CHAPTER CLXVII.
A MOTTO WHICH IS WELL CHOSEN BECAUSE NOT BEING APPLICABLE IT SEEMS TO BE SO. THE AUTHOR NOT ERRANT HERE OR ELSEWHERE. PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER-OSOPHIES.
Much from my theme and friend have I digressed,
But poor as I am, poor in stuff for thought,
And poor in thought to make of it the best,
Blame me not, Gentles, if I soon am caught
By this or that, when as my themes suggest
Aught of collateral aid which may be wrought
Into its service: Blame me not, I say;
The idly musing often miss their way.
CHARLES LLOYD.
The pleasing pensive stanza, which thou, gentle reader hast just perused, is prefixed to this Chapter because it would be so felicitous a motto, if only it were applicable; and for that very reason it is felicitous, its non-applicability furnishing a means of happy application.
Il y a du bonheur et de l'esprit à employer les paroles d'un poëte à une chose à quoy le poëte ne pense jamais, et à les employer si à propos qu'elles semblent avoir esté faites exprés pour le sujet auquel elles sont appliquées. 1
1 P. BOUHOURS.
“Good Sir, you understand not;”—yet I am not saying with the Pedagogue at the Ordinary,
Let's keep them
In desperate hope of understanding us;
Riddles and clouds are very lights of speech.
I'll veil my careless anxious thoughts as 'twere
In a perspicuous cloud, that so I may
Whisper in a loud voice, and even be silent
When I do utter words.2
Here, as every where my intention is to be perfectly intelligible; I have not digressed either from my theme or friend; I am neither poor in stuff for thought, nor in thought for working; nor, (if I may be permitted so to say) in skill for manipulating it. I have not been idly musing, nor have I missed my road, but have kept the track faithfully, and not departed from the way in which I was trained up. All that I have been saying belongs to, and is derived from the philosophy of my friend: yes, gentle Reader, all that is set before thee in these well stored volumes. Una est enim philosophia, quascumque in oras disputationis regionesve delata est. Nam sive de cœli naturâ loquitur, sive de terræ, sive de divinâ vi, sive de humanâ, sive ex inferiore loco, sive ex æquo, sive ex superiore, sive ut impellat homines, sive ut doceat, sive ut deterreat, sive ut concitet, sive ut incendat, sive ut reflectat, sive ut leniat, sive ad paucos, sive ad multos, sive inter alienos, sive cum suis, sive secum, rivis est deducta philosophia, non fontibus.
2 CARTWRIGHT.
We speak of the philosophy of the Porch, and of the Grove, and of the Sty when we would express ourselves disdainfully of the Epicureans. But we cannot in like manner, give to the philosophy which pervades these volumes, a local habitation and a name, because the philosophy of Doncaster would popularly be understood to mean the philosophy of the Duke of Grafton, the Marquis of Exeter, and Mr. Gully, tho' that indeed belongs not to Philosophy but to one of its dialects, varieties, or corrupted forms, which are many; for example, there is Fallosophy practised professionally by Advocates, and exhibited in great perfection by Quacks, and Political Economists; Failosophy, the science of those who make bankruptcy a profitable adventure; Fellowsophy, which has its habitat in common rooms at Cambridge, and Oxford; Feelosophy common to Lawyers and Physicians; Fillyosophy well understood on the turf, and nowhere better than in Doncaster; and finally the Foolosophy of Jeremy Bentham, and of all those who have said in their hearts—what it saddens a compassionate heart to think that even the Fool should say!
