to others, as a genuine and ripened imagination, that knows its own powers, and throws forth its treasures with frankness and fearlessness. The more it produces, the more capable it becomes of production; the creative faculty grows by indulgence; and the more it combines, the more means and varieties of combinations it discovers. "When death comes to destroy that mysterious and magical union of capacities and acquirements which has brought a noble genius to this point of power, how frightful and lamentable is the effect of the stroke that stops the current which was wont to put this mighty formation into activity! Perhaps the incomprehensible spirit may have acted in conjunction with its corporeal adherents to the last. Then in one moment, what darkness and destruction follows a single gasp of breath!"* This fine passage is as consolatory in its former part, as it is gloomy at the conclusion; and it is gloomy there because the view which is there taken is imperfect. Our thoughts, our reminiscences, our intellectual acquirements, die with us to this world-but to this world only. If they are what they ought to be, they are treasures which we lay up for heaven, That which is of the earth, earthly, perishes with wealth, rank, honours, authority, and other earthly and perishable things. But nothing that is worth retaining can be lost. When Ovid says in Ben Jonson's play "We pour out our affections with our blood, the dramatist makes the Roman poet speak like a sensualist, as he was, and the philosophy is as false as it is foul. Affections well placed and dutifully cherished; friendships happily formed and faithfully maintained; knowledge acquired with worthy intent, and intellectual powers that have been diligently improved as the talents which our Lord and Master has committed to our keeping; these will accompany us into another state of existence, as surely as the soul in that state retains its identity and its consciousness. * Sir Egerton Brydges. INTERCHAPTER IV. ETYMOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES CONCERNING THE REMAINS OF VARIOUS TRIBES OR FAMILIES MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURAL HISTORY. All things are big with jest; nothing that's plain HERBERT. THAT the lost ten tribes of Israel may be found in London, is a discovery which any person may suppose he has made, when he walks for the first time from the city to Wapping. That the tribes of Judah and Benjamin flourish there is known to all mankind; and from them have sprung the Scripites, and the Omniumites, and the Threepercentites. But it is not so well known that many other tribes noticed in the Old Testament are to be found in this island of Great Britain. There are the Hittites, who excel in one branch of gymnastics. And there are the Amorites, who are to be found in town and country; and there are the Gadites, who frequent watering-places, and take picturesque tours. Among the Gadites I shall have some of my best readers, who being in good humour with themselves and with everything else, except on a rainy day, will even then be in good humour with me. There will be the Amorites in their company; and among the Amorites, too, there will be some who, in the overflowing of their love, will have some liking to spare for the doctor and his faithful memorialist. The poets, those especially who deal in erotics, lyrics, sentimentals, or sonnets, are the Ah-oh-ites. The gentlemen who speculate in chapels are the Puhites. The chief seat of the Simeonites is at Cambridge; but they are spread over the land. So are the Man-ass-ites, of whom the finest specimens are to be seen in St. James'sstreet, at the fashionable time of day for exhibiting the dress and the person upon the pavement. The freemasons are of the family of the Jachinites. The female Haggites are to be seen, in low life wheeling barrows, and in high life seated at card tables. The Shuhamites are the cordwainers. The Teamanites attend the sales of the East India Company. Sir James Mackintosh, and Sir James Scarlett, and Sir James Graham, belong to the Jim-nitęs. to others, as a genuine and ripened imagination, that knows its own powers, and throws forth its treasures with frankness and fearlessness. The more it produces, the more capable it becomes of production; the creative faculty grows by indulgence; and the more it combines, the more means and varieties of combinations it discovers. "When death comes to destroy that mysterious and magical union of capacities and acquirements which has brought a noble genius to this point of power, how frightful and lamentable is the effect of the stroke that stops the current which was wont to put this mighty formation into activity! Perhaps the incomprehensible spirit may have acted in conjunction with its corporeal adherents to the last. Then in one moment, what darkness and destruction follows a single gasp of breath!"* This fine passage is as consolatory in its former part, as it is gloomy at the conclusion; and it is gloomy there because the view which is there taken is imperfect. Our thoughts, our reminiscences, our intellectual acquirements, die with us to this world-but to this world only. If they are what they ought to be, they are treasures which we lay up for heaven. That which is of the earth, earthly, perishes with wealth, rank, honours, authority, and other earthly and perishable things. But nothing that is worth retaining can be lost. When Ovid says in Ben Jonson's play "We pour out our affections with our blood, the dramatist makes the Roman poet speak like a sensualist, as he was, and the philosophy is as false as it is foul. Affections well placed and dutifully cherished; friendships happily formed and faithfully maintained; knowledge acquired with worthy intent, and intellectual powers that have been diligently improved as the talents which our Lord and Master has committed to our keeping; these will accompany us into another state of existence, as surely as the soul in that state retains its identity and its consciousness. * Sir Egerton Brydges. INTERCHAPTER IV. ETYMOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES CONCERNING THE REMAINS OF VARIOUS TRIBES OR FAMILIES MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURAL HISTORY. All things are big with jest; nothing that's plain HERBERT. THAT the lost ten tribes of Israel may be found in London, is a discovery which any person may suppose he has made, when he walks for the first time from the city to Wapping. That the tribes of Judah and Benjamin flourish there is known to all mankind; and from them have sprung the Scripites, and the Omniumites, and the Three percentites. But it is not so well known that many other tribes noticed in the Old Testament are to be found in this island of Great Britain. There are the Hittites, who excel in one branch of gymnastics. And there are the Amorites, who are to be found in town and country; and there are the Gadites, who frequent watering-places, and take picturesque tours. Among the Gadites I shall have some of my best readers, who being in good humour with themselves and with everything else, except on a rainy day, will even then be in good humour with me. There will be the Amorites in their company; and among the Amorites, too, there will be some who, in the overflowing of their love, will have some liking to spare for the doctor and his faithful memorialist. The poets, those especially who deal in erotics, lyrics, sentimentals, or sonnets, are the Ah-oh-ites. The gentlemen who speculate in chapels are the Puhites. The chief seat of the Simeonites is at Cambridge; but they are spread over the land. So are the Man-ass-ites, of whom the finest specimens are to be seen in St. James'sstreet, at the fashionable time of day for exhibiting the dress and the person upon the pavement. The freemasons are of the family of the Jachinites. The female Haggites are to be seen, in low life wheeling barrows, and in high life seated at card tables. The Shuhamites are the cordwainers. The Teamanites attend the sales of the East India Company. Sir James Mackintosh, and Sir James Scarlett, and Sir James Graham, belong to the Jim-nites. Who are the Gazathites if the people of London are not, where anything is to be seen? All of them are the Gettites when they can, all would be Havites if they could. The journalists should be Geshurites, if they answered to their profession: instead of this they generally turn out to be Geshuwrongs. There are, however, three tribes in England, not named in the Old Testament, who considerably outnumber all the rest. These are the High Vulgarites, who are the children of Rahank and Phashan: the Middle Vulgarites, who are the children of Mammon and Terade, and the Low Vulgarites, who are the children of Tahag, Rahag, and Bohobtay-il. With the Low Vulgarites I have no concern; but with the other two tribes, much. Well it is that some of those who are fruges consumere nati, think it proper that they should consume books also: if they did not, what a miserable creature wouldst thou be, Henry Colburn, who art their bookseller! I myself have that kind of respect for the consumers which we ought to feel for everything useful. If not the salt of the earth, they are its manure, without which it could not produce so abundantly. CHAPTER XXXIX. P. I. A CHAPTER FOR THE INFORMATION OF THOSE WHO MAY VISIT DONCASTER, AND ESPECIALLY OF THOSE WHO FREQUENT THE RACES THERE. summa WELL, reader, I have told thee something concerning the topography of Doncaster: and now in due order, and as in duty bound, will I give thee a sketch of its history; sequar fastigia rerum," with becoming brevity, according to my custom, and in conformity with the design of this book. The nobility and gentry who attend the races there will find it very agreeable to be well acquainted with everything relating to the place: and I particularly invite their attention to that part of the present chapter which concerns the Doncaster charters, because, as a wise and ancient author hath said, Turpe est homini nobili ejus civitatis in quâ versetur, jus ignorare, which may thus be applied, that every gentleman who frequents Doncaster races ought to know the form and history of its corporation. |