Bene navis agitatur—pulcre hæc confertur ratisSed conticiscam: nam audio operiri fores.CHAPTER XVIII.
Bene navis agitatur—pulcre hæc confertur ratisSed conticiscam: nam audio operiri fores.
Bene navis agitatur—pulcre hæc confertur ratisSed conticiscam: nam audio operiri fores.
Bene navis agitatur—pulcre hæc confertur ratisSed conticiscam: nam audio operiri fores.
Bene navis agitatur—pulcre hæc confertur ratis
Sed conticiscam: nam audio operiri fores.
We are again carried back to a remoter period; but these inequalities, with respect to chronology, merely serve to confirm the opinion long since given, that had life been spared, and opportunity allowed, the Sexagenarian meditated a compact and regular whole.
In the part of the manuscript at which we are now arrived, are many observations and anecdotes of an eccentric, but well-known character, of considerable reputation for science in his day, an excellent antiquary, a polite scholar, and accomplished gentleman.
Such was E. K⸺, of M⸺ S⸺. His taste was acute, refined, and multifarious, his knowledge great and extensive, and on certain subjects profound. He possessed some of the finest bronzes in the world, a few exceedingly valuable pictures, beautiful specimens of Orientalcuriosities, and more particularly of rare and old china, and above all, a most numerous, well-chosen, and costly library. He was bred to the profession of the law, but becoming, by the death of a relation, possessed of such property as made the continuance of his professional labours unnecessary, he retired from it, and afterwards pursued a life of literary ease and leisure.
He kept a hospitable table, to which he frequently invited the more distinguished literary characters of the country. To these he always shewed kindness and to some whose more necessitous circumstances required it, he communicated more substantial assistance. In the margin opposite to the place where the above sentence appears, the Sexagenarian had written with a note of admiration thus—“We are a needy crew!”
One in particular, a foreigner, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and had contributed very largely to the Philosophical Transactions, and was also the author of many curious and profound works on philosophy and chemistry, had perpetual welcome at his table, and received various proofs of more solid regard.
His liberality also in accommodating those who were not fortunate enough to possess literary stores, equal to his own, with the loan of his treasures, and his readiness of communicating what he knewto those who required it, were equally prompt, kind, and conspicuous.
He had, during that season of the year when the provinces pour their more opulent, refined and enlightened inhabitants into the bosom of the metropolis, weekly meetings of learned and eminent men, among whom were always to be found some of the most distinguished characters of the country.
He had much ardour of curiosity with respect to discoveries and observations in foreign and remote countries, and particularly directed his attention towards Africa. He was familiarly acquainted with all that had, in ancient and modern times also, been published on the subject of that country, which still seems to mock the unavailing efforts of all who attempt to penetrate into its interior recesses. He did not, however, live to see how much of this obscurity and darkness had been dissipated by the generous and patriotic efforts of the African Association, and by the result of the exertions of Browne, Hornemann, Park, and others.
Of all the books which our modern æra have produced on the subject of foreign discovery, he principally avowed his admiration of Turner’s Embassy to the court of the Dalai Lama, at Thibet, concerning which we had previously very little, and indeed no satisfactory information. He considered this work as highly valuable and important, and as fillingup an interesting desideratum in the philosophical history of man. The extraordinary peculiarities of religious superstition, which prevail in that country, the extreme singularity of manners, particularly those relating to marriage, where it often happens that one woman is wife to six or seven brothers in a family, had so much occupied his mind, that it is more than probable, that his ideas on these subjects must have been communicated to paper, and remain among his manuscripts.
Hospitable, kind, and generous, he had one marvellous weakness, which often produced the most unpleasing consequences, namely, a childish irritability of temper.
The wrong label accidentally put upon a decanter, on one occasion so exasperated him against the offending servant, that much temporary inconvenience was occasioned to a large and elegant party, who were at dinner. These squalls, however, were short and transitory;—and perhaps more tolerable than the grimace and adulatory obsequiousness of “the Traveller,” whose name next succeeds.