CHAPTER LXI.
WHEREIN THE QUESTION IS ANSWERED WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN ASKED.
Ajutami, tu penna, et calamaio,
Ch' io hò tra mano una materia asciutta.
MATTIO FRANZESI.
Wherefore there is no portrait of my excellent friend, is a question which ought to be answered, because the solution will exhibit something of what in the words of the old drinking song he used to call his “poor way of thinking.” And it is a question which may well be asked, seeing that in the circle wherein he moved, there were some persons of liberal habits and feelings as well as liberal fortune, who enjoyed his peculiarities, placed the fullest reliance upon his professional skill, appreciated most highly his moral and intellectual character, and were indeed personally attached to him in no ordinary degree.
For another reason also ought this question to be resolved; a reason which whatever the reader may think, has the more weight with me, because it nearly concerns myself. “There is indeed,” says the Philosopher of Bemerton, “a near relation between seriousness and wisdom, and one is a most excellent friend to the other. A man of a serious, sedate and considerate temper, as he is always in a ready disposition for meditation, (the best improvement both of knowledge and manners,) so he thinks without disturbance, enters not upon another notion till he is master of the first, and so makes clean work with it:—whereas a man of a loose, volatile and shattered humour, thinks only by fits and starts, now and then in a morning interval, when the serious mood comes upon him; and even then too, let but the least trifle cross his way, and his desultorious fancy presently takes the scent, leaves the unfinished and half-mangled notion, and skips away in pursuit of the new game.” Reader, it must be my care not to come under this condemnation; and therefore I must follow to the end the subject which is before me: quare autem nobis—dicendum videtur, ne temere secuti putemur; et breviter dicendum, ne in hujusmodi rebus diutius, quam ratio præcipiendi postulet commoremur. 1
1 CICERO.
Mr. Copley of Netherhall was particularly desirous of possessing this so-much-by-us-now-desiderated likeness, and would have invited an Artist from London, if the Doctor could have been prevailed upon to sit for it; but to this no persuasions could induce him. He never assigned a reason for this determination, and indeed always evaded the subject when it was introduced, letting it at the same time plainly be perceived that he was averse to it, and wished not to be so pressed as to draw from him a direct refusal. But once when the desire had been urged with some seriousness, he replied that he was the last of his race, and if he were to be the first who had his portrait taken, well might they who looked at it, exclaim with Solomon, “Vanity of vanities!”
In that thought indeed it was that the root of his objection lay. “Pauli in domo, præter se nemo superest,” is one of the most melancholy reflections to which Paulus Æmilius gave utterance in that speech of his which is recorded by Livy. The speedy extinction of his family in his own person was often in the Doctor's mind; and he would sometimes touch upon it when, in his moods of autumnal feeling, he was conversing with those persons whom he had received into his heart of hearts. Unworthy as I was, it was my privilege and happiness to be one of them; and at such times his deepest feelings could not have been expressed more unreservedly, if he had given them utterance in poetry or in prayer.
Blest as he had been in all other things to the extent of his wishes, it would be unreasonable in him, he said, to look upon this as a misfortune; so to repine would indicate little sense of gratitude to that bountiful Providence which had so eminently favored him; little also of religious acquiescence in its will. It was not by any sore calamity nor series of afflictions that the extinction of his family had been brought on; the diminution had been gradual, as if to show that their uses upon earth were done. His grandfather had only had two children; his parents but one, and that one was now ultimus suorum. They had ever been a family in good repute, walking inoffensively towards all men, uprightly with their neighbours, and humbly with their God; and perhaps this extinction was their reward. For what Solon said of individuals, that no one could truly be called happy till his life had terminated in a happy death, holds equally true of families.
Perhaps too this timely extinction was ordained in mercy, to avert consequences which might else so probably have arisen from his forsaking the station in which he was born; a lowly, but safe station, exposed to fewer dangers, trials or temptations, than any other in this age or country, with which he was enabled to compare it. The sentiment with which Sanazzaro concludes his Arcadia was often in his mind, not as derived from that famous author, but self-originated: per cosa vera ed indubitata tener ti puoi, che chi più di nascoso e più lontano dalla moltitudine vive, miglior vive; e colui trà mortali si può con più verità chiamar beato, che senza invidia delle altrui grandezze, con modesto animo della sua fortuna si contenta. His father had removed him from that station; he would not say unwisely, for his father was a wise and good man, if ever man deserved to be so called; and he could not say unhappily; for assuredly he knew that all the blessings which had earnestly been prayed for, had attended the determination. Through that blessing he had obtained the whole benefit which his father desired for him, and had escaped evils which perhaps had not been fully apprehended. His intellectual part had received all the improvement of which it was capable, and his moral nature had sustained no injury in the process; nor had his faith been shaken, but stood firm, resting upon a sure foundation. But the entail of humble safety had been, as it were, cut off; the birth-right—so to speak—had been renounced. His children, if God had given him children, must have mingled in the world, there to shape for themselves their lot of good or evil; and he knew enough of the world to know how manifold and how insidious are the dangers, which, in all its paths, beset us. He never could have been to them what his father had been to him;—that was impossible. They could have had none of those hallowing influences both of society and solitude to act upon them, which had imbued his heart betimes, and impressed upon his youthful mind a character that no after circumstances could corrupt. They must inevitably have been exposed to more danger, and could not have been so well armed against it. That consideration reconciled him to being childless. God, who knew what was best for him, had ordained that it should be so; and he did not, and ought not to regret, that having been the most cultivated of his race, and so far the happiest, it was decreed that he should be the last. God's will is best.
Ὣς ἔφατ ἔυχὸμενος; for with some aspiration of piety he usually concluded his more serious discourse, either giving it utterance, or with a silent motion of the lips, which the expression of his countenance, as well as the tenour of what had gone before, rendered intelligible to those who knew him as I did.
