THE OLD BACHELOR. ще william wirt. Avia.......peragro loca, nullius ante Trita Solo, juvat integros accedere fonteis Atque haurire; juvatque novos decerpere flores. BALTIMORE:-F. LUCAS, JUN. Repair No. THE NEW YORK D ASTOR. LENOX AND BROWN-GOODE COLLECTION. My mother (who is now an angel in Heaven,) had taken it into her head, with that erring partiality which is so natural, so excusable and even so amiable in a parent, that there was something uncommon in my character and that I was formed to make a figure in some line or other, Not being able, however, to define to her own satisfaction in what the peculiar superiority of my mind consisted, nor consequently what the particular profession, was, in which I was destined to shine, she determined that I should try them all round, until the chord of genius should be struck; and, with this view, directed my first efforts to the profession of law. Her will was my law; and I knew no pleasure on earth equal to that of obeying it. I entered, therefore, at once, on the Herculean labor of the law and an Herculean one I made it; for hav ing, early in life, adopted the maxim that "whatever is worth doing, is worth deing well," I took a route in the study suggested by my own judgment. Dissatisfied with the jejune course commonly pursued, and aspiring to something beyond mediocrity, I took the science from its basis, the law of nature; and raised upon it an unusual and most extensive superstructure of national and civil, as well as municipal law. But my success by no means corresponded with the preparation; for when I came to the bar of my county, I found that I was like a seventy-four-gun ship aground in a creek; while every pettifogger, with his canoe and paddle was able to glide around and get ahead of me. I found myself, in short, so entirely eclipsed by littleness, chicanery and sophistry, set off by a bold and confident front and a loud and voluble tongue, that having no necessity to continue the practice, I retired from it, I will not say, in disgust; but under a conviction, that the profession was an Augean stall which required cleansing, and that, to give it all its appropriate dignity and attraction, a fundamental reformation was indispensible. On this subject, the reader will hear farther frora me, in the course of these papers: at present I return to my narrative. Having thus ascertained to my mother that the bar was not the theatre for which my stars designed me; having (not to disguise the matter) entirely failed in it, "rather" (as my indulgent and too partial parent was wont to say) from the delicacy of my feelings, than any want of parts;" I entered at her desire, in the next place, on the study of physic. With this, as a study, I was in the highest degree, delighted. The subjects which it treatedthe curious structure and economy of the human system; the history of diseases, their remote and subtle symp toms, and the mode of ascertaining and combating them; the countless diversity of singular affections, mental and corporeal, with reports of which the books abounded; and the astonishing proofs of the sagacity of man in the various and beautiful theories proposed for explaining the causes of our maladies, and waging war against the king of terrorswere interesting to me beyond expression. 1 pursued the study not as labor, but con amore: and although I was somewhat advanced in age, and the mischievous wags, my fellow-students, in sly allusion to my former profession and my failure in it, used to greet me every morning when I entered the lecture room, with a mock-tragic bow and the L. L. D. and A. S. S. which have since made such a figure in the mouth of Doctor Pangloss; yet as they shewed plainly enough, that they loved, & if necessary, would have shed their blood for me, I took it all in good part, and pressed on in my studies with unabated ardor. There were, however, two circumstances in this profes sion, that gave me great inquietude; the first was the multitude of miserable spectacles in the hospitals which were, daily, appealing to my sympathy; and the other, the extreme uncertainty of the remedies which were exhibited for their relief. On the first head, however, I was consoled by learning that I should soon become used to it, and grow callous to the touch of another's woe; and on the last, my vanity was flattered by being reminded of the scope which this uncertainty gave to genius, and the vast region of terra incognita, which thus courted the enterprize of the adventurer. The reader when he comes to know me, will believe that I was not much soothed or gratified by either of these prospects; the total extinction of my sympathies for my fellow man or voyages of discovery to be made on seas of human blood. Still amused, however, with the science, and animated by the hope that it might qualify me in some cases to be of service to my fellow creatures, I pressed on to a diploma; and having obtained that and procured a supply of medicines, I returned to my parental estate to dispense the fruits of my studies. Alas! my medical career was a very short one; for the first patient submitted to my skill, was my own beloved mother. Ah! how unavailing, how contemptible then appeared to me all the triumphs of the art: I called in my instructors. It was in vain ; the disease gathered strength every hour, and I saw, distinctly, the approach of death. But I forget that I have no claim on the sympathy of the reader. She expired in my arms, and I was no longer a physician. The loss of such a parent, in such circumstances whose last intelligible whisper was God bless you, my son !" and that accompanied with such a look-whose recollection, even at this distance of time, cuts me to the heart, and fills my eyes with tears-the loss of such a mother, the last speculation of whose eyes was fixed with the fondest, tenderest affection, and died upon her son-whose soul I saw, as it were, launched into eternity-and fancied that I could almost see the luci-form vehicle that then received and clothed her spirit-such a scene gave me a view of eternity so near and close, as to seize all the powers of my mind and all the sources of my feeling, and unfit me for every thing but the contemplation of that vast and awful subject. Enthusiasm is the prominent feature of my character; and it is not a matter of wonder, that, so excited, my genius took a new direction; that my abortive efforts to shield my fellow creatures from death, were now converted into a resolution to teach them how to die. To qualify myself for this function, I immediately set about acquiring the Hebrew language; studied the old testament with all the commentaries of the Rabbis ; procured and read all the remains of Porphyry, Jamblichus, & the whole tribe of eclectic philosophers, who, in the third and fourth centuries attacked the religion of the son of God; together with the able, the eloquent and conclusive replies of the Christian fathers; travelled, minutely & laboriously through the whole course of ecclesiastical history, and perused every thing of any note, pro and con, on the Christian controversy and scheme of salvation, which had ever been published either in Europe or America. And although, at last, I did not feel myself authorised to enter the sacred desk in the character of a teacher, yet I shall never regret my having fortified my own faith against the assaults of sophistry and qualified myself to silence the cavils and witticisms of the infidel. But I am admonished by my sheet of paper that I have already indulged the garrulity of age far enough for one number. In the next I propose to close the account of myself, and to explain the motive and object of these papers. |