envy, or malice, any unkind, any uncharitable, any ungenerous feeling, lessens the likeness to your picture, and not only deforms you while it lasts, but leaves its trace behind; for the effect of the passions upon the face is more rapid and more certain than that of time.

"His counsel," says Gwillim the Pursuivant, was very behoveful, who advised all gentlewomen often to look on glasses, that so, if they saw themselves beautiful, they might be stirred up to make their minds as fair by virtue as their faces were by nature; but if deformed, they might make amends for their outward deformity, with their intern pulchritude and gracious qualities. And those that are proud of their beauty should consider that their own hue is as brittle as the glass wherein they see it; and that they carry on their shoulders nothing but a skull wrapt in skin which one day will be loathsome to be looked on."

The conclusion of this passage accorded not with the Doctor's feelings. He thought that whatever tended to connect frightful and loathsome associations with the solemn and wholesome contemplation of mortality, ought to be avoided as injudicious and injurious. So too with regard to age: if it is dark and unlovely "the fault," he used to say, "is generally our own; Nature indeed make it an object of compassion, but not of dislike, unless we ourselves render it

So.

may

It is not of necessity that we grow ugly as well as old." Donne says

No spring, nor summer's beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face;

66

he was probably speaking of his wife, for Donne was happy in his marriage, as he deserved to be. There is a beauty which, as the Duchess of Newcastle said of her mother's, is beyond the reach of time;" that beauty depends upon the mind, upon the temper, -Young Ladies, upon yourselves! George Wither wrote under the best of his portraits,

What I was, is passed by;
What I AM, away doth fly;
What I SHALL BE, none do sce;
Yet in THAT my beauties be.

He commenced also a Meditation upon that portrait in these impressive lines:

When I behold my Picture and perceive

How vain it is our Portraitures to leave

In lines and shadows, (which make shews to-day
Of that which will to-morrow fade away,)
And think what mean resemblances at best

Are by mechanic instruments exprest,

I thought it better much to leave behind me,
Some draught, in which my living friends might find me,
The same I am, in that which will remain
Till all is ruined and repaired again.

In the same poem he

says,

A Picture, though with most exactness made,
Is nothing but the shadow of a shade.
For even our living bodies, (though they seem
To others more, or more in our esteem,)
Are but the shadow of that Real Being,
Which doth extend beyond the fleshly seeing,
And cannot be discerned, until we rise
Immortal objects for immortal eyes.

Like most men, George Wither, as he grew more selfish, was tolerably successful in deceiving himself as to his own motives and state of mind. If ever there was an honest enthusiast, he had been one; afterwards he feathered his nest with the spoils of the Loyalists and of the Bishops; and during this prosperous part of his turbulent life there must have been times when the remembrance of his former self brought with it more melancholy and more awful thoughts than the sight of his own youthful portrait, in its fantastic garb, or of that more sober resemblance upon which his meditation was composed.

Such a portraiture of the inner or real being as Wither in his better mind wished

to leave in his works, for those who knew and loved him, such a portraiture am I endeavouring to compose of Dr. Dove, wherein the world may see what he was, and so become acquainted with his intellectual lineaments, and with those peculiarities, which, forming as it were the idiosyncrasy of his moral constitution, contributed in no small degree to those ever-varying lights and shades of character and feeling in his I'vi g countenance, which, I believe, would have baffled the best painter's art.

Poi voi sapete quanto egli è dabbene,

Com' ha giudizio, ingegno, e discrezione
Come conosce il vero, il bello, e 'l bene.*

⚫ BERNI.

SUCH then as Daniel Dove was in the twenty-sixth year of his age we are now to consider him, settled at Doncaster, and with his way of life chosen, for better for worse, in all respects; except, as my female readers will remember, that he was neither married, nor engaged, nor likely to be so.

One of the things for which he used to thank God was that the world had not been all before him where to choose, either as to calling or place, but that both had been well chosen for him. To choose upon such just motives as can leave no rational cause for after repentance requires riper judgment than ought to be expected at the age when the choice is to be made; it is best for us therefore at a time of life when, though perhaps we might choose well, it is impossible that we could choose wisely, to acquiesce in the determination of others, who have knowledge and experience to direct them. Far happier are they who always know what they are to do, than they who have to determine what they will do.

Bisogna far quel che si deve fare,

E non gia tutto quello che si vuole,”

will go on in the ordinary way, conforming their habits to those of the place. It matters nothing more to those who live less in the little world about them, than in a world of their own, with the whole powers of the head and of the heart too (if they have one) intently fixed upon some favourite pursuit:— if they have a heart I say, for it sometimes happens that where there is an excellent head, the heart is nothing more than a piece of hard flesh. In this respect, the highest and the meanest intellects are, in a certain sense, alike self-sufficient; that is, they are so far independent of adventitious aid, that they derive little adyantage from society and suffer nothing from the want of it. But there are others for whose mental improvement, or at least mental enjoyment, collision, and sympathy, and external excitement seem almost indispensable. Just as large towns are the only places in which first-rate workmen in any handicraft business can find employment, so men of letters and of science generally appear to think that nowhere but in a metropolis can they find the opportunities which they desire of improvement or of display. These persons are wise in their generation, but they are not children of light.

Among such persons it may perhaps be thought that our friend should be classed; and it cannot be doubted that, in a more conspicuous field of action, he might have distinguished himself, and obtained a splendid fortune. But for distinction he never entertained the slightest desire, and with the goods of fortune which had fallen to his share he was perfectly contented. But was he favourably situated for his intellectual

But was he well placed at Doncaster?

It matters not where those men are placed, who, as South says, "have souls so dull and stupid as to serve for little else but to keep their bodies from putrefaction." Ordinary people, whether their lot be cast in town or country, in the metropolis or in a village,

*PANANTI.

had come before him concerning any other person, is what he would have considered to be the question-issimus. I answer without the slightest hesitation, that he was.

In London he might have mounted a Physician's wig, have ridden in his carriage, have attained the honours of the College, and added F.R.S. to his professional initials. He might, if Fortune opening her eyes had chosen to favour desert, have become Sir

Daniel Dove, Bart., Physician to his Majesty. But he would then have been a very different person from the Dr. Dove of Doncaster, whose memory will be transmitted to posterity in these volumes, and he would have been much less worthy of being remembered. The course of such a life would have left him no leisure for himself; and metropolitan society, in rubbing off the singularities of his character, would just in the same degree have taken from its strength.

It is a pretty general opinion that no society can be so bad as that of a small country town; and certain it is that such towns offer little or no choice. You must take what they have and make the best of it. But there are not many persons to whom circumstances allow much latitude of choice anywhere, except in those public places, as they are called, where the idle and the dissipated, like birds of a feather, flock together. In any settled place of residence men are circumscribed by station and opportunities, and just as much in the capital as in a provincial town. No one will be disposed to regret this, if he observes, where men have most power of choosing their society, how little benefit is derived from it, or, in other words, with how little wisdom it is used.

After all, the common varieties of human character will be found distributed in much the same proportion everywhere, and in most places there will be a sprinkling of the uncommon ones. Everywhere you may find the selfish and the sensual, the carking and the careful, the cunning and the credulous, the worldling and the reckless. But kind hearts are also everywhere to be found, right intentions, sober minds, and private virtues, for the sake of which let us hope that God may continue to spare this hitherto highly-favoured nation, notwithstanding the fearful amount of our public and manifold offences.

The society then of Doncaster, in the middle of the last century, was like that of any other country town which was neither the seat of manufactures, nor of a Bishop's sce; in either of which more information of

a peculiar kind would have been found,more active minds, or more cultivated ones. There was enough of those eccentricities for which the English above all other people are remarkable, those aberrations of intellect which just fail to constitute legal insanity, and which, according to their degree, excite amusement, or compassion. Nor was the town without its full share of talents; these there was little to foster and encourage, but happily there was nothing to pervert and stimulate them to a premature and mischievous activity.

In one respect it more resembled an episcopal than a trading city. The four kings and their respective suits of red and black were not upon more frequent service in the precincts of a cathedral, than in the good town of Doncaster. A stranger who had been invited to spend the evening with a family there, to which he had been introduced, was asked by the master of the house to take a card as a matter of course; upon his replying that he did not play at cards, the company looked at him with astonishment, and his host exclaimed - "What, Sir! not play at cards? the Lord help you!"

I will not say the Lord helped Daniel Dove, because there would be an air of irreverence in the expression, the case being one in which he, or any one, might help himself. He knew enough of all the games which were then in vogue to have played at them, if he had so thought good; and he would have been as willing, sometimes, in certain moods of mind, to have taken his seat at a card-table, in houses where cardplaying did not form part of the regular business of life, as to have listened to a tune on the old-fashioned spinnet, or the then new-fashioned harpsichord. But that which as an occasional pastime he might have thought harmless and even wholesome, seemed to him something worse than folly when it was made a kill-time, - the serious occupation for which people were brought together, -the only one at which some of them ever appeared to give themselves the trouble of thinking. And seeing its effects upon the temper, and how nearly this habit

was connected with a spirit of gambling, he thought that cards had not without reason been called the Devil's Books.

I shall not therefore introduce the reader to a Doncaster card-party, by way of showing him the society of the place. The Mrs. Shuffles, Mrs. Cuts, and Miss Dealems, the Mr. Tittles and Mrs. Tattles, the Humdrums and the Prateapaces, the Fribbles and the Feebles, the Perts and the Prims, the Littlewits and the Longtongues, the Heavyheads and the Broadbelows, are to be found everywhere.

"It is quite right," says one of the Guessers at Truth," that there should be a heavy duty on cards: not only on moral grounds; not only because they act on a social party like a torpedo, silencing the merry voice and numbing the play of the features; not only to still the hunger of the public purse, which, reversing the qualities of Fortunatus's, is always empty, however much you may put into it; but also because every pack of cards is a malicious libel on courts, and on the world, seeing that the trumpery with number one at the head, is the best part of them; and that it gives kings and queens no other companions than knaves."

CHAPTER LXVI.

MR. COPLEY OF NETHERHALL. SOCIETY AT HIS HOUSE. DRUMMOND. BURGH. GRAY. MASON. MILLER THE ORGANIST AND HISTORIAN OF DONCASTER. HERSCHEL.

All worldly joys go less

To the one joy of doing kindnesses.

HERBERT.

THERE WAS one house in Doncaster in which cards were never introduced; this house was Netherhall, the seat of Mr. Copley; and there Dr. Dove had the advantage of such society as was at that time very rarely, and is still not often, to be enjoyed anywhere.

families in Doncaster: Robert Grosseteste, one of the most eminent of our English churchmen before the Reformation, was a branch from their stock. Robert Copley, who in the middle of the last century represented the family, was brought up at Westminster School, and while there took, what is very unusual for boys at Westminster or any other school to take, lessons in music. Dr. Crofts was his master, and made him, as has been said by a very competent judge, a very good performer in thorough-bass on the harpsichord. He attempted painting also, but not with equal success; the age of painting in this country had not then arrived.

Mr. Copley's income never exceeded twelve hundred a-year; but this which is still a liberal income, was then a large one, in the hands of a wise and prudent man. Netherhall was the resort of intellectual men, in whose company he delighted; and the poor were fed daily from his table. Drummond, afterwards Archbishop of York, was his frequent guest; so was Mason; so was Mason's friend Dr. Burgh; and Gray has sometimes been entertained there. One of the "strong names" of the King of Dahomey means, when interpreted, "wherever I rub, I leave my scent."

In

a better sense than belongs to this metaphorical boast of the power and the disposition to be terrible, it may be said of such men as Gray and Mason that wherever they have resided, or have been entertained as abiding guests, an odour of their memory remains. Who passes by the house at Streatham that was once Mrs. Thrale's without thinking of Dr. Johnson?

During many years Mr. Copley entertained himself and his friends with a weekly concert at Netherhall, he himself, Sir Brian Cooke and some of his family, and Dr. Miller the organist, and afterwards Historian of Doncaster, being performers. Miller, who was himself a remarkable person, had the fortune to introduce a more remarkable one to these concerts; it is an interesting anecdote in the history of that person, of Miller,

About the year 1760 as Miller was dining at Pontefract with the officers of the Durham militia, one of them, knowing his love of music, told him they had a young German in their band as a performer on the hautboy, who had only been a few months in England, and yet spoke English almost as well as a native, and who was also an excellent performer on the violin; the officer added, that if Miller would come into another room this German should entertain him with a solo. The invitation was gladly accepted, and Miller heard a solo of Giardini's executed in a manner that surprised him. He afterwards took an opportunity of having some private conversation with the young musician, and asked him whether he had engaged himself for any long period to the Durham militia. The answer was, only from month to month." "Leave them then," said the organist, "and come and live with me. I am a single man, and think we shall be happy together; and doubtless your merit will soon entitle you to a more eligible situation." The offer was accepted as frankly as it was made: and the reader may imagine with what satisfaction Dr. Miller must have remembered this act of generous feeling, when he hears that this young German was Herschel the Astro

nomer.

"My humble mansion," says Miller, "consisted at that time but of two rooms. However, poor as I was, my cottage contained a small library of well-chosen books; and it must appear singular that a foreigner who had been so short a time in England should understand even the peculiarities of the language so well, as to fix upon Swift for his favourite author." He took an early opportunity of introducing his new friend at Mr. Copley's concerts; the first violin was resigned to him: and never, says the organist, had I heard the concertos of Corelli, Geminiani and Avison, or the overtures of Handel, performed more chastely, or more according to the original intention of the composers than by Mr. Herschel. I soon lost my companion: his fame was presently spread abroad: he had the offer of pupils,

and was solicited to lead the public concerts both at Wakefield and Halifax. A new organ for the parish church of Halifax was built about this time, and Herschel was one of the seven candidates for the organist's place. They drew lots how they were to perform in succession. Herschel drew the third, the second fell to Mr., afterwards Dr., Wainwright of Manchester, whose finger was so rapid that old Snetzler, the organbuilder, ran about the church, exclaiming, Te Tevel, te Tevel! he run over te keys like one cat; he will not give my piphes room for to shpeak. "During Mr. Wainwright's performance," says Miller, "I was standing in the middle aisle with Herschel; what chance have you, said I, to follow this man?" He replied, "I don't know; I am sure fingers will not do." On which he ascended the organ loft, and produced from the organ so uncommon a fulness, such a volume of slow solemn harmony, that I could by no means account for the effect. After this short extempore effusion, he finished with the old hundredth-psalm-tune, which he played better than his opponent. Ay, ay, cried old Snetzler, tish is very goot, very goot indeet; I vil luf tish man, for he gives my piphes room for to shpeak. Having afterwards asked Mr. Herschel by what means, in the beginning of his performance, he produced so uncommon an effect, he replied, "I told you fingers would not do!" and producing two pieces of lead from his waistcoat pocket, one of these," said he, "I placed on the lowest key of the organ, and the other upon the octave above; thus by accommodating the harmony, I produced the effect of four hands instead of two."

CHAPTER LXVII.

A MYTHOLOGICAL STORY MORALISED.

Il faut mettre les fables en presse pour en tirer quelque suc de vérité. GARASSE

It is related of the great mythological personage Baly, that Veeshnoo, when he dispossessed him of his impious power,