CHAPTER CXXIX.

WHEREIN THE AUTHOR SPEAKS OF A TRAGEDY FOR THE LADIES, AND INTRODUCES ONE OF WILLIAM DOVE'S STORIES FOR CHILDREN.

Y donde sobre todo de su dueño
    El gran tesoro y el caudal se infiere,
Es que al grande, al mediano, y al pequeño,
    Todo se da de balde á quien lo quiere.
                                                            BALBUENA.

Here might be the place for enquiring how far the Doctor's opinions or fancies upon this mysterious subject were original. His notion he used to call it; but a person to whom the reader will be introduced ere long, and who regarded him with the highest admiration and the profoundest respect, always spoke of it as the Columbian Theory of Progressive Existence. Original indeed in the Doctor it was not; he said that he had learned it from his poor Uncle William; but that William Dove originated it himself there can be little doubt. From books it was impossible that he should have derived it, because he could not read; and nothing can be more unlikely than that he should have met with it as a traditional opinion. The Doctor believed that this poor Uncle, of whom he never spoke without some expression of compassionate kindness, had deduced it intuitively as an inference from his instinctive skill in physiognomy.

When subjects like these are treated of, it should be done discreetly. There should be, in the words of Bishop Andrewes, “Οἰκονομία, a dispensation, not a dissipation; a laying forth, not διασκορπισμος, a casting away; a wary sowing, not a heedless scattering; and a sowing χεὶρι, οὐ θυλακῃ, by handfulls, not by basket-fulls, as the heathen-man well said.” Bearing this in mind I have given a Chapterfull, not a Volumefull, and that Chapter is for physiologists and philosophers; but this Opus is not intended for them alone; they constitute but a part only of that “fit audience” and not “few,” which it will find.

One Andrew Henderson, a Scotchman, who kept a bookseller's shop, or stand, in Westminster Hall, at a time when lawyers' tongues and witnesses' souls were not the only commodities exposed for sale there, published a tragedy, called “Arsinoe, or The Incestuous Marriage.” The story was Egyptian; but the drama deserves to be called Hendersonian, after its incomparable author; for he assured the reader, in a prefatory advertisement, that there were to be found in it “the most convincing arguments against incest and self-murder, interspersed with an inestimable treasure of ancient and modern learning, and the substance of the principles of the illustrious Sir Isaac Newton, adapted to the meanest capacity, and very entertaining to the Ladies, containing a nice description of the passions and behaviour of the Fair Sex.”

The Biographer, or Historian, or Anecdotist, or rather the reminiscent relator of circumstances concerning the birth, parentage and education, life, character and behaviour, of Dr. Daniel Dove, prefers not so wide a claim upon the gratitude of his readers as Andrew Henderson has advanced. Yet, like the author of “Arsinoe,” he trusts that his work is “adapted to the meanest capacity;” that the lamb may wade in it, though the elephant may swim, and also that it will be found “very entertaining to the Ladies.” Indeed, he flatters himself that it will be found profitable for old and young, for men and for women, the married and the single, the idle and the studious, the merry and the sad; that it may sometimes inspire the thoughtless with thought, and sometimes beguile the careful of their cares. One thing alone might hitherto seem wanting to render it a catholic, which is to say, an universal book, and that is, that as there are Chapters in it for the closet, for the library, for the breakfast room, for the boudoir, (which is in modern habitations what the oriel was in ancient ones,) for the drawing-room, and for the kitchen, if you please, (for whatever you may think, good reader, I am of opinion, that books which at once amuse and instruct, may be as useful to servant men and maids, as to their masters and mistresses)—so should there be one at least for the nursery. With such a chapter, therefore, will I brighten the countenance of many a dear child, and gladden the heart of many a happy father, and tender mother, and nepotious uncle or aunt, and fond brother or sister;

               ἡδεῖαν φάτιν
Φεροίμεν ἀυτοῖς. 1

For their sakes I will relate one of William Dove's stories, with which he used to delight young Daniel, and with which the Doctor in his turn used to delight his young favourites; and which never fails of effect with that fit audience for which it is designed, if it be told with dramatic spirit, in the manner that our way of printing it may sufficiently indicate, without the aid of musical notation. Experto crede. Prick up your ears then,

“My good little women and men;”2

and ye who are neither so little, nor so good, favete linguis, for here follows the Story of the Three Bears.

1 SOPHOCLES.

2 SOUTHEY.