Sir John thinks it might “possibly be one Mr. Hale.” But what is Fame when it ends in a poor possibility that Bonny Boots who called the Queen his Lady, and that Queen, not Bergami's popular Queen, but Queen Elizabeth, the nation's glorious Queen Elizabeth, the people's good Queen Bess,—what, I repeat, is Fame, when it ends in a mere conjecture that the Bonny Boots who was permitted to call such a Queen his Lady, might be “one Hale or Hales in whose voice she took some pleasure.” Well might Southey say Fame's loudest blast upon the ear of Time Leaves but a dying echo! And what would posterity have heard of my Dove, my Daniel, my Doctor,—my Doctor Daniel Dove,—had it not been for these my patient and humble labours;—patient, but all too slow; humble, if compared with what the subject deserves, and yet ambitious, in contemplation of that desert, that inadequate as they are, they will however make the subject known; so that my Dove, my Daniel, my Doctor, shall be every-body's Dove, every-body's Daniel, every-body's Doctor,—yea the World's Doctor, the World's Doctor Daniel Dove! O his desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it, To lock it in the wards of covert bosom, When it deserves with characters of brass A forted residence, 'gainst the tooth of time And razure of oblivion.[2] [Footnote 2: MEASURE FOR MEASURE.] Alas that there should have been in that generation but one Boswell. Why did Nature break his mould? Why did she not make two? for I would not have had Johnson deprived of what may almost be called his better part;—but why were there not two Boswells, as there are two Dromios in the Comedy of Errors, and two Mr. Bulwers at this day, and three Hunchbacks in the Arabian Tale. Why was there not a duplicate Boswell, a fac-simile of the Laird of Auchinleck, an undistinguishable twin-brother, to have lived at Doncaster, and have followed my Doctor, like his dog, or his shadow, or St. Anthony's pig, and have gathered up the fragments of his wit and his wisdom, so that nothing should have been lost? Sinner that I am, that I should have had so little forethought in the golden days of youth and opportunity! As Brantôme says when speaking of Montluc, _j'etois fort souvent avec luy, et m'aymoit fort, et prenoit grand plaisir quand je le mettois en propos et en train et luy faisois quelques demandes,—car je ne suis jamais esté si jeune, que je n'aye tousjours esté fort curieux d'apprendre; et luy, me voyant en cette volonte, il me respondoit de bon cœur, et en beaux termes; car il avoit une fort belle eloquence._ Truly therefore may I say of thee, O my friend and master! ——_s'alcun bel frutto Nasce di me, da voi vien prima il seme. Io per me son quasi un terreno asciutto Colto da voi, e'l pregio è vostro in tutto._[3] [Footnote 3: PETRARCH.]