CHAPTER LV. P. I.
THE AUTHOR'S LAST VISIT TO DONCASTER.
Fuere quondam, hæc sed fuere;
Nunc ubi sint, rogitas? Id annos
Scire hos oportet scilicet. O bonæ
Musæ, O Lepôres—O Charites meræ!
O gaudia offuscata nullis
Litibus! O sine nube soles!
JANUS DOUZA.
I have more to say, dear Ladies, upon that which to you is, and ought to be, the most interesting of all worldly subjects, matrimony, and the various ways by which it is brought about; but this is not the place for saying it. The Doctor is not at this time thinking of a wife: his heart can no more be taken so long as it retains the lively image of the Burgemeester's Daughter, than Troy-town while the Palladium was safe.
Imagine him, therefore, in the year of our Lord 1747, and in the twenty-sixth year of his age, returned to Doncaster, with the Burgemeester's Daughter, seated like the Lady in the Lobster, in his inmost breast; with physic in his head and at his fingers' ends; and with an appetite for knowledge which had long been feeding voraciously, digesting well, and increasing in its growth by what it fed on. Imagine him returned to Doncaster, and welcomed once more as a son by the worthy old Peter Hopkins and his good wife, in that comfortable habitation which I have heretofore described, and of which (as was at the same time stated) you may see a faithful representation in Miller's History of that good town; a faithful representation, I say, of what it was in 1804; the drawing was by Frederic Nash; and Edward Shirt made a shift to engrave it; the house had then undergone some alterations since the days when I frequented it; and now!—
Of all things in this our mortal pilgrimage one of the most joyful is the returning home after an absence which has been long enough to make the heart yearn with hope, and not sicken with it, and then to find when you arrive there that all is well. But the most purely painful of all painful things is to visit after a long long interval of time the place which was once our home;—the most purely painful, because it is unmixed with fear, anxiety, disappointment, or any other emotion but what belongs to the sense of time and change, then pressing upon us with its whole unalleviated weight.
It was my fortune to leave Doncaster early in life, and, having passed per varios casus, and through as large a proportion of good and evil in my humble sphere, as the pious Æneas, though not exactly per tot discrimina rerum, not to see it again till after an absence of more than forty years, when my way happened to lie through that town. I should never have had heart purposely to visit it, for that would have been seeking sorrow; but to have made a circuit for the sake of avoiding the place would have been an act of weakness; and no man who has a proper degree of self-respect will do any thing of which he might justly feel ashamed. It was evening, and late in autumn when I entered Doncaster, and alighted at the Old Angel Inn. “The Old Angel!” said I to my fellow-traveller; “you see that even Angels on earth grow old!”
My companion knew how deeply I had been indebted to Dr. Dove, and with what affection I cherished his memory. We presently sallied forth to look at his former habitation. Totally unknown as I now am in Doncaster, (where there is probably not one living soul who remembers either me, or my very name,) I had determined to knock at the door, at a suitable hour on the morrow, and ask permission to enter the house in which I had passed so many happy and memorable hours, long ago. My age and appearance I thought might justify this liberty; and I intended also to go into the garden and see if any of the fruit trees were remaining, which my venerable friend had planted, and from which I had so often plucked and ate.
When we came there, there was nothing by which I could have recognized the spot, had it not been for the Mansion House that immediately adjoined it. Half of its site had been levelled to make room for a street or road which had been recently opened. Not a vestige remained of the garden behind. The remaining part of the house had been re-built; and when I read the name of R. DENNISON on the door, it was something consolatory to see that the door itself was not the same which had so often opened to admit me.
Upon returning to the spot on the following morning I perceived that the part which had been re-built is employed as some sort of official appendage to the Mansion House; and on the naked side-wall now open to the new street, or road, I observed most distinctly where the old tall chimney had stood, and the outline of the old pointed roof. These were the only vestiges that remained; they could have no possible interest in any eyes but mine, which were likely never to behold them again; and indeed it was evident that they would soon be effaced as a deformity, and the naked side-wall smoothed over with plaster. But they will not be effaced from my memory, for they were the last traces of that dwelling which is the Kebla of my retrospective day-dreams, the Sanctum Sanctorum of my dearest recollections; and like an apparition from the dead, once seen, they were never to be forgotten.
