INTERCHAPTER XVI.

THE AUTHOR RELATES SOME ANECDOTES, REFERS TO AN OPINION EXPRESSED BY A CRITIC ON THE PRESENT OPUS, AND DESCANTS THEREON.

Every man can say B to a battledore, and write in praise of virtue and the seven liberal sciences; thresh corn out of full sheaves, and fetch water out of the Thames. But out of dry stubble to make an after-harvest, and a plentiful crop without sowing, and wring juice out of a flint, that is Pierce a God's name, and the right trick of a workman.

NASH.             

There is an anecdote related of the Speaker in one of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments, who when the Queen, during a session in which small progress had been made in the public business, asked him what the House had got through, made answer, “May it please your Majesty, eight weeks.” In like manner, if it be asked what I have got through in the prosecution of this my Opus, I reply, “May it please your Readership, four volumes.”

This brings to my recollection another anecdote, which though not matter of history like the former, is matter of fact, and occurred in the good town of Truro. A lady in that town hired a servant, who at the time of hiring thought herself bound to let the lady know that she had once “had a misfortune.” When she had been some time in service, she spoke of something to her Mistress, inadvertently, as having happened just after the birth of her first child. Your first! said the Lady; why how many have you had then?—Oh Ma'am said she, I've had four. Four! exclaimed the Mistress; why you told me you had had but one. However I hope you mean to have no more. Ma'am, replied the woman, that must be as it may please God.

“We are” says Lord Camelford, “as it pleases God,—and sometimes as it displeases him.”

The reflection is for every one; but the anecdote is recommended to the special notice of a Critic on the Athenæum establishment, who in delivering his opinion upon the third volume of this Opus, pronounced it to be “clear to him,” that the Author had “expended” on the two former, “a large portion of his intellectual resources, no less than of his lengthy common-place book.”

The aforesaid Critic has also pronounced that the Opus entitled The Doctor might have been and ought to have been a Novel. Might have been is one consideration, ought to have been is another, and whether it would have been better that it should have been, is a third; but without discussing either of these propositions, because as Calderon says,

Sobre impossibles y falsas
proposiciones, no hai
argumento;

without, I say, enquiring into what might, would, could, or should have been, neither of which imports of the preterperfect tense, optative, potential or subjunctive, are suitable to the present case, the Author of this Opus replies to the aforesaid Critic's assertion that the Opus might have been a Novel,—That, Sir, must have been as it pleased ME.

When Corporal Trim in one of his many attempts to begin the immortal story of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles, called that King unfortunate, and Uncle Toby compassionately asked “was he unfortunate then?” the Corporal replied, the King of Bohemia, an' please your honour was unfortunate, as thus,—that taking great pleasure and delight in navigation and all sort of sea affairs, and there happening throughout the whole Kingdom of Bohemia, to be no sea-port town whatever,—“How the Deuce should there, Trim? cried my Uncle Toby; for Bohemia being totally inland, it could have happened no otherwise.”—“It might said Trim, if it had pleased God.”—“I believe not, replied my Uncle Toby, after some pause—for being inland as I said, and having Silesia and Moravia to the East; Lusatia and Upper Saxony to the North; Franconia to the West, and Bavaria to the South, Bohemia could not have been propelled to the sea, without ceasing to be Bohemia,—nor could the sea, on the other hand, have come up to Bohemia, without overflowing a great part of Germany, and destroying millions of unfortunate inhabitants who could make no defence against it,—which would bespeak, added my Uncle Toby, mildly, such a want of compassion in Him who is the Father of it,—that, I think, Trim—the thing could have happened no way.”

Were I to say of a Homo on any establishment whatsoever, political, commercial or literary, public or private, legal or ecclesiastical, orthodox or heterodox, military or naval,—I include them all that no individual in any may fancy the observation was intended for himself and so take it in snuff, (a phrase of which I would explain the origin if I could,)—and moreover that no one may apply to himself the illustration which is about to be made, I use the most generic term that could be applied,—Were I to say of any Homo, (and how many are there of whom it might be said!) that he might have been whelped or foaled, instead of having been born, no judicious reader would understand me as predicating this to be possible, but as denoting an opinion that such an animal might as well have been a quadruped as what he is; and that for any use which he makes of his intellect, it might have been better for society if he had gone on four legs and carried panniers.

“There stands the Honourable Baronet, hesitating between two bundles of opinions”—said a certain noble Lord of a certain County Member in the course of an animated debate in the House of Commons on a subject now long since forgotten. I will not say of any Homo on any establishment that his fault is that of hesitating too long or hazarding too little; but I will say of any such hypothetical Homo as might better have been foaled, that I wish his panniers had supplied him with better bundles to choose of.

“How,” says Warburton, “happened it in the definitions of Man, that reason, is always made essential to him? Nobody ever thought of making goodness so. And yet it is certain that there are as few reasonable men as there are good. To tell you my mind, I think Man might as properly be defined, an animal to whom a sword is essential, as one to whom reason is essential. For there are as few that can, and yet fewer that dare, use the one as the other.”—And yet, he might have added, too many that misuse both.

The aforesaid Critic on the Athenæum establishment spoke with as little consideration as Trim, when he said that the Opus might have been a novel, implying the while—if it had so pleased the Author; and I make answer advisedly like my Uncle Toby in saying that it could not have pleased me.

The moving accident is not my trade;
To freeze the blood I have no ready arts.1

1 WORDSWORTH.

Wherefore should I write a novel? There is no lack of novels nor of novel-writers in these days, good, bad, and indifferent. Is there not Mr. James who since the demise of Sir Walter is by common consent justly deemed King of the historical Novelists? And is there not Mrs. Bray who is as properly the Queen? Would the Earl of Mulgrave be less worthily employed in writing fashionable tales upon his own views of morality, than he is in governing Ireland as he governs it? Is there any season in which some sprigs of nobility and fashion do not bring forth hot-house flowers of this kind? And if some of them are rank or sickly, there are others (tell us, Anne Grey! are there not?) that are of delicate penciling, rich colours, and sweet scent. What are the Annuals but schools for Novelists male and female? and if any lady in high life has conceived a fashionable tale, and when the critical time arrives wishes for a temporary concealment, is not Lady Charlotte Bury kindly ready to officiate as Sage Femme?

The Critic was not so wide of the mark in saying that this Opus ought to have been a novel—to have pleased him, being understood.

Oh, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;
But there's more in me than thou understandest:2

And indeed as Chapman says in his Commentary on the Iliad, “where a man is understood there is ever a proportion between the writer's wit and the writees,—that I may speak with authority, according to my old lesson in philosophy, intellectus in ipsa intelligibilia transit.”

2 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

Le role d'un auteur est un role assez vain, says Diderot, c'est celui d'un homme qui se croit en etat de donner des leçons au public. Et le role du critique? Il est plus vain encore; c'est celui d'un homme qui se croit en etat de donner des leçons à celui qui se croit en etat d'en donner au public. L'auteur dit, Messieurs, écoutezmoi, car je suis votre maitre. Et le critique, C'est moi, Messieurs, qu'il faut écouter, car je suis le maitre de vos maitres.

The Athenæan Critic plays the Master with me,—and tops his part. “It is clear, he says, from every page of this book that the Author does not in vulgar parlance, think Small Beer of himself.” Right, my Master? certainly I do not. I do not think that the contents of this book would be truly compared to small beer, which is either weak and frisky, or weak and flat; that they would turn sour upon a sound, that is to say an orthodox stomach, or generate flatulence except in an empty one. I am more inclined, as my Master insinuates, to think Strong Beer of myself, Cwrw, Burton, Audit Ale, Old October,—what in his parlance used be called Stingo; or Porter, such as Thrale's Entire, and old Whitbread's, in days when the ingredients came from the malster and the hop merchant, not from the Brewer's druggist. Or Cider, whether of Herefordshire, Somersetshire or Devonshire growth, no matter; Stire, Cokaghee, or Fox-whelp, a beverage as much better than Champagne, as it is honester, wholesomer and cheaper. Or Perry, the Teignton-Squash. These are right old English liquors, and I like them all. Nay, I am willing if my Master pleases, to think Metheglin of myself also, though it be a Welsh liquor, for there is Welsh blood in my veins, and Metheglin has helped to make it, and it is not the worse for the ingredient. Moreover with especial reference to the present Opus, there is this reason why I should think Metheglin of myself,—that Metheglin is made of honey and honey is collected from all the flowers of the fields and gardens: and how should I have been able to render this tribute to the Philosopher of Doncaster, my true Master, if I had not been busy as a Bee in the fields and gardens of literature, yea in the woods and wilds also? And in the orchards,—for have I not been plying early and late amongst

                             “the orchard trees
Last left and earliest found by birds and bees?”3

Of Bees however let me be likened to a Dumbledore, which Dr. Southey says is the most goodnatured of God's Insects; because great must be the provocation that can excite me to use my sting.

3 EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

My Master's mention of Small Beer, in vulgar parlance Swipes, reminds me of Old Tom of Oxford's Affectionate Condolence with the Ultras, some years ago, whereby it appears that he thought Small Beer at that time of some very great Patriots and Queenites.

I see your noble rage too closely pent;
I hear you Whigs and Radicals ferment,
    Like close-cork'd bottles fill'd with fizzing barm.

Now, Gentlemen, whose stopper is the strongest?
Whose eloquence will bottle-in the longest?
    Who'll first explode, I wonder, or who last?
As weak small Beer is sure to fly the first,
Lo! poor Grey Bennet hath already burst,
    And daub'd with froth the Speaker as he past.

Who next? Is't Lambton, weak and pert and brisk,
And spitting in one's face, like Ginger-frisk?
    Lord John, keep in thy cork, for Heaven's sake do!
The strength and spirit of Champagne is thine,
Powers that will mellow down to generous wine;
    Thy premature explosion I should rue.

The Oxford satirist thought Champagne of Lord John in the reign of Queen Caroline. I think Champagne of him still, which the Satirist assuredly does not, but we differ in opinion upon this point only because we differ concerning the merits of the wine so called. I request him to accept the assurance of my high consideration and good-will, I shake hands with him mentally and cordially, and entreat him to write more songs, such as gladden the hearts of true Englishmen.

Dr. Clarke says in a note to his Travels, that Champagne is an artificial compound: that “the common champagne wine drunk in this country is made with green grapes and sugar; and that the imitation of it, with green gooseberries and sugar, is full as salutary, and frequently as palatable.” A Frenchman who translated these Travels remarks upon this passage thus, C'est sans doute par un sentiment de patriotisme, et pour degoûter ses compatriotes du vin de Champagne, que le Docteur Clarke se permet de hasarder de pareilles assertions. Croit-il que le vin de Champagne se fasse avec du sucre et des raisins verts, ou des groseilles, et qu'un semblable mélange puisse passer, même en Angleterre, pour un analogue des vins d'Ai et d'Epernai? Dr. Clarke, as it became him to do, inserted this remark in his next edition, and said in reply to it, “It so happens that the author's information does not at all depend upon any conjectures he may have formed; it is the result of enquiries which he made upon the spot, and of positive information relative to the chemical constituents ‘des vins d'Ai et d'Epernai,’ from Messrs. Moett and Company, the principal persons concerned in their fabrication.” It was in the town of Epernai, whither the author repaired for information upon this subject, that in answer to some written questions proposed to Mons. Moett, the following statement was given by that gentleman touching the admission of sugar into the composition of their wine:

“Peut-être regarderoit-on en Champagne comme un indiscretion, la réponse a cette question, puisque la révélation de ce qu'on appelle LE SECRET DU PROPRIETAIRE pourroit nuire a la reputation des vins de Champagne: mais les hommes instruits et éclairés doivent connoître les faits et les causes, parcequ'ils savent apprecier et en tirer les justes consequences.

“Il est tres vrai que dans les années froides ou pluvieuses, le raisin n'ayant pas acquis assez de maturité, ou ayant été privé de la chaleur du soleil, les vins n'ont plus cette liqueur douce et aimable qui les characterise: dans ce cas quelques propriétaires y ont supplée par l'introduction dans leur vins d'une liqueur tres eclaire, dont la base est nécessairement du sucre; sa fabrication est un secrêt; cette liqueur meslée en très petites quantités aux vins verts, corrige le vice de l'année, et leur donne absolument la même douceur que celle que procure le soleil dans les années chaudes. Il s'est élevé en Champagne même des frequentes querelles entre des connoisseurs qui pretendoient pouvoir distinguer au goût la liqueur artificielle de celle qui est naturelle; mais c'est une chimère. Le sucre produit dans le raisin, comme dans toute espèce de fruit par le travail de la nature, est toujours du sucre, comme celui que l'art pourroit y introduire, lorsque l'intemperance des saisons les en a privé. Nous nous sommes plûs très souvent à mettre en defaut l'expérience de ces prétendus connoisseurs; et il est si rare de les voir rencontrer juste, que l'on peut croire que c'est le hazard plus que leur goût qui les a guidé.”

Having thus upon the best authority shown that Champagne in unfavourable years is doctored in the country, and leaving the reader to judge how large a portion of what is consumed in England is made from the produce of our own gardens, I repeat that I think Champagne of Lord John Russell,—not such as my friend of Oxford intended in his verses,—but Gooseberry Champagne, by no means brisk, and with a very disagreeable taste of the Cork.

If the Oxford Satirist and I should peradventure differ concerning Champagne, we are not likely to differ now concerning Lord John Russell. I am very well assured that we agree in thinking of his Lord Johnship as he is thought of in South Devonshire. Nor shall we differ in our notions of some of Lord John's Colleagues, and their left handed friends. If he were to work out another poem in the same vein of satire, some of the Whole-hoggery in the House of Commons he would designate by Deady, or Wet and Heavy, some by weak tea, others by Blue-Ruin, Old Tom which rises above Blue-Ruin to the tune of three pence a glass—and yet more fiery than Old Tom, as being a fit beverage for another Old one who shall be nameless,—Gin and Brimstone.

There is a liquor peculiar to Cornwall, with which the fishermen regale, and which because of its colour they call Mahogany, being a mixture of two parts gin and one part treacle, well beaten together. Mahogany then may be the representative liqueur of Mr. Charles Buller, the representative of a Cornish borough: and for Sir John Campbell there is Athol porridge, which Boswell says is the counterpart of Mahogany, but which Johnson thought must be a better liquor, because being a similar mixture of whiskey and honey, both its component parts are better: qui non odit the one, amet the other.

Mr. Shiel would put the Satirist in mind of Whiskey “unexcised by Kings,” and consequently above proof. Mr. Roebuck of Bitters, Mr. Joseph Hume of Ditch Water, Mr. Lytton Bulwer of Pop, Mr. Ward of Pulque, Mr. O'Connell of Aqua Tofana, and Lord Palmerston of Parfait Amour.

Observe good Reader, it was to bottled Small Beer that the Oxford Satirist likened Grey Bennet, not to Brown Stout, which is a generous liquor having body and strength.

Hops and Turkeys, Carp and Beer
Came into England all in one year

and that year was in the reign of Henry VIII. The Turkeys could not have come before the discovery of America, nor the Beer before the introduction of the Hops. Bottled Beer we owe to the joint agency of Alexander Nowell, Bishop Bonner, and Mr. Francis Bowyer, afterwards Sheriff of London.

Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Pauls,

A famous preacher in the halcyon days
Of Queen Elizabeth of endless praise,

was at the beginning of Queen Mary's cruel reign, Master of Westminster School. Izaak Walton would have pronounced him a very honest man from his picture at Brazen Nose College, (to which he was a great Benefactor,) inasmuch as he is there represented “with his lines, hooks and other tackling, lying in a round on one hand, and his angles of several sorts on the other.” But says Fuller, whilst Nowell was catching of Fishes, Bonner was catching of Nowell, and understanding who he was, designed him to the shambles, whither he had certainly been sent, had not Mr. Francis Bowyer then a London merchant, conveyed him upon the seas. Nowell was fishing upon the Banks of the Thames when he received the first intimation of his danger, which was so pressing that he dared not go back to his own house to make any preparation for his flight. Like an honest angler he had taken with him provision for the day; and when in the first year of England's deliverance he returned to his own country and his own haunts, he remembered that on the day of his flight he had left a bottle of beer in a safe place on the bank; there he looked for it, and “found it no bottle but a gun, such the sound at the opening thereof; and this, says Fuller, is believed, (casualty is mother of more inventions than industry,) the original of Bottled Ale in England.”

Whatever my Master may think of me, whether he may class me with Grey Bennet's weak and frothy, or Dean Nowell's wholesome and strong, be the quality of the liquor what it may, he certainly mistook the capacity of the vessel, even if he allowed it to be a Magnum Bonum or Scotch Pint. Greatly was he mistaken when he supposed that a large portion of my intellectual resources was expended, and of my common-place Book also.—The former come from a living spring,—and the latter is like the urn under a River God's arm. I might hint also at that Tun which the Pfalzgraf Johannes Kasimir built at Heidelberg in the year 1591,

but alas! it is now a more melancholy object than the Palace to which it appertained,—for the ruins of that Palace are so beautiful, that the first emotion with which you behold them is that of unmingled pleasure:—and the tun is empty! My Master, however, who imagines that my vat runs low and is likely to be drawn dry, may look at one of the London Brewers great casks.

END OF VOL. IV.

W. Nicol, 51, Pall Mall.