weak foundation.” If it be so, I say, the fault is in the builder: Build it upon a Rock, and it will stand.

Expectata dies,—long looked for, at length it came. The box was brought into the parlour, the ripping-chissel was produced, the nails were easily forced, the cover was lifted, and the paper which lay beneath it was removed. There's the pantaloons! was the first exclamation. The clothes being taken out, there appeared below a paper parcel, secured with string. As I never encourage any undue impatience, the string was deliberately and carefully untied. Behold, the splendid Pocket-Book, and the history of the Lioness and the Exeter Mail,—had been forgotten!

O St. Peter! St. Peter!

“Pray, Sir,” says the Reader, “as I perceive you are a person who have a reason for every thing you say, may I ask wherefore you call upon St. Peter on this occasion.”

You may Sir.

A reason there is and a valid one. But what that reason is, I shall leave the commentators to discover; observing only, for the sake of lessening their difficulty, that the Peter upon whom I have called is not St. Peter of Verona, he having been an Inquisitor, one of the Devil's Saints, and therefore in no condition at this time to help any body who invokes him.

“Well Papa, you must write about them, and they must come in the next parcel,” said the children. Job never behaved better, who was a scriptural Epictetus; nor Epictetus who was a heathen Job.

I kissed the little philosophers; and gave them the Bellman's verses, which happened to come in the box, with horrific cuts of the Marriage at Cana, the Ascension and other portions of gospel history, and the Bellman himself,—so it was not altogether a blank. We agreed that the disappointment should be an adjourned pleasure, and then I turned to inspect the pantaloons.

I cannot approve the colour. It hath too much of the purple; not that imperial die by which ranks were discriminated at Constantinople, nor the more sober tint which Episcopacy affecteth. Nor is it the bloom of the plum;—still less can it be said to resemble the purple light of love. No! it is rather a hue brushed from the raven's wing, a black purple; not Night and Aurora meeting, which would make the darkness blush; but Erebus and Ultramarine.

Doubtless it hath been selected for me because of its alamodality,—a good and pregnant word, on the fitness of which some German whose name appears to be erroneously as well as uncouthly written Geamoenus, is said to have composed a dissertation. Be pleased Mr. Todd to insert it in the interleaved copy of your dictionary!

Thankful I am that they are not like Jean de Bart's full dress breeches; for when that famous sailor went to court he is said to have worn breeches of cloth of gold, most uncomfortably as well as splendidly lined with cloth of silver.

He would never have worn them had he read Lampridius, and seen the opinion of the Emperor Alexander Severus as by that historian recorded: “in lineâ autem aurum mitti etiam dementiam judicabat, cum asperitati adderetur rigor.”

The word breeches has, I am well aware, been deemed ineffable, and therefore not to be written—because not to be read. But I am encouraged to use it by the high and mighty authority of the Anti-Jacobin Review. Mr. Stephens having in his Memoirs of Horne Tooke used the word small-clothes is thus reprehended for it by the indignant Censor.

“Hisbreecheshe callssmall-clothes;—the first time we have seen this bastard term, the offspring of gross ideas and disgusting affectation in print, in any thing like a book. It is scandalous to see men of education thus employing the most vulgar language, and corrupting their native tongue by the introduction of illegitimate words. But this is the age of affectation. Even our fishwomen and milkmaids affect to blush at the only word which can express this part of a man's dress, and lispsmall-clotheswith as many airs as a would-be woman of fashion is accustomed to display. That this folly is indebted for its birth to grossness of imagination in those who evince it, will not admit of a doubt. From the same source arises the ridiculous and too frequent use of a French word for a part of female dress; as if the mere change of language could operate a change either in the thing expressed, or in the idea annexed to the expression! Surely, surely, English women, who are justly celebrated for good sense and decorous manners, should rise superior to such pityful, such paltry, such low-minded affectation.”

Here I must observe that one of these redoubtable critics is thought to have a partiality for breeches of the Dutch make. It is said also that he likes to cut them out for himself, and to have pockets of capacious size, wide and deep; and a large fob, and a large allowance of lining.

The Critic who so very much dislikes the word small-clothes, and argues so vehemently in behalf of breeches, uses no doubt that edition of the scriptures that is known by the name of the Breeches Bible.1

1The Bible here alluded to was the Genevan one, by Rowland Hall, A.D. 1560. It was for many years the most popular one in England, and the notes were great favorites with the religious public, insomuch so that they were attached to a copy of King James' Translation as late as 1715. From the peculiar rendering of Genesis, iii. 7, the Editions of this translation have been commonly known by the name of “Breeches Bibles.”—See Cotton's Various Editions of the Bible, p. 14, and Ames and Herbert, Ed. Dibdin, vol. iv. p. 410.

I ought to be grateful to the Anti-Jacobin Review. It assists in teaching me my duty to my neighbour, and enabling me to live in charity with all men. For I might perhaps think that nothing could be so wrong-headed as Leigh Hunt, so wrong-hearted as Cobbett, so foolish as one, so blackguard as the other, so impudently conceited as both,—if it were not for the Anti-Jacobin. I might believe that nothing could be so bad as the coarse, bloody and brutal spirit of the vulgar Jacobin,—if it were not for the Anti-Jacobin.

Blessings on the man for his love of pure English! It is to be expected that he will make great progress in it, through his familiarity with fishwomen and milk-maids; for it implies no common degree of familiarity with those interesting classes to talk to them about breeches, and discover that they prefer to call them small-clothes.

But wherefore did he not instruct us by which monosyllable he would express the female garment, “which is indeed the sister to a shirt,”—as an old poet says, and which he hath left unnamed,—for there are two by which it is denominated. Such a discussion would be worthy both of his good sense, and his decorous stile.

For my part, instead of expelling the wordchemisefrom use I would have it fairly naturalized.

Many plans have been proposed for reducing our orthography to some regular system, and improving our language in various ways. Mr. Elphinstone, Mr. Pinkerton, and Mr. Spence, the founder of the Spensean Philanthropists, have distinguished themselves in these useful and patriotic projects, and Mr. Pytches is at present in like manner laudably employed,—though that gentleman contents himself with reforming what these bolder spirits would revolutionize. I also would fain contribute to so desirable an end.

We agree that in spelling words it is proper to discard all reference to their etymology. The political reformer would confine the attention of the Government exclusively to what are called truly British objects; and the philological reformers in like manner are desirous of establishing a truly British language.

Upon this principle, I would anglicize the orthography ofchemise;and by improving upon the hint which the word would then offer in its English appearance, we might introduce into our language a distinction of genders—in which it has hitherto been defective. For example,

Hemise and Shemise.

Here without the use of an article, or any change of termination we have the needful distinction made more perspicuously than byóandń,hicandhæc,leandla, or other articles serving for no other purpose.

Again. In letter-writing, every person knows that male and female letters have a distinct sexual character, they should therefore be generally distinguished thus,

Hepistle and Shepistle.

And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two sexes I would propose

Penmanship and Penwomanship.

Erroneous opinions in religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men, the teachers of such false doctrines may be divided into

Heresiarchs and Sheresiarchs,

so that we should speak of

the Heresy of the Quakersthe Sheresy of Joanna Southcote's people.

The troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which every person has experienced, is upon the same principle to be called according to the sex of the patient

Hecups or Shecups,

which upon the principle of making our language truly British is better than the more classical form of

Hiccups and Hæccups.

In its objective use the word becomes

Hiscups or Hercups,

and in like manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the complaint never being masculine.

So also instead of making such words as agreeable, comfortable, &c. adjectives of one termination, I would propose,

These things are suggested as hints to Mr. Pytches, to be by him perpended in his improvement of our Dictionary. I beg leave also to point out for his critical notice the remarkable difference in the meaning of the word misfortune, as applied to man, woman, or child: a peculiarity for which perhaps no parallel is to be found in any other language.

But to return from these philological speculations to the Anti-Jacobin by whom we have been led to them, how is it that this critic, great master as he is of the vulgar tongue, should affirm that breeches is the only word by which this part of a man's dress can be expressed. Had he forgotten that there was such a word as galligaskins?—to say nothing of inexpressibles and dont-mention 'ems. Why also did he forget pantaloons?—and thus the Chapter like a rondeau comes round to St. Pantaleon with whom it began,

Sancte Pantaleon, ora pro nobis!

“Here is another Chapter without a heading,”—the Compositor would have said when he came to this part of the Manuscript, if he had not seen at a glance, that in my great consideration I had said it for him.

Yes, Mr. Compositor! Because of the matter whereon it has to treat, we must, if you please, entitle this an

ARCH-CHAPTER.

A Frenchman once, who was not ashamed of appearing ignorant on such a subject, asked another who with some reputation for classical attainments had not the same rare virtue, what was the difference between Dryads and Hamadryads; and the man of erudition gravely replied that it was much the same as that between Bishops and Archbishops.

I have dignified this Arch-Chapter in its designation, because it relates to the King.

Dr. Gooch, you are hereby requested to order this book for his Majesty's library,

C'est une rare pièce, et digne sur ma foi,Qu'on en fasse présent au cabinet d'un roi.1

1MOLIERE.

Dr. Gooch I have a great respect for you. At the time when there was an intention of bringing a bill into Parliament for emancipating the Plague from the Quarantine Laws, and allowing to the people of Great Britain their long withheld right of having this disease as freely as the small pox, measles and any other infectious malady, you wrote a paper and published it in the Quarterly Review, against that insane intention; proving its insanity so fully by matter of fact, and so conclusively by force of reasoning, that your arguments carried conviction with them, and put an end, for the time, to that part of the emancipating and free trade system.

Dr. Gooch, you have also written a volume of medical treatises of which I cannot speak more highly than by saying, sure I am that if the excellent subject of these my reminiscences were living, he would, for his admiration of those treatises have solicited the pleasure and honour of your acquaintance.

Dr. Gooch, comply with this humble request of a sincere, though unknown admirer, for the sake of your departed brother-in-physic, who, like yourself, brought to the study of the healing art, a fertile mind, a searching intellect and a benevolent heart. More, Dr. G. I might say, and more I would say, but—

Should I say more, you well might censure me(What yet I never was) a flatterer.2

2BEAUMONT ANDFLETCHER.

When the King (God bless his Majesty!) shall peruse this book and be well-pleased therewith, if it should enter into his royal mind to call for his Librarian, and ask of him what honour and dignity hath been done to the author of it, for having delighted the heart of the King, and of so many of his liege subjects, and you shall have replied unto his Majesty, “there is nothing done for him;” then Dr. Gooch when the King shall take it into consideration how to testify his satisfaction with the book, and to manifest his bounty toward the author, you are requested to bear in mind my thoughts upon this weighty matter, of which I shall now proceed to put you in possession.

Should he generously think of conferring upon me the honour of knighthood, or a baronetcy, or a peerage, (Lord Doncaster the title,) or a step in the peerage, according to my station in life, of which you Dr. Gooch can give him no information; or should he meditate the institution of an Order of Merit for men of letters, with an intention of nominating me among the original members, worthy as such intentions would be of his royal goodness, I should nevertheless, for reasons which it is not necessary to explain, deem it prudent to decline any of these honours.

Far be it from me, Dr. Gooch, to wish that the royal apparel should be brought which the King useth to wear, and the horse that the King rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head; and that this apparel and horse should be delivered to the hand of one of the King's most noble princes, that he might array me withal; and bring me on horseback through the streets of London, and proclaim before me, thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour! Such an exhibition would neither accord with this age, nor with the manners of this nation, nor with my humility.

As little should I desire that his Majesty should give orders for me to be clothed in purple, to drink in gold and to sleep upon gold, and to ride in a chariot with bridles of gold, and to have an head-tire of fine linen, and a chain about my neck, and to eat next the King, because of my wisdom, and to be called the King's cousin. For purple garments, Dr. Gooch are not among thepropria quæ maribusin England at this time; it is better to drink in glass than in gold, and to sleep upon a feather bed than upon a golden one; the only head-tire which I wear is my night-cap, I care not therefore for the fineness of its materials; and I dislike for myself chains of any kind.

That his Majesty should think of sending for me to sit next him because of my wisdom, is what he in his wisdom will not do, and what, if he were to do, would not be agreeable to me, in mine. But should the King desire to have me called his Cousin, accompanying that of course with such an appanage as would be seemly for its support, and should he notify that most gracious intention to you his Librarian, and give order that it should be by you inserted in the Gazette,—to the end that the secret which assuredly no sagacity can divine, and no indiscretion will betray, should incontinently thereupon be communicated through you to the royal ear; and that in future editions of this work, the name of the thus honoured author should appear with the illustrious designation, in golden letters of, “by special command of his Majesty,

COUSIN TO THEKING.”

A gracious mandate of this nature, Dr. Gooch, would require a severe sacrifice from my loyal and dutiful obedience. Not that the respectful deference which is due to the royal and noble house of Gloucester should withhold me from accepting the proffered honour: to that house it could be nothing derogatory; the value of their consanguinity would rather be the more manifest, when the designation alone, unaccompanied with rank, was thus rendered by special command purely and singularly honourable. Still less should I be influenced by any apprehension of being confounded in cousinship with Olive, calling herself Princess of Cumberland. Nevertheless let me say, Dr. Gooch, while I am free to say it,—while I am treating of it paulo-post-futuratively, as of a possible case, not as a question brought before me for my prompt and irrevocable answer,—let me humbly say that I prefer the incognito even to this title. It is not necessary, and would not be proper to enter into my reasons for that preference; suffice it that it is my humour (speaking be it observed respectfully, and using that word in its critical and finer sense), that it is the idiosyncrasy of my disposition, the familiar way in which it pleases me innocently to exercise my privilege of free will. It is not a secret which every body knows, which nobody could help knowing and which was the more notoriously known because of its presumed secresy. Incognito I am and wish to be, and incognoscible it is in my power to remain:

He deserves small trust,Who is not privy councillor to himself,

but my secret, (being my own) is, like my life (if that were needed) at the King's service, and at his alone;

Τοῖς κυρίοις γὰρ πάντα χρὴ δηλοῦν λόγον.3

3SOPHOCLES.

Be pleased therefore Dr. Gooch, if his Majesty most graciously and most considerately should ask, what may be done for the man (—meaning me,—) whom the King delighteth to honour;—be pleased, good Dr. Gooch, to represent that the allowance which is usually granted to a retired Envoy, would content his wishes, make his fortunes easy, and gladden his heart;—(Dr. Gooch you will forgive the liberty thus taken with you!)—that “where the word of a King is, there is power,”—that an ostensible reason for granting it may easily be found, a sealed communication from the unknown being made through your hands;—that many Envoys have not deserved it better, and many secret services which have been as largely rewarded have not afforded to the King so much satisfaction;—finally that this instance of royal bounty will not have the effect of directing public suspicion toward the object of that bounty, nor be likely to be barked at by Joseph Hume, Colonel Davies, and Daniel Whittle Harvey!

FOLLY IN PRINT, REFERRED TO, BUT (N.B.) NOT EXEMPLIFIED. THE FAIR MAID OF DONCASTER. DOUBTS CONCERNING THE AUTHENTICITY OF HER STORY. THEVENARD, AND LOVE ON A NEW FOOTING. STARS AND GARTERS, A MONITORY ANECDOTE FOR OUR SEX, AND A WHOLESOME NOVELTY IN DRESS RECOMMENDED TO BOTH.

They be at hand, Sir, with stick and fiddle,They can play a new dance, Sir, called hey, diddle, diddle.KINGCAMBYSES.

You have in the earlier chapters of this Opus, gentle Reader, heard much of the musical history of Doncaster; not indeed as it would have been related by that thoroughly good, fine-ear'd, kind-hearted, open-handed, happiest of musicians and men, Dr. Burney the first; and yet I hope thou mayest have found something in this relation which has been to thy pleasure in reading, and which, if it should be little to thy profit in remembrance, will be nothing to thy hurt. From music to dancing is an easy transition, but do not be afraid that I shall take thee to a Ball,—for I would rather go to the Treading Mill myself.

What I have to say of Doncaster dancing relates to times long before those to which my reminiscences belong.

In a collection of Poems entitled “Folly in Print”—(which title might be sufficiently appropriate for many such collections)—or a Book of Rhymes, printed in 1667, there is a Ballad called the Northern Lass, or the Fair Maid of Doncaster. Neither book or ballad has ever fallen in my way, nor has that comedy of Richard Broome's, which from its name Oldys supposed to have been founded upon the same story. I learn however in a recent and voluminous account of the English Stage from the Revolution (by a gentleman profoundly learned in the most worthless of all literature, and for whom that literature seems to have been quite good enough,) that Broome's play has no connection with the ballad, or with Doncaster. But the note in which Oldys mentions it has made me acquainted with this Fair Maid's propensity for dancing, and with the consequences that it brought upon her. Her name was Betty Maddox; a modern ballad writer would call her Elizabeth, if he adopted the style of the Elizabethan age; or Eliza if his taste inclined to the refinements of modern euphony. When an hundred horsemen wooed her, says Oldys, she conditioned that she would marry the one of them who could dance her down;

You shall decide your quarrel by a dance,1

but she wearied them all; and they left her a maid for her pains.

Legiadria suos fervabat tanta per artus,Ut quæcunque potest fieri saltatio per nosHumanos, agili motu fiebat ab illâ.2

1DRYDEN.

2MACARONICA.

At that dancing match they must have footed it till, as is said in an old Comedy, a good country lass's capermonger might have been able to copy the figure of the dance from the impressions on the pavement.

For my own part I do not believe it to be a true story; they who please may. Was there one of the horsemen but would have said on such occasion, with the dancing Peruvians in one of Davenant's operatic dramas,

Still round and round and round,Let us compass the ground.What man is he who feelsAny weight at his heels,Since our hearts are so light, that, all weigh'd together,Agree to a grain, and they weigh not a feather.

I disbelieve it altogether, and not for its want of verisimilitude alone, but because when I was young there was no tradition of any such thing in the town where the venue of the action is laid; and therefore I conjecture that it is altogether a fictitious story, and may peradventure have been composed as a lesson for some young spinster whose indefatigable feet made her the terror of all partners.

The Welsh have a saying that if a woman were as quick with her feet as her tongue, she would catch lightning enough to kindle the fire in the morning; it is a fanciful saying, as many of the Welsh sayings are. But if Miss Maddox had been as quick with her tongue as her feet, instead of dancing an hundred horsemen down, she might have talked their hundred horses to death.

Why it was a greater feat than that of Kempe the actor, who in the age of odd performance danced from London to Norwich. He was nine days in dancing the journey and published an account of it under the title of his “Nine Day's Wonder.”3It could have been no “light fantastic toe” that went through such work; but one fit for the roughest game at football. At sight of the aweful foot to which it belonged, Cupid would have fled with as much reason as the Dragon of Wantley had for turning tail when Moor of Moor Hall with his spiked shoe-armour pursued him. He would have fled before marriage, for fear of being kicked out of the house after it. They must have been feet that instead of gliding and swimming, and treading the grass so trim, went as the old Comedy says lumperdee, clumperdee.4

3Webster's Westward Ho. Act. v. Sc. i.—Anno 1600.

4RALPHROISTERDOISTER.

The Northern Lass was in this respect no Cinderella. Nor would any one, short of an Irish Giant have fallen in love with her slipper, as Thevenard the singer did with that which he saw by accident at a shoe-maker's, and enquiring for what enchanting person it was made, and judging of this earthly Venus as the proportions of Hercules have been estimatedex pede, sought her out, for love of her foot, commenced his addresses to her, and obtained her hand in marriage.

The story of Thevenard is true, at least it has been related and received as such; this of the Fair Maid of Doncaster is not evenben trovato. Who indeed shall persuade me, or who indeed will be persuaded, that if she had wished to drop the title of spinster and take her matrimonial degree, she would not have found some good excuse for putting an end to the dance when she had found a partner to her liking? A little of that wit which seldom fails a woman when it is needed, would have taught her how to do this with a grace, and make it appear that she was still an invincible dancer, though the Stars had decreed that in this instance she should lose the honour of the dance. Some accident might have been feigned like those by which the ancient epic poets, and their imitators contrive in their Games to disappoint those who are on the point of gaining the prize which is contended for.

If the Stars had favoured her, they might have predestined her to meet with such an accident as befel a young lady in the age of minuets. She was led out in a large assembly by her partner, the object of all eyes; and when the music began and the dance should have began also, and he was in motion, she found herself unable to move from the spot, she remained motionless for a few seconds, her colour changed from rose to ruby, presently she seemed about to faint, fell into the arms of those who ran to support her, and was carried out of the room. The fit may have been real, for though nothing ailed her, yet what had happened was enough to make any young woman faint in such a place. It was something far more embarrassing than the mishap against which Soame Jenyns cautions the ladies when he says,

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