Of Dr. Johnson, we have but one anecdote; but it is very good; and good in the best way-because characteristic; being, in fact, somewhat brutal, and very witty. Miss Knight, the author of Dinarbas, and of Marcus Flaminius, called to pay him a farewell visit on quitting England for the Continent: this lady (then a young lady) is remarkably large in person; so the old savage dismissed her with the following memorial of his good nature:-" Go, go, my dear; for you are too big for an island." As may be supposed, the Doctor is no favourite with Miss Hawkins: but she is really too hard upon our old friend; for she declares "that she never heard him say in any visit six words that could compensate for the trouble of getting to his den, and the disgust of seeing such squalidness as she saw no where else." One thing at least Miss Hawkins might have learned from Dr. Johnson; and let her not suppose that we say it in ill-nature-she might have learned to weed her pages of many bar barisms in language which now dis figure them; for instance, the barbarism of " compensate for the trouble"-in the very sentence before us instead of "compensate the trouble." Dr. Farmer disappointed Miss Hawkins by "the homeliness of his external." But surely when a man comes to that supper at which he does not eat but is eaten, we have a deeper interest in his wit, which may chance to survive him, than in his beauty, which posterity cannot possibly enjoy any more than the petits soupers which it adorned. Had the Doctor been a very Adonis, he could not have done Miss Hawkins so much service as by two of his propos which she records:-One was, that on a report being mentioned, at her father's table, of Sir Joshua Reynolds having shared the gains arising from the exhibition of his pictures, with his man-servant, who was fortunately called Ralph,Dr. Farmer quoted against Sir Joshua these two lines from Hudibras: author: to say nothing of three beginning at p. 278-which are imagined by Miss Hawkins to concern Horace Walpole, but which in fact relate, in every word and syllable, to his brother Sir Edward Walpole, and to him only.-In both the first and last introduction of Lord Orford, Miss Hawkins contrives to be most amusingly and perversely wrong in all her criticisms-both as relates to his works and to his place in the public esteem. 1. Lord Orford's tragedy is not the "noxious performance" which she supposes, nor is it a work of any genius. It has no merits which can ever bring it upon the stage; nor, if it were brought upon the stage, would it therefore be "time for the virtuous to fly their country, and leave it a prey to wild beasts." In his choice of a subject, Lord Orford showed a singular defect of judgment; in his treatment of it, he is not intentionally immoral. With depraved taste and feeble sensibilities he is chargeable; but not, as Miss Hawkins asserts, with an act of "enormous indecency."-2. The Castle of Otranto is not a new creation in literature," as she seems to concede (p. 309): on the contrary, it is a most weak and extravagant fiction, in which the coarse, the clumsy, the palpable, and the material, are substituted for the aerial, the spiritual, and the shadowy; the supernatural agency being, as Mr. Hazlitt has most happily expressed it, (Lectures on the Comic Writers, p. 253) "the pasteboard machinery of a pantomime."-3. With respect to the Chatterton case, Miss Hawkins is wide of the truth by a whole climate. She dates Lord Orford's declension "in the public favour from the time when he resisted the imposition of Chatterton;" and she thinks it "not the usual justice of the world to be angry at a resistance proved so reasonable." But, first, Lord Örford has not declined in the public favour: he ranks higher now than he did in Chatterton's life-time, or his own: his reputation is the same in kind as the genuine reputation of Voltaire: both are very spirited memoir-writers; and, of the two, Lord Orford is the more brilliant. The critique of his posthumous memoirs by Miss Hawkins's brother, expresses his pretensions very ably. Secondly, if he had declined, it could not have been in the way supposed. Nobody blamed Lord Orford for resisting the imposition of Chatterton. He was right in refusing to be hoaxed: he was not right in detaining Chatterton's papers; and if he did this, not through negligence or inattention, but presuming on Chatterton's rank (as Chatterton himself believed and told him), his conduct was infamous. Be this as it may, his treatment of Chatterton whilst living, was arrogant, supercilious, and with little or no sensibility to his claims as a man of genius; of Chatterton when dead--brutal, and of inhuman hypocrisy; he himself being one of the few men in any century who had practised at a mature age that very sort of forgery which in a boy of seventeen he represented as unpardonable. A squire he had whose name was Ralph, Who in the adventure went his half. The other was, that speaking of Dr. Parr, he said that he seemed to have been at a feast of learning (for learning, read languages) from which he had carried off all the scraps." Miss Hawkins does not seem to be aware that this is taken from Shakspeare: but, what is still more surprising, she declares herself "absolutely ignorant whether it be praise or censure." All we shall say on that question is, that we most seriously advise her not to ask Dr. Parr. Of Paul Whitehead, we are told that his wife" was so nearly idiotic, that she would call his attention in conversation to look at a cow, not as one of singular beauty, but in the words- Mr. Whitehead, there's a COW. On this Miss Hawkins moralizes in a very eccentric way: "He took it," says she, "most patiently -as he did all such trials of his temper." Trials of his temper! why, was he jealous of the cow? Had he any personal animosity to the cow? Not only, however, was Paul very patient (at least under his bovine afflictions, and his "trials" in regard to horned cattle), but also Paul was very devout; of which he gave this pleasant assurance: "When I go," said he, " into St. Paul's, I admire it as a very fine, grand, beautiful building; and, when I have contemplated its beauty, I come out: but, if I go into Westminster Abbey, d-n me, I'm all devotion." So, by his own account, Paul appears to have been a very pretty fellow; d-d patient, and dd devout. For practical purposes, we recommend to all physicians the following anecdote, which Sir Richard Jebb used to tell of himself: as Miss Hawkins observes, it makes even rapacity comical, and it suggests a very useful and practical hint. "He was attending a nobleman, from whom he had a right to expect a fee of five guineas; he received only three. Suspecting some trick on the part of the steward, from whom he received it, he at the next visit contrived to drop the three guineas. They were picked up, and again deposited in his hand: but he still con tinued to look on the carpet. His lordship asked if all the guineas 'There must be two were found. guineas still on the carpet,' replied Sir Richard, for I have but three.' The hint was taken as he meant.” But of all medical stratagems, commend us to that practised by Dr. Munckley, who had lived with Sir J. Hawkins during his bachelor days in quality of "chum:" and a chum he was, in Miss Hawkins's words, "not at all calculated to render the chum state happy." This Dr. Munckley, by the bye, was so huge a manmountain, that Miss Hawkins supposes the blank in the well-known epigram, When-walks the streets, the paviors cry, "God bless you, Sir!" and lay their rammers by, to have been originally filled up with his name,-but in this she is mistaken. The epigram was written before he was born; and for about 140 years has this empty epigram, like other epigrams to be lett, been occupied by a succession of big men : we believe that the original tenant. was Dr. Ralph Bathurst. Munckley, however, might have been the original tenant, if it had pleased God to let him be born eighty years sooner; for he was quite as well qualified as Bathurst to draw down the blessings of paviors, and to play the part of a "three-man beetle."* Of this Miss Hawkins gives a proof which is droll enough: "accidentally encountering suddenly a stout man servant in a narrow passage, they literally stuck." Each, like Horatius Cocles, in the words of Seneca, solus One of implevit pontis angustias. them, it is clear, must have backed; unless, indeed, they are sticking there yet. It would be curious to ascertain which of them backed. For the dignity of science, one would hope it was not Munckley. Yet we fear he was capable of any meanness, if Miss Hawkins reports accurately his stratagems upon her father's purse: a direct attack failing, he attacked it indirectly. But Miss Hawkins shall tell her own tale. "He was extremely rapacious, and a very bad economist; and, soon after my father's marriage, having been foiled in * "Fillip me with a three-man beetle."—Falstaff, Henry IV. his attempt to borrow money of him, he endeavoured to atone to himself for this disappointment by protracting the duration of a low fever in which he attended him; making unnecessary visits, and with his hand Was there ever open for a fee." ever such a fellow in this terraqueous globe? Sir John's purse not yielding to a storm, he approaches by mining and sapping, under cover of a low fever. Did this Munckley really exist; or is he but the coinage of Miss Hawkins's brain? If the reader wishes to know what became of this "great" man, we shall gratify him. He was "foiled," as we have seen, "in his attempt to borrow money of Sir J. H.: he was also soon after "foiled" in his attempt to live. Munckley, big Munckley, being "too big for an island" we suppose, was compelled to die: he gave up the ghost: and, what seems very absurd both to us and to Miss Hawkins, he continued talking to the last; and went off in the very act of uttering a most prosaic truism, which yet happened to be false in his case: for his final words were "that it was-hard to be taken off just then, when he was beginning to get into practice." Not at all, with such practices as his: where men enter into partnerships with low fevers, it is very fit that they should "back" out of this world as fast as possible; as fast as, in all probability, he had backed down the narrow passage before the So much for stout man-servant. Munckley,-big Munckley. It does not strike us as any "singular feature" (p. 273), in the history of Bartleman the great singer"that he lived to occupy the identical house in Berners-street in which his first patron resided." Knowing the house, its pros and cons, its landlord, &c. surely it was very natural that he should avail himself of his knowledge for his own convenience. But it is a very singular fact (p. 160), that our government should merely for want of caution, have sent the Culloden ship of war to convoy Cardinal York from Naples." This, we suppose, Miss Hawkins looks upon as ominous of some disaster; for she considers it "fortunate," that his Eminence "had sailed before it arrived." Of this same Cardinal York, Miss Hawkins tells us further, that a friend of hers having On the subject of the Pretender, This is naïveté, which becomes wit to the by-stander, though simply the natural expression of the thought to him who utters it. Another instance, no less lively, is the following-mentioned at Strawberry-hill by "the sister of one of our first statesmen now deceased." "She had heard a boy, humoured to excess, tease his mother for the remains of a favourite dish: Mamma at He length replied- then, do take it, and have done teasing me.' then flew into a passion, roaring out what did you give it me for? I wanted to have snatched it." " The next passage we shall cite relates to a very eminent character indeed, truly respectable, and entirely English; viz. Plum-Pudding, The obstinate and inveterate ignorance of Frenchmen on this subject is well known. Their errors are grievous, pitiable, and matter of scorn and detestation to every enlightened In civilization, in trial by mind. jury, and many other features of social happiness, it has been affirmed, that the French are two centuries behind us. We believe it. But with regard to plum-pudding, they are at least five centuries in arrear. In the "Omniana," we think it is, Mr. Southey has recorded one of their insane attempts at constructing such a pudding: the monstrous abortion, which on that occasion issued to the light, the reader may imagine; and will be at no loss to understand that volley of " Diables," "Sucres," and "Morbleus," which it called forth, when we mention that these deluded Frenchmen made cheese the basis of their infernal preparation. Now, under these circumstances of national infatuation, how admirable must have been the art of an English party, who, in the very city of Paris, (that centre of darkness on this interesting subject) and in the very teeth of Frenchmen, did absolutely extort from French hands, a real English plum-pudding: yes! compelled a French apothecary, unknowing what he did, to produce an excellent plum-pudding; and had the luxury of a hoax into the bar gain. Verily, the ruse was magnifique; and though it was nearly terminating in bloodshed, yet, doubt less, so superb a story would have been cheaply purchased by one or two lives. Here it follows in Miss Hawkins's own words. "Dr. Schomberg of Reading, in the early part of his life, spent a Christmas at Paris with some English friends. They were desirous to celebrate the season in the manner of their own country, by having, as one dish at their table, an English plum-pudding; but no cook was found equal to the task of compounding it. A clergyman of the party had, indeed, an old receiptbook; but this did not sufficiently explain the process. Dr. Schomberg, however, supplied all that was wanting, by throwing the recipe into the form of a prescription, and sending it to an apothecary to be made up. To prevent all possibility of error, he directed that it should be boiled in a cloth, and sent in the same cloth, to be applied at an hour specified. At this hour it arrived, borne by the apothecary's assistant, and preceded (sweet heavens!) "by the apothecary himself-drest, according to the professional formality of the time, with a sword. Seeing, when he entered the apartment, instead of signs of sickness, a table well-filled, and surrounded by very merry faces, he perceived that he was made a party in a joke that turned on himself, and indignantly laid his hand on his sword; but an invitation to taste his own cookery appeased him; and all was well.' This story we pronounce altogether unique: for, as on the one hand, the art was divine, by which the benefits of medical punctuality and accuracy were pressed into the service of a Christmas-dinner; so, on the other hand, it is strictly and satirically probable, when told of a French apothecary: for who but a Frenchman, whose pharmacopoeia still teems with the monstrous compounds of our ancestors, could have believed that such a preparation was seriously designed for a cataplasm? In our next extracts we come upon ground rather tender and unsafe for obstinate sceptics. We have often heard of learned doctors, from Shrewsbury, suppose, going by way of Birmingham to Oxford-and at Birmingham, under the unfortunate ambiguity of "the Oxford coach," getting into that from Oxford, which, by nightfall, safely restored the astonished doctor to astonished Shrewsbury. Such a case is sad and pitiful; but what is that to the case (p. 164) of Willes the painter, who, being "anxious to get a likeness" of "good Dr. Foster," (the same whom Pope has honoured with the couplet, Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well) "attended his meeting one Sundayevening;" and very naturally, not being acquainted with Dr. Foster's person, sketched a likeness of the clergyman whom he found officiating; which clergyman happened unfortunately to be-not the Doctorbut Mr. Morris, an occasional substitute of his. The mistake remained undiscovered: the sketch was elaborately copied in a regular picture: the picture was elaborately engraved in mezzotinto; and to this day the portrait of one Mr. Morris officiates" for that of the celebrated Dr. Foster. Living and dead he was Dr. Foster's substitute. Even this Anecdotage, No. 1.-Miss Hawkins's Anecdotes. 267 however, is a trifle to what follows: the case "of a Baronet, who must be nameless, who proposed to visit Rome, and previously to learn the language; but by some mistake, or imposition, engaged a German, who taught only his own language, and proceeded in the study of it vigorously for three months before he discovered his error." With all deference to the authority of Horace Walpole, from whom the anecdote originally comes, we confess that we are staggered; and must take leave, in the stoical phrase, to "suspend:" in fact, we must consult our friends before we can contract for believing it: at present, all we shall say about it is, that we greatly fear the Baronet "must," as Miss Hawkins observes, "be nameless." We must also consult our friends on the propriety of believing the little incident which follows, though attributed to "a very worthy modest young man :" for it is remark--and for this purpose they took them to able that of this very modest young man is recorded but one act, viz. the most impudent in the book. "He was walking in the Mall of St. James's Park, when they met two fine young women, drest in straw hats, and, at least to appearance, unattended. His friend offered him a bet that he did not go up to one of those rustic beauties, and salute her. He accepted the bet; and in a very civil manner, and probably explaining the cause of his boldness, he thought himself sure of success, when he became aware that it was the Princess Caroline, daughter of George II. who, with one of her sisters, was taking the refreshment of a walk in complete disguise. In the utmost confusion he bowed, begged pardon, and retreated; whilst their Royal Highnesses, with great good humour, laughed at his mistake." |