CHAPTER XXVIII. P. I.

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

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.

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

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.