The doctor &c / By the late Robert Southey. Edited by his son-in-law, John Wood Warter, B.D. Complete in one volume.

  • Southey, Robert, 1774-1843
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The doctor &c / By the late Robert Southey. Edited by his son-in-law, John Wood Warter, B.D. Complete in one volume. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    bien, que dans la pensée de ce scavant Theolo- gien, le question des barbes, courtes ou longues, est une question tout-a-fait problematique, et ou par conséquent on peut prendre tel party que l'on veut, pour ou contre. [The following Extracts were to have been worked up in this Chapter. ] D’Israeli quotes an author who, in his Elements of Education, 1640, says, “I have a favourable opinion of that young gentleman who is curious in fine mustachios, The time he employs in adjusting, dressing and curling them, is no lost time: for the more he contemplates his mustachios, the more his mind will cherish, and be ani- mated by, masculine and courageous notions.”’ There are men whose beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher’s cushion, or to be entombed in an ass’s packsaddle. SHAKSPEARE. “Human felicity,’ says Dr. Franklin, “is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. Thus if you teach a poor young man to shave himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it: but in the other case he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths and dull razors ; he shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument.”’ By Jupiter, Were I the wearer of Antonius’ beard I would not shave ’t to day. SHAKSPEARE. D’Israeli says that a clergyman who had the longest and largest beard of any Englishman in Elizabeth’s reign, gave as a reason for wearing it the motive it afforded “that no act of his life might be unworthy the gravity of his appearance.”’ FRAGMENT ON MORTALITY. Wuew Fuller in his Pisgah Sight of Pales- tine, comes to the city of Aigalon, where Elon, Judge of Israel, was buried, ‘‘ of whom nothing else is recorded save his name, time of his rule (ten years), and place of his in- terment ; slight him not,” he says, ‘* because so little is reported of him, it tending much to the praise of his policy in preventing foreign invasions, and domestic commotions, so that the land enjoyed peace, as far better than. victory, as health is to be preferred before a recovery from sickness. Yea, times of much doing are times of much suffering, and many martial achievements are rather for the Prince’s honour, than the people’s ease.” ‘To what purpose,” says Norris, “should a man trouble both the world’s and his own rest, to make himself great? For besides the emptiness of the thing, the Play will quickly be done, and the Actors must all retire into a state of equality, and then it matters not who personated the Emperor, or who the Slave.” The Doctor’s feelings were in unison with both these passages ;— with the former con- cerning the quiet age in which it was his fortune to flourish, and with the latter in that it was his fortune to flourish in the shade. “It is with times,” says Lord Ba- con, “as it is with ways; some are more up hill and down hill, and some are more flat and plain; and the one is better for the liver, and the other for the writer.” He assented also to the Christian-Platonist of Bemerton when he asked, “ to what pur- pose should a man be very earnest in the pursuit of Fame? He must shortly die, and so must those too who admire him.” But nothing could be more opposed to his way of thinking than what follows in that philosopher, —‘* Nay, I could almost say, to what purpose should a man lay himself out upon study and drudge so laboriously in the mines of learning? He is no sooner a little wiser than his brethren, but Death thinks him ripe for his sickle; and for aught we know, after all his pains and industry, in the next world, an ideot, or a mechanic will be as forward as he.” In the same spirit Horace Walpole said in his old age, “*‘ What is knowledge to me, who stand on the verge, and must leave my old stores as well as what I may add to them,—and how little could that be!” When Johnson was told that Perey was uneasy at the thought of leaving his house, his study, his books—when he should die, — he replied — “a man need not be uneasy on these grounds, for as he will retain his con- sciousness, he may say with the Philosopher, omnia mea mecum porto.” “ Let attention,” says the thoughtful John Miller in his Bampton Lectures, which de- serve to be side by side with those of the lamented Van Mildert, “ let attention be re-