only for strengthening the same, but also for curing the evil effects
whereunto they are subjected:—the signatures being as it were the
books out of which the ancients first learned the virtues of herbs;
Nature, or rather the God of Nature, having stamped on divers of them
legible characters to discover their uses, though he hath left others
without any, that after he had shewed them the way, they, by their
labour and industry which renders every thing more acceptable, might
find out the rest.” It was an opinion often expressed by a physician
of great and deserved celebrity, that in course of time specifics
would be discovered for every malady to which the human frame is
liable. He never supposed, (though few men have ever been more
sanguine in their hopes and expectations,) that life was thus to be
indefinitely prolonged, and that it would be man's own fault, or his
own choice, if he did not live for ever; but he thought that when we
should thus have been taught to subdue those diseases which cut our
life short, we should, like the Patriarchs, live out the number of our
days, and then fall asleep,—Man being by this physical redemption
restored to his original corporeal state.

  Then shall like four straight pillars, the four Elements
  Support the goodly structure of Mortality:
  Then shall the four Complexions, like four heads
  Of a clear river, streaming in his body,
  Nourish and comfort every vein and sinew:
  No sickness of contagion, no grim death,
  Or deprivation of health's real blessings,
  Shall then affright the creature, built by Heaven,
  Reserved for immortality.[2]

[Footnote 2: FORD.]

He had not taken up this notion from any religious feeling; it was
connected in him with the pride of philosophy, and he expected that
this was one of the blessings which we were to obtain in the progress
of knowledge.

Some specific remedies being known to exist, it is indeed reasonable
to suppose that others will be found. Old theorists went farther; and
in a world which everywhere bears such undeniable evidences of design
in every thing, few theories should seem more likely to be favourably
received than the one which supposed that every healing plant bears,
in some part of its structure, the type or signature of its peculiar
virtues: now this could in no other way be so obviously marked, as by
a resemblance to that part of the human frame for which its remedial
uses were intended. There is a fable indeed which says that he who may
be so fortunate as to taste the blood of a certain unknown animal
would be enabled thereby to hear the voice of plants and understand
their speech; and if he were on a mountain at sunrise, he might hear
the herbs which grow there, when freshened with the dews of night they
open themselves to the beams of the morning, return thanks to the
Creator for the virtues with which he has indued them, each specifying
what those virtues were, _le quali veramente son tante e tali che
beati i pastori che quelle capessero_. A botanical writer who
flourished a little before the theory of signatures was started
complains that herbal medicine had fallen into disuse; he says,
“_antequam chemia patrum nostrorum memoriâ orbi restitueretur,
contenti vivebant ὅι τῶν ἰατρῶν κομψὸι και χαριὲστατοι pharmacis ex
vegetabilium regno accersitis parum solliciti de Solis sulphure et
oleo, de Lunæ sale et essentiâ, de Saturni saccaro, de Martis tincturâ
et croco, de vitriolo Veneris, de Mercurio præcipitato, et Antimonii
floribus, de Sulphuris spiritu et Tartari crystallis: nihilominus
masculè debellabant morbos, et tutè et jucundè. Nunc sæculi nostri
infelicitas est, quod vegetabilibus contemptim habitis, plerique nihil
aliud spirant præter metallica ista, et extis parata horribilia
secreta._”[3] The new theory came in timely aid of the Galenists; it
connected their practice with a doctrine hardly less mysterious than
those of the Paracelsists, but more plausible because it seemed
immediately intelligible, and had a natural religious feeling to
strengthen and support it.

[Footnote 3: Petri Laurembergii Rostochiensis Horticultura—Præloquium,
p. 10.]

The Author of Adam in Eden refers to Oswald Crollius as “the great
discoverer of signatures,” and no doubt has drawn from him, most of
his remarks upon this theory of physical correspondence. The
resemblance is in some cases very obvious; but in many more the
Swedenborgian correspondences are not more fantastic; and where the
resemblances exist the inference is purely theoretical.

Walnuts are said to have the perfect signature of the head; the outer
husks or green covering represents the _pericranium_, or outward skin
of the skull, whereon the hair groweth,—and therefore salt made of
those husks is exceeding good for wounds in the head. The inner woody
shell hath the signature of the skull, and the little yellow skin or
peel, that of the _dura_ and _pia mater_ which are the thin scarfs
that envelope the brain. The kernel hath “the very figure of the
brain, and therefore it is very profitable for the brain and resists
poisons.” So too the Piony, being not yet blown, was thought to have
“some signature and proportion with the head of man, having sutures
and little veins dispersed up and down, like unto those which environ
the brain: when the flowers blow they open an outward little skin
representing the skull:” the piony therefore besides its other virtues
was very available against the falling sickness. Poppy heads with
their crowns somewhat represent the head and brain, and therefore
decoctions of them were used with good success in several diseases of
the head. And Lillies of the Valley, which in Coles's days grew
plentifully upon Hampstead-heath, were known by signature to cure the
apoplexy; “for as that disease is caused by the dropping of humours
into the principal ventricles of the brain, so the flowers of this
lilly hanging on the plants as if they were drops, are of wonderful
use herein.”

All capillary herbs were of course sovereign in diseases of the hair;
and because the purple and yellow spots and stripes upon the flowers
of Eyebright very much resemble the appearance of diseased eyes, it
was found out by that signature that this herb was very effectual “for
curing of the same.” The small Stone-crop hath the signature of the
gums, and is therefore good for scurvy. The exquisite Crollius
observed that the woody scales of which the cones of the pine tree are
composed, resemble the fore teeth; and therefore pine leaves boiled in
vinegar make a gargle which relieves the tooth-ache. The Pomegranate
has a like virtue for a like reason. Thistles and Holly leaves signify
by their prickles that they are excellent for pleurisy and stiches in
the side. Saxifrage manifesteth in its growth its power of breaking
the stone. It had been found experimentally that all roots, barks and
flowers which were yellow, cured the yellow jaundice; and though
Kidney beans as yet were only used for food, yet having so perfect a
signature, practitioners in physic were exhorted to take it into
consideration and try whether there were not in this plant some
excellent faculty to cure nephritic diseases. In pursuing this
fantastic system examples might be shown of that mischief, which,
though it may long remain latent, never fails at some time or other to
manifest itself as inherent in all error and falsehood.

When the mistresses of families grounded their practice of physic upon
such systems of herbary, or took it from books which contained
prescriptions like those before adduced, (few being either more simple
or more rational,) Dr. Green might well argue that when he mounted his
hobby and rode out seeking adventures as a Physician-Errant, he went
forth for the benefit of his fellow creatures. The guidance of such
works, or of their own traditional receipts, the people in fact then
generally followed. Burton tells us that Paulus Jovius in his
description of Britain, and Levinus Lemnius have observed, of this our
island, how there was of old no use of physic amongst us, and but
little at this day, except he says “it be for a few nice idle
citizens, surfeiting courtiers, and stall-fed gentlemen lubbers. The
country people use kitchen physic.” There are two instances among the
papers of the Berkeley family, of the little confidence which persons
of rank placed upon such medical advice and medicinal preparations as
could be obtained in the country, and even in the largest of our
provincial cities. In the second year of Elizabeth's reign Henry Lord
Berkeley “having extremely heated himself by chasing on foot a tame
deer in Yate Park, with the violence thereof fell into an immoderate
bleeding of the nose, to stay which, by the ill counsel of some about
him, he dipt his whole face into a bason of cold water, whereby,” says
the family chronicler, “that flush and fulness of his nose which
forthwith arose could never be remedied, though for present help he
had Physicians in a few days from London, and for better help came
thither himself not long after to have the advice of the whole
College, and lodged with his mother at her house in Shoe-lane.”—He
never afterwards could sing with truth or satisfaction the old song,

  Nose, Nose, jolly red Nose,
  And what gave thee that jolly red Nose?
  Cinnamon and Ginger, Nutmegs and Cloves,
  And they gave me this jolly red Nose.

A few years later, “Langham an Irish footman of this Lord, upon the
sickness of the Lady Catherine, this Lord's wife, carried a letter
from Callowdon to old Dr. Fryer, a physician dwelling in Little
Britain in London; and returned with a glass bottle in his hand
compounded by the doctor for the recovery of her health, a journey of
an hundred and forty-eight miles performed by him in less than
forty-two hours, notwithstanding his stay of one night at the
physician's and apothecary's houses, which no one horse could have so
well and safely performed.” No doubt it was for the safer conveyance
of the bottle, that a footman was sent on this special errand, for
which the historian of that noble family adds, “the lady shall after
give him a new suit of cloaths.”

In those days, and long after, they who required remedies were likely
to fare ill, under their own treatment, or that of their neighbours;
and worse under the travelling quack, who was always an ignorant and
impudent impostor, but found that human sufferings and human credulity
afforded him a never-failing harvest. Dr. Green knew this: he did not
say with the Romish priest _populus vult decipi, et decipietur!_ for
he had no intention of deceiving them; but he saw that many were to be
won by buffoonery, more by what is called _palaver_, and almost all by
pretensions. Condescending therefore to the common arts of quackery,
he employed his man Kemp to tickle the multitude with coarse wit; but
he stored himself with the best drugs that were to be procured,
distributed as general remedies such only as could hardly be
misapplied and must generally prove serviceable; and brought to
particular cases the sound knowledge which he had acquired in the
school of Boerhaave, and the skill which he had derived from
experience aided by natural sagacity. When it became convenient for
him to have a home, he established himself at Penrith, in the County
of Cumberland, having married a lady of that place; but he long
continued his favourite course of life and accumulated in it a large
fortune. He gained it by one maggot, and reduced it by many:
nevertheless there remained a handsome inheritance for his children.
His son proved as maggotty as the father, ran through a good fortune,
and when confined in the King's Bench prison for debt, wrote a book
upon the Art of cheap living in London!

The father's local fame, though it has not reached to the third and
fourth generation, survived him far into the second; and for many
years after his retirement from practice, and even after his death
every travelling mountebank in the northern counties adopted the name
of Dr. Green.

At the time to which this chapter refers, Dr. Green was in his
meridian career, and enjoyed the highest reputation throughout the
sphere of his itinerancy. Ingleton lay in his rounds, and whenever he
came there he used to send for the schoolmaster to pass the evening
with him. He was always glad if he could find an opportunity also of
conversing with the elder Daniel, as the Flossofer of those parts.
William Dove could have communicated to him more curious things
relating to his own art; but William kept out of the presence of
strangers, and had happily no ailments to make him seek the Doctor's
advice; his occasional indispositions were but slight, and he treated
them in his own way. That way was sometimes merely superstitious,
sometimes it was whimsical, and sometimes rough. If his charms failed
when he tried them upon himself, it was not for want of faith. When at
any time it happened that one of his eyes was blood-shot, he went
forthwith in search of some urchin whose mother, either for laziness,
or in the belief that it was wholesome to have it in that state,
allowed his ragged head to serve as a free warren for certain “small
deer.” One of these hexapeds William secured, and “using him as if he
loved him,” put it into his eye; when according to William's account
the insect fed upon what it found, cleared the eye, and disappearing
he knew not where or how, never was seen more.

His remedy for the cholic was a pebble posset; white pebbles were
preferred, and of these what was deemed a reasonable quantity was
taken in some sort of milk porridge. Upon the same theory he sometimes
swallowed a pebble large enough as he said to clear all before it; and
for that purpose they have been administered of larger calibre than
any bolus that ever came from the hands of the most merciless
apothecary, as large indeed sometimes as a common sized walnut. Does
the reader hesitate at believing this of an ignorant man, living in a
remote part of the country? Well might William Dove be excused, for a
generation later than his John Wesley prescribed in his Primitive
Physic quicksilver, to be taken ounce by ounce, to the amount of one,
two, or three pounds, till the desired effect was produced. And a
generation earlier, Richard Baxter of happy memory and unhappy
digestion, having read in Dr. Gerhard “the admirable effects of the
swallowing of a gold bullet upon his father,” in a case which Baxter
supposed to be like his own, got a gold bullet of between twenty and
thirty shillings weight, and swallowed it. “Having taken it,” says he,
“I knew not how to be delivered of it again. I took clysters and
purges for about three weeks, but nothing stirred it; and a gentleman
having done the like, the bullet never came from him till he died, and
it was cut out. But at last my neighbours set a day apart to fast and
pray for me, and I was freed from my danger in the beginning of that
day!”

CHAPTER XXV. P. I.

_Hiatus valde lacrymabilis._

    Time flies away fast,
  The while we never remember
    How soon our life here
    Grows old with the year
  That dies with the next December!

HERRICK.

I must pass over fourteen years, for were I to pursue the history of
our young Daniel's boyhood and adolescence into all the ramifications
which a faithful biography requires, fourteen volumes would not
contain it. They would be worth reading, for that costs little; they
would be worth writing, though that costs much. They would deserve the
best embellishments that the pencil and the graver could produce. The
most poetical of artists would be worthily employed in designing the
sentimental and melancholy scenes; Cruikshank for the grotesque;
Wilkie and Richter for the comic and serio-comic; Turner for the
actual scenery; Bewick for the head and tail pieces. They ought to be
written; they ought to be read. They should be written—and then they
would be read. But time is wanting:

  _Eheu! fugaces Posthume, Posthume,
  Labuntur anni!_

and time is a commodity of which the value rises as long as we live.
We must be contented with doing not what we wish, but what we can,—our
_possible_ as the French call it.

One of our Poets—(which is it?)—speaks of an _everlasting now_. If
such a condition of existence were offered to us in this world, and it
were put to the vote whether we should accept the offer and fix all
things immutably as they are, who are they whose voices would be given
in the affirmative?

Not those who are in pursuit of fortune, or of fame, or of knowledge,
or of enjoyment, or of happiness; though with regard to all of these,
as far as any of them are attainable, there is more pleasure in the
pursuit than in the attainment.

Not those who are at sea, or travelling in a stage coach.

Not the man who is shaving himself.

Not those who have the tooth ache, or who are having a tooth drawn.

The fashionable beauty might; and the fashionable singer, and the
fashionable opera dancer, and the actor who is in the height of his
power and reputation. So might the alderman at a city feast. So would
the heir who is squandering a large fortune faster than it was
accumulated for him. And the thief who is not taken, and the convict
who is not hanged, and the scoffer at religion whose heart belies his
tongue.

Not the wise and the good.

Not those who are in sickness or in sorrow.

Not I.

But were I endowed with the power of suspending the effect of time
upon the things around me, methinks there are some of my flowers which
should neither fall nor fade: decidedly my kitten should never attain
to cathood; and I am afraid my little boy would continue to “mis-speak
half-uttered words;” and never, while I live, outgrow that epicene
dress of French grey, half European, half Asiatic in its fashion.

CHAPTER XXVI. P. I.

DANIEL AT DONCASTER; THE REASON WHY HE WAS DESTINED FOR THE MEDICAL
PROFESSION, RATHER THAN HOLY ORDERS; AND SOME REMARKS UPON SERMONS.

_Je ne veux dissimuler, amy Lecteur, que je n'aye bien préveu, et me
tiens pour deüement adverty, que ne puis eviter la reprehension
d'aucuns, et les calomnies de plusieurs, ausquels c'est éscrit
désplaira du tout._

CHRISTOFLE DE HERICOURT.

Fourteen years have elapsed since the scene took place which is
related in the twenty-second chapter: and Daniel the younger at the
time to which this present chapter refers was residing at Doncaster
with Peter Hopkins who practised the medical art in all its branches.
He had lived with him eight years, first as a pupil, latterly in the
capacity of an assistant, and afterwards as an adopted successor.

How this connection between Daniel and Peter Hopkins was brought
about, and the circumstances which prepared the way for it, would have
appeared in some of the non-existent fourteen volumes, if it had
pleased Fate that they should have been written.

Some of my readers, and especially those who pride themselves upon
their knowledge of the world, or their success in it, will think it
strange perhaps that the elder Daniel, when he resolved to make a
scholar of his son, did not determine upon breeding him either to the
Church, or the Law, in either of which professions the way was easier
and more inviting. Now though this will not appear strange to those
other readers who have perceived that the father had no knowledge of
the world, and could have none, it is nevertheless proper to enter
into some explanation upon that point.

If George Herbert's Temple, or his Remains, or his life by old Izaak
Walton, had all or any of them happened to be among those few but
precious books which Daniel prized so highly and used so well, it is
likely that the wish of his heart would have been to train up his Son
for a Priest to the Temple. But so it was that none of his reading was
of a kind to give his thoughts that direction; and he had not
conceived any exalted opinion of the Clergy from the specimens which
had fallen in his way. A contempt which was but too general had been
brought upon the Order by the ignorance or the poverty of a great
proportion of its members. The person who served the humble church
which Daniel dutifully attended was almost as poor as a Capuchine, and
quite as ignorant. This poor man had obtained in evil hour from some
easy or careless Bishop a licence to preach. It was reprehensible
enough to have ordained one who was destitute of every qualification
that the office requires; the fault was still greater in promoting him
from the desk to the pulpit.

“A very great Scholar,” is quoted by Dr. Eachard, as saying “that such
preaching as is usual is a hindrance of salvation rather than the
means to it.” This was said when the fashion of conceited preaching
which is satirized in Frey Gerundio, had extended to England, and
though that fashion has so long been obsolete, that many persons will
be surprized to hear it had ever existed among us, it may still
reasonably be questioned whether sermons such as they commonly are, do
not quench more devotion than they kindle.

My Lord! put not the book aside in displeasure! (I address myself to
whatever Bishop may be reading it.) Unbiassed I will not call myself,
for I am a true and orthodox churchman, and have the interests of the
Church zealously at heart, because I believe and know them to be
essentially and inseparably connected with those of the commonwealth.
But I have been an attentive observer, and as such, request a hearing.
Receive my remarks as coming from one whose principles are in entire
accord with your Lordship's, whose wishes have the same scope and
purport, and who while he offers his honest opinion, submits it with
proper humility to your judgement.

The founders of the English Church did not intend that the sermon
should invariably form a part of the Sunday services. It became so in
condescension to the Puritans, of whom it has long been the fashion to
speak with respect, instead of holding them up to the contempt and
infamy and abhorrence which they have so richly merited. They have
been extolled by their descendants and successors as models of
patriotism and piety; and the success with which this delusion has
been practised is one of the most remarkable examples of what may be
effected by dint of effrontery and persevering falsehood.

That sentence I am certain will not be disapproved at Fulham or
Lambeth. Dr. Southey, or Dr. Phillpots might have written it.

The general standard of the Clergy has undoubtedly been very much
raised since the days when they were not allowed to preach without a
licence for that purpose from the Ordinary. Nevertheless it is certain
that many persons who are in other, and more material respects well,
or even excellently qualified for the ministerial functions, may be
wanting in the qualifications for a preacher. A man may possess great
learning, sound principles and good sense, and yet be without the
talent of arranging and expressing his thoughts well in a written
discourse: he may want the power of fixing the attention, or reaching
the hearts of his hearers; and in that case the discourse, as some old
writer has said in serious jest, which was designed for _e_dification
turns to _te_dification. The evil was less in Addison's days when he
who distrusted his own abilities, availed himself of the compositions
of some approved Divine, and was not disparaged in the opinion of his
congregation, by taking a printed volume into the pulpit. This is no
longer practised; but instead of this, which secured wholesome
instruction to the people, sermons are manufactured for sale, and sold
in manuscript, or printed in a cursive type imitating manuscript. The
articles which are prepared for such a market, are for the most part
copied from obscure books, with more or less alteration of language,
and generally for the worse; and so far as they are drawn from such
sources they are not likely to contain any thing exceptionable on the
score of doctrine: but the best authors will not be resorted to, for
fear of discovery, and therefore when these are used, the congregation
lose as much in point of instruction, as he who uses them ought to
lose in self-esteem.

But it is more injurious when a more scrupulous man composes his own
discourses, if he be deficient either in judgement or learning. He is
then more likely to entangle plain texts than to unravel knotty ones;
rash positions are sometimes advanced by such preachers, unsound
arguments are adduced by them in support of momentous doctrines, and
though these things neither offend the ignorant and careless, nor
injure the well-minded and well-informed, they carry poison with them
when they enter a diseased ear. It cannot be doubted that such sermons
act as corroboratives for infidelity.

Nor when they contain nothing that is actually erroneous, but are
merely unimproving, are they in that case altogether harmless. They
are not harmless if they are felt to be tedious. They are not harmless
if they torpify the understanding: a chill that begins there may
extend to the vital regions. Bishop Taylor (the great Jeremy) says of
devotional books that “they are in a large degree the occasion of so
great indevotion as prevails among the generality of nominal
Christians, being,” he says, “represented naked in the conclusions of
spiritual life, without or art or learning; and made apt for persons
who can do nothing but believe and love, not for them that can
consider and love.” This applies more forcibly to bad sermons than to
common-place books of devotion; the book may be laid aside if it
offend the reader's judgement, but the sermon is a positive infliction
upon the helpless hearer.

The same Bishop,—and his name ought to carry with it authority among
the wise and the good, has delivered an opinion upon this subject, in
his admirable Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy.
“Indeed,” he says, “if I may freely declare my opinion, I think it
were not amiss, if the liberty of making sermons were something more
restrained than it is; and that such persons only were intrusted with
the liberty, for whom the church herself may safely be
responsive,—that is men learned and pious; and that the other part,
the _vulgus cleri_, should instruct the people out of the fountains of
the church and the public stock, till by so long exercise and
discipline in the schools of the Prophets they may also be intrusted
to minister of their own unto the people. This I am sure was the
practice of the Primitive Church.”

“I am convinced,” said Dr. Johnson, “that I ought to be at Divine
Service more frequently than I am; but the provocations given by
ignorant and affected preachers too often disturb the mental calm
which otherwise would succeed to prayer. I am apt to whisper to myself
on such occasions, ‘How can this illiterate fellow dream of fixing
attention, after we have been listening to the sublimest truths,
conveyed in the most chaste and exalted language, throughout a liturgy
which must be regarded as the genuine offspring of piety impregnated
by wisdom!’”—“Take notice, however,” he adds, “though I make this
confession respecting myself, I do not mean to recommend the
fastidiousness that sometimes leads me to exchange congregational for
solitary worship.”

The saintly Herbert says,

  “Judge not the Preacher, for he is thy Judge;
   If thou mislike him thou conceiv'st him not.
   God calleth preaching folly. Do not grudge
   To pick out treasures from an earthen pot.
   The worst speak something good. If all want sense
   God takes a text and preacheth patience.

   He that gets patience and the blessing which
   Preachers conclude with, hath not lost his pains.”

This sort of patience was all that Daniel could have derived from the
discourses of the poor curate; and it was a lesson of which his meek
and benign temper stood in no need. Nature had endowed him with this
virtue, and this Sunday's discipline exercised without strengthening
it. While he was, in the phrase of the Religious Public, _sitting
under_ the preacher, he obeyed to a certain extent George Herbert's
precept,—that is he obeyed it as he did other laws with the existence
of which he was unacquainted,—

  Let vain or busy thoughts have there no part;
  Bring not thy plough, thy plots, thy pleasure thither.

Pleasure made no part of his speculations at any time. Plots he had
none. For the Plough,—it was what he never followed in fancy,
patiently as he plodded after the furrow in his own vocation. And then
for worldly thoughts they were not likely in that place to enter a
mind, which never at any time entertained them. But to that sort of
thought (if thought it may be called) which cometh as it listeth, and
which when the mind is at ease and the body in health, is the
forerunner and usher of sleep, he certainly gave way. The curate's
voice past over his ear like the sound of the brook with which it
blended, and it conveyed to him as little meaning and less feeling.
During the sermon therefore he retired into himself, with as much or
as little edification, as a Quaker finds at a silent meeting.

It happened also that of the few clergy within the very narrow circle
in which Daniel moved, some were in no good repute for their conduct,
and none displayed either that zeal in the discharge of their pastoral
functions, or that earnestness and ability in performing the service
of the Church, which are necessary for commanding the respect and
securing the affections of the parishioners. The clerical profession
had never presented itself to him in its best, which is really its
true light; and for that cause he would never have thought of it for
the boy, even if the means of putting him forward in this path had
been easier and more obvious than they were. And for the dissenting
ministry, Daniel liked not the name of a Nonconformist. The Puritans
had left behind them an ill savour in his part of the country, as they
had done every where else; and the extravagances of the primitive
Quakers, which during his childhood were fresh in remembrance, had not
yet been forgotten.

It was well remembered in those parts that the Vicar of Kirkby
Lonsdale through the malignity of some of his puritanical
parishioners, had been taken out of his bed—from his wife who was then
big with child, and hurried away to Lancaster jail, where he was
imprisoned three years for no other offence than that of fidelity to
his Church and his King. And that the man who was a chief instigator
of this persecution, and had enriched himself by the spoil of his
neighbour's goods, though he flourished for a while, bought a field
and built a fine house, came to poverty at last, and died in prison,
having for some time received his daily food there from the table of
one of this very Vicar's sons. It was well remembered also that, in a
parish of the adjoining county-palatine, the puritanical party had set
fire in the night to the Rector's barns, stable, and parsonage; and
that he and his wife and children had only as it were by miracle
escaped from the flames.

William Dove had also among his traditional stores some stories of a
stranger kind concerning the Quakers, these parts of the North having
been a great scene of their vagaries in their early days. He used to
relate how one of them went into the church at Brough, during the
reign of the Puritans, with a white sheet about his body, and a rope
about his neck, to prophesy before the people and their Whig Priest
(as he called him) that the surplice which was then prohibited should
again come into use, and that the Gallows should have its due! And how
when their ringleader George Fox was put in prison at Carlisle, the
wife of Justice Benson would eat no meat unless she partook it with
him at the bars of his dungeon, declaring she was moved to do this;
wherefore it was supposed he had bewitched her. And not without
reason; for when this old George went, as he often did, into the
Church to disturb the people, and they thrust him out, and fell upon
him and beat him, sparing neither sticks nor stones if they came to
hand, he was presently for all that they had done to him, as sound and
as fresh as if nothing had touched him; and when they tried to kill
him, they could not take away his life! And how this old George rode a
great black horse, upon which he was seen in the course of the same
hour at two places threescore miles distant from each other! And how
some of the women who followed this old George used to strip off all
their clothes, and in that plight go into the church at service time
on the Sunday to bear testimony against the pomps and vanities of the
world; “and to be sure,” said William, “they must have been witched,
or they never would have done this.” “Lord deliver us!” said Dinah,
“to be sure they must!”—“To be sure they must, Lord bless us all!”
said Haggy.

CHAPTER XXVII. P. I.

A PASSAGE IN PROCOPIUS IMPROVED. A STORY CONCERNING URIM AND THUMMIM;
AND THE ELDER DANIEL'S OPINION OF THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW.

              Here is Domine Picklock
  My man of Law, sollicits all my causes,
  Follows my business, makes and compounds my quarrels
  Between my tenants and me; sows all my strifes
  And reaps them too, troubles the country for me,
  And vexes any neighbour that I please.

BEN JONSON.

Among the people who were converted to the Christian faith during the
sixth century were two tribes or nations called the Lazi and the Zani.
Methinks it had been better if they had been left unconverted; for
they have multiplied prodigiously among us, so that between the Lazy
Christians and the Zany ones, Christianity has grievously suffered.

It was one of the Zany tribe whom Guy once heard explaining to his
congregation what was meant by Urim and Thummim, and in technical
phrase _improving_ the text. Urim and Thummim, he said, were two
precious stones, or rather stones above all price, the Hebrew names of
which have been interpreted to signify Light and Perfection, or
Doctrine and Judgement, (which Luther prefers in his Bible, and in
which some of the northern versions, have followed him) or the Shining
and the Perfect, or Manifestation and Truth, the words in the original
being capable of any or all of these significations. They were set in
the High Priest's breast-plate of judgement; and when he consulted
them upon any special occasion to discover the will of God, they
displayed an extraordinary brilliancy if the matter which was referred
to this trial were pleasing to the Lord Jehovah, but they gave no
lustre if it were disapproved. “My Brethren,” said the Preacher, “this
is what learned Expositors, Jewish and Christian, tell me concerning
these two precious stones. The stones themselves are lost. But, my
Christian Brethren, we need them not, for we have a surer means of
consulting and discovering the will of God; and still it is by Urim
and Thummim if we alter only a single letter in one of those
mysterious words. Take your Bible, my brethren; _use him and thumb
him—use him and thumb him well_, and you will discover the will of God
as surely as ever the High Priest did by the stones in his breast
plate!”

What Daniel saw of the Lazi, and what he heard of the Zani, prevented
him from ever forming a wish to educate his son for a North country
cure, which would have been all the preferment that lay within his
view. And yet if any person to whose judgement he deferred had
reminded him that Bishop Latimer had risen from as humble an origin,
it might have awakened in him a feeling of ambition for the boy, not
inconsistent with his own philosophy.

But no suggestions could ever have induced Daniel to chuse for him the
profession of the Law. The very name of Lawyer was to him a word of
evil acceptation. Montaigne has a pleasant story of a little boy who
when his mother had lost a lawsuit which he had always heard her speak
of as a perpetual cause of trouble, ran up to him in great glee to
tell him of the loss as a matter for congratulation and joy; the poor
child thought it was like losing a cough, or any other bodily ailment.
Daniel entertained the same sort of opinion concerning all legal
proceedings. He knew that laws were necessary evils; but he thought
they were much greater evils than there was any necessity that they
should be; and believing this to be occasioned by those who were
engaged in the trade of administering them, he looked upon lawyers as
the greatest pests in the country—

  Because, their end being merely avarice,
  Winds up their wits to such a nimble strain
  As helps to blind the Judge, not give him eyes.[1]

He had once been in the Courts at Lancaster, having been called upon
as witness in a civil suit, and the manner in which he was cross
examined there by one of those “young spruce Lawyers,” whom Donne has
so happily characterized as being

  ———“all impudence and tongue”

had confirmed him in this prejudice. What he saw of the proceedings
that day induced him to agree with Beaumont and Fletcher, that

  Justice was a Cheese-monger, a mere cheese-monger,
  Weighed nothing to the world but mites and maggots
  And a main stink; Law, like a horse-courser,
  Her rules and precepts hung with gauds and ribbands,
  And pampered up to cozen him that bought her,
  When she herself was hackney, lame and founder'd.[2]

His was too simple and sincere an understanding to admire in any other
sense than that of wondering at them

  Men of that large profession that can speak
  To every cause, and things mere contraries,
  Till they are hoarse again, yet all be law!
  That with most quick agility can turn
  And re-return; can make knots and undo them,
  Give forked counsel, take provoking gold
  On either hand, and put it up. These men
  He knew would thrive;—[3]

but far was he from wishing that a son of his should thrive by such a
perversion of his intellectual powers, and such a corruption of his
moral nature.

[Footnote 1: LORD BROOKE.]

[Footnote 2: WOMAN PLEASED.]

[Footnote 3: BEN JONSON.]

On the other hand he felt a degree of respect amounting almost to
reverence for the healing art, which is connected with so many
mysteries of art and nature. And therefore when an opportunity offered
of placing his son with a respectable practitioner, who he had every
reason for believing would behave toward him with careful and prudent
kindness, his entire approbation was given to the youth's own choice.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PETER HOPKINS. EFFECTS OF TIME AND CHANGE. DESCRIPTION OF HIS
DWELLING-HOUSE.

  _Combien de changemens depuis que suis au monde,
  Qui n'est qu' un point du tems!_

PASQUIER.

Peter Hopkins was a person who might have suffered death by the laws
of Solon, if that code had been established in this country; for
though he lived in the reigns of George I. and George II. he was
neither Whig nor Tory, Hanoverian nor Jacobite. When he drank the
King's health with any of his neighbours, he never troubled himself
with considering which King was intended, nor to which side of the
water their good wishes were directed. Under George or Charles he
would have been the same quiet subject, never busying himself with a
thought about political matters, and having no other wish concerning
them than that they might remain as they were,—so far he was a
Hanoverian, and no farther. There was something of the same temper in
his religion; he was a sincere Christian, and had he been born to
attendance at the Mass or the Meeting House would have been equally
sincere in his attachment to either of those extremes. For his whole
mind was in his profession. He was learned in its history; fond of its
theories; and skilful in its practice, in which he trusted little to
theory and much to experience.

Both he and his wife were at this time well stricken in years; they
had no children, and no near kindred on either side; and being both
kind-hearted people, the liking which they soon entertained toward
Daniel for his docility, his simplicity of heart, his obliging temper,
his original cast of mind, and his never failing good-humour, ripened
into a settled affection.

Hopkins lived next door to the Mansion House, which edifice was begun
a few years after Daniel went to live with him. There is a view of the
Mansion House in Dr. Miller's History of Doncaster, and in that print
the dwelling in question is included. It had undergone no other
alteration at the time this view was taken than that of having had its
casements replaced by sash windows, an improvement which had been made
by our Doctor, when the frame work of the casements had become
incapable of repair. The gilt pestle and mortar also had been removed
from its place above the door. Internally the change had been greater;
for the same business not being continued there after the Doctor's
decease, the shop had been converted into a sitting room, and the very
odour of medicine had passed away. But I will not allow myself to
dwell upon this melancholy subject. The world is full of mutations;
and there is hardly any that does not bring with it some regret at the
time,—and alas, more in the retrospect! I have lived to see the
American Colonies separated from Great Britain, the Kingdom of Poland
extinguished, the republic of Venice destroyed, its territory seized
by one Usurper, delivered over in exchange to another, and the
transfer sanctioned and confirmed by all the Powers of Europe in
Congress assembled! I have seen Heaven knows how many little
Principalities and States, proud of their independance, and happy in
the privileges connected with it, swallowed up by the Austrian or the
Prussian Eagle, or thrown to the Belgic Lion, as his share in the
division of the spoils. I have seen constitutions spring up like
mushrooms and kicked down as easily. I have seen the rise and fall of
Napoleon.

        I have seen Cedars fall
  And in their room a mushroom grow;
  I have seen Comets, threatening all,
  Vanish themselves;[1]

wherefore then should I lament over what time and mutability have done
to a private dwelling-house in Doncaster?

[Footnote 1: HABINGTON.]

It was an old house, which when it was built had been one of the best
in Doncaster; and even after the great improvements which have changed
the appearance of the town, had an air of antiquated respectability
about it. Had it been near the church it would have been taken for the
Vicarage; standing where it did, its physiognomy was such that you
might have guessed it was the Doctor's house, even if the pestle and
mortar had not been there as his insignia. There were eight windows
and two doors in front. It consisted of two stories, and was oddly
built, the middle part having, something in the Scotch manner, the
form of a gable end towards the street. Behind this was a single
chimney, tall, and shaped like a pillar. In windy nights the Doctor
was so often consulted by Mrs. Dove concerning the stability of that
chimney, that he accounted it the plague of his life. But it was one
of those evils which could not be removed without bringing on a worse,
the alternative being whether there should be a tall chimney, or a
smoky house. And after the mansion house was erected, there was one
wind which in spite of the chimney's elevation drove the smoke
down,—so inconvenient is it sometimes to be fixed near a great
neighbour.

This unfortunate chimney, being in the middle of the house, served for
four apartments; the Doctor's study and his bedchamber on the upper
floor, the kitchen and the best parlour on the lower, that parlour,
yes Reader, that very parlour wherein, as thou canst not have
forgotten, Mrs. Dove was making tea for the Doctor on that ever
memorable afternoon with which our history begins.

CHAPTER XXIX. P. I.

A HINT OF REMINISCENCE TO THE READER. THE CLOCK OF ST. GEORGE'S. A
WORD IN HONOR OF ARCHDEACON MARKHAM.

There is a ripe season for every thing, and if you slip that or
anticipate it, you dim the grace of the matter be it never so good. As
we say by way of Proverb that an hasty birth brings forth blind
whelps, so a good tale tumbled out before the time is ripe for it, is
ungrateful to the hearer.

BISHOP HACKETT.

The judicious reader will now have perceived that in the progress of
this narrative,—which may be truly said to

                        ——bear
  A music in the ordered history
  It lays before us,——

we have arrived at that point which determines the scene and acquaints
him with the local habitation of the Doctor. He will perceive also
that in our method of narration nothing has been inartificially
anticipated; that there have been no premature disclosures, no
precipitation, no hurry, or impatience on my part; and that on the
other hand there has been no unnecessary delay, but that we have
regularly and naturally come to this developement. The author who
undertakes a task like mine,

        must nombre al the hole cyrcumstaunce
  Of hys matter with brevyacion,

as an old Poet says of the professors of the rhyming art, and must
moreover be careful

  That he walke not by longe continuance
  The perambulate way,

as I have been, O Reader! and as it is my fixed intention still to be.
Thou knowest, gentle Reader, that I have never wearied thee with idle
and worthless words; thou knowest that the old comic writer spake
truly when he said, that the man who speaks little says too much, if
he says what is not to the point; but that he who speaks well and
wisely will never be accused of speaking at too great length,

  Τὸν μὴ λέγοντα τῶν δεόντων μηδὲ ἓν
  Μακρὸν νόμιζε, κᾂν δύ᾿ εἴπῃ συλλαβάς.
  Τὸν δ᾿ εὗ λέγοντα, μὴ νόμιζ᾿ εἶναι μακρὸν,
  Μηδ᾿ ἂν σφόδρ᾿ εἴπῃ πολλὰ, και πολὺν χρόνον.[1]

[Footnote 1: PHILEMON.]

My good Readers will remember that, as was duly noticed in our first
chapter P. I. the clock of St. George's had just struck five when Mrs.
Dove was pouring out the seventh cup of tea for her husband, and when
our history opens. I have some observations to make concerning both
the tea and the tea service, which will dear the Doctor from any
imputation of intemperance in his use of that most pleasant,
salutiferous and domesticizing beverage: but it would disturb the
method of my narration were they to be introduced in this place. Here
I have something to relate about the Clock. Some forty or fifty years
ago a Butcher being one of the Churchwardens of the year, and fancying
himself in that capacity invested with full power to alter and improve
any thing in or about the Church, thought proper to change the
position of the clock, and accordingly had it removed to the highest
part of the tower, immediately under the battlements. Much beautiful
Gothic work was cut away to make room for the three dials, which he
placed on three sides of this fine tower; and when he was asked what
had induced him thus doubly to disfigure the edifice, by misplacing
the dials, and destroying so much of the ornamental part, the great
and greasy killcow answered that by fixing the dials so high, he could
now stand at his own shop door and see what it was o'clock! That
convenience this arrant churchwarden had the satisfaction of enjoying
for several years, there being no authority that could call him to
account for the insolent mischief he had done. But Archdeacon Markham
(to his praise be it spoken) at the end of the last century prevailed
on the then churchwardens to remove two of the dials, and restore the
architectural ornaments which had been defaced.

This was the clock which, with few intervals, measured out by hours
the life of Daniel Dove from the seventeenth year of his age, when he
first set up his rest within its sound.

Perhaps of all the works of man sun-dials and church-clocks are those
which have conveyed most feeling to the human heart; the clock more
than the sun-dial because it speaks to the ear as well as to the eye,
and by night as well as by day. Our forefathers understood this, and
therefore they not only gave a Tongue to Time, but provided that he
should speak often to us and remind us that the hours are passing.
Their quarter-boys and their chimes were designed for this moral
purpose as much as the memento which is so commonly seen upon an old
clock-face,—and so seldom upon a new one. I never hear chimes that
they do not remind me of those which were formerly the first sounds I
heard in the morning, which used to quicken my step on my way to
school, and which announced my release from it, when the same tune
methought had always a merrier import. When I remember their tones,
life seems to me like a dream, and a train of recollections arises,
which if it were allowed to have its course would end in tears.

CHAPTER XXX. P. I.

THE OLD BELLS RUNG TO A NEW TUNE.

If the bell have any sides the clapper will find 'em.

BEN JONSON.

That same St. George's Church has a peal of eight tunable bells, in
the key of E. b. the first bell weighing seven hundred, one quarter
and fourteen pounds.

  _Tra tutte quante le musiche humane,
   O Signor mio gentil, tra le più care
   Gioje del mondo, è 'l suon delle campane;
   Don don don don don don, che ve ne pare?_[1]

[Footnote 1: AGNOLO FIRENZUOLA.]

They were not christened, because they were not Roman Catholic bells;
for in Roman Catholic countries church bells are christened with the
intention of causing them to be held in greater reverence,—

   _—però ordinò n'un consistoro
  Un certo di quei buon papi all' antica,
    Che non ci lavoravan di straforo,
  Che la campana si, si benedica,
    Poi si battezzi, e se le ponga il nome,
    Prima che' in campanil l' ufizio dica.
  Gli organi, ch' anco lor san sì ben come
    Si dica il vespro, e le messe cantate,
    Non hanno questo honor sopra le chiome.
  Che le lor canne non son battezzate,
    Ne' nome ha l' una Pier, l' altra Maria
    Come hanno le campane prelibate._[2]

[Footnote 2: AGNOLO FIRENZUOLA.]

The bells of St. George's, Doncaster, I say, were not christened,
because they were Protestant bells; for distinction's sake however we
will name them as the bells stand in the dirge of that unfortunate Cat
whom Johnny Green threw into the well.

But it will be better to exhibit their relative weights in figures, so
that they may be seen synoptically. Thus then;—

                Cwt.   qr.    lb.
Bim the first     7 . . 1 . . 14
Bim the second    8 . . 0 . . 18
Bim the third     8 . . 2 . .  6
Bim the fourth   10 . . 3 . . 15
Bim the fifth    13 . . 1 . .  0
Bim the sixth    15 . . 2 . . 16
Bom              22 . . 1 . .  0
Bell             29 . . 1 . . 20

I cannot but admit that these appellations not so stately in
appearance as those of the peal which the Bishop of Chalons recently
baptized, and called a “happy and holy family” in the edifying
discourse that he delivered upon the occasion. The first of these was
called Marie, to which—or to whom,—the Duke and Duchess of Danderville
(so the newspapers give this name) stood sponsors. “It is you Marie,”
said the Bishop, “who will have the honor to announce the festivals,
and proclaim the glory of the Lord! You appear among us under the most
happy auspices, presented by those respectable and illustrious hands
to which the practices of piety have been so long familiar. And you
Anne,” he pursued, addressing the second bell,—“an object worthy of
the zeal and piety of our first magistrate (the Prefect) and of her
who so nobly shares his solicitude,—you shall be charged with the same
employment. Your voice shall be joined to Marie's upon important
occasions. Ah! what touching lessons will you not give in imitation of
her whose name you bear, and whom we reverence as the purest of
Virgins! You also Deodate, will take part in this concert, you whom an
angel, a new-born infant, has conjointly with me consecrated to the
Lord! Speak Deodate! and let us hear your marvellous accents.” This
Angel and Godmother in whose name the third bell was given was
Mademoiselle Deodate Boisset, then in the second month of her age,
daughter of Viscount Boisset. “And you Stephanie, crowned with glory,”
continued the orator, in learned allusion to the Greek word _σεφανος_,
“you are not less worthy to mingle your accents with the melody of
your sisters. And you lastly Seraphine and Pudentienne, you will raise
your voices in this touching concert, happy all of you in having been
presented to the benedictions of the Church, by these noble and
generous souls, so praiseworthy for the liveliness of their faith, and
the holiness of their example.” And then the Bishop concluded by
calling upon the congregation to join with him in prayer that the
Almighty would be pleased to preserve from all accidents this “happy
and holy family of the bells.”

We have no such sermons from our Bishops! The whole ceremony must have
been as useful to the bells as it was edifying to the people.

Were I called upon to act as sponsor upon such an occasion, I would
name my bell Peter Bell in honour of Mr. Wordsworth. There has been a
bull so called, and a bull it was of great merit. But if it were the
great bell, then it should be called Andrew, in honour of Dr. Bell;
and that bell should call the children to school.

There are, I believe, only two bells in England which are known by
their Christian names, and they are both called Tom; but Great Tom of
Oxford which happens to be much the smaller of the two was christened
in the feminine gender, being called Mary, in the spirit of catholic
and courtly adulation at the commencement of the bloody Queen's reign.
Tresham the Vicechancellor performed the ceremony, and his exclamation
when it first summoned him to mass has been recorded:—“O delicate and
sweet harmony! O beautiful Mary! how musically she sounds! how
strangely she pleaseth my ear!”

In spite of this christening, the object of Dr. Tresham's admiration
is as decidedly a Tom-Bell, as the Puss in Boots who appeared at a
Masquerade (Theodore Hook remembers when and where) was a Tom Cat.
Often as the said Tom-Bell has been mentioned, there is but one other
anecdote recorded of him; it occurred on Thursday the thirteenth day
of March 1806, and was thus described in a letter written two hours
after the event:—“An odd thing happened to-day about half past four,
Tom suddenly went mad; he began striking as fast as he could about
twenty times. Every body went out doubting whether there was an
earthquake, or whether the Dean was dead, or the College on fire.
However nothing was the matter but that Tom was taken ill in his
bowels: in other words something had happened to the works, but it was
not of any serious consequence, for he has struck six as well as ever,
and bids fair to toll 101 to-night as well as he did before the
attack.”

This was written by a youth of great natural endowments, rare
acquirements, playful temper, and affectionate heart. If his days had
been prolonged, his happy industry, his inoffensive wit, his sound
judgement and his moral worth, favoured as they were by all favourable
circumstances, must have raised him to distinction, and the name of
Barrè Roberts which is now known only in the little circle of his own
and his father's friends, would have had its place with those who have
deserved well of their kind and reflected honor upon their country.

But I return to a subject, which would have interested him in his
antiquarian pursuits,—for he loved to wander among the Ruins of Time.
We will return therefore to that ceremony of christening Church Bells,
which with other practices of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic
Church, has been revived in France.

Bells, say those Theologians in _issimi_ who have gravely written upon
this grave matter, Bells, say they, are not actually baptized with
that baptism which is administered for the remission of sins; but they
are said to be christened because the same ceremonies which are
observed in christening children, are also observed in consecrating
them, such as the washing, the anointing and the imposing a name; all
which however may more strictly be said to represent the signs and
symbols of baptism, than they may be called baptism itself.—

Nothing can be more candid! Bells are not baptized for the remission
of sins, because the original sin of a bell would be a flaw in the
metal, or a defect in the tone, neither of which the Priest undertakes
to remove. There was however a previous ceremony of blessing the
furnace when the bells were cast within the precincts of a monastery,
as they most frequently were in former times, and this may have been
intended for the prevention of such defects. The Brethren stood round
the furnace ranged in processional order, sang the 150th Psalm, and
then after certain prayers blessed the molten metal, and called upon
the Lord to infuse into it his grace and overshadow it with his power,
for the honor of the Saint, to whom the bell was to be dedicated and
whose name it was to bear.

When the time of christening came, the officiating Priest and his
assistant named every bell five times, as a sort of prelude, for some
unexplained reason which may perhaps be as significant and mystical as
the other parts of the ceremony. He then blessed the water in two
vessels which were prepared for the service. Dipping a clean linen
cloth in one of these vessels he washed the bell within and without,
the bell being suspended over a vessel wider in circumference than the
bell's mouth, in order that no drop of the water employed in this
washing might fall to the ground; for the water was holy. Certain
psalms were said or sung (they were the 96th and the four last in the
psalter;) during this part of the ceremony and while the officiating
Priest prepared the water in the second vessel: this he did by
sprinkling salt in it, and putting holy oil upon it, either with his
thumb, or with a stick; if the thumb were used, it was to be cleaned
immediately by rubbing it well with salt over the same water. Then he
dipt another clean cloth in this oiled and salted water, and again
washed the bell, within and without: after the service the cloths were
burnt lest they should be profaned by other uses. The bell was then
authentically named. Then it was anointed with chrism in the form of a
cross four times on the broadest part of the outside, thrice on the
smaller part, and four times on the inside, those parts being anointed
with most care against which the clapper was to strike. After this the
name was again given. Myrrh and frankincense were then brought, the
bell was incensed while part of a psalm was recited and the bell was
authentically named a third time; after which the priest carefully
wiped the chrism from the bell with tow, and the tow was immediately
burnt in the censer. Next the Priest struck each bell thrice with its
clapper, and named it again at every stroke; every one of the
assistants in like manner struck it and named it once. The bells were
then carefully covered each with a cloth and immediately hoisted that
they might not be contaminated by any irreverent touch. The Priest
concluded by explaining to the congregation, if he thought proper, the
reason for this ceremony of christening the bells, which was that they
might act as preservatives against thunder and lightning, and hail and
wind, and storms of every kind, and moreover that they might drive
away evil Spirits. To these and their other virtues the Bishop of
Chalons alluded in his late truly Gallican and Roman Catholic
discourse. “The Bells,” said he, “placed like centinels on the towers,
watch over us and turn away from us the temptations of the enemy of
our salvation, as well as storms and tempests. They speak and pray for
us in our troubles; they inform heaven of the necessities of the
earth.”

Now were this edifying part of the Roman Catholic ritual to be
re-introduced in the British dominions,—as it very possibly may be now
that Lord Peter has appeared in his robes before the King, and been
introduced by his title,—the opportunity would no doubt be taken by
the Bishop or Jesuit who might direct the proceedings, of
complimenting the friends of their cause by naming the first “holy and
happy family” after them. And to commemorate the extraordinary union
of sentiment which that cause has brought about between persons not
otherwise remarkable for any similitude of feelings or opinions, they
might unite two or more names in one bell, (as is frequently done in
the human subject,) and thus with a peculiar felicity of compliment,
shew who and who upon this great and memorable occasion have _pulled
together_. In such a case the names selected for a peal of eight
tunable bells might run thus

  Bim 1st. — Canning O'Connel.
  Bim 2d.  — Plunkett Shiel.
  Bim 3d.  — Augustus Frederick Cobbett.
  Bim 4th. — Williams Wynn Burdett Waithman.
  Bim 5th. — Grenville Wood.
  Bim 6th. — Palmerston Hume.
  Bom      — Lawless Brougham.
  Bell     — Lord King, _per se_;—

—alone _par excellence_, as the thickest and thinnest friend of the
cause, and moreover because

  None but himself can be his parallel;

and last in order because the base note accords best with him; and
because for the decorum and dignity with which he has at all times
treated the Bishops, the clergy and the subject of religion, he must
be allowed to bear the bell not from his compeers alone but from all
his contemporaries.

CHAPTER XXXI. P. I.

MORE CONCERNING BELLS.

  Lord, ringing changes all our bells hath marr'd;
                    Jangled they have and jarr'd
  So long, they're out of tune, and out of frame;
                    They seem not now the same.
  Put them in frame anew, and once begin
  To tune them so, that they may chime all in!

HERBERT.

There are more mysteries in a peal of bells than were touched upon by
the Bishop of Chalons in his sermon. There are plain bob-triples,
bob-majors, bob-majors reversed, double bob-majors, and
grandsire-bob-cators, and there is a Bob-maximus. Who Bob was, and
whether he were Bob Major, or Major Bob, that is whether Major were
his name or his rank, and if his rank, to what service he belonged,
are questions which inexorable Oblivion will not answer, however
earnestly adjured. And there is no Witch of Endor who will call up Bob
from the grave to answer them himself. But there are facts in the
history of bell-ringing which Oblivion has not yet made her own, and
one of them is that the greatest performance ever completed by one
person in the world, was that of Mr. Samuel Thurston at the New
Theatre Public House in the City of Norwich, on Saturday evening, July
1, 1809, when he struck all these intricate short peals, the first
four upon a set of eight musical hand bells, the last on a peal of
ten.

But a performance upon hand-bells when compared to bell-ringing is
even less than a review in comparison with a battle. Strength of arm
as well as skill is required for managing a bell-rope. Samuel
Thurston's peal of plain bob-triples was “nobly brought round” in two
minutes and three quarters, and his grandsire-bob-cators were as nobly
finished in five minutes and fourteen seconds. The reader shall now
see what real bell-ringing is.

The year 1796 was remarkable for the performance of great exploits in
this manly and English art,—for to England the art is said to be
peculiar, the cheerful carrillons of the continent being played by
keys. In that year, and in the month of August the Westmorland youths
rang a complete peal of 5040 grandsire triples, in St. Mary's Church
Kendal, being the whole number of changes on seven bells. The peal was
divided into ten parts, or courses of 504 each; the bobs were called
by the sixth, a lead single was made in the middle of the peal, and
another at the conclusion which brought the bells home. Distinct leads
and exact divisions were observed throughout the whole, and the
performance was completed in three hours and twenty minutes. A like
performance took place in the same month at Kidderminster in three
hours and fourteen minutes. Stephen Hill composed and called the peal,
it was conducted through with one single, which was brought to the
4984th change, viz. 1267453. This was allowed by those who were
conversant in the art to exceed any peal ever yet rung in this kingdom
by that method.

_Paulo majora canamus_. The Society of Cambridge youths that same year
rang in the Church of St. Mary the Great, a true and complete peal of
Bob maximus, in five hours and five minutes. This consisted of 6600
changes, and for regularity of striking and harmony throughout the
peal was allowed by competent judges to be a very masterly
performance. In point of time the striking was to such a nicety that
in each thousand changes the time did not vary one sixteenth of a
minute, and the compass of the last thousand was exactly equal to the
first.

Eight Birmingham youths (some of them were under twenty years of age)
attempted a greater exploit, they ventured upon a complete peal of
15120 bob major. They failed indeed, _magnis tamen ausis_. For after
they had rang upwards of eight hours and a half, they found themselves
so much fatigued that they desired the caller would take the first
opportunity to bring the bells home. This he soon did by omitting a
bob and so brought them round thus making a peal of 14224 changes in
eight hours and forty-five minutes, the longest which was ever rung in
that part of the country, or perhaps any where else.

In that same year died Mr. Patrick the celebrated composer of
church-bell-music, and senior of the Society of Cumberland Youths,—an
Hibernian sort of distinction for one in middle or later life. He is
the same person whose name was well known in the scientific world as a
maker of barometers; and he it was who composed the whole peal of
Stedman's triples, 5040 changes, (which his obituarist says had till
then been deemed impracticable, and for the discovery of which he
received a premium of 50_l._ offered for that purpose by the Norwich
amateurs of the art) “his productions of real double and treble bob
royal being a standing monument of his unparalleled and superlative
merits.” This Mr. Patrick was interred on the afternoon of Sunday,
June 26, in the church-yard of St. Leonard, Shoreditch; the corpse was
followed to the grave by all the Ringing Societies in London and its
environs, each sounding hand bells with muffled clappers, the church
bells at the same time ringing a dead peal;

  ̔Ως οἵγ̕ ἀμφἰεπον τάφον Πατρἰκος βοϐϐοδάμοιο.

James Ogden was interred with honours of the same kind at Ashton under
Line, in the year of this present writing, 1827. His remains were
borne to the grave by the ringers of St. Michael's Tower in that town,
with whom he had rung the tenor bell for more than fifty years, and
with whom he performed “the unprecedented feat” of ringing five
thousand on that bell (which weighed 28 cwt.) in his sixty-seventh
year. After the funeral his old companions rang a dead peal for him of
828 changes, that being the number of the months of his life. Such in
England are the funeral honors of the Βελτιϛοι.

It would take 91 years to ring the changes upon twelve bells, at the
rate of two strokes to a second; the changes upon fourteen could not
be rung through at the same rate in less than 16575 years; and upon
four and twenty they would require more than 117,000 billions of
years.

Great then are the mysteries of bell-ringing! And this may be said in
its praise, that of all devices which men have sought out for
obtaining distinction by making a noise in the world, it is the most
harmless.

CHAPTER XXXII. P. I.

AN INTRODUCTION TO CERTAIN PRELIMINARIES ESSENTIAL TO THE PROGRESS OF
THIS WORK.

  _Mas demos ya el asiento en lo importante,
  Que el tiempo huye del mundo por la posta._

BALBUENA.

The subject of these memoirs heard the bells of St. George's ring for
the battles of Dettingen and Culloden; for Commodore Anson's return
and Admiral Hawke's victory; for the conquest of Quebec; for other
victories, important in their day, though in the retrospect they may
seem to have produced little effect; and for more than one Peace; for
the going out of the Old Style, and for the coming in of the New; for
the accession, marriage and coronation of George the 3d; for the birth
of George the 4th; and that of all his royal brethren and sisters;—and
what was to him a subject of nearer and dearer interest than any of
these events,—for his own wedding.

What said those bells to him that happy day? for that bells can convey
articulate sounds to those who have the gift of interpreting their
language, Whittington Lord Mayor of London Town knew by fortunate
experience.

So did a certain Father Confessor in the Netherlands whom a buxom
widow consulted upon the perilous question whether she should marry a
second husband, or continue in widowed blessedness. The prudent Priest
deemed it too delicate a point for him to decide; so he directed her
to attend to the bells of her church when next they chimed—(they were
but three in number)—and bring him word what she thought they said;
and he exhorted her to pray in the mean time earnestly for grace to
understand them rightly, and in the sense that might be most for her
welfare here and hereafter, as he on his part would pray for her.—She
listened with mouth and ears, the first time that the bells struck up;
and the more she listened, the more plainly they said “_Nempt een man,
Nempt een man!_—Take a Spouse, Take a Spouse!” “Aye Daughter!” said
the Confessor, when she returned to him with her report, “If the bells
have said so, so say I; and not I alone, but the Apostle also, and the
Spirit who through that Apostle hath told us when it is best for us to
marry!” Reader thou mayest thank the Leonine poet Gummarus Van Craen
for this good story.

What said the Bells of Doncaster to our dear Doctor on that happy
morning which made him a whole man by uniting to him the rib that he
till then had wanted? They said to him as distinctly as they spoke to
Whittington, and to the Flemish Widow,

  Daniel Dove brings Deborah home.
  Daniel Dove brings Deborah home.

But whither am I hurrying? It was not till the year 1761 that that
happy union was effected; and the fourteen years whose course of
events I have reluctantly, yet of necessity, pretermitted, bring us
only to 1748 in which year the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was made.
Peter Hopkins and Mrs. Hopkins were then both living, and Daniel had
not attained to the honors of his diploma. Before we come to the day
on which the bells rung that joyful peal, I must enter into some
details for the purpose of shewing how he became qualified for his
degree, and how he was enabled to take it; and it will be necessary
therefore to say something of the opportunities of instruction which
he enjoyed under Hopkins, and of the state of society in Doncaster at
that time. And preliminary to, as preparatory for all this, some
account is to be given of Doncaster itself.

Reader, you may skip this preliminary account if you please, but it
will be to your loss if you do! You perhaps may be one of those
persons who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and neither make enquiry
concerning, nor take notice of, any thing on the way; but, thank
Heaven, I cannot pass through Doncaster in any such mood of mind. If
however thou belongest to a better class, then may I promise that in
what is here to follow, thou wilt find something to recompense thee
for the little time thou wilt employ in reading it, were that time
more than it will be, or more valuable than it is. For I shall
assuredly either tell thee of something which thou didst not know
before; (and let me observe by the bye that I never obtained any
information of any kind, which did not on some occasion or other prove
available;)—or I shall waken up to pleasurable consciousness thy
napping knowledge. Snuff the candles therefore, if it be candle-light,
and they require it; (I hope, for thine eyes' sake, thou art not
reading by a lamp!)—stir the fire, if it be winter, and it be prudent
to refresh it with the poker; and then comfortably begin a new
chapter:

  _Faciam ut hujus loci semper memineris._[1]

[Footnote 1: TERENCE.]

END OF VOL. I.

W. Nicol, Cleveland-row, St. James's.