CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF DR TUCKER. BOTH the character and writings of Dr Tucker lay strong and decided claims to our esteem and admiration. His talents, his principles, his conduct, his original and acute investigations, all tend to elevate and enlarge our conceptions of the grandeur and dignity of human nature. Animated by feelings and principles of a pure and lofty kind, his soul revolted at the pitiable degeneracy of his fellow-mortals. Resisting the attractions of the highest circles of society, in which his brilliancy of fancy, wit, learning, and superior intelligence, always made him a welcome and distinguished guest, this wonderful individual retired to banquet in the delicious enjoyment of his own thoughts, in a humble situation in an obscure village, and this when he was in the full bloom and maturity of life. His was not the retirement of the decayed rake, who, having outrun every sensual gratification before the meridian of life, and finding himself incapable of tasting the sweets of intellectual enjoyment, retires to drag out the remainder of his days in a morose, misanthropical, and miserable seclusion. That knowledge which others acquire by many years of experience and painful study, he seemed to be intuitively possessed of; so that he appears to have been formed by Nature to elevate the human character, by his dignified, patriotic, and virtuous conduct, and to illustrate her powers and laws by his talents and investigations. Experiencing himself the advantages of thoughtfulness, self-command, and contentment, he constantly inculcated the necessity of these upon others; and he has been heard to declare, that, although the gates of heaven were opened to him, he would not enter them until he had coolly considered the consequences which would result from his doing so, both to himself and others. I have been told by my deceased father, who had the honour of being acquainted with Dr T. in early life, that he was then such an enthusiastic lover of fame, as to say, that if Divine Providence would give him the choice of a life of pleasure, with the certainty of his being forgotten' after death, or a life of complete misery, to be recompensed by a lasting posthumous fame,-he would gladly embrace the latter part of the alternative. But his subsequent conduct evinced a total revolution in opinion upon this subject. His amiable manners and agreeable disposition, it is true, gained him the esteem and approbation of all who knew him; but he rather shunned than courted popularity; and had not his writings been such as to perpetuate his name to the latest posterity-except in the hearts of a very few friends-the small portion of dust which covered the mortal remains of Dr Tucker would have consigned his name to everlasting oblivion. The following is a fragment of his composition, which was placed as a mark in a book of my father's which the Doctor had been perusing. As the production of that great man, it must, I should presume, be interesting to your readers: "Science is the surest path to wealth and eminence, the best and noblest source of worldly enjoyment. The cultivation of Science presents a constant, rich, and boundless field of exercise, pleasure, and improvement, to the whole energies of human intellect. All other exercises and enjoyments are apt to cloy upon the mind, and constitute no lasting or substantial gratification; but the more we court and gain the good graces of Science, we are the more strongly induced to cultivate and admire her. All other pleasures and possessions fluctuate in the fleeting train of Fortune. Knowledge, secure in conscious strength, erects alone her giant form, and boldly defies the assaults of every earthly power. It is a solid and imperishable treasure, which enlarges the mind, improves the heart, produces liberality and magnanimity of sentiment, elevates its possessor above the world,-gives him, in some degree, a foretaste of the enjoyments which may be supposed to charm the soul in a future state, and assimilates him with beings of purer hearts and brighter intelligences than human. The man who is unacquainted with Science can form no just or adequate conception of the Deity. To him the works of the Almighty are uninteresting and unconvincing, because unintelligible. Like the beasts around him, he sees and receives the benefit of the different productions of Nature, without ever inquiring how, or for what purpose they are produced. And it is therefore a matter of no surprise to me, that an ignorant and foolish man should call in question the existence of a Supreme Being. But that men of judgment, reflection, and learn ing, can seriously doubt that this vast and magnificent world is the production of an omniscient, omnipotent, and eternal Being, is, to me, an inexplicable wonder. Who can contemplate the beauty and harmony of the heavenly bodies,-explore the various chemical combinations of natural substances,-observe the admirable mechanism and ingenuity with which the different parts of the animal body are adapted to perform their numerous wonderful functions, or the constitution and powers of the mind, without being thoroughly convinced that they are the invention and production of matchless intelligence and design! "The beauty, perfection, and magnificence of this world, however, are only a proof of the power and wisdom of God; and if they manifested nothing more, we might view Him in the light of a cold-hearted and reckless spirit, who amused himself by forming a world to delight his own eyes, and a race of beings whose happiness he disregarded. But His handiworks are likewise pregnant with convincing demonstrations of His infinite benevolence." J. D. HORACE, BOOK I. ODE 37. Now let the flowing cups be crown'd; And let us on the gods bestow While Egypt's queen, by passion driven, Our capital and state had to destruction given. Madness unutterable! and did she dream That beardless catamites-the scum And refuse of mankind, and shame, To Rome's eternal gates durst come? Dreamer, awake!-turn, turn and fly! Cæsar defends our Italy: Ruin pursues thee, haste away, Fly, timorous dove, the hawk is o'er thee, The lightning of his eye confounds thee; Fly, helpless hare, ruin's before thee, The huntsman's crafty net surrounds thee. Great in her wickedness, and brave, Her throne a ruin now she sees, Serene, unfaultering, and unmoved; And the fell asp she dares embrace As if't had been a thing beloved. Stern in her gloomy purpose-death— Mistrustful of a Roman's faith, Dreading the curled lips of Scorn, Thy fears are real now, thou victim of She never would consent a triumph to dismay. adorn. THE FAMILY OF GLENHOWAN. (Continued.) How ingenious are people in tormenting themselves! and how much of the unhappiness we experience may be attributed to our own folly It would seem, from the pains we take to create grievances for ourselves, when, in the wise and merciful order of things, we are exempted from their burden, that we were so constituted as to be incapable of living without them; or that, like the epicure who must have recourse to the prescriptions of art for partially restoring his lost appetite, we could perceive no charm in any thing calculated to give us pleasure, without our senses being previously sharpened for its enjoyment by the bitterness of pain! Like a lunatic standing beneath the tottering fragment of some beetling rock, where he every moment starts with apprehension lest it overwhelm him, and yet is unwilling to quit his station, because in the frowns of the giant cliff, and in the contemplation of impending danger, there is something that pleases his wild imagination, and fills it with sublimity; so we in like manner woo misery for the romance attending it, and, like a weak-minded girl, who, by novel-reading, has refined away the small share of reason which originally fell to her portion, sit down and sigh, and, by the help of a diseased imagination, fancy that we are happy, because we are sentimentally miserable. I do not mean, by this, to insinuate that any thing like sentimental refinement mingles itself with the ideal misery experienced to such a degree by the family of Glenhowan. Talking to them of sentiment would be like talking to an Esquimaux of the luxuries of civilized life, the beauties of a Venus de Medicis, or the riches and grandeur of the Temple of Solomon; yet their unhappiness, though differing in degree, is still of the same species, and derives its origin from the same cause-the unrestrained licence of a luxuriant imagination. But, indeed, their credulity, in this respect, as well as every other peculiarity attached to their character, is VOL. XV. not to be wondered at. Their simple and unchanging mode of life almost entirely precludes the exercise of reason, so that passion and fancy have, in consequence, usurped its dominion; and it is well known to what a pitch of extravagance these may at last arrive, in the absence of that principle implanted in man to restrain them. I had been made acquainted with most of the particulars I have already detailed, respecting this singu lar family, previous to my having seen any of them excepting the laird; and judging from what I had heard, that a sight of the whole group would more than compensate the trouble of a visit, I went, in the summer of 1823, to witness in person, a spectacle which my imagination had often diverted itself in drawing, and to satisfy my scruples as to whether the reports of fame concerning them were authentic. It was then the season for cutting their hay; the morning had been wet and stormy, and they were all busily engaged in dragging it from the lower meadow along the margin of the burn, to prevent its being swept away by the little current, should it happen to swell with the rain. Horses and cars (machines which, from their convenience, are still in use among the Moorlands) were employed in this service, to bear the hay to drier and more elevated spots, where a number of the ladies were engaged in tedding it, in order to prepare it for ricking. The laird himself was driving one of the cars; his two sons were loading them at the meadow; one or two of the younger females were raking the ground after them, and the rest were tedding along with the older onesthe whole forces being drawn out on this occasion, excepting the oldest dame of all, who was left to keep the garrison and prepare their victuals. The only plan I had of introducing myself was, to feign a story of my having come to visit a mineral well, situated in the bottom of a M m deep and rocky burn that forms the western boundary of their farm, and goes under the title of Glenhowan Linn. To this well, which, from the taste and colour of its water, together with the vast quantity of ferruginous slime it deposits in the fissures of the rock whence it issues, evidently proceeds from, or has its course over, a bed of iron ore, they attribute a great many virtues and healing qualities of which it is entirely destitute. Being told that they looked upon a visit to it by a stranger as an honour paid to themselves, and that on these occasions they displayed all their courtesy and complaisance, in directing the visitor where to find it, and in explaining to him the whole arcana of its medicinal properties, I had no doubt, that, by representing it as the object of my visit, I should meet with a very favourable reception. I had been warned, likewise, to beware of committing myself in point of etiquette, and in rendering them that homage which their pride demands from all who visit them; determined, therefore, not to be wanting in this particular, I went up to the ladies, who, before I came forward, had been standing and staring at me like so many statues ; and, putting my hand to my hat, and bowing to them with the most profound respect, I wished them all good speed. Some of the younger ones were bare-headed; the older sort wore mutches with long flappets, which hung down the cheek and tied under their chin, exactly in the shape of those hideous flannel headdresses worn at night by our grandmothers, as a preservative from cold in the head, and consequent toothache and rheumatism. In most other respects, their dresses were uniform,-short jackets, or bedgowns, as they are called, or else gowns, tucked up to their waist, and fastened in a large knot behind them, like the hunch of a dromedary short petticoats, that reached little farther than their knees-bare-footed, and hoshins upon their legs. I fancied that a slight expression of regret at being caught by a stranger in dishabille, was discernible in their countenances; but to speak of deep scarlet blushes, and that confusion under which the frame trembles and the tongue refuses to do its office, was out of the question. In returning my salute, they all curtsied in the most grotesque manner, making the whole bend at the knee, and holding their bodies so erect and motionless as to represent, by their sudden loss of attitude, the idea we conceive of a giant dwindling, with an instantaneous and imperceptible motion, into a pigmy. The under hem of their petticoats dropping suddenly to the ground, was the only circumstance by which you could perceive the duck they were making; and these, as they rapidly swallowed up their legs, demonstrated at the same time the depth of their curtsey, which must have been almost the whole length of the limb from the knee downwards, as their petticoats, which then touched the ground, reached little farther than the knee when standing erect; so that if depth in any way enhances such an honour, my salute was certainly repaid with interest. I then addressed myself more particularly to an old sybil, who stood nearest me, and who appeared the most ancient of them all, to whom, by interlarding my story with a great many episodical Misses and Mems, I at last made known the pretended object of my visit. My politeness had already won their good graces, and rendered me a favourite; but this honour done them, of visiting their well, was its very highest consummation. They all shewed, by their looks, how much they were gratified; the old Miss, in particular, to whom I had addressed myself, and who, in consequence, had been most highly honoured, curtsied repeatedly, smiled, or rather grinned, with as much polite cheerfulness as the contracted muscles of her face were capable of expressing; and after a great many tedious digressions upon the virtues of the well, and the high rank of those who had from time to time come to taste of its waters, she at last succeeded in satisfying my inquiries, by giving me the necessary directions for finding it. My expectation before reaching Glenhowan was, that as the day was not very favourable to hay-winning, I would find them all in the house, and thereby have an opportunity of beholding the interior of their mansion, at the same time that I contemplated themselves; and now, that I had unfortunately found them in the field, I saw that my object would be only half attained, unless some plan could be devised for calling as I passed by to the well. I therefore hinted that I had neglected to bring a dish with me to drink out of, supposing that this would induce an invitation from my old directress to ask for one at the house. But how was I mortified to hear this dilemma, which I thought was unanswerable, save in the way I had calculated upon, immediately obviated by the assurance that no dish was necessary, as some superior being had kindly planted beside the well, for the accommodation of visitors, a certain species of grass peculiar to that place alone, with a long grooved leaf, in the form of a spout, which, when applied to the aperture in the rock whence the water issued, conveyed the current into one's mouth without the smallest difficulty or inconvenience! She assured me, with great seriousness, that the grass had been ordained to grow there for no other purpose; and that I might be certain of knowing it, (as it was impossible I could have seen it any where else,) she pulled a broad leaf from where she was standing, and bending the sides of it over her finger so as to represent the groove, described it to me as minutely as possible, and then, by laying the one end of it upon the palm of her hand in a flat position, she shewed me the way in which I must apply it to the rock. Though by no means pleased with this substitution for one of her own dishes, I was obliged to conceal my disappointment, and agree with her that it might answer as good a purpose; and after thanking her with a most profound bow, which I also vouchsafed to all the others in succession, I took my leave of her, and proceeded forward to the well. As my way to it led me past the door of the house, however, and as I knew that one of the Misses must be within, I resolved to call and ask a dish from her. It was very probable that she, like her sister, would suggest the grass also; but I would then have gained my object, and be careless of either her well, her dish, or her sacred grass, having only made a shew of these being my motives to excuse my visit, (which would otherwise have appeared impertinent,) and procure an introduction. As I approached the ancient residence of the family of Glenhowan, which, as I said before, lies on the top of a small knoll, or eminence, with a few scattered trees growing round it, I felt considerable difficulty in distinguishing between the dwellinghouse and offices, they all wore so uniform an aspect, and were in such a state of dilapidation. They are built in the oldest style, with low dry stone walls, and long rafters, or kipples, as they are called, resting upon the ground, and bending inward with a gradual inclination, till they at last united at the top, and formed the roof, over which was scattered a sprinkling of turf and thatch, so decayed in many places as to be entire ly fallen away, and in no place whatever impervious to the weather. The huge rafters, peeping through the time-worn loop-holes, like the ribs of some gigantic animal bursting through its decaying carcase, produced a very dreary effect upon the mind of the beholder. There was something, too, in the wild murmurs of the wind, as its current became broken, and as it whirled and eddied among the openings, or swept the long tufts of grass that had risen spontaneously upon the spots where the thatch remained entire, which filled me with a kind of poetical melancholy; and while I cast my eyes around me upon the romantic but uncultivated aspect of the misty hills, beyond which nothing but heaven was visible, or watched the slow bending of the trees that rustled beside me, I thought, on comparing the features of the whole, that I had never before witnessed so finished a picture of solitude and desolation. No chimney appeared, as you approached at a distance, to tell you which of the houses, or rather sheds, were inhabited; and it was not till I was near enough to perceive the smoke oozing through the crannies of the roof and walls, and wreathing itself in volumes from the door and windows, one of which was entirely |