: Spare Hours by Brown John - English essays; Dogs Folklore; Art criticism; Brown John 1810-1882 Childhood and youth; Authors English 19th century Biography

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RAB AND HIS FRIENDS "WITH BRAINS, SIR" THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN HER LAST HALF-CROWN OUR DOGS QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN PRESENCE OF MIND AND HAPPY GUESSING MY FATHER'S MEMOIR MYSTIFICATIONS "OH, I'M WAT, WAT!" ARTHUR H. HALLAM EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES VAUGHAN'S POEMS DR. CHALMERS DR. GEORGE WILSON ST. PAUL'S THORN IN THE FLESH THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES NOTES ON ART

In that delightful and provoking book, "THE DOCTOR, &c.," Southey says: "'Prefaces,' said Charles Blount, Gent., 'Prefaces,' according to this flippant, ill-opinioned, and unhappy man, 'ever were, and still are, but of two sorts, let the mode and fashions vary as they please,--let the long peruke succeed the godly cropt hair; the cravat, the ruff; presbytery, popery; and popery, presbytery again,--yet still the author keeps to his old and wonted method of prefacing; when at the beginning of his book he enters, either with a halter round his neck, submitting himself to his readers' mercy whether he shall be hanged or no, or else, in a huffing manner, he appears with the halter in his hand, and threatens to hang his reader, if he gives him not his good word. This, with the excitement of friends to his undertaking, and some few apologies for the want of time, books, and the like, are the constant and usual shams of all scribblers, ancient and modern.' This was not true then," says Southey, "nor is it now." I differ from Southey, in thinking there is some truth in both ways of wearing the halter. For though it be neither manly nor honest to affect a voluntary humility , any more than it is well-bred, or seemly to put on the "huffing manner," both such being truly "shams,"--there is general truth in Mr. Blount's flippancies.

Every man should know and lament his own shortcomings--should mourn over and mend, as he best can, the "confusions of his wasted youth;" he should feel how ill he has put out to usury the talent given him by the Great Taskmaster--how far he is from being "a good and faithful servant;" and he should make this rather understood than expressed by his manner as a writer; while at the same time, every man should deny himself the luxury of taking his hat off to the public, unless he has something to say, and has done his best to say it aright; and every man should pay not less attention to the dress in which his thoughts present themselves, than he would to that of his person on going into company.

There should therefore be in his Preface, as in the writer himself, two elements. A writer should have some assurance that he has something to say, and this assurance should, in the true sense, not the Milesian, be modest.

Many good and fine things have been said of this wonderful and unique genius, but I know none better or finer than these lines by my friend John Hunter of Craigcrook. They are too little known, and no one will be anything but pleased to read them, except their author. The third line might have been Elia's own:--

Then, his blood being up, he told me a story of his uncle, the great Dr. Black the chemist; no one will grudge the reading of it in my imperfect record, though it is to the reality what reading music is to hearing it.

Dr. Black, when Professor of Chemistry in Edinburgh University, had a gruff old man as his porter, a James Alston. James was one of the old school of chemistry, and held by phlogiston, but for no better reason than the endless trouble the new-fangled discoveries brought upon him in the way of apparatus.

The Professor was lecturing on Hydrogen Gas, and had made arrangements for showing its lightness, what our preceptor, Dr. Charles Hope, called, in his lofty way, its "principle of absolute levity." He was greatly excited, the good old man of genius. James was standing behind his chair, ready and sulky. His master told his young friends that the bladder he had filled with the gas must, on principle, ascend; but that they would see practically if it did, and he cut the string. Up it rushed, amid the shouts and upturned faces of the boys, and the quiet joy of their master; James regarding it with a glum curiosity.

Young Adam Ferguson was there, and left at the end of the hour with the rest, but finding he had forgotten his stick, went back; in the empty room, he found James perched upon a lofty and shaky ladder, trying, amid much perspiration, and blasphemy, and want of breath, to hit down his enemy, who rose at each stroke--the old battling with the new. Sir Adam's reproduction of this scene, his voice and screams of rapture, I shall never forget.

Let me give another pleasant story of Dr. Black and Sir Adam, which our Principal delights to tell; it is merely its bones. The doctor sent him to the bank for ?5--four in notes, and one in silver; then told him that he must be paid for his trouble with a shilling, and next proceeded to give him good advice about the management of money, particularly recommending a careful record of every penny spent, holding the shilling up before him all the time. During this address, Sir Adam was turning over in his mind all the trash he would be able to purchase with the shilling, and his feeling may be imagined when the doctor finally returned it to his own pocket.

It only remains now for me to thank my cousin and life-long friend, John Taylor Brown, the author of the tract on "St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh." I am sure my readers will thank me not less heartily than I now do him. The theory that the thorn of the great apostle was an affection of the eyes is not new; it will be found in "Hannah More's Life," and in "Conybeare and Howson;" but his argument and his whole treatment, I have reason to believe, from my father and other competent judges, is thoroughly original; it is an exquisite monograph, and to me most instructive and striking. Every one will ask why such a man has not written more--a question my fastidious friend will find is easier asked than answered.

Or, in more sacred and hopeful words, which, put there at my father's request, may be found at the close of the paper on young Hallam: "O man greatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."

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