THE DOCTOR,
&c.
There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other.
THE DOCTOR,
&c.
VOL. III.
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN AND LONGMAN.
1835.
PRINTED BY W. NICOL, 51, PALL MALL.
PRELUDE OF MOTTOES.
῎απελθ᾿ ἐκεῖσε,—
——————εἰποῦσ᾿ ἃττ᾿ ἂν αὐτῇ σοι δοκῇ,
τόλμησον, ἲθι, χώρησον, ἄλαμαι καρδιάς.
ARISTOPHANES.
Je vas de nouveau percer mon tonneau, et de la traicte, laquelle par deux precedents volumes vous est assez cogneuë, vous tirer du creux de nos passetemps epicenaires un galant tiercin, et consecutivement un joyeux quart de sentences Pantagruelliques. Par moy vous sera licite les appeller Diogeniques.—Et peur n'ayez que le vin faille.—Autant que vous en tireray par la dille, autant en entonneray per le bondon. Ainsi demourera le tonneau inexpuisible. Il a source vive et veine perpetuelle.
Except we should admit of some variety.
In music, notes must be some high, some base.
And this I say, these pages have intendment,
Still kept within the lists of good sobriety,
To work in men's ill manners good amendment.
Wherefore if any think the book unseasonable,
Their stoic minds are foes to good society,
And men of reason may think them unreasonable.
It is an act of virtue and of piety,
To warn men of their sins in any sort,
In prose, in verse, in earnest, or in sport.
SIR JOHN HARRINGTON.
The great cement that holds these several discourses together is one main design which they jointly drive at, and which, I think, is confessedly generous and important, namely, the knowledge of—true happiness, so far as reason can cut her way through those darknesses and difficulties she is encumbered with in this life: which though they be many and great, yet I should belie the sense of my own success, if I should pronounce them insuperable; as also, if I were deprived of that sense, should lose many pleasures and enjoyments of mind, which I am now conscious to myself of: amongst which, there is none so considerable as that tacit reflection within myself, what real service may be rendered to religion by these my labours.