Chapter 3

SENECA.

For what use were our tongues given us? To speak with, to be sure, will be the immediate reply of many a reader. But Master, Mistress, Miss or Master Speaker (whichever you may happen to be), I beg leave to observe that this is only one of the uses for which that member was formed, and that for this alone it has deserved to be called an unruly member, it is not its primary, nor by any means its most important use. For what use was it given to thy labourer the ox, thy servant the horse, thy friend,—if thou deservest to have such a friend,—the dog,—thy playfellow the kitten,—and thy cousin the monkey?1

1Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia notis.ENNIUS.

In another place I shall answer my own question, which was asked in this place, because it is for my present purpose to make it appear that the tongue although a very convenient instrument of speech, is not necessary for it.

It is related in Gibbon's great history, a work which can never be too highly praised for its ability, nor too severely condemned for the false philosophy which pervades it, that the Catholics, inhabitants of Tipasa, a maritime colony of Mauritania, were by command of the Arian King, Hunneric, Genseric's detestable son and successor, assembled on the forum, and there deprived of their right hands and their tongues. “But the holy confessors,” he proceeds to say, “continued to speak without tongues; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published an history of the persecution within two years after the event. ‘If any one,’ says Victor, ‘should doubt of the truth, let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language of Restitutus, the subdeacon, one of these glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the Emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout Empress.’ At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, an unexceptionable witness, without interest and without passion. Æneas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations on these African sufferers. ‘I saw them myself: I heard them speak: I diligently enquired by what means such an articulate voice could be formed without any organ of speech: I used my eyes to examine the report of my ears: I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been completely torn away by the roots; an operation which the physicians generally suppose to be mortal.’ The testimony of Æneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the superfluous evidence of the Emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict; of Count Marcellinus in his Chronicles of the times; and of Pope Gregory the first, who had resided at Constantinople as the minister of the Roman Pontiff. They all lived within the compass of a century, and they all appeal to their personal knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle, which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and submitted during a series of years, to the calm examination of the senses.” He adds in a note that “the miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of a boy who hadneverspoken before his tongue was cut out.”

Now comes the unbelieving historian's comment. He says, “this supernatural gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will command the assent of those, and of those only, who already believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But the stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by secret, incurable suspicion; and the Arian, or Socinian, who has seriously rejected the doctrines of the Trinity, will not be shaken by the most plausible evidence of an Athanasian miracle.”

Well has the sceptical historian applied the epithet stubborn to a mind affected with the same disease as his own,

Oh dear unbeliefHow wealthy dost thou make thy owner's wit!Thou train of knowledge, what a privilegeThou givest to thy possessor! anchorest himFrom floating with the tide of vulgar faithFrom being damn'd with multitudes!2

2MARSTON.

Gibbon would not believe the story because it had been adduced as a miracle in confirmation of the Catholic doctrine as opposed to the Arian heresy. He might probably have questioned the relation between the alleged miracle and the doctrine: and if he had argued that it is not consistent with the plan of revelation (so far as we may presume to reason upon it) for a miracle to be wrought in proof of a doctrinal point, a Christian who believes sincerely in that very doctrine might agree with him.

But the circumstances are attested, as he fairly admits, by the most ample and unexceptionable testimony; and like the Platonic philosopher whose evidence he quotes, he ought to have considered the matter of fact, without regard to the application which the Catholics, in perfect good faith, made of it. The story is true, but it is not miraculous.

Cases which demonstrate the latter part of this question were known to physiologists before a book was published at Paris in the year 1765, the title of which I find in Mr. D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, thus translated; “The Christian Religion proved by a single fact; or a Dissertation in which is shown that those Catholics whose tongues Hunneric King of the Vandals cut out, spoke miraculously all the remainder of their days: from whence is deduced the consequence of the miracle against the Arians, the Socinians and the Deists, and particularly against the author of Emilius, by solving their difficulties.” It bears this mottoEcce Ego admirationem facio populo huic, miraculo grandi et stupendo. And Mr. D'Israeli closes his notice of the Book by saying “there needs no farther account of it than the title.” That gentleman who has contributed so much to the instruction and entertainment of his contemporaries, will I am sure be pleased at perusing the facts in disproof of the alleged miracle, brought together here by one who as a Christian believes in miracles and that they have not ceased, and that they never will cease.

In the Philosophical Transactions, and in the Gentleman's Magazine is an account of a woman, Margaret Cutting by name, who about the middle of the last century was living at Wickham Market in Suffolk. When she was four years of age “a cancer ate off her tongue at the root, yet she never lost the power of speech, and could both read distinctly afterwards and sing.” Her speech was very intelligible, but it was a little through the nose owing to the want of the uvula; and her voice was low. In this case a new tongue had been formed, about an inch and half in length and half an inch broad; but this did not grow till some years after the cure.

Upon the publication of this case it was observed that some few instances of a like nature had been recorded; and one in particular by Tulpius of a man whom he had himself examined, who having had his tongue cut out by the Turks, could after three years speak distinctly. One of the persons who published an account of this woman saw several men upon whom the same act of cruelty had been committed by these barbarians or by the Algerines: “one of them,” says he, “aged thirty-three, wrote a good hand, and by that means answered my questions. He informed me that he could not pronounce a syllable, nor make any articulate sound; though he had often observed that those who suffered that treatment when they were very young, were some years after able to speak; and that their tongues might be observed to grow in proportion to the other parts of the body: but that if they were adults, or full grown persons, at the time of the operation, they were never able to utter a syllable. The truth of this observation was confirmed to me by the two following cases. Patrick Strainer and his son-in-law came to Harwich, in their way to Holland, the third of this month. I made it my business to see and examine them. The father told me he had his tongue cut out by the Algerines, when he was seven years of age: and that some time after he was able to pronounce many syllables, and can now speak most words tolerably well; his tongue, he said, was grown at least half an inch. The son-in-law, who is about thirty years of age, was taken by the Turks, who cut out his tongue; he cannot pronounce a syllable; nor is his tongue grown at all since the operation; which was more than five years ago.”

Sir John Malcolm in one of his visits to Persia, became acquainted with Zâl Khan of Khist, who “was long distinguished as one of the bravest and most attached followers of the Zend family. When the death of Lootf Ali Khan terminated its powers, he along with the other governors of provinces and districts in Furs, submitted to Aza Mahomed Khan. That cautious and cruel monarch, dreading the ability, and doubtful of the allegiance of this chief, ordered his eyes to be put out. An appeal for the recall of the sentence being treated with disdain, Zâl Khan loaded the tyrant with curses. ‘Cut out his tongue,’ was the second order. The mandate was imperfectly executed, and the loss of half this member deprived him of speech. Being afterwards persuaded that its being cut close to the root would enable him to speak so as to be understood, he submitted to the operation; and the effect has been, that his voice, though indistinct and thick, is yet intelligible to persons accustomed to converse with him. This I experienced from daily intercourse. He often spoke to me of his sufferings and of the humanity of the present King, who had restored him to his situation as head of his tribe, and governor of Khist.—I am not an anatomist,” Sir John adds, “and cannot therefore give a reason why a man, who could not articulate with half a tongue, should speak when he had none at all. But the facts are as stated; and I had them from the very best authority, old Zâl Khan himself.”3

3This account of Zâl Khan, (Mrs. Southey writes me word) was farther confirmed by the testimony of Mr. Bruce, her relative, who knew him and hadlookedinto the tongue-less mouth. Mr. Bruce was well acquainted with another person who had undergone the same cruel punishment. Being a wealthy man, he bribed the executioner to spare a considerable portion of the tongue; but finding that he could not articulate a word with the imperfect member, he had it entirely extracted—root and all, and then spoke almost as intelligibly as before his punishment.

This person was well known at Calcutta, as well as at Bushire and Shiraz—where Mr. Bruce first became acquainted with him. He was a man of some consequence and received as such in the first circles at Calcutta, and it was in one of those—a dinner party—that on the question being warmly argued—as to the possibility of articulation after the extraction of the tongue, he opened his mouth and desired the company assembled to look into it, and so set their doubts on the matter for ever at rest.

A case occurred in the household of that Dr. Mark Duncan whom our James I. would have engaged as his Physician in ordinary, but Duncan having married at Saumur and settled in that city declined the invitation, because his wife was unwilling to leave her friends and relations and her native place. Yielding therefore as became him to her natural and reasonable reluctance he passed the remainder of his useful and honourable life at Saumur. It is noticed as a remarkable circumstance that the five persons of whom his family consisted died and were interred in as many different kingdoms, one in France, another at Naples, a third at Stockholm, a fourth in London, and the fifth in Ireland. A son of Duncan's valet, in his thirteenth year lost his tongue by the effects of the small-pox, the root being so consumed by this dreadful disease, that in a fit of coughing it came away. The boy's speech was no otherwise affected by the loss than that he found it difficult to pronounce the letter r. He was exhibited throughout Europe, and lived long afterwards. A surgeon at Saumur composed a treatise upon the case, and Duncan who was then Principal of the College in that city supplied him with this title for it Aglossostomographie. A rival physician published a dissertation to prove that it ought to be Aglossostomatographie, and he placed these verses at the conclusion of this odd treatise.

Lecteur, tu t'esmerveillerasQu'un garçon qui n'a point de langue,Prononce bien une harangue;Mais bien plus tu t'estonnerasQu'un barbier que ne sçait pas lireLe grec, se mesle d'en escrire.Que si ce plaisant épigramme,Doux fruit d'un penser de mon âmeTe semble n'aller pas tant mal,C'est que je l'ai fait à cheval.

Quelques gens malins changerent le dernier vers dans les exemplaires qu'ils purent trouver, et y mirent—C'est que je l'ai fait en cheval.

The reader who thinks upon what he reads, will find some materials for thinking on, in what has here been collected for him. First as to the physical facts:—they show that the power of reproduction exists in the human body, in a greater degree than has been commonly supposed. But it is probable that this power would be found only in young subjects, or in adults whose constitutions were unusually healthful and vigorous. A very small proportion of the snails which have been decapitated by experimental physiologists, have reproduced their heads; though the fact of such reproduction is certainly established.

Rhazes records two cases which had fallen under his own observation; in one of which the tibia, in the other the underjaw had been reproduced; neither acquired the consistency of the other bones. The Doctor used to adduce these cases in support of a favourite theory of his own, with which the reader will in due time be made acquainted.

Secondly, there is a moral inference to be drawn from the effect which the story produced upon Gibbon. He could not invalidate, or dispute the testimony upon which it came before him; but he chose to disbelieve it. For he was ignorant that the facts might be physically true, and he would not on any evidence give credit to what appeared miraculous. A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom, or even to knowledge, as a stubborn temper to happiness.

A LAW OF ALFRED'S AGAINST LYING TONGUES. OBSERVATIONS ON LAX ONES.

As I have gained no small satisfaction to myself,—so I am desirous that nothing that occurs here may occasion the least dissatisfaction to others. And I think it will be impossible any thing should, if they will be but pleased to take notice of my design.

HENRYMORE.

If the laws of our great Alfred, whose memory is held in such veneration by all who are well acquainted with his history, and his extraordinary virtues, and whose name has been so often taken in vain by speculative reformers who were ignorant of the one, and incapable of estimating the other;—if the laws of Alfred, I say, had continued in use, everything relating to the reproduction of human tongues would long before this time have been thoroughly understood; for by those laws any one who broached a public falsehood, and persisted in it, was to have his tongue cut out; and this punishment might not be commuted for any smaller fine than that at which the life of the criminal would have been rated.

The words of the law are these:

DE RUMORIBUS FICTITIIS.

Si quis publicum mendacium confingat, et ille in eo firmetur, nullâ levi re hoc emendet, sed lingua ei excidatur; nec minori precio redimi liceat, quam juxta capitis æstimationem censebatur.

What a wholesome effect might such a law have produced upon orators at public meetings, upon the periodical press, and upon the debates in Parliament.

“I am charmed,” says Lady M. W. Montague, “with many points of the Turkish law, to our shame be it spoken, better designed and better executed than ours; particularly the punishment of convicted liars (triumphant criminals in our country, God knows!): they are burnt in the forehead with a hot iron, when they are proved the authors of any notorious falsehoods. How many white foreheads should we see disfigured, how many fine gentlemen would be forced to wear their wigs as low as their eyebrows, were this law in practice with us!”

But who can expect that human laws should correct that propensity in the wicked tongue! They who have “the poison of asps under their lips,” and “which have said with our tongues will we prevail; we are they that ought to speak: who is lord over us?”—they who “love to speak all words that may do hurt, and who cut with lies like a sharp razor”—what would they care for enactments which they would think either to evade by their subtlety, or to defy in the confidence of their numbers and their strength? Is it to be expected that those men should regard the laws of their country, who set at nought the denunciations of scripture, and will not “keep their tongues from evil, and their lips that they speak no guile,” though they have been told that it is “he who hath used no deceit in his tongue and hath not slandered his neighbour, who shall dwell in the tabernacle of the Lord, and rest upon his holy hill!”

Leave we them to their reward, which is as certain as that men shall be judged according to their deeds. Our business is with the follies of the unruly member, not with its sins: with loquacious speakers and verbose writers, those whose “tongues are gentlemen-ushers to their wit, and still go before it,”1who never having studied theexponibilia, practice the art of battology by intuition; and in a discourse which might make the woeful hearer begin to fear that he had entered unawares upon eternity, bring forth, “as a man would say in a word of two syllables, nothing.”1The West Britons had in their own Cornish language this good proverbial rhyme, (the—graphy whereof, be it ortho or not is Mr. Polwhele's),

An lavor goth ewe lavar gwir,Ne vedn nevera doaz vas a tavaz re hir.The old saying is a true saying,Never will come good from a tongue too long.

Oh it is a grievous thing to listen, or seem to listen, as one is constrained to do, sometimes by the courtesy of society, and sometimes by “the law of sermon,” to an unmerciful manufacturer of speech, who before he ever arrives at the empty matter of his discourse,

no puede—dexar—de decir—antes,—siguieraquatro, o cinco mil palabras!2

1BENJONSON.

2CALDERON.

Vossius mentions three authors, who, to use Bayle's language,—for in Bayle the extract is found,enfermaient de grands riens dans une grande multitude de paroles. Anaximenes the orator was one; when he was about to speak, Theocritus of Chios said, “here begins a river of words and a drop of sense,”—Ἄρχεται λέξεων μὲν ποταμὸς, νοῦ δὲ σταλαγμός.Longolius, an orator of the lower Empire was the second. The third was Faustus Andrelinus, Professor of Poetry at Paris, andPoeta Laureatus:of him Erasmusdicitur dixisse,—is said to have said, that there was but one thing wanting in all his poems and that thing was comprised in one word of one syllable,Νοῦς.

It were better to be remembered as Bayle has remembered Petrus Carmilianus, because of the profound obscurity in which this pitiful poet was buried, than thus to be thought worthy of remembrance only for having produced a great deal that deserved to be forgotten. There is, or was, an officer of the Exchequer called Clericus Nihilorum, or Clerk of the Nihils. If there were a High Court of Literature with such an officer on its establishment, it would be no sinecure office for him in these, or in any days, to register the names of those authors who have written to no purpose, and the titles of those books from which nothing is to be learnt.

On ne vid jamais,says the Sieur de Brocourt,homme qui ne die plustost trop, que moins qu'il ne doit; et jamais parole proferée ne servit tant, comme plusieurs teuës ont profite; car tousjours pouvons-nous bien dire ce qu'avons teu, et non pas taire ce qu'avons publié.The latter part of this remark is true; the former is far too general. For more harm is done in public life by the reticence of well informed men, than by the loquacity of sciolists; more by the timidity and caution of those who desire at heart the good of their country, than by the audacity of those who labour to overthrow its constitutions. It was said in the days of old, that “a man full of words shall not prosper upon the earth.”Mais nous avons changé tout cela.

Even in literature a leafy style, if there be any fruit under the foliage, is preferable to a knotty one, however fine the grain. Whipt cream is a good thing; and better still when it covers and adorns that amiable combination of sweetmeats and ratafia cakes soaked in wine, to which Cowper likened his delightful poem, when he thus described the “Task.” “It is a medley of many things, some that may be useful, and some that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I am merry that I may decoy people into my company, and grave that they may be the better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of a philosopher, and take the opportunity that disguise procures me, to drop a word in favour of religion. In short there is some froth, and here and there a bit of sweetmeat, which seems to entitle it justly to the name of a certain dish the ladies call a Trifle.” But in Task or Trifle unless the ingredients were good, the whole were nought. They who should present to their deceived guests whipt white of egg, would deserve to be whipt themselves.

If there be any one who begins to suspect that in tasking myself, and trifling with my reader, my intent is not unlike Cowper's, he will allow me to say to him, “by your leave Master Critic, you must give me license to flourish my phrases, to embellish my lines, to adorn my oratory, to embroider my speeches, to interlace my words, to draw out my sayings, and to bombard the whole suit of the business for the time of your wearing.”3

3TAYLOR, the Water Poet.

WHETHER A MAN AND HIMSELF BE TWO.—MAXIM OF BAYLE'S.—ADAM LITTLETON'S SERMONS,—A RIGHT HEARTED OLD DIVINE WITH WHOM THE AUTHOR HOPES TO BE BETTER ACQUAINTED IN A BETTER WORLD.—THE READER REFERRED TO HIM FOR EDIFICATION.—WHY THE AUTHOR PURCHASED HIS SERMONS.

Parolles.Go to, thou art a witty fool, I have found thee.

Clown.Did you find me in yourself, Sir? or were you taught to find me? The search, Sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of laughter.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

“Whether this author means to make his Doctor more fool or philosopher, is more than I can discover,” says a grave reader, who lays down the open book, and knits his brow while he considers the question.

Makehim, good Reader! I,makehim!—make “the noblest work of”——But as the Spaniards say,el creer es cortesia, and it is at your pleasure either to believe the veracity of these biographical sketches, or to regard them as altogether fictitious. It is at your pleasure, I say; not at your peril: but take heed how you exercise that pleasure in cases which are perilous! The worst that can happen to you for disbelief in this matter is, that I shall give you little credit for courtesy, and less for discrimination; and in Doncaster you will be laughed to scorn. You might as well proclaim at Coventry your disbelief in the history of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom; or tell the Swiss that their tale of shooting the apple on the child's head was an old story before William Tell was born.

But perhaps you did not mean to express any such groundless incredulity, your doubt may be whether I represent or consider my friend as having in his character a larger portion of folly or of philosophy?

This you might determine, Reader, for yourself, if I could succeed in delineating him to the life,—the inner I mean, not the outward man,

Et en peu de papier, comme sur un tableau,Vous pourtraire au naïf tout son bon, et son beau.1He was the soul of goodness,And all our praises of him are like streamsDrawn from a spring, that still rise full, and leaveThe part remaining greatest.

But the Duchess of Newcastle hath decided in her philosophy that it is not possible for any one person thoroughly to understand the character of another. In her own words, “if the Mind was not joined and mixed with the sensitive and inanimate parts, and had not interior as well as exterior parts, the whole Mind of one man might perceive the whole Mind of another man; but that being not possible—one whole Mind cannot perceive another whole Mind.” By which observation we may perceive there are no Platonic Lovers in Nature. An odd conclusion of her Grace's, and from odd premises. But she was an odd personage.

1PASQUIER.

So far however the beautiful and fanciful as well as fantastic Duchess is right, that the more congenial the disposition of two persons who stand upon the same intellectual level, the better they understand each other. The lower any one is sunk in animal life the less is he capable of apprehending the motives and views of those who have cultivated the better part of their nature.

If I am so unfortunate as to fail in producing the moral likeness which I am endeavouring to pourtray, it will not be owing to any want of sympathy with the subject in some of the most marked features of his character.

It is a maxim of Bayle'squ'il n'y a point de grand esprit dans le caractère du quel il n'entre un peu de folie.And he named Diogenes as one proof of this. Think indeed somewhat more than a little upon the words folly and philosophy, and if you can see any way into a mist, or a stone wall, you will perceive that the same radicals are found in both.

This sort of mixt character was never more whimsically described than by Andrew Erskine in one of his letters to Boswell, in which he tells him, “since I saw you I received a letter from Mr. D——; it is filled with encomiums upon you; he says there is a great deal of humility in your vanity, a great deal of tallness in your shortness, and a great deal of whiteness in your black complexion. He says there's a great deal of poetry in your prose, and a great deal of prose in your poetry. He says that as to your late publication, there is a great deal of Ode in your Dedication, and a great deal of Dedication in your Ode. He says there is a great deal of coat in your waistcoat, and a great deal of waistcoat in your coat, that there is a great deal of liveliness in your stupidity, and a great deal of stupidity in your liveliness. But to write you all he says would require rather more fire in my grate than there is at present, and my fingers would undoubtedly be numbed, for there is a great deal of snow in this frost, and a great deal of frost in this snow.”

The Marquis de Custine in a book which in all its parts, wise or foolish, strikingly characterises its author, describes himself thus:J'ai un mélange de gravitê et de légèreté qui m' empêchera de devenir autre chose qu'un vieil enfant bien triste. Si je suis destiné à éprouver de grands malheurs, j'aurai l'occasion de remercier Dieu de m' avoir fait naitre avec cette disposition à la fois sérieuse et frivole: le sérieux m' aidera à me passer du monde—l'enfantillage à supporter le douleur. C'est à quoi il réussit meux que la raison.

Un peu de folie, there certainly was in thegrand espritof my dear master and more thanun peuthere is in his faithful pupil. But I shall not enter into a discussion whether the gravity of which the Marquis speaks preponderated in his character, or whether it was more than counterpoised by the levity. Enough of the latter, thank Heaven enters into my own composition not only to preserve me from becomingun vieil enfant bien triste, but to entitle me in all innocent acceptance of the phrase to the appellation of a merry old boy, that is to say, merry at becoming times, there being a time for all things. I shall not enter into the discussion as it concerns my guide, philosopher and friend, because it would be altogether unnecessary; he carried ballast enough, whatever I may do. The elements were so happily mixed in him that though Nature did not stand up and say to all the world “this is a man,” because such a miracle could neither be in the order of Nature or of Providence;—I have thought it my duty to sit down and say to the public this was a Doctor.

There is another reason why I shall refrain from any such enquiry; and that reason may be aptly given in the words of a right-hearted old divine, with whom certain congenialities would lead my friend to become acquainted in that world, where I also hope in due season to meet and converse with him.

“People,” says Adam Littleton, “are generally too forward in examining others, and are so taken up with impertinence and things that do not concern them, that they have no time to be acquainted with themselves; like idle travellers, that can tell you a world of stories concerning foreign countries, and are very strangers at home. Study of ourselves is the most useful knowledge, as that without which we can know neither God nor any thing else aright, as we should know them.

“And it highly concerns us to know ourselves well; nor will our ignorance be pardonable, but prove an everlasting reproach, in that we and ourselves are to be inseparable companions in bliss or torment to all eternity: and if we, through neglect of ourselves here, do not in time provide for that eternity, so as to secure for ourselves future happiness, God will at last make us know ourselves, when it will be too late to make any good use of that knowledge, but a remediless repentance that we and ourselves ever met in company; when poor ruined self shall curse negligent sinful self to all ages, and wish direful imprecations upon that day and hour that first joined them together.

“Again, God has given man that advantage above all other creatures, that he can with reflex acts look back and pass judgement upon himself. But seeing examination here supposes two persons, the one to examine, the other to be examined, and yet seems to name but one, a man to examine himself; unless a man and himself be two, and thus every one of us have two selfs in him; let us first examine who 'tis here is to execute the office of examinant, and then who 'tis that is to be the party examined.

“Does the whole man in this action go over himself by parts? Or does the regenerate part call the unregenerate part to account? Or if there be a divided self in every man, does one self examine the other self, as to wit, the spiritual self, the carnal self? Or is it some one faculty in a man, by which a man brings all his other faculties and parts to trial,—such a one as the conscience may be? If so, how then is conscience itself tried, having no Peers to be tried by, as being superior to all other human powers, and calling them all to the barr?”

Here let me interpose a remark. Whether a man and himself be two must be all one in the end; but woe to that house in which the man and his wife are!

The end of love is to have two made oneIn will, and in affection.2

2BENJONSON.

The old Lexicographer answers his own question thus: “Why, yes; I do think 'tis the conscience of a man which examines the man, and every part of him, both spiritual and carnal, as well regenerate as unregenerate, and itself and all. For hence it was calledconscientia, as being that faculty by which a man becomes conscious to himself, and is made knowing together with himself of all that good and evil that lies working in his nature, and has been brought forth in his actions. And this is not only the Register, and Witness and Judge of all parts of man, and of all that they do, but is so impartial an officer also, that it will give a strict account of all itself at any time does,accusingorexcusingeven itself in every motion of its own.”

Reader I would proceed with this extract, were it not for its length. The application which immediately follows it, is eloquently and forcibly made, and I exhort thee if ever thou comest into a library where Adam Littleton's Sermons are upon the shelf,

lookNoton, butinthis Thee-concerning book!3

Take down the goodly tome, and turn to the sermon of Self-Examination, preached before the (Royal) Family at Whitehall, March 3, 1677-8. You will find this passage in the eighty-sixth page of the second paging, and I advice you to proceed with it to the end of the Discourse.

3SIRWILLIAMDENNY.

I will tell the reader for what reason I purchased that goodly tome. It was because of my grateful liking for the author, from the end of whose dictionary I, like Daniel in his boyhood, derived more entertainment and information to boot, than from any other book which, in those days, came within the walls of a school. That he was a truly learned man no one who ever used that dictionary could doubt, and if there had not been oddity enough in him to give his learning a zest, he never could have compounded an appellation for the Monument, commemorating in what he calls an heptastic vocable,—which may be interpreted a seven-leagued word,—the seven Lord Mayors of London under whose mayoralities the construction of that lying pillar went on from its commencement to its completion. He called it, the Fordo-Watermanno-Hansono-Hookero-Vinero-Sheldono-Davisian pillar.

I bought the book for the author's sake,—which in the case of a living author is a proper and meritorious motive, and in the case of one who is dead, may generally be presumed to be a wise one. It proved so in this instance. For though there is nothing that bears the stamp of oddity in his sermons, there is much that is sterling. They have a merit of their own, and it is of no mean degree. Their manner is neither Latimerist nor Andrewesian, nor Fullerish, nor Cotton-Matherish, nor Jeremy Taylorish, nor Barrowish, nor Southish, but Littletonian. They are full of learning, of wisdom, of sound doctrine, and of benevolence, and of earnest and persuasive piety. No one who had ears to hear could have slept under them, and few could have listened to them without improvement.

ADAM LITTLETON'S STATEMENT THAT EVERY MAN IS MADE UP OF THREE EGOS,—DEAN YOUNG—DISTANCE BETWEEN A MAN'S HEAD AND HIS HEART.

Perhaps when the Reader considers the copiousness of the argument, he will rather blame me for being too brief than too tedious.

DR. JOHNSCOTT.

In the passage quoted from Adam Littleton in the preceding chapter, that good old divine enquired whether a man and himself were two. A Moorish prince in the most extravagant of Dryden's extravagant tragedies, (they do not deserve to be called romantic,) agrees with him, and exclaims to his confidential friend,

Assist me Zulema, if thou wouldst beThe friend thou seem'st, assist me against me.

Machiavel says of Cosmo de Medici that who ever considered his gravity and his levity might say there were two distinct persons in him.

“There is often times,” says Dean Young, (father of the poet) “a prodigious distance betwixt a man's head and his heart; such a distance that they seem not to have any correspondence; not to belong to the same person, not to converse in the same world. Our heads are sometimes in Heaven, contemplating the nature of God, the blessedness of Saints, the state of eternity; while our hearts are held captive below in a conversation earthly, sensual, devilish. 'Tis possible we may sometimes commend virtue convincingly, unanswerably; and yet our own hearts be never affected by our own arguments; we may represent vice in her native dress of horror, and yet our hearts be not at all startled with their own menaces: We may study and acquaint ourselves with all the truths of religion, and yet all this out of curiosity, or hypocrisy, or ostentation; not out of the power of godliness, or the serious purpose of good living. All which is a sufficient proof that the consent of the Head and of the Heart are two different things.”

Dean Young may seem in this passage to have answered Adam the Lexicographist's query in the affirmative, by shewing that the head belongs sometimes to one Self and the heart to the other. Yet these two Selves, notwithstanding this continual discord, are so united in matrimony, and so inseparably made one flesh, that it becomes another query whether death itself can part them.

The aforesaid Dean concludes one of his Discourses with the advice of an honest heathen.Learn to be one Man;that is, learn to live and act alike. For says he, “while we act from contrary principles; sometimes give, and sometimes defraud; sometimes love and sometimes betray; sometimes are devout, and sometimes careless of God; this is to betwoMen, which is a foolish aim, and always ends in loss of pains. ‘No,’ says wise Epictetus, ‘Learn to be one Man,’ thou mayest be a good man; or thou mayest be a bad man, and that to the purpose; but it is impossible that thou shouldst be both. And here the Philosopher had the happiness to fall in exactly with the notion of my text.We cannot serve two Masters.”

But in another sermon Adam Littleton says that “every man is made of three Egos, and has three Selfs in him;” and that this “appears in the reflection of Conscience upon actions of a dubious nature; whilst one Self accuses, another Self defends, and the third Self passes judgement upon what hath been so done by the man!” This he adduced as among various “mean and unworthy comparisons, whereby to show that though the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity” far exceeds our reason, there want not natural instances to illustrate it. But he adds most properly that we should neither “say or think ought of God in this kind,” without a preface of reverence and asking pardon; “for it is sufficient for us and most suitable to the mystery, so to conceive, so to discourse of God, as He himself has been pleased to make Himself known to us in his Word.”

If all theologians had been as wise, as humble and as devout as Adam Littleton, from how many heresies and evils might Christendom have been spared.

In the Doctor's own days the proposition was advanced, and not as a paradox, that a man might be in several places at the same time.Presence corporelle de l'homme en plusieurs lieux prouvée possible par les principes de la bonne Philosophie, is the title of a treatise by the Abbé de Lignac, who having been first a Jesuit, and then an Oratorian, secularized himself without departing from the principles in which he had been trained up. The object of his treatise was to show that there is nothing absurd in the doctrine of Transubstantiation. He made a distinction between man and his body, the body being always in a state of change, the man remaining the while identically the same. But how his argument that because a worm may be divided and live, the life which animated it while it was whole, continues a single life when it animates all the parts into which the body may have separated, proves his proposition, or how his proposition if proved could prove the hyper-mysterious figment of the Romish Church to be no figment, but a divine truth capable of philosophical demonstration, Œdipus himself were he raised from the dead would be unable to explain.

EQUALITY OF THE SEXES,—A POINT ON WHICH IT WAS NOT EASY TO COLLECT THE DOCTOR'S OPINION.—THE SALIC LAW.—DANIEL ROGERS'S TREATISE OF MATRIMONIAL HONOUR.—MISS HATFIELD'S LETTERS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FEMALE SEX, AND LODOVICO DOMENICHI'S DIALOGUE UPON THE NOBLENESS OF WOMEN.

Mirths and toysTo cozen time withal: for o' my troth, SirI can love,—I think well too,—well enough;And think as well of women as they are,—Pretty fantastic things, some more regardful,And some few worth a service. I'm so honestI wish 'em all in Heaven and you know how hard, Sir,'Twill be to get in there with their great farthingals.BEAUMONTand FLETCHER.And not much easier now with their great sleeves.AUTHOR, A.D. 1830.

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