CHAPTER XI. P. I.

A WORD TO THE READER, SHEWING WHERE WE ARE, AND HOW WE CAME HERE, AND WHEREFORE; AND WHITHER WE ARE GOING.

Reader, you have not forgotten where we are at this time: you remember I trust, that we are neither at Dan nor Beersheba; nor any where between those two celebrated places; nor on the way to either of them: but that we are in the Doctor's parlour, that Mrs. Dove has just poured out his seventh cup of tea, and that the clock of St. George's has struck five. In what street, parade, place, square, row, terrace or lane, and in what town, and in what county; and on what day, and in what month, and in what year, will be explained in due time. You cannot but remember what was said in the second chapter post-initium concerning the importance and the necessity of order in an undertaking like this. “All things,” says Sir Thomas Brown, “began in order; so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order, and mystical mathematics of the City of Heaven:” This awful sentence was uttered by the Philosopher of Norwich upon occasion of a subject less momentous than that whereon we have entered, for what are the mysteries of the Quincunx compared to the delineation of a human mind? Be pleased only at present to bear in mind where we are. Place but as much confidence in me as you do in your review, your newspaper, and your apothecary; give me but as much credit as you expect from your tailor; and if your apothecary deserves that confidence as well, it will be well for you, and if your credit is as punctually redeemed it will be well for your tailor. It is not without cause that I have gone back to the Doctor's childhood and his birth place. Be thou assured, O Reader! that he never could have been seated thus comfortably in that comfortable parlour where we are now regarding him—never by possibility could have been at that time in that spot, and in those circumstances;—never could have been the Doctor that he was,—nay according to all reasonable induction, all tangible or imaginable probabilities,—never would have been a Doctor at all,—consequently thou never couldst have had the happiness of reading this delectable history, nor I the happiness of writing it for thy benefit and information and delight,—had it not been for his father's character, his father's books, his schoolmaster Guy, and his Uncle William, with all whom and which, it was therefore indispensable that thou shouldst be made acquainted.

A metaphysician, or as some of my contemporaries would affect to say a psychologist, if he were at all a master of his art bablative (for it is as much an ars bablativa as the Law, which was defined to be so by that old traitor and time-server Serjeant Maynard)—a metaphysician I say, would not require more than three such octavo volumes as those of Mr. Malthus's Essay on Population, to prove that no existing circumstance could at this time be what it is, unless all preceding circumstances had from the beginning of time been precisely what they were. But, my good Reader, I have too much respect for you, and too much regard for your precious time, and too much employment, or amusement (which is a very rational kind of employment) for my own, to waste it in demonstrating a truism. No man knows the value of time more feelingly, than I do!

1 BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

It is my wish and intention to make you acquainted with a person most worthy to be known, for such the subject of this history will be admitted to be: one whom when you once know him it will be impossible that you should ever forget: one for whom I have the highest possible veneration and regard; (and though it is not possible that your feelings towards him should be what mine are) one who, the more he is known, will and must be more and more admired. I wish to introduce this person to you. Now, Sir, I appeal to your good sense, and to your own standard of propriety, should I act with sufficient respect either to yourself or him, if, without giving you any previous intimation, any information, concerning his character and situation in life; or in any way apprizing you who and what he was, I were to knock at your door and simply present him to you as Doctor Dove? No, my dear Sir! it is indispensable that you should be properly informed who it is whom I thus introduce to your acquaintance; and if you are the judicious person that I suppose you to be, you will be obliged to me as long as you live. “For why,” as old Higgins hath it,—

Ill fare that reader's heart who of this book says otherwise! “Tam suavia dicam facinora, ut malè sit ei qui talibus non delectetur!” said a very different person from old Higgins, writing in a different vein, I have not read his book, but so far as my own is concerned, I heartily adopt his malediction.

Had I been disposed, as the Persians say, to let the steed of the pen expatiate in the plains of prolixity, I should have carried thee farther back in the generations of the Doves. But the good garrulous son of Garcilasso my Lord (Heaven rest the soul of the Princess who bore him,—for Peru has never produced any thing else half so precious as his delightful books,)—the Inca-blooded historian himself, I say, was not more anxious to avoid that failing than I am. Forgive me, Reader, if I should have fallen into an opposite error; forgive me if in the fear of saying too much I should have said too little. I have my misgivings:—I may have run upon Scylla while striving to avoid Charybdis. Much interesting matter have I omitted; much have I past by on which I “cast a longing lingering look behind;”—much which might worthily find a place in the History of Yorkshire;—or of the West Riding (if that history were tripartitively distributed;)—or in the Gentleman's Magazine;—or in John Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century: (I honor John Nichols, I honor Mr. Urban!) much more might it have had place,—much more might it be looked for here.

I might have told thee, Reader, of Daniel the Grandfather, and of Abigail his second wife, who once tasted tea in the housekeeper's apartments at Skipton Castle; and of the Great Grandfather who at the age of twenty-eight died of the small pox, and was the last of the family that wore a leathern jerkin; and of his father Daniel the atavus, who was the first of the family that shaved, and who went with his own horse and arms to serve in that brave troop, which during the wreck of the King's party the heir of Lowther raised for the loyal cause: and of that Daniel's Grandfather (the tritavus) who going to Kentmere to bring home a wife was converted from the popish superstition by falling in with Bernard Gilpin on the way. That apostolic man was so well pleased with his convert, that he gave him his own copy of Latimer's sermons,—that copy which was one of our Daniel's Sunday books, and which was religiously preserved in reverence for this ancestor, and for the Apostle of the North (as Bernard Gilpin was called) whose autograph it contained.

The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than could be done by the most elaborate dissertation. And the History of the Doves might be rendered as interesting and as instructive as that of the Seymours or the Howards. Frown not, My Lord of Norfolk, frown not, your Grace of Somerset, when I add, that it would contain less for their descendants to regret.