THE DOCTOR,

&c.

There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other.

THE DOCTOR,

&c.

VOL. III.

PRELUDE OF MOTTOES.

Je vas de nouveau percer mon tonneau, et de la traicte, laquelle par deux precedents volumes vous est assez cogneuë, vous tirer du creux de nos passetemps epicenaires un galant tiercin, et consecutivement un joyeux quart de sentences Pantagruelliques. Par moy vous sera licite les appeller Diogeniques.—Et peur n'ayez que le vin faille.—Autant que vous en tireray par la dille, autant en entonneray per le bondon. Ainsi demourera le tonneau inexpuisible. Il a source vive et veine perpetuelle.

The great cement that holds these several discourses together is one main design which they jointly drive at, and which, I think, is confessedly generous and important, namely, the knowledge of—true happiness, so far as reason can cut her way through those darknesses and difficulties she is encumbered with in this life: which though they be many and great, yet I should belie the sense of my own success, if I should pronounce them insuperable; as also, if I were deprived of that sense, should lose many pleasures and enjoyments of mind, which I am now conscious to myself of: amongst which, there is none so considerable as that tacit reflection within myself, what real service may be rendered to religion by these my labours.

Lector, esto libro te ofrezco, sin que me aya mandado Señor alguno que le escriva, ni menos me ayan importunado mis amigos que le estampe, sino solamente por mi gusto, por mi antojo y por mi voluntad.

The reader must not expect in this work merely the private uninteresting history of a single person. He may expect whatever curious particulars can with any propriety be connected with it. Nor must the general disquisitions and the incidental narratives of the present work be ever considered as actually digressionary in their natures, and as merely useful in their notices. They are all united with the rest, and form proper parts of the whole. They have some of them a necessary connexion with the history of the Doctor; they have many of them an intimate relation, they have all of them a natural affinity to it. And the Author has endeavoured, by a judicious distribution of them through the work, to prevent that disgusting uniformity, and to take off that uninteresting personality, which must necessarily result from the merely barren and private annals of an obscure individual. He has thus in some measure adopted the elegant principles of modern gardening. He has thrown down the close hedges and the high walls that have confined so many biographers in their views. He has called in the scenes of the neighbouring country to his aid, and has happily combined them into his own plan. He has drawn off the attention from the central point before it became languid and exhausted, by fetching in some objects from society at large, or by presenting some view of the philosophy of man. But he has been cautious of multiplying objects in the wantonness of refinement, and of distracting the attention with a confused variety. He has always considered the history of the Doctor, as the great fixed point, the enlivening centre, of all his excursions. Every opening is therefore made to carry an actual reference, either mediate or immediate, to the regular history of the Doctor. And every visto is employed only for the useful purpose of breaking the stiff straight lines, of lighting up the dark, of heightening the little, and of colouring over the lifeless, in the regular history of the Doctor.

I exhort all People, gentle and simple, men, women and children, to buy, to read, to extol, these labours of mine. Let them not fear to defend every article; for I will bear them harmless. I have arguments good store, and can easily confute, either logically, theologically, or metaphysically, all those who oppose me.

CONTENTS.

OBSOLETE ANTICIPATIONS; BEING A LEAF OUT OF AN OLD ALMANACK, WHICH LIKE OTHER OLD ALMANACKS THOUGH OUT OF DATE IS NOT OUT OF USE.

A LEAF OUT OF THE NEW ALMANACK. THE AUTHOR THINKS CONSIDERATELY OF HIS COMMENTATORS; RUMINATES; RELATES AN ANECDOTE OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE; QUOTES SOME PYRAMIDAL STANZAS, WHICH ARE NOT THE WORSE FOR THEIR ARCHITECTURE, AND DELIVERS AN OPINION CONCERNING BURNS.

To smell a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the Soul. “Earth thou art, to earth thou shalt return.”

AN ILLUSTRATION FOR THE ASSISTANCE OF THE COMMENTATORS DRAWN FROM THE HISTORY OF THE KORAN. REMARKS WHICH ARE NOT INTENDED FOR MUSSELMEN, AND WHICH THE MISSIONARIES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ARE ADVISED NOT TO TRANSLATE.

You will excuse me if I do not strictly confine myself to narration, but now and then intersperse such reflections as may offer while I am writing.

MORE ON THE FOREGOING SUBJECT. ELUCIDATIONS FROM HENRY MORE AND DR. WATTS. AN INCIDENTAL OPINION UPON HORACE WALPOLE. THE STREAM OF THOUGHT “FLOWETH AT ITS OWN SWEET WILL.” PICTURES AND BOOKS. A SAYING OF MR PITT'S CONCERNING WILBERFORCE. THE AUTHOR EXPLAINS IN WHAT SENSE IT MIGHT BE SAID THAT HE SOMETIMES SHOOTS WITH A LONG BOW.

Vorrei, disse il Signor Gasparo Pallavicino, che voi ragionassi un poco piu minutamente di questo, che non fate; che in vero vi tenete molto al generale, et quasi ci mostrate le cose per transito.

AMATORY POETRY NOT ALWAYS OF THE WISEST KIND. AN ATTEMPT TO CONVEY SOME NOTION OF ITS QUANTITY. TRUE LOVE THOUGH NOT IN EVERY CASE THE BEST POET, THE BEST MORALIST ALWAYS.

El Amor es tan ingenioso, que en mi opinion, mas poetas ha hecho el solo, que la misma naturaleza.

AN EARLY BEREAVEMENT. TRUE LOVE ITS OWN COMFORTER. A LONELY FATHER AND AN ONLY CHILD.

OBSERVATIONS WHICH SHEW THAT WHATEVER PRIDE MEN MAY TAKE IN THE APPELLATIONS THEY ACQUIRE IN THEIR PROGRESS THROUGH THE WORLD, THEIR DEAREST NAME DIES BEFORE THEM.

A QUESTION WHETHER LOVE SHOULD BE FAITHFUL TO THE DEAD. DOUBTS ADVANCED AND CASES STATED.

THE AUTHOR REQUESTS THE READER NOT TO BE IMPATIENT. SHEWS FROM LORD SHAFTESBURY AT WHAT RATE A JUDICIOUS WRITER OUGHT TO PROCEED. DISCLAIMS PROLIXITY FOR HIMSELF, AND GIVES EXAMPLES OF IT IN A GERMAN PROFESSOR, A JEWISH RABBI, AND TWO COUNSELLORS, ENGLISH AND AMERICAN.

Pand. He that will have a cake out of the wheat, must tarry the grinding.

Troilus. Have I not tarried?

Pand. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

Troilus. Have I not tarried?

Pand. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.

Troilus. Still have I tarried.

Pand. Aye, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too; or you may chance to burn your lips.

Enobarbus.            Every time
Serves for the matter that is then born in it.

Lepidus. But small to greater matters must give way.

Enobarbus. Not if the small come first.

THE DOCTOR'S CONTEMPORARIES AT LEYDEN. EARLY FRIENDSHIP. COWPER'S MELANCHOLY OBSERVATION THAT GOOD DISPOSITIONS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE CORRUPTED THAN EVIL ONES TO BE CORRECTED. YOUTHFUL CONNECTIONS LOOSENED IN THE COMMON COURSE OF THINGS. A FINE FRAGMENT BY WALTER LANDOR.

PETER HOPKINS. REASONS FOR SUPPOSING THAT HE WAS AS GOOD A PRACTITIONER AS ANY IN ENGLAND; THOUGH NOT THE BEST. THE FITTEST MASTER FOR DANIEL DOVE. HIS SKILL IN ASTROLOGY.

AN INCIDENT WHICH BRINGS THE AUTHOR INTO A FORTUITOUS RESEMBLANCE WITH THE PATRIARCH OF THE PREDICANT FRIARS. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE FACT AND THE FABLE; AND AN APPLICATION WHICH, UNLIKE THOSE THAT ARE USUALLY APPENDED TO ESOP'S FABLES, THE READER IS LIKELY NEITHER TO SKIP NOR TO FORGET.

Diré aqui una maldad grande del Demonio.

A CHAPTER CHARACTERISTIC OF FRENCH ANTIQUARIES, FRENCH LADIES, FRENCH LAWYERS, FRENCH JUDGES, FRENCH LITERATURE, AND FRENCHNESS IN GENERAL.

Quid de pulicibus? vitæ salientia puncta.

WHEREIN THE CURIOUS READER MAY FIND SOME THINGS WHICH HE IS NOT LOOKING FOR, AND WHICH THE INCURIOUS ONE MAY SKIP IF HE PLEASES.

Voulant doncques satisfaire à la curiosité de touts bons compagnons, j'ay revolvé toutes les Pantarches des Cieux, calculé les quadrats de la Lune, crocheté tout ce que jamais penserent touts les Astrophiles, Hypernephelistes, Anemophylaces, Uranopetes et Ombrophores.

THE AUTHOR DISPLAYS A LITTLE MORE OF SUCH READING AS IS SELDOM READ, AND SHOWS THAT LORD BYRON AND AN ESSEX WIDOW DIFFERED IN OPINION CONCERNING FRIDAY.

Si j'avois dispersé ceci en divers endroits de mon ouvrage, j'aurois évité la censure de ceux qui appelleront ce chapitre un fatras de petit recueils. Mais comme je cherche la commodité de mes lecteurs plutôt que la mienne, je veux bien au depens de cette censure, leur épargner la peine de rassembler ce que j'aurois dispersé.

CONCERNING PETER HOPKINS AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE MOON AND TIDES UPON THE HUMAN BODY. A CHAPTER WHICH SOME PERSONS MAY DEEM MORE CURIOUS THAN DULL, AND OTHERS MORE DULL THAN CURIOUS.

A man that travelleth to the most desirable home, hath a habit of desire to it all the way; but his present business is his travel; and horse, and company, and inns, and ways, and weariness, &c., may take up more of his sensible thoughts, and of his talk and action, than his home.

WHEREIN MENTION IS MADE OF LORD BYRON, RONSARD, RABBI KAPOL AND CO. IT IS SUGGESTED THAT A MODE OF READING THE STARS HAS BEEN APPLIED TO THE RECOVERY OF OBLITERATED ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS; AND IT IS SHOWN THAT A MATHEMATICIAN MAY REASON MATHEMATICALLY, AND YET LIKE A FOOL.

A MUSICIAN'S WISH EXCITED BY HERSCHEL'S TELESCOPE. SYMPATHY BETWEEN PETER HOPKINS AND HIS PUPIL. INDIFFERENTISM USEFUL IN ORDINARY POLITICS, BUT DANGEROUS IN RELIGION.

Noi intendiamo parlare alle cose che utili sono alla umana vita, quanto per nostro intendimento si potrà in questa parte comprendere; e sopra quelle particelle che detto avemo di comporre.

MR. BACON'S PARSONAGE. CHRISTIAN RESIGNATION. TIME AND CHANGE. WILKIE AND THE MONK IN THE ESCURIAL.