happier and less in the way of evil than the movables; whether he had done right in removing the lad from that station of life in which he was born, in which it had pleased God to place him; divorcing him as it were from his paternal soil, and cutting off the entail of that sure independence, that safe contentment, which his ancestors had obtained and preserved for him, and transmitted to his care to be in like manner by him preserved and handed down. The latent poetry which there was in the old man's heart made him sometimes feel as if the fields and the brook, and the hearth and the graves, reproached him for having done this! But then he took shelter in the reflection that he had consulted the boy's true welfare, by giving him opportunities of storing and enlarging his mind; that he had placed him in the way of intellectual advancement, where he might improve the talents which were committed to his charge, both for his own benefit and for that of his fellow-creatures. Certain he was that whether he had acted wisely or not, he had meant well. He was conscious that his determination had not been made without much and anxious deliberation, nor without much and earnest prayer; hitherto, he saw, that the blessing which he prayed for had followed it, and he endeavoured to make his heart rest in thankful and pious hope that that blessing would be continued. "Wouldst thou know," says Quarles, "the lawfulness of the action which thou desirest to undertake, let thy devotion recommend it to divine blessing. If it be lawful thou shalt perceive thy heart encouraged by thy prayer; if unlawful thou shalt find thy prayer discouraged by thy heart. That action is not warrantable which either blushes to beg a blessing, or, having succeeded, dares not present a thanksgiving." Daniel might safely put his conduct to this test; and to this test in fact his own healthy and uncorrupted sense of religion led him, though probably he had never read these golden words of Quarles the Emblemist.

It was therefore with no ordinary delight that our good Daniel received a letter from his son, asking permission to go to Leyden, in conformity with his master's wishes, and there prosecute his studies long enough to graduate as a doctor in medicine. Mr. Hopkins, he said, would generously take upon himself the whole expense, having adopted him as his successor, and almost as a son; for as such he was treated in all respects, both by him and by his mistress, who was one of the best of women. And, indeed, it appeared that Mr. Hopkins had long entertained this intention, by the care which he had taken to make him keep up and improve the knowledge of Latin which he had acquired under Mr. Guy.

The father's consent, as might be supposed, was thankfully given; and accordingly Daniel Dove in the twenty

third year of his age embarked from Kingston upon Hull for Rotterdam, well provided by the care and kindness of his benevolent master with letters of introduction and of credit; and still better provided with those religious principles which, though they cannot ensure prosperity in this world, ensure to us things of infinitely greater momentgood conduct, peace of mind, and the everlasting reward of the righteous.

CHAPTER XLIX. P. I.

CONCERNING THE INTEREST WHICH DANIEL THE ELDER TOOK IN THE DUTCH WAR, AND MORE ESPECIALLY IN THE SIEGE AND PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERY OF LEYDEN.

Edging sometimes with might the sword unjust;

And bowing to the dust,

The rightful cause, that so such seeming ill

May thine appointed purposes fulfil;

Sometimes, as in this late auspicious hour

For which our hymns we raise,

Making the wicked feel thy present power;

Glory to thee and praise,

Almighty God, by whom our strength was given!
Glory to thee, O Lord of earth and heaven!

SOUTHEY.

THERE were two portions of history with which the elder Daniel was better acquainted than most men-that of Edward the Third's reign, and that of the wars in the Netherlands down to the year 1608. Upon both subjects he was homo unius libri; such a man is proverbially formidable at his own weapon; and the book with which Johnson immortalized Osborne the bookseller, by knocking him down with it, was not a more formidable folio than either of those from which Daniel derived this knowledge.

Now of all the events in the wars of the Low Countries, there was none which had so strongly affected his imagination as the siege of Leyden. The patient fortitude of the besieged, and their deliverance, less by the exertions of man, (though no human exertions were omitted,) than by the special mercy of Him whom the elements obey, and in whom they had put their trust, were in the strong and pious mind

of Daniel, things of more touching interest than the tragedy of Haerlem, or the wonders of military science and of courage displayed at the siege of Antwerp. Who, indeed, could forget the fierce answer of the Leydeners when they were, for the last time, summoned to surrender, that the men of Leyden would never surrender while they had one arm left to eat, and another to fight with! And the not less terrible reply of the burgemeester Pieter Adriaanzoon Vander Werf, to some of the townsmen when they represented to him the extremity of famine to which they were reduced : "I have sworn to defend this city," he made answer, "and by God's help I mean to keep that oath! but if my death can help ye, men, here is my body! cut it in pieces, and share it among ye as far as it will go." And who, without partaking in the hopes and fears of the contest, almost as if it were still at issue, can peruse the details of that amphibious battle (if such an expression may be allowed) upon the inundated country, when, in the extremity of their distress, and at a time when the Spaniards said that it was as impossible for the Hollanders to save Leyden from their power, as it was for them to pluck the stars from heaven, "a great south wind, which they might truly say came from the grace of God," set in with such a spring tide, that in the course of eight-andforty hours, the inundation rose half a foot, thus rendering the fields just passable for the flat bottomed boats which had been provided for that service! A naval battle, among the trees; where the besieged, though it was fought within two miles of their walls, could see nothing because of the foliage; and amid such a labyrinth of dikes, ditches, rivers, and fortifications, that when the besiegers retired from their palisades and sconces, the conquerors were not aware of their own success, nor the besieged of their deliverance!

"In this delivery," says the historian, "and in every particular of the enterprise, doubtless all must be attributed to the mere providence of God, neither can man challenge any glory therein; for without a miracle all the endeavours of the Protestants had been as wind. But God, who is always good, would not give way to the cruelties wherewith the Spaniards threatened this town, with all the insolences whereof they make profession in the taking of towns (although they be by composition) without any respect of humanity or honesty. And there is not any man but will confess with me, if he be not some atheist or epicure, (who maintains that all things come by chance,) that this delivery is a work which belongs only unto God. For if the Spaniards had battered the town but with four cannons only, they had carried it, the people being so weakened with faniine, as they could not endure any longer: besides a part of them were ill affected, and very many of their best men were dead of the plague. And for another testimony that it was

God only who wrought, the town was no sooner delivered, but the wind, which was southwest, and had driven the water out of the sea into the country, turned to northeast, and did drive it back again into the sea, as if the southwest wind had blown those three days only to that effect; wherefore they might well say that both the winds and the sea had fought for the town of Leyden. And as for the resolution of the States of Holland to drown the country, and to do that which they and their prince, together with all the commanders, captains, and soldiers of the army showed in this seacourse, together with the constancy and resolution of the besieged to defend themselves, notwithstanding so many miseries which they suffered, and so many promises and threats which were made unto them, all in like sort proceeded from a divine instinct."

In the spirit of thoughtful feeling that this passage breathes, was the whole history of that tremendous struggle perused by the elder Daniel; and Daniel the son was so deeply imbued with the same feeling, that if he had lived till the time of the Peninsular war, he would have looked upon the condition to which Spain was reduced, as a consequence of its former tyranny, and as an awful proof how surely, soon or late, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.

"Even

Oh that all history were regarded in this spirit! such as are in faith most strong, of zeal most ardent, should not," says one of the best and wisest of theologians, "much mispend their time in comparing the degenerate fictions, or historical relations of times ancient or modern, with the everlasting truth. For though this method could not add much increase either to their faith or zeal, yet would it doubtless much avail for working placid and mild affections. The very penmen of Sacred Writ themselves were taught patience, and instructed in the ways of God's providence, by their experience of such events as the course of time is never barren of; not always related by canonical authors, nor immediately testified by the Spirit; but ofttimes believed upon a moral certainty, or such a resolution of circumstances concurrent into the first cause or disposer of all affairs, as we might make of modern accidents, were we otherwise partakers of the Spirit, or would we mind heavenly matters as much as earthly."

18*

VOYAGE

ΤΟ

CHAPTER L. P. I.

ROTTERDAM AND LEYDEN-THE AUTHOR CANNOT TARRY TO DESCRIBE THAT CITY-WHAT HAPPENED THERE TO DANIEL DOVE.

He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage. As who doth not that shall attempt the like? For peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him unhappy that never travelled, a kind of prisoner, and pity his case that from his cradle to his old age he beholds the same still; still, still, the same, the same!-BURTON.

"WHY did Dan remain in ships?" says Deborah the prophetess, in that noble song, which, if it had been composed in Greek instead of Hebrew, would have made Pindar hide his diminished head, or taught him a loftier strain than even he has reached in his eagle flights. "Why did Dan remain in ships?" said the prophetess. Our Daniel, during his rough passage from the Humber to the Maese, thought that nothing should make him do so. Yet when all danger real or ima ginary was over, upon that deep

Where Proteus' herds and Neptune's orcs do keep,
Where all is ploughed, yet still the pasture's green,
The ways are found, and yet no paths are seen ;*

when all the discomforts and positive sufferings of the voyage were at an end; and when the ship,

Quitting her fairly of the injurious sea,†

had entered the smooth waters of that stately river, and was gliding

Into the bosom of her quiet quay,t

he felt that the delight of setting foot on shore after a sea voyage, and that too the shore of a foreign country, for the first time, is one of the few pleasures which exceed any expectation that can be formed of them.

He used to speak of his landing, on a fine autunnal noon, in the well-wooded and well-watered city of Rotterdam, and of his journey along what he called the high turnpike canal from thence to Leyden, as some of the pleasantest recollec