CHAPTER CCXXXII.

THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY FEELING.

It behoves the high For their own sakes to do things worthily.

BEN JONSON.

No son ever regarded the memory of his father with more reverential affection than this last of the Doves. There never lived a man, he said, to whom the lines of Marcus Antonius Flaminius, (the sweetest of all Latin poets in modern times, or perhaps of any age,) could more truly be applied.

_Vixisti, genitor, bene, ac beate, Nec pauper, neque dives; eruditus Satis, et satis eloquens; valente Semper corpore, mente sanâ; amicis Jucundus, pietate singulari._

“What if he could not with the Hevenninghams of Suffolk count five and twenty knights of his family, or tell sixteen knights successively with the Tilneys of Norfolk, or with the Nauntons shew where his ancestors had seven hundred pounds a year before the conquest,”[1] he was, and with as much, or perhaps more reason, contented with his parentage. Indeed his family feeling was so strong, that, if he had been of an illustrious race, pride, he acknowledged, was the sin which would most easily have beset him; though on the other hand, to correct this tendency, he thought there could be no such persuasive preachers as old family portraits, and old monuments in the family church.

[Footnote 1: FULLER.]

He was far however from thinking that those who are born to all the advantages, as they are commonly esteemed, of rank and fortune, are better placed for the improvement of their moral and intellectual nature, than those in a lower grade. “_Fortunatos nimium sua si bona nôrint_,” he used to say of this class, but this is a knowledge that they seldom possess; and it is rare indeed to find an instance in which the high privileges which hereditary wealth conveys are understood by the possessors, and rightly appreciated and put to their proper use. The one, and the two talents are

Oh! bright occasions of dispensing good, How seldom used, how little understood![2]

in general more profitably occupied than the five; the five indeed are not often tied up in a napkin, but still less often are they faithfully employed in the service of that Lord from whom they are received in trust, and to whom an account of them must be rendered.

[Footnote 2: COWPER.]

“A man of family and estate,” said Johnson, “ought to consider himself as having the charge of a district over which he is to diffuse civility and happiness.”—Are there fifty men of family and estate in the Three Kingdoms who feel and act as if this were their duty?—Are there five and forty?—Forty?—Thirty?—Twenty?—Or can it be said with any probability of belief that “peradventure Ten shall be found there?”

—_in sangue illustre e signorile, In uom d'alti parenti al mondo nato, La viltà si raddoppia, e più si scorge Che in coloro il cui grado alto non sorge._[3]

[Footnote 3: TASSO RINALDO.]

Here in England stood a village, within the memory of man,—no matter where,—close by the Castle of a noble proprietor,—no matter who:

_il figlio Del tale, ed il nipote del cotale, Natò per madre della tale._[4]

It contained about threescore houses, and every cottager had ground enough for keeping one or two cows. The noble proprietor looked upon these humble tenements as an eye-sore; and one by one as opportunity offered, he purchased them, till at length he became owner of the whole, one field excepted, which belonged to an old Quaker. The old man resisted many offers, but at last he was induced to exchange it for a larger and better piece of land in another place. No sooner had this transaction been completed, than the other occupants who were now only tenants at will, received notice to quit; the houses were demolished, the inclosures levelled, hearthsteads and homesteads, the cottage garden and the cottage field disappeared, and the site was in part planted, in part thrown into the park. The Quaker, who unlike Naboth, had parted with the inheritance of his fathers was a native of the village; but he knew not how dearly he was attached to it, till he saw its demolition: it was his fault, he said; and if he had not exchanged his piece of ground, he should never have lived to see his native place destroyed. He took it deeply to heart; it preyed upon his mind, and he soon lost his senses and died.

[Footnote 4: CHIABRERA.]

I tell the story as it was related, within sight of the spot, by a husbandman who knew the place and the circumstances, and well remembered that many people used to come every morning from the adjacent parts to buy milk there,—“a quart of new milk for a half-penny, and a quart of old, given with it.”

Naboth has been named in relating this, but the reader will not suppose that I have any intention of comparing the great proprietor to Ahab,—or to William the Conqueror. There was nothing unjust in his proceedings, nothing iniquitous; and (though there may have been a great want of proper feeling) nothing cruel. I am not aware that any hardship was inflicted upon the families who were ejected, farther than the inconvenience of a removal. He acted as most persons in the same circumstances probably would have acted, and no doubt he thought that his magnificent habitation was greatly improved by the demolition of the poor dwellings which had neighboured it so closely. Farther it may be said in his justification (for which I would leave nothing unsaid) that very possibly the houses had not sufficient appearance of neatness and comfort to render them agreeable objects, that the people may have been in no better state of manners and morals than villagers commonly are, which is saying that they were bad enough; that the filth of their houses was thrown into the road, and that their pigs, and their children who were almost as unclean, ran loose there. Add to this if you please that though they stood in fear of their great neighbour, there may have been no attachment to him, and little feeling of good will. But I will tell you how Dr. Dove would have proceeded if he had been the hereditary Lord of that Castle and that domain.

He would have considered that this village was originally placed there for the sake of the security which the Castle afforded. Times had changed and with them the relative duties of the Peer and of the Peasantry: he no longer required their feudal services, and they no longer stood in need of his protection. The more therefore, according to his “way of thinking,” was it to be desired, that other relations should be strengthened and the bonds of mutual goodwill be more closely intertwined. He would have looked upon these villagers as neighbours, in whose welfare and good conduct he was especially interested, and over whom it was in his power to exercise a most salutary and beneficial influence; and having this power he would have known, that it was his duty so to use it. He would have established a school in the village, and have allowed no ale-house there. He would have taken his domestics preferably from thence. If there were a boy who by his gentle disposition, his diligence and his aptitude for learning gave promise of those qualities which best become the clerical profession, he would have sent that boy to a grammar school, and afterwards to college, supporting him there in part, or wholly, according to the parents' means, and placing him on his list for preferment, according to his deserts.

If there were any others who discovered a remarkable fitness for any other useful calling, in that calling he would have had them instructed and given them his countenance and support, as long as they continued to deserve it. The Archbishop of Braga, Fray Bartolomen dos Martyres, added to his establishment a Physician for the poor. Our friend would in like manner have fixed a medical practitioner in the village,—one as like as he could find to a certain Doctor at Doncaster; and have allowed him such a fixed stipend, as might have made him reasonably contented and independent of the little emolument which the practice of the place could afford, for he would not have wished his services to be gratuitous where there was no need. If the parish to which the village belonged was too extensive, or the parochial Minister unwilling, or unable to look carefully after this part of his flock, his Domestic Chaplain, (for he would not have lived without one) should have taken care of their religious instruction.

In his own family and in his own person he would have set his neighbours an example of “whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report.” And as this example produced its sure effects, he would have left the Amateurs of Agriculture to vie with each other in their breeds of sheep and oxen, and in the costly cultivation of their farms. It would have been, not his boast, for he boasted of nothing;—not his pride, for he had none of

that poor vice which only empty men Esteem a virtue—[5]

it was out of the root of Christian humility that all his virtues grew,—but his consolation and his delight to know that nowhere in Great Britain was there a neater, a more comfortable village than close to his own mansion; no where a more orderly, a more moral, a more cheerful, or a happier people. And if his castle had stood upon an elevation commanding as rich a survey as Belvoir or Shobden, that village when he looked from his windows, would still have been the most delightful object in the prospect.

[Footnote 5: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.]

I have not mentioned the name of the old Quaker in my story; but I will preserve it in these pages because the story is to his honour. It was Joshua Dickson. If Quakers have (and certainly they have) the quality which is called modest assurance in a superlative degree that distinguishes them from any other class of men, (it is of the _men_ only that I speak) they are the only sect, who as a sect, cultivate the sense of conscience. This was not a case of conscience, but of strong feeling assuming that character under a tendency to madness.

When Lord Harcourt about the same time removed the village of Nuneham, an old widow Barbara Wyat by name, earnestly intreated that she might be allowed to remain in her old habitation. The request which it would have been most unfeeling to refuse, was granted; she ended her days there, and then the cottage was pulled down: but a tree which grew beside it, and which she had planted in her youth, is still shown on the terrace at Nuneham, and called by her name. Near it is placed the following Inscription by that amiable man the Laureate Whitehead. Like all his serious poems it may be read with pleasure and profit,—though the affecting circumstance which gives the anecdote its highest interest is related only in a note.

This Tree was planted by a female hand, In the gay dawn of rustic beauty's glow; And fast beside it did her cottage stand, When age had clothed the matron's head with snow.

To her long used to nature's simple ways, This single spot was happiness compleat; Her tree could shield her from the noontide blaze And from the tempest screen her little seat.

Here with her Colin oft the faithful maid, Had led the dance, the envious youths among, Here when his aged bones in earth were laid, The patient matron turned her wheel and sung.

She felt her loss, yet felt it as she ought, Nor dared 'gainst Nature's general law exclaim, But checkt her tears and to her children taught That well known truth their lot would be the same.

The Thames before her flowed, his farther shores She ne'er explored, contented with her own; And distant Oxford, tho' she saw its towers, To her ambition was a world unknown.

Did dreadful tales the clowns from market bear Of kings and tumults and the courtier train, She coldly listened with unheeding ear, And good Queen Anne, for aught she cared, might reign.

The sun her day, the seasons marked her year, She toiled, she slept, from care, from envy free; For what had she to hope, or what to fear, Blest with her cottage, and her favourite Tree.

Hear this ye Great, whose proud possessions spread O'er earth's rich surface to no space confined! Ye learn'd in arts, in men, in manners read, Who boast as wide an empire o'er the mind,

With reverence visit her august domain; To her unlettered memory bow the knee; She found that happiness you seek in vain, Blest with a cottage, and a single Tree.[6]

[Footnote 6: The Classical reader will be aware that the Author of these lines had Claudian's “Old Man of Verona” in his mind's eye, as Claudian had Virgil's “Corycian Old Man.”—Georg. iv. 127.]

Mason would have produced a better inscription upon this subject, in the same strain; Southey in a different one, Crabbe would have treated it with more strength, Bowles with a finer feeling, so would his kinswoman and namesake Caroline, than whom no author or authoress has ever written more touchingly, either in prose or verse. Wordsworth would have made a picture from it worthy of a place in the great Gallery of his Recluse. But Whitehead's is a remarkable poem, considering that it was produced during what has been not unjustly called the neap tide of English poetry: and the reader who should be less pleased with it than offended by its faults, may have cause to suspect that his refinement has injured his feelings in a greater degree than it has improved his taste.