a name next comes forward that must not briefly be glided by; that of william bewley; a man for whom mr. burney felt the most enlightened friendship that the sympathetic magnetism of similar tastes, humours, and feelings, could inspire.
mr. bewley was truly a philosopher, according to the simplest, though highest, acceptation of that word; for his love of wisdom was of that unsophisticated species, that regards learning, science, and knowledge, with whatever delight they may be pursued abstractedly, to be wholly subservient, collectively, to the duties and practice of benevolence.
to this nobleness of soul, which made the basis of his character, he superadded a fund of wit equally rare, equally extraordinary: it was a wit that sparkled from the vivid tints of an imagination as pure as it was bright; untarnished by malice, uninfluenced by spleen, uninstigated by satire. it was playful, original, eccentric: but the depth with which it could have cut, and slashed, and pierced around him, would never have been even surmised, from the urbanity with which he forbore making
[pg 106]
that missile use of its power, had he not frequently darted out its keenest edge in ridicule against himself.
and not alone in this personal severity did he resemble the self-unsparing scarron; his outside, though not deformed, was peculiarly unfortunate; and his eyes, though announcing, upon examination, something of his mind, were ill-shaped, and ill set in his head, and singularly small; and no other feature parried this local disproportion; for his mouth, and his under-jaw, which commonly hung open, were displeasing to behold.
the first sight, however, which of so many is the best, was of mr. bewley, not only the worst, but the only bad; for no sooner, in the most squeamish, was the revolted eye turned away, than the attracted ear, even of the most fastidious, brought it back, to listen to genuine instruction conveyed through unexpected pleasantry.
this original and high character, was that of an obscure surgeon of massingham, a small town in the neighbourhood of haughton hall. he had been brought up with no advantages, but what laborious toil had worked out of native abilities; and he only subsisted by the ordinary process of
[pg 107]
rigidly following up the multifarious calls to which, in its provincial practice, his widely diversified profession is amenable.
yet not wholly in “the desert air,” were his talents doomed to be wasted: they were no sooner spoken of at haughton hall, than the gates of that superb mansion were spontaneously flung open, and its chief proved at once, and permanently remained, his noble patron and kind friend.
