Part 1

THINGS

TO BE REMEMBERED

IN DAILY LIFE.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN,

Great New Street and Fetter Lane.

THINGS TO BE REMEMBERED In Daily Life.

WITH PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND RECOLLECTIONS.

By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A., AUTHOR OF THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN, CURIOSITIES OF LONDON, ETC.

LONDON: W. KENT AND CO., PATERNOSTER-ROW.

MDCCCLXIII.

TO THE READER.

TIME and Human Life are the staple subjects of the following pages. These are great matters for so small a book, and may remind you of the philosophical scheme of compressing the world into a nutshell. Now, although we have as yet no means of determining exactly what relation this latter idea has to truth,—it is certain that the rapid multiplication of books incessantly presses upon us, that “condensation is the result of time and experience, which reject what is no longer essential.” Such is the treatment adopted in the present volume, in which, by _focusing_ great truths from the Living and the Dead, is sought to be exemplified the moral couplet:

Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part—there all the honour lies.

As a companion volume to _Things not Generally Known_, it is hoped that _Things to be Remembered_ may be as popularly received as its predecessor. To render the present work more directly of practical application, the sketches of character which it contains have been drawn in great measure from our own time, so as to give the book a current interest. Meanwhile, historic gossip has not been eschewed; but its piquancy has been sparingly used.

The present is, in many respects, a more reflective volume than its predecessor: for it is scarcely possible to illustrate the Ages of Man without

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

This is one of the byways of the book: its highway lies through the crowded city, and upon “the full tide of human affairs;” and the Experiences here set down are, in common parlance, _original_, and have been chiefly garnered throughout a long life, in which truthful observation has been the cardinal aim.

With these few words of introduction, I commend to your indulgence this volume of _Things to be Remembered in Daily Life_, in the hope that its contents may be considered worthy of the reminiscence.

_London, March 1863._

ERRATUM.

Page 20. The Terrace, New Palace-yard, Westminster, was taken down in the spring of 1863; the Sun-dial had previously been removed.

CONTENTS.

Time.

PAGE POETRY OF TIME 1 WHAT IS TIME? 3 TIME’S BEGUILINGS 5 TIME’S GARLAND 6 TIME’S MUTATIONS 7 SIR H. DAVY ON TIME 8 TIME, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 9 MEASUREMENT OF TIME 12 PERIODS OF REST 15 RECKONING DISTANCE BY TIME 16 SUN-DIALS 17 THE HOUR-GLASS 27 CLOCKS AND WATCHES 29 EARLY RISING 41 ART OF EMPLOYING TIME 52 TIME AND ETERNITY 64

Life, and Length of Days.

LIFE A RIVER 65 THE SPRING-TIME OF LIFE 66 THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS OF LIFE 67 PASSING GENERATIONS 68 AVERAGE DURATION OF LIFE 71 PASTIMES OF CHILDHOOD RECREATIVE TO MAN 72 PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION LATE IN LIFE 73 WHAT IS MEMORY? 75 CONSOLATION IN GROWING OLD 76 LENGTH OF DAYS 79 HISTORIC TRADITIONS THROUGH FEW LINKS 82 LONGEVITY IN FAMILIES 87 FEMALE LONGEVITY 88 LONGEVITY AND DIET 92 LONGEVITY AND LOCALITIES 96 LONGEVITY OF CLASSES 102 GREAT AGES 111 THE HAPPY OLD MAN 114 PREPARATORY TO DEATH 115 DEATH BEFORE ADAM 116 FUTURE EARTHLY EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN RACE 117

The School of Life.

WHAT IS EDUCATION? 119 TEACHING YOUNG CHILDREN 120 EDUCATION AT HOME 121 TENDERNESS OF YOUTH 122 BUSINESS OF EDUCATION 123 THE CLASSICS 124 LIBERAL EDUCATION 126 DR. ARNOLD’S SCHOOL REFORM 127 SCHOOL INDULGENCE 128 UNSOUND TEACHING 128 SELF-FORMATION 131 PRACTICAL DISCIPLINE 132 CRAMMING 132 MATHEMATICS 133 ARISTOTLE 134 GEOLOGY IN EDUCATION 135 THE BEST EDUCATION 137 ADVICE TO THE STUDENT 138 KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM 139 EDUCATION ALARMISTS 140 YORKSHIRE SCHOOLS 141 BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG 141 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 142 WHAT IS ARGUMENT? 144 HANDWRITING 145 ENGLISH STYLE 147 ART OF WRITING 149

Business-Life.

WANT OF A PURSUIT 152 THE ENGLISH CHARACTER 153 WORTH OF ENERGY 154 TEST OF GREATNESS 156 CHOICE OF A PROFESSION 157 OFFICIAL LIFE 161 OFFICIAL QUALIFICATIONS 164 PUBLIC SPEAKING 166 OPPORTUNITY 174 MEN OF BUSINESS 174 CHARACTER THE BEST SECURITY 176 ENGINEERS AND MECHANICIANS 177 SCIENTIFIC FARMING 187 LARGE FORTUNES 188 CIVIC WORTHIES 199 WORKING AUTHORS AND ARTISTS 204 WEAR AND TEAR OF PUBLIC LIFE 217

Home Traits.

LOVE OF HOME 218 FAMILY PORTRAITS 219 HOW TO KEEP FRIENDS 220 SMALL COURTESIES 221 LASTING FRIENDSHIPS 221 TRUE TONE OF POLITE WRITING 223 PRIDE AND MEANNESS 224 HOME THOUGHTS 225

The Spirit of the Age.

PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE 227 SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS 229 TIME AND IMPROVEMENT 231 EVIL INFLUENCES 232 WORLDLY MORALITY 233 SPEAKING THE TRUTH 234 RESTLESSNESS AND ENTERPRISE 235 THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 238 CIRCUMSTANCES AND GENIUS 238 OUR UNIMAGINATIVE AGE 239 MARVELS OF THE UNIVERSE 240 PHYSIOGNOMY 242 TRADE AND PHILANTHROPY 243

World-Knowledge.

MISCELLANEA 244 PREDICTIONS OF SUCCESS 247

Conclusion.

EASE OF MIND 250 THE LIFE OF MAN 251 THE GOOD MAN’S LIFE 253 PREDICTIONS OF FLOWERS 255 THE WORLD’S CYCLES 256 DEATH ALL-ELOQUENT 256

THINGS TO BE REMEMBERED.

Time.

THE conventional personification of Time, with which every one is familiar, is the figure of Saturn, god of Time, represented as an old man, holding a scythe in his hand, and a serpent with its tail in its mouth, emblematical of the revolutions of the year: sometimes he carries an hour-glass, occasionally winged; to him is attributed the invention of the scythe. He is bald, except a lock on the forehead; hence Swift says: “Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take him (as we say) by the forelock; for when it is once passed, there is no recalling it.”

The scythe occurs in Shirley’s lines, written early in the seventeenth century:

The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings. Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Shakspeare prefers the scythe:

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow, Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.

The stealthiness of his flight is also told by Shakspeare:

Let’s take the instant by the forward top; For we are old, and our quick’st decrees The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time Steals ere we can effect them.

Mayne thus quaintly describes his flight:

Time is the feather’d thing, And whilst I praise The sparklings of thy locks, and call them rays, Takes wing— Leaving behind him, as he flies, An unperceived dimness in thine eyes.

Gascoigne also thus paints the flight:

The heavens on high perpetually do move; By minutes’ meal the hour doth steal away, By hours the days, by days the months remove, And then by months the years as fast decay; Yea, Virgil’s verse and Tully’s truth do say, That Time flieth, and never clasps her wings; But rides on clouds, and forward still she flings.

Shakspeare pictures him as the fell destroyer:

Misshapen time, copesmate of ugly night; Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care; Eater of youth, false slave to false delight, Base watch of woes, sin’s pack-horse, virtue’s snare: Thou nursest all, and murderest all that are.

And Spenser brands him as

Wicked Time, that all good thoughts doth waste, And workes of noblest wits to naught outweare.

The present section partakes much of the aphoristic character, which has its recommendatory advantages.—Bacon says: “Aphorisms representing a knowledge broken do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure men as if they were at farthest.” Again: “Nor do apophthegms only serve for ornament and delight, but also for action and civil use, as being the edge-tools of speech, which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs.”

Coleridge is of opinion that, exclusively of the Abstract Sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of Aphorisms; and the greatest and best of men is but an Aphorism.

“Truths, of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.

“There is one way of giving freshness and importance to the most commonplace maxims,—that of reflecting on them in direct reference to our own state and conduct, to our own past and future being.”

Mature and sedate wisdom has been fond of summing up the results of its experience in weighty sentences. Solomon did so; the wise men of India and Greece did so; Bacon did so; Goethe in his old age took delight in doing so.

Lucretius has his philosophical view of Time, which Creech has thus Englished:

Time of itself is nothing, but from Thought Receives its rise, by lab’ring fancy wrought From things consider’d, while we think on some As present, some as past, or yet to come. No thought can think on Time, But thinks on things in motion or at rest.

Ovid has some illustrations, which Dryden has thus translated:

Nature knows No steadfast motion, but or ebbs or flows. Ever in motion, she destroys her old, And casts new figures in another mould. Even times are in perpetual flux, and run, Like rivers from their fountains rolling on. For Time, no more than streams, is at a stay,— The flying hour is ever on her way; And as the fountain still supplies her store, The wave behind impels the wave before; Thus in successive course the minutes run, And urge their predecessor minutes on, Still moving, ever anew; for former things Are set aside, like abdicated kings; And every moment alters what is done, And innovates some act till then unknown. * * * * Time is th’ effect of motion, born a twin, And with the worlds did equally begin: Time, like a stream that hastens from the shore, Flies to an ocean where ’tis known no more: All must be swallow’d in this endless deep, And motion rest in everlasting sleep. * * * * Time glides along with undiscover’d haste, The future but a length behind the past, So swift are years. * * * * Thy teeth, devouring Time! thine, envious Age! On things below still exercise your rage; With venom’d grinders you corrupt your meat, And then, at ling’ring meals, the morsels eat.

The comparison to a river is more amply developed by a modern poet:

The lapse of time and rivers is the same: Both speed their journey with a restless stream; The silent pace with which they steal away, No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay: Alike irrevocable both when past, And a wide ocean swallows both at last. Though each resembles each in every part, A difference strikes, at length, the musing heart: Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound, How laughs the land with various plenty crown’d! But time, that should enrich the nobler mind, Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind.

An old playwright makes him a fisher by the stream:

Nay, dally not with time, the wise man’s treasure, Though fools are lavish on’t—the fatal fisher Hooks souls, while we waste moments.

Horace has some lines, thus paraphrased by Oldham:

Alas! dear friend, alas! time hastes away, Nor is it in your power to bribe its stay; The rolling years with constant motion run, Lo! while I speak, the present minute’s gone, And following hours still urge the foregoing on. ’Tis not thy wealth, ’tis not thy power, ’Tis not thy piety can thee secure; They’re all too feeble to withstand Gray hairs, approaching age, and thy avoidless end. When once thy glass is run, When once thy utmost thread is spun, ‘Twill then be fruitless to expect reprieve; Could’st thou ten thousand kingdoms give In purchase for each hour of longer life, They would not buy one gasp of breath, Nor move one jot inexorable death.

Perhaps there is no illustration in our language more impressive than Young’s noble apostrophe, commencing:

The bell strikes one. _We take no note of time But from its loss_: to give it, then, a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours. Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. * * * * O time! than gold more sacred; more a load Than lead to fools, and fools reputed wise. What moment granted man without account? What years are squandered, wisdom’s debt unpaid! Our wealth in days all due to that discharge. * * * * Youth, is not rich in time; it may be poor; Part with it as with money, sparing; pay No moment, but in purchase of its worth; And what’s it worth, ask death-beds; they can tell. Part with it as with life, reluctant; big With holy hope of nobler time to come. * * * * But why on time so lavish is my song? On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school To teach her sons herself. Each night we die— Each morn are born anew; each day a life; And shall we kill each day? If trifling kills, Sure vice must butcher. Oh, what heaps of slain Cry out for vengeance on us; time destroyed Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt.

Throw years away! Throw empires, and be blameless: moments seize; Heaven’s on their wing: a moment we may wish, When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand still, Bid him drive back his car, and re-impart The period past, regive the given hour. O for yesterdays to come!

How exquisite is this beguiling of time in _Paradise Lost_.

With thee conversing I forget all time; All seasons, and their change, all please alike.

How beautifully has Burns alluded to these influences, in his “Lines to Mary in Heaven:”

Time but the impression deeper makes, As streams their channels deeper wear.

The Hon. W. R. H. Spencer has something akin to this in his “Lines to Lady A. Hamilton:”

Too late I stay’d; forgive the crime; Unheeded flew the hours; How noiseless falls the foot of Time That only treads on flow’rs!

Edward Moore, in one of his pleasing Songs, thus points to these charming influences:

Time still, as he flies, adds increase to her truth, And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.

The best lessons of life are to be learnt in his school:

Taught by time, my heart has learn’d to glow For others’ good, and melt at others’ woe.

How well has Shakspeare expressed this work of the great reconciler:

Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light, To stamp its seal on aged things, To wake the morn, and sentinel the night, To wrong the wronger, till he render right.

Elsewhere Shakspeare paints him as the universal balm:

Cease to lament for that thou can’st not help, And study help for that which thou lament’st. Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.

It is notorious to philosophers, that joy and grief can hasten and delay time. Locke is of opinion that a man in great misery may so far lose his measure, as to think a minute an hour; or in joy make an hour a minute. Shakspeare’s “divers paces” of Time is too familiar for quotation here.

Time’s Garland is one of the beauties of Drayton’s “Elysium of the Muses:”

The garland long ago was worn As Time pleased to bestow it: The Laurel only to adorn The conqueror and the poet.

The Palm his due who, uncontroll’d, On danger looking gravely, When fate had done the worst it could, Who bore his fortunes bravely.

Most worthy of the Oaken wreath The ancients him esteemed, Who in a battle had from death Some man of worth redeemed.

About his temples grave they tie, Himself that so behaved, In some strong siege by th’ enemy, A city that hath saved.

A wreath of Vervains heralds wear, Amongst our garlands named, Being sent that dreadful news to bear, Offensive war proclaimed.

The sign of peace who first displays, The Olive wreath possesses; The lover with the Myrtle sprays Adorns his crisped tresses.

In love the sad forsaken wight The Willow garland weareth; The funeral man, befitting night, The baleful Cypress beareth.

To Pan we dedicate the Pine, Whose slips the shepherd graceth; Again the Ivy and the Vine On his front Bacchus placeth.

They who so stanchly oppose innovations, should remember Bacon’s words: “Every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?”

How much time has to do with our successes is thus solemnly told by the Preacher: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”—_Ecclesiastes_ ix. 11.