CHAPTER XI

MR. BEMERTON'S FIRST BED BOOK BRINGS US INTO THE COMPANY OF QUAINT AND LEARNED GENTLEMEN

The older I grow, the less, I find, do I want to read about anything but human beings. (The proper study of matured mankind is certainly man.) But human beings as human beings are not enough: they must, to interest me, have qualities of simplicity or candour or quaintness. A few such I have found in Mr. Bemerton's first highly-commended bed book--the _Literary Anecdotes_ of John Nichols, a series of volumes, very unpromising at first, and truly as dull as Mr. Lecky told my friend that a bed book should be, descriptive of the attainments of the principal contributors to _The Gentleman's Magazine_ (best of periodicals) in the second half of the eighteenth century (a period when to be an antiquary and a gentleman was so easy) when that publication belonged to Bowyer the printer.

For the most part these old dry-as-dust clergymen and scholars had little enough to recommend them to any one but Bowyer, who seems to have basked with equal satisfaction in the friendship of all; but when one looks deeper one finds treasure.

Sir Hildebrand Jacob, for example, one does not soon forget. Sir Hildebrand was a bibliophile and a minor poet and dramatist, who died in 1790. "As a general scholar, he was exceeded by few; in his knowledge of the Hebrew language he scarcely had an equal. In the earlier part of his life, one custom which he constantly followed was very remarkable. As soon as the roads became pretty good, and the fine weather began to set in, his man was ordered to pack up a few things in a portmanteau, and with these his master and himself set off, without knowing whither they were going. When it drew towards evening, they inquired at the first village they saw, whether the great man in it was a lover of books, and had a fine library. If the answer was in the negative, they went on farther; if in the affirmative, Sir Hildebrand sent his compliments, that he was come to see him; and there he used to stay till time or curiosity induced him to move elsewhere. In this manner Sir Hildebrand had very nearly passed through the greatest part of England, without scarcely ever sleeping at an inn, unless where town or village did not afford one person civilised enough to be glad to see a gentleman and a scholar."

Sir Hildebrand reminds one a little of the Don, though lacking utterly in any suggestion of the pathos which so beautifully cloaks that sublime figure. To seek books comes, however, next to the search for adventures and wrongs to redress. A good author might found a very charming story on this literary knight-errant and his encounters with the rural collector. It is not the least loss brought to us by railroads and motor cars that the problem of the lodging for the night is so easily solved to the exclusion of chance hospitality. One wants to know more of Sir Hildebrand--how he went to work to become a guest and what misconceptions he had to live down.

Another of Nichols' heroes is the Rev. William Budworth, the schoolmaster who so nearly engaged the young Samuel Johnson as an usher and who was the instructor of the learned Bishop Hurd, the friend of Warburton. Mr. Budworth, who taught the Free Grammar School at Brewood, was a precisian of the first water. He made no mistakes. "His person, which was rather above the middle height, was formed with the nicest symmetry; and he had, perhaps, as fine a presence as almost any man in the kingdom. His air, deportment, language, voice, in short, every word and every action, announced the accomplished gentleman. He had not the fine eagle-eye of a Condé, nor, askaunt, did it flash conviction and terror like Chatham's; there was nothing tremendous in his aspect; he never spoke like thunder, nor did he command with the pomp of a bashaw; but there was an irresistible and indescribable something, which always commanded respect, and for ever inspired the beholders with awe; his look and his voice pierced to the very inmost soul."

I imagine that, which is the work not of Nichols but of a contributor, to be the perfect description of the perfect schoolmaster. One sees what a terror would such a man strike into the heart and knees of the young. It was a dull day for English readers (I think) when the description of the person was first considered unnecessary. We rarely get it now.

Among the anecdotes of Mr. Budworth (and I may say here that Nichols' _Literary Anecdotes_, in spite of its title, is poorer in anecdotes than almost any book I ever opened) is this, referring to a social and more or less unbending, if not convivial, evening at that model's house. Mr. Budworth, I should first say, was a vegetarian. "Among other topics of conversation, Mr. Martin took the freedom to ask Mr. Budworth, what his sentiments were respecting the lawfulness or unlawfulness of eating blood. His reply was nearly in the following terms: 'I have read the authors on both sides of the question; those who wrote in favour of the prohibition had the greatest weight with me, and therefore I have always abstained from eating it.'"

Boswell, I suppose, made the record of this kind of conversation possible. I wish it had not gone out; but with hero-worship (of which it was a symptom) it has passed. We seem to have grown too critical for such hero-worship any more; the minor dictator, being no longer able to induce people to take him at his own valuation, has either become merely a grumbler or has diminished into a man and a brother.

Another possessor of the higher dignity--but a very different man from Mr. Budworth, although his contemporary--was John Baskerville (noble name!), the Birmingham printer of the Bible whose spacious page one occasionally and very joyfully observes on the lectern of such village churches as one has the luck to find open. Baskerville printed the Bible like an angel, but he did not esteem its matter. He was, in fact, a very determined agnostic, and in his last will and testament he provided for the persistence of his hostility to accepted dogma. John Baskerville is thus described by a friend of Nichols: "In regard to his private character, he was much of a humorist, idle in the extreme; but his invention was of the true Birmingham model, active. He could well design, but procured others to execute: wherever he found merit, he caressed it: he was remarkably polite to the stranger, fond of show; a figure rather of the smaller size, and delighted to adorn that figure with gold lace. Although constructed with the light timbers of a frigate, his movement was stately as a ship of the line."

From the printer we pass to a printer's friend--to Mr. James Elphinstone the grammarian, the friend of Benjamin Franklin and also of Johnson and Jortin. Mr. Elphinstone had a very agreeable gentle eccentricity. "The colour of his suit of clothes was invariably, except when in mourning, what is called a drab; his coat was made in the fashion that reigned, when he returned from France, in the beginning of the last century, with flaps and buttons to the pockets and sleeves, without a cape; he always wore a powdered bag-wig, with a high toupée; and walked with a cocked hat and an amber-headed cane; his shoe-buckles had seldom been changed, and were always of the same size; and he never put on boots. It must be observed, however, that he lately, more than once, offered to make any change Mrs. Elphinstone might deem proper: but in her eyes his virtues and worth had so sanctified his appearance, that she would have thought the alteration a sacrilege. Mr. Elphinstone's principal foibles originated, some in virtue itself, and others in the system he had early laid down for preserving the purity of the English tongue. As an instance of the former, when any ladies were present in company whose sleeves were at a distance from their elbows, or whose bosoms were at all exposed, he would fidget from place to place, look askance, with a slight convulsion of his left eye, and never rest till he approached some of them, and, pointing to their arms, say, 'Oh yes, indeed! it is very pretty, but it betrays more fashion than modesty!' or some similar phrase; after which he became very good-humoured."

Another gentle humorist (in the old sense of the word, which is far better than the new) was Dr. John Taylor, Registrar of Cambridge University, editor of Demosthenes and Æschylus, and Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, who died in 1766. A friend sent to Sylvanus Urban an admirable account of this old scholar, containing a very pleasant picture of his patience with visitors--more than patience, his sweet cordiality. "You have mentioned that Dr. Taylor was too busy a man to be idle. This is too shining a particular in the Doctor's temper and abilities not to be a little more insisted upon. If you called on him in College after dinner, you were sure to find him sitting at an old oval walnut-tree table entirely covered with books, in which, as the common expression runs, he seemed to be buried: you began to make apologies for disturbing a person so well employed; but he immediately told you to advance, taking care to disturb as little as you could the books on the floor; and called out, 'John, John, bring pipes and glasses;' and then fell to procuring a small space for the bottle just to stand on, but which could hardly ever be done without shoving off an equal quantity of the furniture at the other end; and he instantly appeared as cheerful, good-humoured, and _dégagé_, as if he had not been at all engaged or interrupted. Suppose now you had stayed as long as you would, and been entertained by him most agreeably, you took your leave, and got half-way down the stairs; but, recollecting somewhat that you had more to say to him, you go in again; the bottle and glasses were gone, the books had expanded themselves so as to re-occupy the whole table, and he was just as much buried in them as when you first broke in on him. I never knew this convenient faculty to an equal degree in any other scholar."

It seems to me that Dr. John Taylor in his study would make a good picture for an artist of interiors.

But my favourites among Bowyer's friends are William Clarke, the Sussex parson, and Richard Gough, the antiquary of Enfield. Mr. Gough's particular line was topography, and in addition to a work of his own on the topography of Great Britain, he translated and edited Camden's _Britannia_. Having considerable wealth, he was able to employ illustrators to enrich his text very thoroughly, and when he died he left all his MSS. and drawings to the Bodleian, where they may be seen by the curious to-day. But the trait in the character of this amiable scholar which has most attracted me is his kindness to animals--more than kindness, for any one can feel that, but gratitude too, which found expression in the minute and thoughtful epitaphs which he wrote for the gravestones of his pets. Here is one upon Toby--perhaps a sparrow:--

To immortalise the memory of Merit and Innocence, which, having long since left the abodes of men, shine forth among brutes, and to perpetuate the unhappiness of Favourites, is this monument erected.

He who is here deposited was, like all the good, removed from future evils, though his character was such as might alone procure him esteem. His station was sufficient to protect him from those insults which his equals continually bear; and his greatest recommendation was to have been taught at home. He was no wise inferior to the fam'd favourite of Lesbia, though all his praise is confined to this; but he owed his death to a different cause, the sportive jealousy of another object of partiality having sent hither the unfortunate Toby.

Pretty if heavy pleasantry, is it not? Here follows an epitaph upon a cat:--

After a life spent in the useful purposes of peopling the world with my own race, defending my friends from intruding animals, and entertaining them in my youth with wanton tricks, here rest I in peace, the old TORTOISE-SHELL CAT.

Had I died in Egypt, an immortal sepulchre and religious veneration had remembered me to posterity; but now, such is the change of time, it is owing to Mr. Jarvis and a plate of lead that you hear any more of me, since compassionate man put an end to the calamities of life, which others of his species would have but augmented. As the Gods are said to have considered their faithful votaries by an easy death, the same reward have I obtained for my services; and thus have I closed a scene of great revolutions, though few of these affected me.

So Priam, father of an endless race, His happiness and honour, while his Troy Remain'd and flourish'd, dropt into his tomb By great Achilles' hand; and not a stone Tells where the bones of Asia's Monarch rest.

Finally, let me quote what is perhaps the only inscription extant on the grave of a pheasant, a bird which most county gentlemen, even the kindest, first kill for sport and then honour in death in a totally different way. I am not blaming them: I wish only to point the contrast. Mr. Gough composed this epitaph on a pheasant that he had tamed:--

Beneath this humble but grateful monument rests all that remains of one who, after having, amidst the changes and vicissitudes of this mortal life, preserved a heart as superior to them as his condition would admit, paid his debt to Nature, Oct. --, 1756.

Many years ago he left his native air to breathe in British Freedom; and resigned his extensive territories in the East for less ample possessions, where his reception was more suitable to his merit.

Exalted above the ignoble crowd which surrounded him, he maintained that native dignity which became a consciousness of his superior excellence.

Endowed by nature with all the advantages of person, he despised the arts of dress.

The same easy temper which softened the solitude of celibacy heightened his relish of the married state; and the same benevolence which distinguished him in society would have taught him the just discharge of parental duties had the care of posterity demanded.

He never plumed his wings to lofty flights, nor sought the refinements of Art where Nature's bounty could be obtained.

As he lived superior to ambition or interest, he fell no sacrifice to party rage or political malice; but, after the long enjoyment of unsullied reputation, withdrew from the stage on which he had performed his part so well.

Blush not, whosoever thou art, that with the poring eye of P. Gemsegel or W. Toldervey[1] does decypher these letters, to receive instruction from the example of a PHEASANT.

[1] Two old and respectable correspondents of Mr. Urban (in _The Gentleman's Magazine_).

Only a man of singular thoughtfulness and sweetness of nature would thus go to the trouble of celebrating his pets.

Modern poetry contains many such tributes, notably Matthew Arnold's poems on Geist and Max, and Matthias the canary; but little of Gough's tenderness and solicitude had come between his own day and that of the bereaved gentlemen of the Greek Anthology, how many centuries earlier. That is to say, in literature; but, in fact, I suppose, men have always loved their pets with equal depths. There is a dead partridge in the Greek anthology:--

No longer, poor partridge migrated from the rocks, does thy woven house hold thee in its thin withies, nor under the sparkle of fresh-faced Dawn dost thou ruffle up the edges of thy basking wings; the cat bit off thy head, but the rest of thee I snatched away, and she did not fill her greedy jaw; and now may the earth cover thee not lightly but heavily, lest she drag out thy remains.

That pairs off with Mr. Cough's pheasant, and indeed may have given him his inspiration.

And here are two epitaphs on favourite dogs, also in Mr. Mackail's beautiful translation:--

Here the stone says it holds the white dog from Melita, the most faithful guardian of Eumelus; Bull they called him while he was yet alive; but now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night.

And

Thou who passest on the path, if haply thou dost mark this monument, laugh not, I pray thee, though it is a dog's grave; tears fell for me, and the dust was heaped above me by a master's hands, who likewise engraved these words on my tomb.

Richard Gough of course knew these, and, as I say, he very probably took his inspiration from them; but the circumstance does not diminish the beauty of his own affectionate thoughtfulness in composing epitaphs of his own and having them cut in the stone.

Nichols, who, of course, after his quaint manner, buries all the human characteristics of his antiquarian and scholastic friends in the small type of the footnotes, gives also a model address of a candidate to his constituents as prepared by Mr. Gough for a friend who thought to contest a seat. It is a brief but amusing document, obviously the work of a golden-hearted, pure-minded recluse, removed by nature and circumstances far from the turmoil of ambitious men. It runs thus:--

"I offer myself a Candidate to represent the County [or Borough] of ----, with a determined resolution neither to solicit, nor influence, the votes of the free electors. Superior to such influence myself, I cannot condescend to bribe or intimidate my countrymen. I stand forth, therefore, on no other ground than public virtue. If there is so much left in this place as to direct your choice to me, I shall be happy in calling it forth, whether I succeed in my election or not. I shall neither make nor authorize any other application than this. As I have no ends of my own to serve, I profess myself of no party; and resolved to follow the dictates of my own conscience, with respect to my duty, to my Country, my Sovereign, and my Constituents."

When Mr. Gough himself came to die, his learned friend Dr. Sherwin said of him in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ that "his cellar was as open to the necessities of afflicted industry as his noble library to the wants and wishes of literary men." A noble epitaph. Those great days have passed away. Gentlemen no longer have a Magazine, and many of them cut a fine enough figure without either library or cellar. Indeed, I am not sure that the tendency of the cellar to dwindle into a Tantalus is not the most lamentable sign of the times.